Free Republic

photo courtesy of Charlie SpieringBarack Obama has been described as dithering and vindictive by insiders and it takes no effort to believe that he is one mean, petty and vindictive SOB. It was reported that Obama wanted the sequester to be as painful as possible, rather than lessening the pain on the American people. A leaked email from an Agriculture Department field officer adds fuel to claims President Obama’s political strategy is to make the billions in recent federal budget cuts as painful as possible to win the public opinion battle against Republicans. The email, circulated around Capitol Hill, was...

Is the Obama administration employing a make-it-hurt strategy to gain political leverage in the budget battle on Capitol Hill? Republicans are making that charge as the stalemate drags on, and point to the Pentagon furlough of 400,000 civilian staffers -- even though Congress passed and the president signed a bill to supposedly keep them on the job. The partial government suspension, which started Monday after lawmakers failed to strike a budget deal, is expected to result in the furlough of roughly 800,000 total government workers. Many federal agencies have significantly curtailed their operations; national parks and monuments are closed. But...

The Democratic Party shutdown has gone exactly as it was planned. We all have heard the terms, "budget crisis", GOP (or Tea Party) Shutdown, and House Shutdown. What is often neglected is the information that this is not a budget fight. there is no Federal Budget. The Obama Administration has made sure of that in setting this thing up. Instead Budgets have been positively avoided for half a decade. When the Democrats had the Majority, a super majority in both houses, they didn't pass a budget and when they lost the House they didn't turn in a Budget on time...

Betsy McCaughey made a great point tonight in an interview with Mark Levin, noting that the Affordable Care Act that was passed by Congress, signed by Obama and upheld by the Supreme Court is not the same law that Obama is currently imposing on the American people. McCaughey says that with all the changes Obama has made to ACA, it is now nothing more than a ‘distorted little piece of the Affordable Care Act’ and says it doesn’t have the status of law because it’s not what they passed: MCCAUGHEY: I have the Obama health law right here in front...

Eight House Republicans were appointed to negotiate a budget deal with Senate Democrats today and actually sat at a table to await some senators. When no one showed up, the Republicans said it was an example of the Senate Dems’ refusal to negotiate to reach a deal. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, joining seven other conferees appointed earlier this morning by House Speaker John Boehner, said “there is a way” for Republicans and Democrats “to work through our differences” but complained that Democrats have refused to negotiate. “As you can see, there’s no one here on the other side of...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat) has obstructed and prevented the House of Representatives efforts to submit a budget as required by Federal Law. That's right folks, Harry Reid (D) is breaking a Federal Law that the Senate had passed. Does he really lead the Senate or does he just have his own agenda to break the system. President Obama sent a budget to the Congress that received NO VOTES! Not even Harry Reid would vote for Obama's budget. What is our Debt, by the way? The US national debt has remained the same since 5/28/2013 at $16.699396 trillion. Continuing...

As the last few hours tick away over the ongoing debate over Obamacare, we're left to wonder if the GOP will buckle under and give in to Obama and Harry Reid. The House has sent proposals to the Senate which have been shot down. President Obama has continually said that he will not negotiate (must be nice to be an emperor instead of an elected official!) and Republicans are getting more and more into a tizzy over whether they'll be blamed for a government shutdown. My gut reaction is that the GOP will cave on this issue. I have little...

Ted Cruz takes to the senate floor to speak on Obamacare and why hes opposed. Ted Cruz Obamacare Speech Senate Floor 9/30/2013.

A CNN interview with GOP Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) exploded on Monday as anchor Ashleigh Banfield tore into the House GOP conference over what appears to be a likely government shutdown over the effort to defund Obamacare through the budget process. Blackburn began by blaming the Senate for failing to act on the budget measures the House sent them. She insisted that the House GOP does not want to shut the government down. "It sounds so simple when you say it like that," Banfield replied. "It reminds me of the time in the Middle East when...

Fellow conservative, Do you think Congress should be exempt from Obamacare?Do you think they should be able to keep their current insurance and not have to live under the massive health care law they passed without the country's support? That's exactly what a ruling from the Obama administration will let them do. Even the labor unions - led by the AFL-CIO - who campaigned FOR Obamacare are now asking for exemptions and waivers. Let your members of Congress know that you don't support ANY changes or waivers from this law - unless it's a "waiver" that involves repealing or de-funding...

