Free Republic

Rob mItchell is running for Congress in the 8th District of Pennsylvania. See, www.Rob4Congress.com "It's a Matter of Trust!"

... don’t believe the fact that Hoffman is a social conservative was the reason for his loss, but when it comes to priorities, Simon makes a point worth considering: Hoffman’s capital “C” Conservative campaign tried to separate itself from the majority parties by making a big deal of the social issues. He was all upset that Scozzafava was pro-gay marriage, seemingly as upset as he was with her support for the stimulus plan. The majority of Americans are conservative — not just on matters of fiscal policy, but also on many social issues. After all, in the last presidential campaign...

I don't follow the monetary and fiscal problems of other countries very closely. We've got enough of a crisis here to worry about anywhere else. But during the stim bill debate, you may recall liberals pointing to Japan's "stimulus spending" in the decade of the 1990's as an example of how to get out of a deep recession. Maybe they should have read the fine print as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph explains: The IMF expects Japan's gross public debt to reach 218pc of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, 227pc next year, and 246pc by 2014. This has been...

Poltico's Jonathan Martin reports: "The surging campaign of third-party candidate Chris Daggett has turned the New Jersey governor's race into a dead-heat and left Republicans divided over the seriousness of the threat he poses to GOP nominee Chris Christie." The Hill's Reid Wilson reports: The House GOP conference is bitterly divided over a centrist New York Republican’s run for the House seat vacated by Army Secretary John McHugh. "Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who backs abortion rights and has voiced support for gay rights, has drawn a challenger from the right who is running on the Conservative Party line. And though House...

Three Government Reports Point To Fiscal Doomsday by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. 10-05-09 When our leaders have no awareness of the disastrous consequences of their actions, they can claim ignorance and take no action. Or when our leaders have no hard evidence as to what might happen in the future, they can at least claim uncertainty. But when they have full knowledge of an impending disaster … they have proof of its inevitability in ANY scenario … and they so declare in their official reports … but STILL don’t lift a finger to change course … then they have only...

Fiscal ruin of the Western world beckons For a glimpse of what awaits Britain, Europe, and America as budget deficits spiral to war-time levels, look at what is happening to the Irish welfare state. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 18 Jul 2009 Events have already forced Premier Brian Cowen to carry out the harshest assault yet seen on the public services of a modern Western state. He has passed two emergency budgets to stop the deficit soaring to 15pc of GDP. They have not been enough. The expert An Bord Snip report said last week that Dublin must cut deeper, or risk...

Reporting from Sacramento -- In this economy, every state is hurting. Unemployment is in double digits, tax receipts are taking a dive and deficits are piling up. But, once again, California seems to be in a class of its own when it comes to financial dysfunction. The problems here eclipse those elsewhere. California has the distinction of being the only state that is constantly running out of cash. California is the only one pleading with the federal government to backstop an emergency borrowing plan. California is the only state that never completely closed its deficit from the last economic downturn...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The day of reckoning that California has been warned about for years has arrived. The longest recession in generations and the defeat this week of a package of budget-balancing ballot measures are expected to lead to state spending cuts so deep and so painful that they could rewrite the social contract between California and its citizens. They could also force a fundamental rethinking of the proper role of government in the Golden State. "The voters are getting what they asked for, but I'm not sure at the end of the day they're going to like what they...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 09-128 Governor Palin Signs Budget Bills Conservative Spending Plan Implemented for FY2010 May 21, 2009, Juneau, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin today signed into law six appropriations bills, including House Bill 81, the FY2010 Operating Budget; House Bill 83, the FY2010 Mental Health Operating and Capital Budget; House Bill 113, the FY2009 Supplemental Bill; House Bill 199, the Federal Economic Stimulus Bill; Senate Bill 75, the FY2010 capital budget; and Senate Bill 116, a one-time special appropriation for low-income energy assistance. The governor struck a total of $80.3 million through various line-item reductions in four of...

Dan Hannan MEP in the European Parliament speech of March 26, 2009. Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP for the South East of England and author of The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain THIS IS A MUST LISTEN (only about 3 minutes) ------ A partial transcript: 'Prime Minister, I see you've already mastered the essential craft of the European politician: namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate. Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this House if your actions matched your words, and perhaps more legitimacy...

