“We Don’t Have a Debt Crisis.”

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

Well, if Barack Obama says it is ‘true’, that must mean it is true!

Even his own Budget Commission, Co-Chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, strongly disagree with him. Apparently they don’t know what the heck they are talking about in President Obama’s distinguished economic opinion.

If we don’t have a ‘debt crisis’ today since we have added $7 trillion in national debt in 4 years under President Obama, after adding $6 trillion in 8 years under President Bush 43, when will we have a debt crisis then, Mr. President? Continue reading →

Power of a Balanced Budget

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

In 1995, at Xerox Document University, Newt Gingrich and John Kasich convinced the revolutionary class of 1994 and reluctant old-timers to work together to produce the first balanced budget in a generation.

Kasich’s budget included a pro-growth tax reform agenda and some painful cuts to some entitlement programs, chiefly Medicare and Medicaid.

Republicans passed that first balanced budget, and through some luck and some unforeseen economic growth, the budget magically balanced three years later. Continue reading →

Fun in Functional

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Last night, as I welcomed a group of executives from the American Public Transportation Association, I said the following:  “Welcome to Washington, where we put the fun in dysfunction.  Well, at least it is fun for us.”

I then pointed out, “most economists think that the best thing you can do for the American people is to come up with a short-term plan to boost economic growth and a long-term plan to deal with our long-term fiscal crisis. What did the politicians do? They came up with short-term plan that could stall Continue reading →

You Can’t Spend What You Can’t See

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

America Held Hostage: Sequester Day 11

Although it hasn’t made much news, what with the world missing a Pope, the Senate missing an on-the-floor bathroom, Venezuela missing a President, and President Hamid Karzai missing a press conference with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel; but President Barack Obama has missed the deadline for producing a budget document for the United States.

It’s not as if the whole government spending thing hasn’t been a big deal in Washington. You might have been following along as Republicans and Continue reading →

Obama the Space Invader

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

When I was a teenager, Space Invaders was one of most popular video games.  The premise, for those who have recently arrived from space, was pretty simple: Shoot down incoming missiles that descended from the sky before they landed on your missile silos.

We seem to live increasingly in a space invader world.

Things keep coming down from the sky and it is getting harder and harder to shoot them down. Continue reading →

If We’ve Lost Walter…

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

America Held Hostage: Sequester Day 8

It didn’t snow in DC on Wednesday so I spent the entire afternoon watching Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) filibustering the nomination of John Brennan to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Sen. Paul’s issue wasn’t with Brennan; it was with the refusal of President Barack Obama to describe his position on using drones to kill people generally, and Americans in particular, on U.S. soil. Continue reading →

Republican’s RINO Problem

BY MICKEY EDWARDS

It has become common in recent years for self-described Republican “conservatives” to target for defeat in party primaries those candidates (including incumbent officeholders) whom they consider Republicans In Name Only (“RINOs).

This purification process is based on the rational view that if one believes in party-based governance, Republican voters should elect those candidates who most accurately reflect what the party stands for. It’s a view that confuses America’s constituent-based governing system with the parliamentary systems the Founders rejected (for good reason) but I’m willing to accept the anti-RINO logic even if based on a faulty premise. Continue reading →

Petulance

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

America Held Hostage: Sequester Day 6

President Barack Obama has shut the White House to visitors. A notice went out yesterday saying that due to the personnel reductions required by the sequester, there will be no public tours after Friday. According to USA Today a recording on the White House tour line was as follows: “Due to staffing reductions resulting from sequestration, we regret to inform you that White House Tours will be canceled effective Saturday, March 9, 2013, until further notice. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reschedule affected tours …”

In case anyone was too dense to get to the “baby puppies, calves, lambs, and kittens will die” part of the announcement, this: “We very much regret having to take this action, particularly during the popular spring tour season.” Continue reading →

Greatest of the Greatest Generation

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Missing one day of work over 19 years is impressive for just about anybody. But it is more impressive when the person missing that one day of work started his new job at age 71 and is still plugging along at age 90.

Washington celebrated Bob Michel’s 90th birthday last night. And ole Bob gave some pretty good advice to all of his friends about longevity.

He told the assorted crowd, which included over the evening former Speakers of the House Tom Foley, Newt Gingrich, Denny Hastert and Nancy Pelosi, as Continue reading →

Tag Teaming Obama

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Don’t tell the Tea Party, but the tag team of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are currently mopping the floor with Barack Obama.

The president convincingly won a second term in November, but since that time, the congressional Republican leadership has outfoxed, outmaneuvered and plain out-strategized him on just about every issue. Continue reading →

L.E.G.A.C.Y.

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

For the next 1,418 days the top issue on the mind of President Barack Obama and his ever-tightening inner circle will involve the six letters: L.E.G.A.C.Y.

