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The U.S. Congress is discussing a second economic stimulus bill that could include nearly $15 billion in infrastructure spending, a senior member of the House of Representatives told Reuters on Tuesday.Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said a stimulus package could include "accelerating" pay-outs of $9.5 billion from the federal trust fund dedicated to road construction and maintenance. "You can have 700,000 people working in three months. We should have done it this spring," Oberstar said in an interview. The money would go to funding more than 2,600 projects, he said. States would...

Let’s get real with each other for a few minutes. Only one thing really divides America down the center line of politics known as “left” vs. “right,” the almighty dollar, now worth approximately .35 cents, thanks to more than seventy years of deficit spending. Every national election is about the same thing really. Half of Americans use every national election cycle as nothing more than an opportunity to pick the pockets of the other half. The other half is running for cover. I have often written about the lefts endless effort to shove their way to the public feeding trough...

Cha-Ching! After Friday's 65-3 vote to proceed, the Senate is finally coming to terms on one of the most expensive aid programs of the session, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Although the House passed PEPFAR overwhelmingly in the spring, the Senate bill has been delayed while conservatives strategized on how to remove some contentious language with global pro-abortion implications. As it now stands, the $50 billion reauthorization of the President's 2003 plan keeps in place the heavy emphasis on abstinence and fidelity in HIV/AIDS prevention, which have not only been the most ethical approach but, as many...

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...

Political Players: Former GOP Presidential Candidate, McCain Economic Adviser On Taxes, Energy And The Budget, Steve Forbes. Steve Forbes: I think his (McCain's) plan is the most realistic plan to achieve a balance - or a far better balance - that is out there, by recognizing the importance of reducing the burden of taxation, among other things. That is the key to getting the economy back on track again. ... So the way you get a balanced budget is one, greater revenue growth. And he's got the best plan for it. And two, restraint of spending. ... Steve Forbes: The...

One reason people are unhappy with the way politics and governments operate is that people who run for office are known to “say one thing and do another.” Thus, we have the call for “change.” Candidates for high office make frequent use of that word. Even our House Republican Conference’s recently released slogan highlights that word. Yet, bringing about change is easier said than done. The American people are aware that government is broken and must be fixed. They will demand more than lip service as our problems become more severe. Change, then, cannot simply be a word. It must...

Senator John McCain plans to promise on Monday that he will balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico. The vow to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted President Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of his second term. McCain is making the pledge at the beginning of a week when both presidential candidates plan to devote their events to the economy, the top issue in poll after poll as voters struggle...

Breaking News from Louisiana: BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Bobby Jindal announced today that he has vetoed the legislative pay raise. After days of saying he would not reject the unpopular measure, Jindal said this morning that he had rejected the measure. Lawmakers in the most recent session voted to raise their annual base salary from $16,800 to $37,500. Jindal has been criticized for his inability to stop the raise before it was passed and his refusal since then to veto the pay raise bill. He pledged during his gubernatorial campaign last year to prohibit an immediate legislative pay raise. The...

Propositions that are on the November 4, 2008 General Election Ballot* Bond MeasureProposition 1 SB 1856 (Chapter 697, 2002). Costa. Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century.** **Note: The Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century was originally scheduled to appear on the November 2, 2004, General Election ballot. Subsequently, Senate Bill 1169, Chapter 71, Statutes of 2004, provided that it appear on the November 7, 2006, General Election ballot. However, most recently, Assembly Bill 713, Chapter 44, Statutes of 2006, provides for the submission of this Act on the November...

In the past decade, global defense spending has grown 45 percent, to over $1.3 trillion. That's about 2.5 percent of global GDP. After the Cold War ended in 1991, defense spending declined for a few years, to under a trillion dollars a year. But by the end of the 1990s, it was on the rise again. The region with the greatest growth has been the Middle East, where spending has increased 62 percent in the last decade. The region with the lowest growth (six percent) was Western Europe. About a third of global defense spending is in weapons and major...

The Next Big Spending Spree By John Browne As the economic indicators turn down and election year politics heats up, the calls from politicians for more government intervention and enhanced economic stimulus are becoming more strident. Last week, with the onset of the general presidential campaign, and with increased attention on the economy shown by the Bush administration, I could not help but think that something big was in the air. And by big, I mean the kind of massive new Federal spending initiatives that we haven't seen since the Great Society of the 1960's.In particular, Fed Chairman Ben...

