The Elmendorf Rule

[Geee]

Human Events:

WASHINGTON -- Here we go again. An approaching crisis. A looming deadline. Nervous markets. And then, from the miasma of gridlock, rises our president, calling upon those unruly congressional children to quit squabbling, stop kicking the can down the road and get serious about debt.

This from the man who:

-- Ignored the debt problem for two years by kicking the can to a commission.

-- Promptly ignored the commission's December 2010 report.

-- Delivered a State of the Union address in January that didn't even mention the word "debt" until 35 minutes in.

-- Delivered in February a budget so embarrassing -- it actually increased the deficit -- that the Democratic-controlled Senate rejected it 97-0.

-- Took a budget mulligan with his April 13 debt-plan speech. Asked in Congress how this new "budget framework" would affect the actual federal budget, Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf replied with a devastating "We don't estimate speeches." You can't assign numbers to air.

President Obama assailed the lesser mortals who inhabit Congress for not having seriously dealt with a problem he had not dealt with at all, then scolded Congress for being even less responsible than his own children. They apparently get their homework done on time.

My compliments. But the Republican House did do its homework. It's called a budget. It passed the House on April 15. The Democratic Senate has produced no budget. Not just this year, but for two years running. As for the schoolmaster-in-chief, he produced two 2012 budget facsimiles: The first (February) was a farce and the second (April) was empty, dismissed by the CBO as nothing but words untethered to real numbers.

Obama has run disastrous annual deficits of around $1.5 trillion while insisting for months on a "clean" debt-ceiling increase, i.e., with no budget cuts at all. Yet suddenly he now rises to champion major long-term debt reduction, scorning any suggestions of a short-term debt-limit deal as can-kicking.

[righteousmomma]

LOVE THIS!!

 

GEEE, this is a great birthday present for you. Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

And what have been Obama's own debt-reduction ideas? In last week's news conference, he railed against the tax break for corporate jet owners -- six times.

 

I did the math. If you collect that tax for the next 5,000 years -- that is not a typo -- it would equal the new debt Obama racked up last year alone. To put it another way, if we had levied this tax at the time of John the Baptist and collected it every year since -- first in shekels, then in dollars -- we would have 500 years to go before we could offset half of the debt added by Obama last year alone.

 

Obama's other favorite debt-reduction refrain is canceling an oil-company tax break. Well, if you collect that oil tax and the corporate jet tax for the next 50 years -- you will not yet have offset Obama's deficit spending for February 2011.

 

After his Thursday meeting with bipartisan Congressional leadership, Obama adopted yet another persona: Cynic-in-chief became compromiser-in-chief. Highly placed leaks are portraying him as heroically prepared to offer Social Security and Medicare cuts.

[NCTexan]

 

FECKLESS

 

feckless

Adj. 1. feckless - not fit to assume responsibility

irresponsible - showing lack of care for consequences; "behaved like an irresponsible idiot"; "hasty and irresponsible action"

2. feckless - generally incompetent and ineffectual; "feckless attempts to repair the plumbing"; "inept handling of the account"

inept

incompetent - not qualified or suited for a purpose; "an incompetent secret service"; "the filming was hopeless incompetent"

 

[Valin]

WASHINGTON -- Here we go again. An approaching crisis. A looming deadline. Nervous markets. And then, from the miasma of gridlock, rises our president, calling upon those unruly congressional children to quit squabbling, stop kicking the can down the road and get serious about debt.

 

 

Translation: Do what I want, because I'm President, and I can read a teleprompter....Gotta go Tee Time you know.

[Argyle58]

It will be interesting to see:

 

1. If Boehner and the Republicans can hold their ground, and

 

2. How the "o" will handle his anger if they actually pull it off.

[Valin]

It will be interesting to see:

 

1. If Boehner and the Republicans can hold their ground, and

 

If they don't As others have said there's another election coming Nov. 2012.

I don't expect them to get everything...but they damn well better get a lot. Time for game playing is over.

 

Hugh Hewitt: Would A Tax Hike Bring A Leadership Challenge In The House GOP Caucus?

 

 

That's the question the MSM isn't asking but should be. The freshmen class can no more vote for a tax hike than than they can register as democrats for their re-elect campaigns.

 

Nor will John Boehner or Eric Cantor ask them to do so. Neither Boehner nor Cantor believes the problem is a lack of revenues, and given the size and scope of their win last year, there isn't a need to pretend to compromise. The electorate doesn't want compromise. It wants deep and meaningful cuts, the sort of sacrifice that ordinary Americans have been making for three years.

 

(Snip)

 

 

Speaking only for myself....I want to see a federal agency shut down...Dept. of Education...Dept. of Energy, come to mind almost immediately.

[Argyle58]

 

 

Speaking only for myself....I want to see a federal agency shut down...Dept. of Education...Dept. of Energy, come to mind almost immediately.

 

 

If I were making a list, I think that I would put the EPA at the top of it and go from there.