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Proposed budget deal lifts all spending caps

It appears that the spending in the budget deals being proposed in Congress include hefty spending increases and would also end up lifting all the spending caps imposed by the 2011 budget deal.

In order to secure more money for national defense, Democrats are demanding an equal amount of extra funding for domestic social welfare programs. So to get an additional $108 billion for the Pentagon, the Republicans may agree to another $108 billion-plus in ransom money for domestic agencies. But when all the emergency funding is included, the ratio could be closer to $2 of additional domestic spending for every dollar of increased military funding. What a deal.

If this treasury raid deal gets cut, the budget caps from the 2011 budget act will be officially and irrevocably washed away. So will any pretense of fiscal discipline and debt control. “Almost no one here on either side of the aisle wants to control spending,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky tells me. “It’s sad, but it’s the new reality.”

If he’s right, then any allegiance to spending control has been tossed aside at the very time the debt has been spiraling. The $4 trillion federal budget is expected to exceed $5 trillion within eight years. The $20 trillion debt is already headed to $30 trillion over the next decade — even without this new spending spree.

In other words, the corrupt swamp in Washington, from both parties, continue to win in its desire to empower itself at the cost of the nation.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

17 comments

  • wayne

    Kelthuz
    “Start up the Rotors”
    https://youtu.be/SxrkkmEe80I
    2:47

  • Cotour

    And Trump love, love loves “creative” financing.

    In the end Trump MUST have the Democrats submit, and there is a tremendous amount of leverage coming his way in the form of the imminent prosecutions that will be primarily comprised of high level DEMOCRAT operatives within the FBI and the DOJ and government in general. Does anyone think that Schumers threat to Trump that the Security Services within the government have “6 ways to Sunday to get you” was not based in his knowledge of what is currently coming out?

    Timing is everything in life and timing courts Trump, its just how the universe is laying things out for him. He’s a natural.

  • ken anthony

    Such a deal! Do their dictionaries even include the word “no?”

    Not that it was a good idea, but how did Nixon ever get a freeze?

  • Michael

    ‘“creative” financing.’

    Of course I never ran a country or business but in my experience the ‘creative financing’ concept meant that you could not afford it.

    But then I know I’m a peasant.

  • wayne

    Michael–
    I’m just a peasant as well. I can run QuickBooks pretty well, but I never did discover where the “Create Money” button, was located.

    “Government accounting,” is a sub-specialty unto itself. If you or I kept our books like the Fed’s?–We’d both be in prison.

    tangent– getting a boat-load of “detect street signs” on CAPTHCA. They must be working on edge detection or something– does a sliver of a sign, count?

  • Cotour

    Thats why the word “creative” is in quotes, its a totally subjective interpretation and in politics that could mean just about any perversion of logical thought.

    What you or I would do is entirely removed from what goes on in the finance rich and financially unlimited environment of Washington.

    In the end Trump MUST dominate them all and move positively into the future in some manner with the goal of fulfilling as much as he possibly can before the mid term elections, and then after retaining a majority to continue on like a steam roller.

    “Trump is like negotiating with Jello” C. Schumer. Does he really think that that is by some error or mistake?
    Trump’s M.O. is to create, manifest, generate, recognize leverage and then ruthlessly use it to further his goals.

    And I say that in general is a good thing in this round of political warfare, take no prisoners.

  • Michael

    Cotour

    I am not opposed to the president. I believe I have some small insight into his methods and goals and I support him one hundred per cent.

    He is turning me into a democrat, though. That way when 2020 comes around I will be able to vote for him twice. Should I pass away before then I will be able to vote for him five times.

  • Kirk

    For now they’re just going for a spending authorization through February 8 in exchange for a promise that the Senate will commit to an immigration debate that is “neutral and fair to all sides”.

    By initiating the process of ending DACA and telling Congress to fix it, has the President created the likelihood that it will be replaced with legislation which includes amnesty and a path towards citizenship?

  • Cotour

    The most Trump should be benevolently willing to compromise on is the very specific DACA list of the 800,000 or so minor children that were illegally brought here by their parents and have grown up essentially as Americans, so goes the narrative.

    They should be allowed to stay as a resident, possibly to be renewed every 3 to 5 years with no path to citizenship and they can not vote or serve as anchors for their family’s. Thats it. Everyone else is here illegally and some other solution will have to be arrived at if they want to have working or residence privileges. And I am not sure what that solution might be and it should not include citizenship or voting rights.

    Why? http://www.wnd.com/2018/01/major-state-to-register-illegal-aliens-to-vote-automatically/

    (Something is going to have to be done to deal with sanctuary states and cities who are on this path)

    Anything over and above that will be giving the Democrats who depend on illegal immigration for the growth of their party because they have no other path to power because they only offer cultural dependence via the redistribution of other peoples wealth. Pure Leftist doctrine is a must for them and it must not be allowed to fester any more than it has, in fact it must be erased from our country.

  • Garry

    Overlooked in all this is that under Obama, Congress fell into the habit of not passing budgets; it passed continuing resolutions instead. The fiscal years starts October 1, and I remember in the late 80s there would sometimes be a delay in the start of the fiscal year, which made all kinds of mischief on military operations, maintenance, etc. But to still be passing a budget in late January is ridiculous.

    One of the few things that the Constitution requires Congress to do is pass a budget, yet it has gotten into the habit of not passing budgets. Worse, the media (not just the mainstream media, but all media) very rarely brings this up.