Vallejo, Calif., took the extreme step of filing for bankruptcy to get out of generous obligations to public employees. Other cities and states are watchingThe jig is up. For years, politicians have been playing what amounts to a multi-trillion-dollar shell game with state and local pensions. They've doled out lush retiree benefits to their heavily unionized workforces, knowing that they could shove the cost for those benefits onto future generations of taxpayers. But a recent financial bombshell dropped by a San Francisco suburb shows why that shell game is now starting to unravel in a nasty way. And it's a...

As Election 2008 draws ever closer, it is hard to overstate the disconnect between the American people and their government. Just 17% of voters say that the federal government represents the will of the American people. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 68% disagree and 15% are not sure (see video). These views are consistent across partisan and demographic lines. Men, women, young, old, Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, all offer a bleak assessment of what is supposed to be a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Sixty-seven percent (67%) of voters say that...

Changes since the last update: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1310. (07-0081) Nonviolent Offenders. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. Statute. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election 1326. (07-0094, Amdt. #1S) Criminal Penalties and Laws. Public Safety Funding. Statute. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election 1304. (07-0066, Amdt. #1S) Renewable Energy. Statute. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election 1298. (07-0068) Limit on Marriage. Constitutional Amendment. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election Propositions that are on the November 4, 2008 General Election Ballot Bond MeasureSB 1856 (Chapter 697, 2002). Costa. Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the...

< >State and city governments have yet to shrink the economy; indeed, they have even managed to prop it up. They have quietly maintained their spending at pre-crisis levels even as they warn of numerous cutbacks forced on them by declining tax revenues. The cutbacks, however, are written into budgets for a fiscal year that begins on July 1, a month away. In the meantime the states and cities, often drawing on rainy-day savings, have carried their share of the load for the national economy. That share is gigantic. At $1.8 trillion annually in a $14 trillion economy, the states...

In "'Stimulus' and the States" (Wall Street Journal, April 24), Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano blames Congress for state budget deficits: "Even if the federal government paid up on only a few of its debts mentioned here, Arizona would not be in deficit this year." Without question, unfunded federal mandates have plagued the states for years, but overall they constitute less than 2% of state budgets. Most state spending rests squarely in the hands of our state capitols. Like most of the southwest, Arizona has been rolling in cash thanks to historic economic expansion. Three of the past five years saw...

But no matter how many times Ryan or his allies scream “I get it” from the mountaintop and vow to do the right thing if returned to power, the voters will not believe them until they believe his colleagues are capable of acting in a way that is consistent with conservative principles and contrary to their parochial, political interests. The voters seem to be saying: do something out of character. Admit you were wrong about something. Give me a reason to pay attention to all those 10-point action plans you’re waving around. Imagine the public’s reaction if 50 or so...

The Pentagon cannot account for nearly 15 billion dollars in payments for goods and services in Iraq, according to an internal audit which members of Congress blasted Friday as a "shocking" accountability failure. Of 8.2 billion dollars in US taxpayer-funded defense contracts reviewed by the defense department's inspector general, the Pentagon could not properly account for more than 7.7 billion dollars. The lack of accountability of the funds, intended for purchases of weapons, vehicles, construction equipment and security services, amounted to a 95 percent failure rate in basic accounting standards, according to the report. "We estimated that the army made...

Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor best known for shaking up public companies, says he is very concerned about the Democratic frontrunner, Barack Obama. “I personally think he would be a terrible president,'' Icahn told investors in New York, according to wire reports. Icahn thinks a President Obama would increase spending dramatically, something he says “the country can't afford right now.” An Obama spending spree and the resulting tax hikes to pay for it would kill the dollar and result in higher interest rates, Icahn warned. “I don't think Obama really understands economics,'' Icahn said. Obama also would take office with...

WASHINGTON - President Bush vetoed the $300 billion farm bill on Wednesday, calling it a tax increase on regular Americans at a time of high food prices in the face of a near-certain override by Congress. It was the 10th veto of Bush's presidency. But since it passed both houses of Congress with veto-proof majorities, his action will likely be overridden. The president calls the legislation fiscally irresponsible and says it gives away too much money to wealthy farmers, yet his criticism didn't faze lawmakers from both parties who voted for increased crop subsidies, food stamps for the poor and...

And now the supplemental spending bill to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan war is going to be vetoed and the Democrats damn well know it. Gives them more talking points in the current election cycle, troops be damned. How did it get to this point? Blame Pelosi: How did Congress get itself into this gridlock? The short answer is that the speaker and majority leader placed expediency and control over regular order and transparency, and pursued a strategy that would bypass House and Senate Committee markup, thus forcing the supplemental bill through both bodies with limited debate. Instead of allowing...

