Free Republic

It's been going around Facebook and the Twitters.It's been rated “mostly true” by Politifact.It is the MarketWatch piece on how Obama hasn't really increased spending all that much.And I'm damn tired of picking it apart 140 characters at a time, so I put together this sarcastic infographic showing exactly how sloppy this piece really is.There are two things in this infographic that should be called out more explicitly.First, much of the debate here centers around who exactly should catch the blame for FY 2009 spending. This is actually a very tricky question and I think compelling cases can be made...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a quarter-billion dollars’ worth of tax increases into law on Tuesday. The move is meant to keep the state’s ever-expanding budget on a path toward growth. “Growth” is the last thing the private-sector economy is going to see in the Free State. According to the latest Labor Department figures, Maryland lost 6,000 jobs in April, the largest such drop in the nation. Unless the General Assembly and the governor begin to rethink their free-spending ways, Maryland soon will be in the fiscal hole like California and Greece. Like a good Democrat, Mr. O'Malley has taken...

White House calls 'BS' on GOP criticism of Obama spendingBy Jonathan Easley - 05/23/12 11:58 AM ET White House press secretary Jay Carney ripped GOP criticism about spending under the Obama administration, calling it “BS.” Carney also said reporting on the GOP criticism without exploring the counter-argument is “a sign of sloth and laziness” during an exchange Wednesday with reporters on Air Force One. “Do not buy into the BS that you hear,” Carney said, according to tweets and reports from multiple reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday. Carney, a former reporter, read a passage from an article by...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree. As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.” Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true. But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower...

Gov. Jerry Brown promised not to follow the lead of his predecessors, to right the ship of state and to make the hard decisions in order to get the state budget into shape. How did that work out? As economist Thomas Sowell says, “The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them, and only in the short run.” But maybe that’s not the full explanation. There seems ample evidence that maybe Brown’s truthful,...

President Obama boasts on Twitter that spending, taxes and deficits are all below where they were when he took office. The truth is, he inherited a bad situation and made it worse.

A provision for a uranium-enrichment plant in Ohio keeps cropping up all over Capitol Hill: $150 million in the Senate’s highway bill, $150 million in a Senate energy bill, $100 million in that bill’s House counterpart. There’s even talk of putting it in a final House-Senate transportation bill. Weren’t grants like this — earmarks by another name — supposed to be banished by Republicans in Congress? Yes. And for most lawmakers, they are. But the earmark has the top two Republicans in Congress on its side: House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). And...

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas legislators restarted tax cut negotiations Tuesday, but senators quickly discovered they have less room than they'd hoped to bargain with House members as they try to modify aggressive income tax reductions that already have cleared the Legislature. Three senators and three House members discussed drafting an alternative proposal that would replace one approved last week. The previous cuts individual income tax rates and eliminates income taxes for 191,000 partnerships, sole proprietorships and other businesses. Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who's pushed the GOP-controlled Legislature to lower income taxes, has encouraged lawmakers to keep negotiating.

President Obama asked voters to forgive him if he sometimes fails to feel their pain over lost employment, foreclosed homes, and mounting personal debt. “I've led kind of a sheltered life,” the President admitted. “I went to private schools when I was young. I had a scholarship to go to college. I never really had to worry about working to pay my own way. Now, of course, as President, I live in a big house with dozens of servants. I have my own jumbo jet to fly me wherever I want. So, you can see how it might be hard...

It was alarming the first three or four times California was ranked last among 50 states for business environment. Now, Chief Executive magazine's annual ranking, based on a survey of 650 chief executives on taxation, regulation, workforce quality and living environment, again places California dead last, 50th of 50 – for the eighth year in a row. Eight years in a row ceases to be alarming. It now is a defining status. ...In magazine’s CEO survey, state “appears to slip deeper into the ninth circle of business hell.” ...