So, President Obama now wants to start talking about fiscal responsibility. His stated goal is to decrease the budget by the time his (first) term is over to 3% of GDP. (It is currently 10%). Good luck with that. He has given the rough outline of how he hopes to accomplish that, and believe you me, it's full of hogwash.

The Republican Party has been dragged back to its core – repelling cancerous, engulfing Federalism. Also known as ‘big government’. For 15 years social issues have dominated the GOP. The abundance of wealth, extraordinary wealth, now $14 trillion less, for American households, made fiscal attentiveness boring. (Note, not for this writer.)

With a $787 billion stimulus package in hand, President Barack Obama will pivot quickly to address a budget deficit that could now approach $2 trillion this year. He has scheduled a "fiscal-responsibility summit" on Feb. 23 and will unveil a budget blueprint three days later, crafted to put pressure on politicians to address the country's surging long-term debt crisis.

A plan to guarantee up to £20bn of loans to small businesses to help them survive the economic downturn has been unveiled by the government. In return for a fee, the state will, in effect, insure banks against firms defaulting on loan repayments.

America is not as conservative as it seemed in 2004 and it isn't as liberal as it looks this morning. What happened is that four years ago, voters put their trust in one political party to run the country and they didn't like the results, and so, over the course of two elections, they systematically threw out that political party and turned to a different one. If Democrats disappoint the public, they could be waking up on a not so distant November morning just as devastated as Republicans are today. Those who are in the profession of writing the first...

Like many other definitions that have been rewritten by left-wingnuts over time, the term “general welfare” no longer means what it did when it was written in our Constitution and ratified by the colonies in 1789. As Thomas Jefferson once explained, “To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”...

Sen. John McCain on Tuesday brushed off skepticism from economists and insisted he could balance the budget by 2013 by keeping taxes low and curbing spending. "We're going to restrain spending, we're going to have the economy grow again and increase revenues. The problem is that spending got completely out of control," McCain said on CNN's "American Morning." McCain is in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire in 2010. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has projected that by extending the cuts, which McCain originally opposed, and including the additional cuts McCain has...

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/11/09/video-club-for-growth-smacks-huckabee/

There is $220 billion worth of waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending, according to a months-long analysis of 17 federal agencies and departments by the Inspectors General of all the federal agencies and the General Accounting Office. Their study, called "Government at the Brink - Urgent Federal Government Management Problems Facing the Bush Administration" (June 2001) was released by Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) on his last day as Chairman of the Senate Government Affairs Committee, before the Democrats took control of the Senate. The Senate Government Affairs Committee staff lists the top 10 most egregious examples, including, for example,...

By Bill Walsh Washington bureau WASHINGTON - At a cost of $1 billion, more than 120,000 Gulf Coast hurricane evacuees still living in government-subsidized apartments, trailers and mobile homes will get an extension through early 2009, the Bush administration announced Thursday.

California's fiscal watchdog on Wednesday warned that the state's budget outlook has deteriorated significantly since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released his proposed spending plan in January and urged lawmakers to enact midyear cuts. Lawmakers should immediately trim $600 million from schools and Schwarzenegger should cancel more than $1 billion in other spending to keep the state from sinking further into debt, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said. In her annual review of the governor's proposed budget, Hill expanded on her recent criticism that Schwarzenegger's plan relies on rosy revenue projections. Her 1,107-page analysis detailed what Hill said are billions of dollars in...

Yes, there are Californians not named Tom McClintock who are worried about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's move from budget-cutter to government-enabler. Such as the grumps from the formerly Schwarzenthusiastic Reason Foundation, who have taken to use the G-D word, by which I mean Gray Davis: Fiscal conservatives are facing the sad truth that the governor they supported has actually increased state spending more than the governor they ousted. Since Schwarzenegger assumed office, general fund spending has increased by an astonishing 31 percent. As Sen. Tom McClintock reports, Schwarzenegger's annual rate of spending increase has been 7.9% compared with Davis' 7.1%. ......

With the inauguration of Deval Patrick the Commonwealth of Massachusetts returns to the suicidal tendencies of it's past. Apparently the inauguration parties have left Patrick a little punch-drunk as he eagerly overturns the spending cuts of the Romney administration: Haverhill, for instance, will receive $2.6 million in Hale Hospital debt relief, money needed to keep the city's budget balanced. Funding for Pettengill House, the Newburyport YWCA, the Lower Merrimack Valley Boys & Girls Club, Salisbury's Historical Society, Amesbury's Cultural Council and Salisbury's Chamber of Commerce also were restored. Salem State College, which lost $800,000 for its nursing program, will see...

