Tag Archives: budget

Super Committee = FAIL

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The conventional wisdom out of Washington is that the Super Committee will not reach an agreement to cut between $1.2 and $1.5 trillion dollars over the next ten years.

That same narrative holds that the six Representatives (3 Rs – 3 Ds) and six Senators (3 Rs – 3 Ds) who were picked to serve on the Super Committee by their leaders have failed in their mission to effect real change in the tax code, in entitlement, and in the trajectory of federal spending.

I disagree.

I believe that the need to appoint a Super Committee in the first place was a failure of governance on the part of both parties, in both Chambers and, just to complete the rogues’ gallery, on the part of the President of the United States.

We pay rank-and-file Representatives and Senators $174,000 per year. Members of the Leadership get about $20,000 more. The Speaker’s salary is $223,500.

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The Man Behind The Last Balanced Budgets We Will Ever See

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus

I had the distinct honor and privilege recently to introduce two talented men with high levels of expertise in the private sector who willingly straddled the line between private and public life early in their political careers and then devoted themselves completely later to serve our state and nation, former North Carolina Governor Jim Martin and Congressman Alex McMillan.

The event was the First Annual Mecklenburg GOP Martin-McMillan Day which is a fitting title given that both men served on the Mecklenburg County Commission before Mr. McMillan followed Mr. Martin as the Representative of the 9th Congressional District when Martin ran for Governor in 1984 and served for 2 successful terms.

The lists of the accumulated achievements of both men would take too long to recount here. Suffice it to say: ‘We were all fortunate they chose to take their private sector expertise into the political arena and serve us in the public trust.’ Continue reading →

Krauthammer Wrong, Politics Dysfunctional

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

My daughter was in Canada recently and went into a gift shop to buy a souvenir.  She handed the clerk U.S. dollars and the clerk called the manager over to get the most recent exchange rate. “We don’t take American money anymore,” the manager said. “Things are so unpredictable down there, we never know what the dollar is worth.”

Early in August, 5,000 Federal Aviation workers were thrown out of work without pay, along with thousands of construction workers because Congress couldn’t get its act together and reauthorize the agency. Workers were left without income to pay mortgages, car payments and buy groceries. Continue reading →

Budget By the Numbers: Facts Help

BY FRANK HILL

Reprinted from telemachus.com

You are going to be hearing an awful lot about ‘spending this’ and ‘not spending that’ over the next several months from President Obama, Congress and the ‘Super Commission’ charged with the responsibility to do what Congress should have done for the past decade, truth be told.

Achieving ‘World Peace’ might be an easier objective.
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Count the M&Ms

BY FRANK HILL

Reprinted from telemachus.com

 There has been a lot of braying and bleating from the President to the leaders in Congress about the significance of this most-recently passed budget agreement that averted the shutdown of the federal government yesterday.

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Another Jacksonian Era

BY RICH GALEN

Reprinted from mullings.com

The deal to head off a government shutdown Friday night got done because a guy named Barry Jackson said it was done. Not one second before.

I have no – zero – inside info on what in the press world is known as a “tick-tock” who said what to whom, and when they said it. I am not one of Barry Jackson’s pals. I’m not even sure who they might be.

But, I have known Barry Jackson for about 15 years and I know this: He has the ability to focus in on a problem not like a laser – that would be too diffused; but like the beam of sub-atomic matter zooming around a particle accelerator.

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Get New Scorecard for Judging Value

BY RICH GALEN

Reprinted from mullings.com

We need a new way of keeping score when it comes to government spending. The only test is: How much did we spend on a program last year and how much more (or, rarely, less) are we spending this year.

There is no mention of whether the program in question is working well, badly, or not at all. There is no consideration of whether there is a more efficient way to deliver whatever services or goods are involved in the program.

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Thune Budget Reforms Deserve Attention

BY GARY ANDRES

 Reprinted from weeklystandard.com

The View’s hostesses probably won’t invite Senator John Thune on the show to discuss his new budget proposal. Ideas this thoughtful rarely attract pop culture media attention.

Despite the glitterati’s lack of interest, the South Dakota senator’s new plan to restore fiscal discipline should become a cause for decision-makers and regular Americans alike.

President Obama, on the other hand, has no problems finding his way to a daytime TV set.  But when it comes to curbing red ink, he disappears when others yell “Action!”

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