The House passed a continuing resolution last night that delays the implementation of Obamacare’s individual mandate for a year while funding the federal government’s operations through December.The party line vote virtually assures a government shutdown at midnight on Monday. The CR also contains a repeal of the medical device tax that most Democrats support. But Harry Reid has indicated it doesn’t matter, as the Senate will only consider a “clean� bill without any Obamacare riders.The Washington Post reports: “We will do everything we can to protect Americans against the harmful effects of Obamacare. This bill does that. We’re united...

Former President Bill Clinton, who sat in the Oval Office during the last government shutdown, supports President Barack Obama's refusal to negotiate with congressional Republicans and argues he should call their "bluff" as the government nears a possible shutdown and default. "He could stop it, but the price of - the current price of stopping it is higher than the price of letting the Republicans do it and taking their medicine," he said in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week." Clinton went on to say that House Republicans, having realized they have little chance of pushing through...

On Saturday, as the shutdown drama played out on Capitol Hill, President Obama played golf at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. [Snip] Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.) had this response on Twitter to the president’s outing: #potus has time to negotiate with Iranian President yet refuses to negotiate with House Republicans. Too busy playing golf. — Ted Poe (@JudgeTedPoe) September 28, 2013

The White House, meanwhile, has accused Republicans of holding the budget hostage, demanding ransoms and threatening to burn down the house unless they get what they want. Former Vice President Al Gore accused Republicans Friday of "political terrorism." House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California has called her GOP colleagues "legislative arsonists" in a fundraising email and TV interviews. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., likened them to "anarchists" and "fanatics." When a gunman in Tucson unloaded on Arizonans in 2011, killing six and critically wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, lawmakers from both parties called for a reset in confrontational...

So why then is Kentucky — more quickly than almost any other state — moving to implement the Affordable Care Act? Because there’s a huge disconnect between the rank partisanship of national politics and the outlook of governors whose job it is to help beleaguered families, strengthen work forces, attract companies and create a balanced budget. It’s no coincidence that numerous governors — not just Democrats like me but also Republicans like Jan Brewer of Arizona, John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of Michigan — see the Affordable Care Act not as a referendum on President Obama but as...

In a move to slash the retirement benefits of public employees in California, a group of mostly conservative policy advocates has been working behind the scenes on a possible 2014 ballot initiative. A copy of the still-secret draft initiative, which could dramatically impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of Californians and send a signal nationwide, has been obtained by Frying Pan News. If enacted, the proposed law would allow the state and local governments to cut back retirement benefits for current employees for the years of work they perform after the changes go into effect. Previous efforts to curb...

The American middle class, like the American economy in general, is ailing. Labor-force participation has hit a 35-year low. Median household income is lower than it was five years ago. Only the top 5 percent of households have seen their incomes rise under President Obama. Commuters are paying more than twice as much for gas as they were in 2008. Federal payouts for food stamps, unemployment insurance and disability insurance have reached unprecedented levels. Meanwhile, the country is still running near-record budget deficits and is burdened by $17 trillion in aggregate debt. Yet the stock market is soaring. How can...

The Senate moved Wednesday to take up a House-passed temporary spending bill that defunds President Obama’s health-care law, despite Sen. Ted Cruz’s more than 21-hour attempt to delay the legislation.

<p>The Senate easily overcame Wednesday’s first hurdle to a fizzling GOP strategy to strip funding for President Obama’s healthcare law in exchange for keeping the government running.</p> <p>Top Republicans are now for a new — more modest — way to chip away at the Affordable Care Act.</p>

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Senate on Wednesday took the first of several procedural votes designed to enact funding for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Democrats who lead the Senate are aiming to replace a House-passed funding bill with a measure that maintains money for President Barack Obama's health law and keeps the government open until Nov. 15. The Senate's Wednesday afternoon vote was on proceeding to debate the House-passed bill.

Sen. Ted Cruz wants to defund Obamacare in a way that has drawn sneers even from Republicans on Capitol Hill. But they are not the group Senator Cruz wants to impress. Can Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas win a personal victory even if he loses his fight to defund Obamacare? That’s a question pundits are discussing Tuesday as the firebrand Texas senator persists in irritating his party leadership while pushing legislative tactics that almost nobody thinks will work. The theory runs like this: Senator Cruz’s real aim is the 2016 presidential nomination. By standing up for a doomed battle...