It's been years since federal agencies have screamed this loudly about fiscal discipline being imposed on them. GOP Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina have decided to take a stand against overspending by objecting to the nearly 10,000 earmarks, or member-sponsored pork projects, larded throughout the spending bills Congress is currently considering. Their obstinacy has convinced the leadership of the departing Republican Congress that they probably won't be able to pass spending bills in next month's short lame-duck session. Instead, they are likely to pass a stopgap "continuing resolution," which will continue funding all programs...

With the approach of the crucial mid-term elections, and especially after the media obsession with the internet correspondence of Congressman Mark Foley, numerous liberal commentators eagerly anticipate a shattering crack-up of the conservative movement. While the outcome of the November balloting remains very much in doubt, these gleeful predictions of GOP disaster demonstrate an ignorant misunderstanding of the essential nature of the Republican coalition, and grossly exaggerate the gap between “religious” and “economic” conservatives. Paul Krugman, for instance, New York Times columnist, bestselling author and Princeton professor, recently published a piece called “Things Fall Apart.” In it, he declared: “At...

All Aboard Fiscal Conservatism Good sense on Amtrak funding. By Joseph Vranich On Friday, some ostensibly conservative senators may vote to give record amounts of money to Amtrak through subsidies and another loan bailout. They would not if they would only read “What Is Government Waste?” from the Taxpayers for Common Sense, which provides the following benchmarks for the merit of a government program: 1. If it doesn’t work, don’t fund it. Amtrak is a financial wreck that comes nowhere near the promises Congress made when it created the quasi-public corporation in 1970. According to the Americans for Tax Reform,...

BOSTON --Gov. Mitt Romney vetoed a bill Friday that would have moved Massachusetts closer to universal pre-kindergarten, saying the program could end up costing taxpayers as much as $1 billion a year. The bill would have created a statewide pre-kindergarten program defined as "voluntary, universally accessible early education and care programs and services for preschool-aged children." Romney said the state should instead wait to see the results of a smaller $4.6 million pre-kindergarten test program before embarking on the more ambitious statewide initiative. "Before we create an expensive new burden on Massachusetts taxpayers, one that could lead to future tax...

SAN DIEGO The city recklessly and deliberately mismanaged its finances for years, according to a report released Tuesday that marks a key milestone in San Diego's fiscal recovery. Kroll Inc. said San Diego "fell prey to the same type of corruption" that ruined companies including Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. and prompted Orange County to file for bankruptcy protection in 1994. "The evidence demonstrates not mere negligence but deliberate disregard for the law, disregard for fiduciary responsibility and disregard for the financial welfare of the city's residents," the report concludes. The 266-page tome, which took 18 months to complete and...

Over the 4th of July weekend I met a gent who had worked for the GOP on Capitol Hill. He was frustrated with the GOP for many reasons, most notably its sellout on spending. He had left Capitol Hill and was heading to California to join the Highway Patrol. As I recall, he was seriously thinking about sitting out this Fall's election. I wouldn't be surprised if his sentiment is running high among the Republican base right now. It isn't hard to see why. From doing next-to-nothing on judges, to letting free-market based health care reforms languish, to going wobbly...

Exposing an Imposter! Bush is a Sham Conservative! by Ryan Setliff Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy by Bruce Bartlett. Hardcover: 320 pages. (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2006) Amazon Price: $16.38. An Imposter, a Pretend Conservative!! Bush came into office riding on a tide of popular backlash directed at the scandal-plagued Clinton administration. Bush even went so far as to present himself as the consummate Reaganite. Nonetheless, G.W. Bush’s last few years of leadership from foreign policy to domestic issues have been uninspiring and characterized by a profound increase of government spending, record...

California's Legislative Analysts Office recently reported that the state faces an unfunded liability of $40 billion to $70 billion (and growing) for state employees' retiree health costs, which would require $6 billion a year for 30 years to fund. This comes on the heels of the Los Angeles Unified School District's doubling its estimated unfunded liability for such costs to $10 billion. Those reports ratchet up the magnitude of the state's deferred-compensation disaster from a September review that found California's biggest government agencies faced over $100 billion in unfunded liabilities for existing pension, health care and workers' comp commitments (itself...