Every politician moans that entitlement spending is out of control, so it ought to be easy at least to stop blatant fraud and abuse. Evidently not: Congress is currently resisting an attempt to rein in even a Big Con that everyone acknowledges. The scene of this crime is Medicaid, the open-ended program that provides health coverage for about 59 million low-income people, with the rolls expanding every year. States determine eligibility and what services to cover, and the feds pick up at least half the tab, though the effective "matching rate" is as high as 83%. Now it turns out...

CLEVELAND - The federal government isn't used to being snubbed when it offers to help local governments. When it offered Chardon Township in Ohio $10,000 in disaster aid for a snowstorm in March, the locals said no thanks. Township Trustee Chuck Strazinsky told The Plain Dealer for a story published Friday that it was a typical snowstorm unworthy of federal aid. He says the money should be reserved for true emergencies.

$42 Billion Transit Proposal Moves in Wrong Direction Byron Schlomach, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 30, 2008 After months of rumblings around the state capitol, a private coalition called TIME – Transportation and Infrastructure Moving AZ’s Economy – has unveiled a $42 billion solution for Arizona’s transportation problems. It can be summed up as “tax and spend.” Under the proposal, the state’s sales tax would increase by one cent. By itself, a cent seems small, but this would make Arizona’s state sales tax rate the fifth highest in the nation according to the Tax Foundation. Arizona already has the nation’s...

Compromise on Arizona state budget makes 2009 a year of reckoning Byron Schlomach, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 23, 2008 Well, blow me down, they did it--and with two and a half months to spare. The legislature and the governor have agreed on a fix for the fiscal 2008 budget. Both sides can claim victory and defeat, so the deal appears an artful compromise. Going into the negotiations, the state faced a $1.2 billion budget shortfall, with budgeted spending projected to exceed revenues by almost 13 percent. Let’s look at the math of the new deal: • A quarter of...

Paterson: New York has to cut spending, or elseBy JOHN KEKIS Associated Press Writer Published April 23, 2008 06:41 am SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — Gov. David Paterson, who aims to cut the next state budget by up to 10 percent, said Tuesday that the Division of the Budget and key members of his staff will begin work on proposals to reduce future state spending. Paterson also said he intends to take a close look at the STAR property tax relief program in the next couple of months. STAR sends about $5 billion a year in state funds that are supposed...

The gloomiest outlook for the economy in 35 years may be forcing Americans to live with what they have and to save up for what they want. "I'm a little rattled," said Lynda Nicely, 28, of West Allis, Wis. She has taken a second job and plans to hoard three months' worth of emergency cash in case she loses her primary job. Lynda Nicely has been living in a sparsely furnished rental apartment in a Milwaukee suburb since October while she saves enough money for furniture at a secondhand store. And when temperatures soar this summer, she plans to buy...

"Wisconsin governors have long been allowed to sign off on budget bills but do some tricky erasing first. They could delete words, numbers, sentences, paragraphs or some combination of all of those, to create entirely new meanings never intended by the original authors — a legislative twist on the game of Mad Libs. Like when Gov. James E. Doyle, a Democrat, scratched out some 700 words from a section of the 2005 budget bill, leaving behind just 20 words that, when stitched back together, moved $427 million from the transportation fund to education."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress, trying to appear frugal with taxpayer dollars this election year, found on Wednesday that some in their own ranks topped a list of "pork" spenders in a watchdog group's analysis of government waste. The annual survey by Citizens Against Government Waste claims that 11,610 special-interest projects were stuffed into spending bills approved by the Democratic-led Congress last year at a $17.2 billion cost to taxpayers. But according to the survey, it was individual Republicans who pushed the most "pork" last year. In addition, the three House of Representative Republicans who sponsored legislation...

The current Republican administration has presided over the explosion of the federal deficit, turning a 10-year projected surplus of $5 trillion into a $2.8 trillion deficit. Republicans in Congress quintupled the number of earmarks in the federal budget - until Democrats began scaling them back after taking control of Congress last year. And under George W. Bush's leadership, the so-called "debt tax" - the chunk of every dollar of revenue that we send to the Chinese, the Saudis, and other governments from whom Washington has borrowed - has grown to $3,500 per family of four. To Washington insiders, Republican commitment...