The Russian government on Thursday approved across-the-board budget cuts over the next two years in the clearest sign yet that officials do not expect its economy, the world’s eighth-largest, to revive soon, and that the Kremlin is ready to try a new policy to spur growth.

If the government reduced spending to avoid raising the debt limit, would the economy collapse? No. So why does adhering to debt limit and forcing reductions cause a collapse? Of the 84 times the Debt Limit has been raised, every time the president negotiated with congress over budget and other issues. What is actually unprecedented is the current president's unwillingness to negotiate.

Paul Ryan, the wonky Wisconsin GOP congressman, was standing next to Michelle Bachmann, the folksy Minnesota Republican. ... As Boehner and the rest of the House leadership entered the room after Friday’s vote, the Republican members of Congress in attendance let out a hurrah of support. “Our message to the United States Senate is real simple: the American people don’t want the government shut down,” Boehner said. “And they don’t want Obamacare.” Added Boehner, as the conference roared in applause: “The House has listened to the American people. Now it’s time for the United States Senate listen to them as...

U.S. military personnel will face a disruption in pay if Congress doesn’t quickly pass a budget and raise the debt ceiling, President Barack Obama warned in his weekly address Saturday. “The government will shut down. So will many services the American people will expect,” Obama said, speaking of the consequences he says the country will suffer if Congress can’t come to an agreement on a continuing resolution bill. “Military personnel, including those deployed overseas, won’t get their paychecks on time.” On Friday, the House stripped funding for the president’s landmark healthcare law from a continuing resolution bill to fund the...

The House of Representatives' Friday vote to fund everything in government except Obamacare was labeled a “personal attack on me” by President Obama. “I think this is the first time in the nation's 200-year plus history that a House of Congress has singled out one program for budget cuts just to diss a President.” Obama dismissed out-of-hand the possibility that House Republicans might be genuinely responding to the public's aversion to Obamacare (polls show a majority of Americans favor defunding the program). “People who oppose this crucial health care reform are just plain wrong,” the President insisted. “My staff and...

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are considering demanding Medicare and other budget savings, reining in the Obama administration's environmental agenda including greenhouse gas restrictions, and other proposals as the price for extending the government's ability to borrow money, GOP lawmakers and aides said Friday. Republicans said that during closed-door discussions this week about what to include in upcoming legislation renewing federal borrowing authority, options have included blocking administration plans to curb coal ash pollution; forcing civil servants to contribute more to their retirement plans; and requiring Congress to approve many major regulations. Republicans said that during closed-door discussions this week about...

President Obama slammed House Republicans for "trying to mess with me" by passing a bill today to fund the government but also defund Obamacare. At a Ford plant that stamps out components for trucks and vans, Mr. Obama said the budget battles in Washington are "always a contentious process." But in a campaign-style speech to autoworkers, the president revved his engine against those he called "a faction on the far right." He says they convinced their leadership to pursue policies that could result in a government shutdown or default, if funding for his signature health care program is not cut...

WASHINGTON — For four years, President Obama counted on fellow Democrats to rally to his side in a series of epic battles with Republicans over the direction of the country. But now, deep in his fifth year in office, Mr. Obama finds himself frustrated by members of his own party weary of his leadership and increasingly willing to defy him. In recent weeks, disgruntled Democrats, particularly liberals, have bolted from the White House on issues like National Security Agency surveillance policies, a planned military strike on Syria and the potential choice of Lawrence H. Summers to lead the Federal Reserve....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is telling federal agencies to prepare for a possible government shutdown. The Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to agency heads this week ordering them to make contingency plans if Congress does not reach a deal to fund the government after Sept. 30. The letter from OMB director Sylvia Burwell says there is still enough time for Congress to prevent a lapse in funding, but "prudent management" requires that the government get ready for a shutdown. House Republicans plan to vote on a budget bill this week that withholds funding for President...

As the White House and Congress careen toward another fiscal showdown, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned on Tuesday that President Obama and lawmakers have been cutting the wrong kind of federal spending as they try to avoid unsustainable levels of debt in coming decades. ...While federal revenues are projected to grow — to 19.5 percent of the G.D.P., compared with the 40-year average of 17.5 percent — that is not enough to offset the rising spending for federal benefit programs. “Unless substantial changes are made to the major health care programs and Social Security,” the report said, “those programs...