Republican congressional leaders agreed to trim deficits by $41.6 billion and sought to unlock the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling Sunday in a frenzied year-end bid to enact the core of a conservative agenda. ``We're going to move the nation's business'' through Congress, vowed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. But Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid accused the GOP of breaking Senate rules to suit their purposes, and threatened to slow action to a crawl. ``The arrogance of power of the Republicans ... is beyond my ability to comprehend,'' he said. Medicare, the student loan program and Medicaid, which...

Now that California electorate has demonstrated multiple times that they have no sense of fiscal reality I suggest that we make a pre-emptive strike against the upcoming, inevitable "California Bailout". I propose that all Freepers and their friends write, call or e-mail their elected representattives and urge Congress to pass a "No Federal Bailout of California Law". Katrina and Rita were "Acts of Nature". Yesteday's elections were acts of stupidity.

For too many years, the California Legislature has been treating the public treasury with about as much consideration as a shopaholic treats a Visa card with no credit limit. Like all addicts, state lawmakers protest that they can stop spending any time they want. Really. But it's clear they can't. Otherwise, their bad habits wouldn't have continued when state revenue was shrinking. And why should they? There were virtually no consequences to their irresponsible actions other than getting re-elected. Proposition 76, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Live Within Our Means" act, is the addiction intervention the state desperately needs before it bottoms...

Taking the heat By Rebecca Hagelin Oct 18, 2005 Vice President of Communications and Marketing, The Heritage Foundation “In fire, gold is tested,” the saying goes. Just ask Mike Pence. A third-term congressman from Indiana, Pence has been sorely tested lately, enduring a fire that few of us would want to withstand -- and he’s demonstrating that he’s as good as gold. That’s because Pence is largely responsible for the change in attitude we’re seeing in Republican leaders toward spending cuts. Not long ago, they appeared unconcerned about the explosion in growth we’ve witnessed in the size of government over...

Private auditors have found that San Diego overstated its net assets by more than $640 million in fiscal 2002 – a problem that portends greater difficulty for the city's restoration to sound fiscal health. The city's net assets will be lowered almost 10 percent from their reported total of $6.8 billion, a miscalculation used in three bond offerings, which opens the city to possible lawsuits and new federal sanctions and fines. The errors include the double counting of roads and bridges, delays in depreciating the value of water and sewer plants, and the inclusion of abandoned capital projects as well...

New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers faces reductionNew Orleans City Business June 6, 2005 by Deon Roberts In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding. It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said. I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the...

DEMOCRATIC National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, in Concord for a fundraiser on Wednesday, accused the Republican Party of being the party of fiscal irresponsibility. He has said that before, but this time the timing could not have been better. It was a day after President Bush signed a $286 billion transportation bill that was $30 billion higher than the amount he had pledged to veto. "This bill is by far the most expensive, wasteful highway bill in the nation's history," Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told The Washington Times. "It is filled to the brim with...

With Gov. Schwarzenegger's announcement last night that California will have a special election this fall on several high-profile initiatives, we can expect his controversial proposals on redistricting and changing teacher tenure to continue to get more attention than his fiscal reform plan. This is unfortunate. For while his "Live Within Our Means Act" is a well-intentioned effort to minimize the severity of the next budgetary shortfall, it fails to place effective curbs on spending necessary for long-term fiscal solvency. After his November 2003 inauguration, Schwarzenegger considered promoting a constitutional expenditure limit to reduce the $38 billion in debt his predecessor,...

A lot of thoughtful conservatives are having serious second thoughts about George W. Bush. His failure to act upon core values of fiscal conservatism and sovereignty is a growing concern. Donations to conservative organizations and think tanks are in sharp decline. A lot of conservatives have decided to stop giving financial support because they are losing faith in the ability of these groups to have any effect on administration policies. Bush has an engaging personality, but he’s not running for office anymore. He is already a very lame duck. In concert with Republican party leaders in Congress, the White House...

SAN LEANDRO — A battle is brewing in Sacramento this year, and left-leaning lawyer Robin Johansen has drawn her lines in the sand. She's not the only one. Less than two months into what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger promises will be "the year of reform," at least 71 proposed state-wide ballot initiatives are already pending at the state attorney general's office. Johansen said she is knee-deep in working on about 15 ballot propositions intended to thwart some of the governor's proposed fiscal overhauls. Her San Leandro firm, Remcho, Johansen, & Purcell, has officially filed about five so far. "It's just a...