Iraq War Spending Deconstructed by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 31, 2008 ...Two professors have actually made an earnest, exhaustive attempt to calculate the cost of the Iraq War but they look at it as two academics who have been through the revolving door to government jobs and back again to the Ivory Tower. “Defense comes to four percent of the Gross Domestic Product [GDP] but how much has GDP increased?” Linda J. Blimes said at the Center for American Progress (CAP) last week. “We are a wealthy country and in one sense can afford it but you have to look...

How much money did you spend this holiday weekend? More than $500 More than $250 More than $100 Less than $100

Google Government : Government transparency is key to limited government Starlee Rhoades, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, March 19, 2008 It’s National Sunshine Week, whose goal – “a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information” -- is worth celebrating. The national trend towards “Google-government” -- having government spending, contracts, and other information posted online in easily searchable databases that are available to all citizens -- is one Arizona should embrace. In 100 Ideas for 100 Days the Goldwater Institute offered several ideas to legislators and other policymakers that would shine more sunlight on various government functions and...

By a lopsided 71-29 margin, the U.S. Senate voted to reject a proposed one-year moratorium on the congressional “pork” known as “earmarks.” Earmarks set aside government funds for special projects designed to buy votes for incumbent officeholders. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain (Ariz.) denounced the vote, calling earmarks “a symbol of the endemic waste that rules federal spending priorities.” Others cited the Constitution’s “power of the purse” clause to justify the action. “What’s the point of being a senator if you can’t bring home the bacon for your constituents?” asked a senator in remarks he insisted be “off-the-record.”

Racing to the Bottom by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 18, 2008 When a progressive think tank and America’s leading business group get together and critique education in the United States, it’s official and getting more so—public schools may be getting progressively more expensive but they fail to deliver the service they claim to offer. Both the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce mark as a “prime target of reform: the 2,000 high school ‘dropout factories; across the country that regularly post graduation rates below 50%.” Statistically, that would put one of these underachieving assembly...

WASHINGTON – The Treasury Department says the federal deficit swelled to $263.3 billion in the first five months of this budget year as record spending during the period outpaced record revenues. The department's latest snapshot of the government's balance sheets, released Wednesday, shows that the deficit for the budget year that began Oct. 1 was up a whopping 62 percent from the red ink of $162.2 billion for the corresponding five-month period last year. The latest year-to-date budget deficit of $263.3 billion was an all-time high, the government said. Spending totaled a record $1.23 trillion, while revenues totaled $967.2 billion,...

Most anti-terrorist spending is wasteful, claims a new study AFTER September 11th 2001, most countries beefed up security at airports and other vulnerable places. Tough-looking immigration officials no doubt made passengers feel safer, offsetting the irritation of longer queues. Yet doing something because it makes people feel good is not adequate justification. Is money devoted to counter-terrorism well spent? What claims to be the first serious study of its costs and benefits, by economists at the Universities of Texas at Dallas and Alabama*, says no. It was commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus, a think-tank that aims to scrutinise public spending...

We have a bit of bipartisan action taking place this week on the floor of the U.S. Senate. A Republican and a Democrat Senator: DeMint of South Carolina and McCaskill of Missouri, are going to offer an amendment to a bill that would require a two-thirds vote of the senate for any pork (or earmark, as they like to call it) spending to be approved. McCain will be there to cast a vote. Now Hillary and Obama say that they're both going to sponsor the amendment. In the meantime .. let's take a peek at the presidential candidate earmark records...

New element discovered! Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally...

Congress is starting to move its annual budget outline, and the Members are lucky there's a hot Presidential race. Maybe the voters won't notice that "fiscal discipline," in the phony Beltway phrase, is less disciplined than ever. Look no further than Kent Conrad, the Senate Budget Chairman and godfather of "pay as you go" budgeting. Paygo requires that new entitlement spending and tax cuts be offset dollar for dollar with spending cuts or tax increases. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it: "Instead of compiling trillions of dollars of debt onto our children and grandchildren, we will restore pay as...

WASHINGTON - Under pressure from Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is considering a ban on home-district projects sought by lawmakers, a move that would rob the GOP of one of its top campaign issues. Republicans, led by Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio — one of only 23 House members who don't take earmarks — have been bashing Democrats for months on the issue. He is calling for a moratorium on earmarks, those back-home projects such as grants to local police and fire departments, money for health clinics and economic development projects, military housing, and funding for highway and airport...