A leaked report by the Department of Defense Inspector General’s office that wasn’t set to be released until next month claims budget cuts led to lax security at the D.C. naval yard. Time Magazine published leaked excerpts of the report. Daily Mail reported: Budget cuts may have been the cause for lax security at the Washington D.C. Navy Yards where 12 people were shot dead and eight others were injured on Monday morning. A yet-to-be-released government audit reveals that federal oversight investigators concluded that the reduced security measures at the base left security risks unaddressed. A report by the Department...

Perhaps the only war strategizing more inept than President Obama's on Syria are GOP plans for the budget hostilities this autumn. Republicans are fracturing over tactics, and even over the nature of political reality, which may let Mr. Obama outwit them like a domestic Vladimir Putin. In our view the GOP would be less confused if more House Members appreciated the power of 218. That's the number of votes that makes a majority and it is the only true "leverage" Republicans have while Democrats hold the Senate and a Presidential veto. The latest GOP internal dispute is over a continuing...

On Friday's All In show, MSNBC host Chris Hayes asserted that "Washington is broken because the Tea Party broke it," adding that the Tea Party strategy on changing the budget process was to "impose economic suffocation." Hayes: Washington is broken because the Tea Party broke it. They broke it on purpose. They broke the normal budgetary process, replaced it with government recurring crisis, all so they can use control of one-half of one branch of government to impose economic suffocation on the country as a whole. The MSNBC host's comments came as he began the show by fretting over polls...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama, in an interview broadcast on Sunday, blamed conservative Republicans for a stalemate on the budget and insisted that while he is willing to haggle over taxes and government spending, he will not make a deal would that would impose conditions on increasing the nation's debt limit. With a possible government shutdown looming in two weeks, and the threat of a U.S. debt default as early as mid-October, Obama said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that it is up to lawmakers to work out a budget. He insisted the budget should contain enough spending...

Despite opining that “a government shutdown would be the worst possible outcome in our negotiations over the budget,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) vowed he will “make no compromises to avoid it.” “We’ve got control of the narrative,” Reid boasted. “Why should we give Republicans a break? Almost half of Americans depend on the government to put money in their pockets. The other half are afraid of riots in the streets if the flow of subsidies to client populations is halted. The media are ‘all in’ for blaming the GOP if anything bad happens. When you have the winning...

John Boehner once again finds himself caught in the middle of a Capitol brawl between Tea Party Republicans and his Democratic counterparts, as he tries to navigate the choppy political waters and prevent a government shutdown at the end of the month. Tea Party-aligned members of Boehner's caucus are flexing their muscle and pressuring him to allow a vote on an anti-ObamaCare measure as part of ongoing budget talks. They want the vote tied directly to the budget measure, and rejected a compromise plan earlier this week -- leaving unclear how Congress might pass a short-term spending bill before funding...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he is scared of a possible government shutdown after meeting with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) Thursday morning. “I’m really frightened,” he told reporters after a press conference to discuss the morning meeting he had with Boehner, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “I think they’re looking like the House is having trouble controlling themselves,” he said. Earlier in the day, Reid declared that the lower chamber had been taken over by anarchists after an energy efficiency bill stalled on the Senate floor. “We’re diverted totally from...

GOP leaders eager to avoid blame for a possible government shutdown next month appear confounded by conservatives' passion for using fast-approaching deadlines to derail the implementation of President Barack Obama's health care law. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, conceded Thursday his plan was all but dead for quickly passing a temporary spending bill that also defunds Obamacare, make the Senate vote on each idea separately and then send only the portion for keeping the government open to the White House for the president's signature. Meanwhile, new freelance effort by rank-and-file Republicans to condition keeping the government open or preventing a...

With the Syrian crisis receding on Capitol Hill, Congress on Thursday plunged back into its bitter fiscal standoff as Speaker John A. Boehner appealed to the Obama administration and Democratic leaders to help him resolve divisions in the Republican ranks that could lead to a government shutdown by month’s end. In meetings with Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders on Thursday after a session with Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew on Wednesday, Mr. Boehner pleaded for a resumption of negotiations that could keep the government running and yield a deficit-reduction deal that would convince b>recalcitrant conservatives to raise the government’s borrowing...

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) warned Thursday the House might be forced to cancel its September recess to work on a government funding bill. The House was originally scheduled to have the week of Sept. 23 off, but Cantor said lawmakers might have to return to Washington that week and maybe the following weekend to prevent a government shutdown. "Members are advised that pending ongoing discussions on the continuing resolution, the House may be in session during the week of Sept. 23 and possibly into the weekend," Cantor said on the House floor. "Members should expect an announcement next...