Just as years three and four were totally focused on the President’s re-election; so the last two years of his second term will be focused on the legacy he leaves behind.

Will it be Jimmy Carter’s well-intentioned ineptness? Or FDR’s history changing vision?

One thing is for sure: unless the Democrats win control of the House and maintain control of the Senate Obama’s legacy will be an eight-letter word: Gridlock. Continue reading →

Obama Has Overplayed His Hand

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

This ‘Dreaded Sequester’ will apparently only cut $42B out of this year’s fiscal budget. Not $85B as previously reported and feared.

That is according to CBO. That is also less than 1 penny out of every dollar the federal government spends this year. Even Joe Scarborough says so although Mika would disagree with him, of course.

Have you had to cut back a little more than 1 penny per dollar in your spending these past 4 years? Betcha have.

1 penny. Less than 1% of the budget this year. Continue reading →

Most Conservative POTUS in American History?

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

Think about the things ‘very conservative’, ‘far right-wing’, ‘ultra-conservatives’ have wanted to achieve in Congress over the past 40 years.

We’ll give you two hints:
– Long-term, permanent lower tax rates.
– Spending cuts in many bloated federal programs.

Just try to remember the headlines in the liberal media, both electronic and in print, whenever Presidents Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43 or Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to cut taxes or spending since 1980: Continue reading →

Richard Milhous Obama

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Well, well, well. Here we are. March first. Sequester day. America Held Hostage; Day One.

President Obama has been criss-crossing the country proclaiming the dire effects of March 1 if the Republicans in the House didn’t bow to his demands. We don’t know what his demands are, but he spent a lot of money accusing the GOP of not caving into them.

The Department of Homeland Security is made up, apparently, of the only group of people in America that believed Obama. A division of DHS got a jump on Sequester Day by letting “several hundred” illegal aliens who were in jail, out of jail and into what a spokesperson called “placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release. Continue reading →

The Woodward Fracas

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Bob Woodward doesn’t think much of the Obama White House. You can tell that he doesn’t believe that the President is much of a President. And now the White House is making it pretty clear that it doesn’t think much of Bob Woodward.

This has all come to light in recent days in a bizarre he-said he-said tussle between the veteran Post reporter and Gene Sperling, Obama’s diminutive economic whiz. Politico did a story that said that Sperling threatened Woodward during the course of the argument. The White House pushed back hard and then released the entire email that seemed, in isolation, to be cordial enough.

What it didn’t release was the transcript of the thirty minute screaming match that apparently precipitated the email exchange. Continue reading →

How To Go $16.5 Trillion in Debt

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

A recent poll by the Pew organization showed that while those of us in our Nation’s Capital and the 2,375 people who watch cable chat shows are consumed by the looming sequester, the other 75% of Americans are just shrugging, sighing, and smiling knowingly that the world will go on after Friday.

The underlying issue about the size of the deficit (about $1 trillion for FY 2013) and the national debt (a touch under $16.6 trillion) is the way the government spends our money.

Not its money. Our money. Continue reading →

Paranoia Will Destroy Us

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The Blade Runner was paranoid.

South African Olympic track star Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his beautiful girl-friend and those gun-shots have been heard around the world.

We don’t know if the no-legged phenom was paranoid over a potential intruder (as he maintains) or was paranoid over the beauty’s faithfulness (which the police could charge), but we do know that paranoia played a role.

Paranoia plays a huge role in our national political discussion. Despite the fact that crime is at historic lows, everybody is paranoid that the bad guys are coming to rob them. Continue reading →

Moving Pictures

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The other day, the President railed against Congressional (read: Republican) inaction on averting the sequester by giving a speech while surrounded by uniformed policemen. The picture was designed to make the point that if the automatic cuts go into effect, people across the country will lose police protection.

Back when mules were the principal form of transportation, I was a member of the City Council of Marietta, Ohio 45750. One of my committee assignments was as chairman of the Police and Fire Committee. Continue reading →

Conflicting Interests

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The New York Times ran a story about a staff hire in Senator Reid’s office.  It was your typical cynical report about the “revolving door,” in the world of politics.  Here is an excerpt:

“Take what happened late last month as Washington geared up for more fights about taxing, spending, and the deficit. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, decided to bolster his staff’s expertise on taxes. Continue reading →

See…Seekwes…Sequestration.

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The latest projectile-sweat-producing event in our nation’s capital is the looming automatic cuts in the federal budget known as “sequestration.”

Sequestration is not a word we get to use every day in a sentence, most of us, but it is fun to say because we get to use the tip and the back of our tongues to say it.

According to Webster’s, sequestration is a 14th century word from the Latin sequesrare – to hand over to a trustee or some other third party. Today it is an Continue reading →