The Washington elite are at it again. The partisan jockeying for political positions has begun and no matter which political party wins the debate on Capital Hill, the American people will lose…again! Where I come from, a “budget” is a tool of fiscal discipline. If it isn’t balanced, somebody is losing something somewhere, or everyone is filing bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is defined as “A debtor that is judged legally insolvent.” Insolvent is defined as “unable to meet debts or discharge liabilities, resources insufficient to meet all debts.” America has qualified under these definitions for many years, except to date no one...

Financial gimmicks don't fix a state budget, and often cost the state more in the long run. That's true of borrowing money to pay the state's pension obligations, which got Gray Davis into trouble and is now embarrassing Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Pacific Legal Foundation this month filed a lawsuit challenging the governor's plan to sell $929 million in bonds to cover the state's pension costs this year. A similar lawsuit last year derailed Davis' plans to borrow $2 billion to meet pension obligations. The lawsuit isn't frivolous. The state Constitution prohibits the government from borrowing more than $300,000 without voters'...

Bay Village Is a Fantastic Community We Plan To Make It Affordable Again It saddens me to see families - both young and old alike - to put up For Sale signs in the yards due to high property taxes. I am running for mayor because I am convinced Bay families need Tax Relief and they need it soon! Seniors are facing a daunting tax burden that I am convinced is disproportionate. The average families here in Bay are weighing whether or not they can afford to reside here much longer. We are losing people, who are otherwise quite happy...

illion-dollar decisions face California voters this Tuesday. Just how many billions? Unknown. In a case of the right hand unaware of the left hand’s actions, residents of one county are clueless to bond and tax initiatives found on the ballot of another. The situation has sent fiscal watchdogs howling for a master list, disclosing all tax propositions (local, state, and federal) to California voters. The California Taxpayers’ Association is leading the charge to develop a list of statewide “tax hikes.” Using its staff to develop statistics, the taxpayers’ organization has found at least 171 proposed tax increases among California’s 58...

Voters face fiscal clash in Oklahoma Senate battle Coburn vows to cut spending; Carson says he'll win federal largesse Donnie Cash of Fort Cobb, Okla., whose son is serving in Iraq, asked Democrat Brad Carson for a withdrawal plan. National affairs writer ANADARKO, OKLA. - Oklahoma Democratic Rep. Brad Carson, with TV ads touting his “A” rating from the National Rifle Association and featuring a photo of himself shaking hands with President Bush, is a big reason the Democrats think they can regain control of the Senate on Nov. 2. In an ordinary year, Oklahoma would be the last state...

...[I]f John Kerry rolled back President George W. Bush's tax cuts, as he has promised, would more jobs be created? ...Tax policy can play a significant role in encouraging -- or discouraging -- entrepreneurial risk-taking. It is startling how many entrepreneurs starting a business are subject to the individual income tax (as sole proprietorships, partnerships, or S corporations). Because entrepreneurship is a risky undertaking, prospective entrants evaluate possible after-tax returns from success and failure in deciding whether to start a business. The income tax weighs in because the government is not an equal partner in success and failure. While the...

BOSTON — Sen. John F. Kerry has given scores of policy speeches in his bid for the presidency, issued reams of position papers, and guided the 37-page platform on major issues that the Democratic National Convention will adopt today. But Kerry and the platform are vague or silent on some of the far-reaching issues that will confront the next president: how to address the burgeoning budget deficit and the financial instability of Social Security and Medicare. Kerry has said he wants to halve the deficit in four years, but independent experts have questioned whether that promise squares with costly domestic...

Dan Walters: Schwarzenegger's failure makes new taxes inevitable - but what kind? Arnold Schwarzenegger's failure to make a serious dent in California's chronic fiscal crisis means that increasing taxes will return as a political issue next year - and probably for years thereafter.

Americans are unlikely to face major tax increases this year as their state governments emerge from three years of financial trouble by controlling spending and bypassing major new initiatives. Many states are still weeks or months away from finalizing their spending and tax plans, but early indications are that most governors and legislators will avoid significant tax increases, in part because many are running for re-election. Some states continue to raise college tuition and other fees, but the fee increases are likely to be smaller than last year's record $4.3 billion. And millions of Americans will face higher property tax...