For the past week, debate over Syria has overwhelmed Capitol Hill -- even though Congress has just about two weeks left to pass a budget bill before the federal government partially shuts down. Democratic and Republican leaders are meeting Thursday morning to discuss the looming budget issues, but before the two parties forge a path forward, the GOP may have to sort out its own issues. The Republican-led House had planned to vote this week on a bill to temporarily fund the government (referred to as a continuing resolution, or CR), but the vote was delayed Wednesday because Republicans divisions...

Here’s the read among Congressional Dems on this fall’s fiscal fights. At some point, House GOP leaders will have to pass an important bill with a lot of Democratic support — stiff-arming the Tea Party in the process. GOP leaders are trying to defer that moment for as long as possible, but there’s just no clear way around it. Multiple reports this morning tell us House GOP leaders are struggling to round up support among House Republicans for their new strategy for the fall. They are proposing a vote on a measure that would temporarily fund the government at current...

Sarah Palin wants to switch the national conversation back to death panels and to “bomb Obamacare.” The former governor of Alaska and vice presidential candidate posted a new video from SarahPAC, her PAC, to her YouTube, Twitter and Facebook accounts on Monday called “Just Sayin.’” The two-minute video cycles through clips of the media talking about Palin’s warning of “death panels” in Obamacare, starting with criticism before transitioning to clips that Palin was right all along.

Budget talks between the White House and a small group of U.S. Republican senators have reached an impasse, eliminating Washington’s only active channel for resolving deep fiscal differences as key deadlines loom, senators and aides said on Friday. A meeting on Thursday between the eight senators and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough failed to produce any movement toward a deal to reduce “unsustainable debt and deficits,” said Senator Dan Coats, a Republican from Indiana. … Republican Senate aides said that the group of senators, led by Johnny Isakson of Georgia, does not see any reason to continue the...

I know this comes as a complete shock to you, given the past success in passing budgets during this administration … oh, wait … The Obama administration and a group of Republican senators abandoned efforts Thursday to hammer out a budget deal and avoid a showdown over the national debt, saying they had failed to resolve their long-standing dispute over taxes.“It’s very evident that there just isn’t common ground at present and we’ve all agreed there’s no reason for these talks to continue,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said after attending the group’s final session at the White House.Asked what happens...

<p>More Americans are buying homes in all-cash deals, according to several recent studies. But real- estate experts say this increase may not be a good sign for the health of the housing market.</p> <p>All-cash purchases accounted for 40% of all sales of residential property in July 2013, up from 35% during the previous month and 31% in July 2012, according to data from real-estate data firm RealtyTrac released Thursday. That’s the second highest rate since the survey began in January 2011 – second only to 53% in March 2012.</p>

Nearly 3,400 military medical workers quit this year in the months when furloughs were threatened or being carried out because of spending cuts known as sequestration. The vast majority of those losses were with Army medical facilities. Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, the Army's surgeon general, says one out of 20 of her civilian medical doctors, nurses and other health workers -- or 2,700 out of 42,000 civilian health employees -- left their jobs for work elsewhere. She said departing staffers included highly skilled clinicians, scientists, researchers and other health workers. Eighteen percent were doctors and nurses, her staff says. Medical...

**SNIP** To get to what Brown calls "balance," California's 2013-2014 budget relies on almost $6 billion in revenues from voter-approved tax increases, which are intended to fund the state's education system. But those revenues are temporary and may not be extended. The budget also ignores unfunded pension and retiree health-care liabilities. These liabilities are substantial: The California Department of Finance estimated there are more than $100 billion in unfunded state employee pension and retiree health-care obligations, while other analysts have produced estimates that are far higher. And the California budget continues to be balanced with the help of garden-variety accounting...

The political and finance worlds are abuzz with "September angst." And in Washington, the angst is looking like it will be pushed back — but it could be much more daunting than originally thought. That's because House Republicans and aides are signaling — according to The Washington Examiner's Conn Carroll and National Review's Robert Costa — that they will shift focus from using a potential government shutdown as leverage to negotiations over the debt ceiling. Here's the gist, via Costa:Sources tell me the House GOP will probably avoid using a shutdown as leverage and instead use the debt limit and sequester fights as areas...