    If I were a reporter, every story I wrote on this budget disagreement would give the background that Congress hasn’t passed a budget in years. If I were Trump, I would push the issue; this seems to be a major opportunity to assert checks and balances.

    I had hope that Trump, being a businessman, would take charge of this issue, but so far I haven’t seen him do much of anything.

  • wodun

    wayne
    January 22, 2018 at 11:18 am

    tangent– getting a boat-load of “detect street signs” on CAPTHCA. They must be working on edge detection or something– does a sliver of a sign, count?

    Ha! Just made a captcha comment on a different post. Why doesn’t Google pay us for all the work we do?

  • wodun

    Kirk
    January 22, 2018 at 2:00 pm

    By initiating the process of ending DACA and telling Congress to fix it, has the President created the likelihood that it will be replaced with legislation which includes amnesty and a path towards citizenship?

    It looks that way to me but I think most people are OK with this as long as the wall and other immigration reforms go with it so that this doesn’t have to happen again.

    This was the trick the Democrats pulled on Reagan and what they tried to do to GWB. Any comprehensive immigration plan has to include immigration reforms that take place immediately and not just amnesty with a promise of addressing other issues at a later date.

  • wayne

    wodun-
    -We’re probably all mining Bit-coin for them.

  • Cotour

    A short tutorial on the depth of the immigration issue:

    The 1965 immigration act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965

    AND WHO IS IT THAT PUT OBAMA IN OFFICE?

    Ted Kennedy gave his blessing and put Obama in office, if you remember. I am certain that Kennedy and Obama understood well the agenda. Obama’s function was to guarantee immigration as structured by Kennedy and the Democrats, and to change the power structure in the middle east form Saudi Arabia to Iran which I have to assume was Tala’s thinking.

    This is all now being being undone.

    Q: Who paid for Obama’s Ivy League education? A: Prince Bin Talal via Dr. Al Mansour, as per Percy Sutton.

    You remember that Prince that I told you about who is right now in prison in Saudi Arabia who’s worth many billions of dollars and owns the Mandalay Bay hotel? They are the same. The Prince “reached out” to Dr. Mansour to finance (Read: Invest) in Obama. https://youtu.be/MIVO8MZYXo8

    “The proponents of the Hart–Celler Act argued that it would not significantly influence United States culture. President Johnson called the bill “not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions.”[16] Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other politicians, including Senator Ted Kennedy, asserted that the bill would not affect US demographic mix.[2] However, the ethnic composition of immigrants changed following the passage of the law.[17][18] Specifically, the Hart–Celler Act allowed increased numbers of people to migrate to the United States from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.”

    “Prior to 1965, the demographics of immigration stood as mostly Europeans; 68 percent of legal immigrants in the 1950s came from Europe and Canada.”

    In other words the Democrats were very deceptive about how this new law would ultimately effect the composition of American immigration and intended it to bulk up their numbers by incentivizing migration using the welfare state (Other peoples money), and the Republicans probably went along with it in order that corporate America would be ensured a supply of cheap, all be it illegal, labor. Now under Trump the immigration issue will again be adjusted, but to who’s advantage? I suspect that the Dems will be taking a hit here as they negotiate with the frustrating “Jello” president.

    These things do not happen by accident, non of it is by accident, its political warfare.

  • Mitch S

    I’m thrilled that Trump won but this is the area I expected him to be weakest.
    Leveraging to the max was his M.O. during his business career.
    In his first book he used the J Paul Getty line (or similar) “If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.”
    But he did end up going bankrupt and losing many properties.
    Where do we go when they finally foreclose on the United States?

    Trump and the other pols (on both sides of the isle) know this isn’t sustainable but they figure they won’t be around when the red ink hits the fan.

  • Cotour

    Charles Schumer who was “Jelloed” by the president attempts to take back his manhood. (Good luck with that) Schumer has been sooo beaten here that he will become very un-agreeable and will attempt to play hard ball with Trump. Schumer does not even understand what just happened to him, not a clue. Why? Because he is used to dealing with actual bowls of jello in the form of run of the mill weak and pliable politicians.

    https://www.mediaite.com/online/chuck-schumer-revokes-deal-to-allocate-funding-for-trumps-border-wall/

    In three weeks is when the real dealing will go down and both Trump and Schumer will be pushed to their max and Trump must in the end come away with the lions share of the deal.

    1. DACA 800,000 OK, no citizenship, renewed every 3 to 5 years.

    2. Possible deal on 2.6 million other “Dreamers” / illegals, no citizenship but renewable residency to those who have no criminal record or gang association (?). I suspect when push comes to shove the Democrats will do anything to have this class of illegals included in some way shape or form, anything. This is Trumps trade off chess piece through which he gets 90 percent of what he wants and needs and is able to in time save face with his base. They will be P.O.ed but their symbolic wall and real immigration change will placate them.

    3. End of train / anchor migration and the reformulation of U.S. immigration law and policy based in merit and stated desire to become American and some clearly described “special” emergency circumstances only.

    4. Full Congressional appropriated funding with a number for the wall whether a combination of physical or virtual and increased Border Patrol capability. And Trump will structure some scheme to have Mexico “pay” for the wall, how ever that will work out.

  • wayne

    Mitch-
    Good stuff.
    (Another Gem is: “Gold is Money, everything else is Credit.”)

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