From the U.K. Spectator's report on the amazing success of supply-side economics in Sweden, and finance minister Anders Borg, the man behind it: "When Europe’s finance ministers meet for a group photo, it’s easy to spot the rebel — Anders Borg (pictured above) has a ponytail and earring. What actually marks him out, though, is how he responded to the crash. While most countries in Europe borrowed massively, Borg did not. Since becoming Sweden’s finance minister, his mission has been to pare back government. His ‘stimulus’ was a permanent tax cut. To critics, this was fiscal lunacy. Borg, on...

Democrats say that the angry, anti-austerity elections this week that saw voters throw out reform-minded French and Greek leaders could be good news for them, a signal that their plan to spend billions more than the Republicans is a vote winner. Those elections “confirm the position that many of us have taken, which is the most important thing right now is to sustain and nurture the very fragile economy,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the ranking member of the House Budget Committee. “While we have to develop and implement a long-term deficit reduction plan, we should be very careful...

Austerity is destroying Europe, we are told. In fact, this “anti-austerity” slogan was a big reason for the victory of newly elected socialist François Hollande to the presidency of France. Interviewed in The Economist a few weeks ago, Hollande’s campaign director said “We are not disciples of savage spending cuts.”But then, I look at the data and I am asking: What “savage” spending cuts?Look at this chart. It is based on Eurostat data which you can find here. Following years of large spending increases, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, and Greece — countries widely cited for adopting austerity measures...

The government is getting smaller under President Obama, proclaimed an astonishing headline in the New York Times last Friday. Really? For the first time in 40 years, the government sector of the American economy has shrunk during the first three years of a presidential administration.Spending by the federal government, adjusted for inflation, has risen at a slow rate under President Obama. But that increase has been more than offset by a fall in spending by state and local governments, which have been squeezed by weak tax receipts.In the first quarter of this year, the real gross domestic product for the...

Paul Krugman continues his Chicken Little tour in service to his new book, End This Depression Now!, by giving the Obama campaign a little free advice. Did I say “free”? Actually, it comes at a steep, steep price: In his book, which hit shelves May 1, Krugman laments the “shadow of economic catastrophe” we live in, and the opportunity cost of huge stockpiles of underutilized human and physical capital. The government should put that to work, Krugman says, first by reversing the state layoffs of teachers, firefighters and other employees, and then ideally with a New Deal-style public works push...

President Obama is presiding over a corrupt administration. In fact, the moral rot renders America an international laughingstock. Mr. Obama has created a political culture of arrogance and abuse of power that is infecting every segment of the federal government. The U.S. Secret Service is a case in point. Hookergate has shaken the agency to its very foundations. Secret Service agents went wild in Cartagena, Colombia, prior to a recent summit attended by Mr. Obama and other world leaders. A dozen agents and more than 10 military personnel have been implicated so far. Bar hopping, boozing and soliciting prostitutes —...

With the Maryland General Assembly looking toward two possible special sessions this year, some lawmakers are calling for an expanded agenda to address long-term transportation funding. Gov. Martin O'Malley and House leaders have made clear that they want to devote a May special session exclusively to passing new revenue and income-tax increases to supplement a $35.4-billion budget that currently includes more than $500 million in cuts because of the assembly’s failure to pass a revenue package during the regular session. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, said Tuesday that is his only priority for a May special session. Other proposals would have...

ANNAPOLIS — Gov. Martin O'Malley emerged Tuesday from a much-anticipated meeting with the state’s two leading lawmakers and revealed that he is not only leaning toward calling a special session, but he might even call two of them. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, said he hopes to bring the General Assembly back into session by mid-May so legislators can pass a set of tax and revenue increases to erase $512 million in cuts that were put into place when the assembly adjourned April 9. The governor said he wants to focus strictly on finances and hold off on debating a gambling...

Runaway spending is causing our doom, so why not spend a bit more. This time to pander to the youth in our country: Obama told the students that since they were born, tuition and fees at colleges have doubled. “And that forces students like you to take on a lot more loans, there are fewer grants, you rack up a lot more debt,” Obama stated. “Can I get an Amen for that?” he asked the crowd who cheered, “AMEN!” “Now, the average student who borrows to pay for college, now graduates with with about $25,000 in debt, that’s the average,...