The Math Matters: Doing the numbers leads to the obvious option on budget woes Goldwater Institute, March 06, 2008 Governments facing a financial pinch generally have five options. They can print money, borrow, raise taxes, cut spending, or spend fund balances. State governments cannot print money, so we’re down to four choices. Because a two-thirds vote is required for the Arizona legislature to raise taxes, practically speaking, that alternative should also be taken off the table. So, the only options to solve Arizona’s budget problems are to borrow, cut spending, or use up fund balances. The budget stabilization fund’s substantial...

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland residents are worried about the economy and taxes, according to poll results to be released today that show Gov. Martin O'Malley's popularity continuing to slide. Marylanders gave Mr. O'Malley a 37 percent job-approval rating, down two points from January, while 48 percent said they disapprove of the job he's doing, according to the poll conducted by Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies of Annapolis. Mr. O'Malley's support among Democrats dropped slightly from January, from 52 to 48 percent. The number of independents disapproving of his performance jumped 12 points over the same time, to 51 percent, which carries...

RACE NAME EARLY VOTES PERCENT TOTAL VOTES PERCENT Prop 1. Officials to enforce U.S. immigration laws. IN FAVOR 505,868 96.56% 1,137,390 96.34% AGAINST 18,009 3.43% 43,117 3.65% ----------- ----------- Race Total 523,877 1,180,507 Early Provisional Ballots Reported 2,095 Total Provisional Ballots Reported 4,896 Precincts Reported 6,176 of 7,959 Precincts 77.60% Statewide Turnout 9.25% 12,752,417 Registered Voters ---------------------------------------- RACE NAME EARLY VOTES PERCENT TOTAL VOTES PERCENT Prop 2. Require photo ID to cast ballot in elections. IN FAVOR 493,560 94.11% 1,110,528 93.86% AGAINST 30,841 5.88% 72,542 6.13% ----------- ----------- Race Total 524,401 1,183,070 Early Provisional Ballots Reported 2,095 Total Provisional Ballots...

The Pentagon released its annual report on the military developments in the People’s Republic of China, and the big news is the escalation of spending seen from Beijing. Titled "Military Power of the People’s Republic of China," the report outlines a major expansion in appropriations. It also admits that the Pentagon has no clear idea of China’s overall strategy, or even if they have one: On March 4, 2007, Beijing announced a 17.8 percent increase in its military budget to approximately $45 billion. This number was later revised by the PRC State Council to $45.99 billion, a 19.47 percent increase...

Sen. Barack Obama is very gloomy about America, and he's aligning himself with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in hopes of coming to the nation's rescue. His proposal? Big-government planning, spending and taxing — exactly what the nation and the stock market don't want to hear. Obama unveiled much of his economic strategy in Wisconsin: He wants to spend $150 billion on a green-energy plan. He wants to establish an infrastructure investment bank to the tune of $60 billion. He wants to expand health insurance by roughly $65 billion. He wants to "reopen" trade deals, which is another...

Spending vow snags ObamaHe's waffling on his early proposal of a public-financing pact with the GOP nominee David D. Kirkpatrick and Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times Published: Feb 28, 2008 12:30 AM Obama won't decide on financing until primary is settled. Just 12 months ago, Sen. Barack Obama presented himself as an idealistic upstart taking on the Democratic fundraising juggernaut behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. That was when Obama proposed a novel challenge aimed at limiting the corrupting influence of money on the race: If he won the nomination, he would limit himself to spending only the $85 million...

I have yet to see anyone take a serious look at how much Obama's proposals will cost. The way I see it, Obama is spending huge amounts and throwing tons of new requirements at employers. Just a few highlights on Obama's list: Tax credits.... -$500 tax credit for 150 million workers.....$75 Billion -Tax credit for the first $4000 of tuition for all college students.....(appox 16 million students)....$64 Billion -Expand EITC 300% for low income workers. -Provide $500 government matching funds for first $1000 in retirement savings -Expand Child Care credit from 35% to 50% of costs Employer Mandates (somehow these...

Just when it appeared House Republicans had turned the corner on earmark reform, party leaders did the unthinkable. They picked pork-loving Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) for the vacant seat on the Appropriations Committee, bypassing conservatives such as Reps. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.). In doing so, the Republicans missed a golden opportunity to show they were committed to real reform.

Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was trying to rush Obama's "Global Poverty Act" (S. 2433) through his committee without hearings. It was scheduled for a Thursday vote but was moved up a day, to Wednesday, and rushed through by voice vote. (snip) The House version (H.R. 1302) was suddenly brought up on the House floor last September 25 and was passed by voice vote.