It ain’t enough but I like the trend: Obama’s new budget to be released tomorrow will promise $1.1 trillion in deficit reduction over next decade.
Bernanke to Congress: We’re much closer to total destruction than you think. Key quote:
One way or the other, fiscal adjustments sufficient to stabilize the federal budget must occur at some point. The question is whether these adjustments will take place through a careful and deliberative process that weighs priorities and gives people adequate time to adjust to changes in government programs or tax policies, or whether the needed fiscal adjustments will come as a rapid and painful response to a looming or actual fiscal crisis.
House Republicans propose even deeper NASA cuts.
The government free ride is ending. If you want us to go into space, you better consider buying a ticket.
Keep those cuts coming! The House GOP today released its 2011 spending bill, claiming to include $100 billion in cuts. It seems that everyone gets hit, even defense. Worst hit, however, is EPA, with a 29% reduction from its 2010 budget.
You can see the summary here. [pdf]
Now for some squealing from the “press”: Tea Party freshmen may rue $100B in cuts. I like this comment in response to the story:
Where was the press when Democrats passed $800 billion in useless stimulus? Where were they when unemployment shot up and over the 8% limit Democrats said we would reach without the lame stimulus? They sure jump up when you come up short on $100 billion in cuts…good luck and go after entitlements, please.
Change! The House kills a decades-old $2.4 billion pork program. Key quote:
The Trade Adjustment Assistance program dates back to the Kennedy-era Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and was expanded under the 1974 Trade Act, signed into law by Gerald Ford. It was the kind of bipartisan program thought to be bulletproof. In the last session, it went from a small program, designed to aid workers displaced by foreign trade, to a huge $2.4 billion pork program providing laid-off workers with 156 weeks of “income support,” subsidies and even education.
SpaceX has put the Dragon 9 space capsule that flew in space on display in D.C. Though it is really cool that they are making the capsule so available to the public, this quote tells us the real story:
With Congress preparing in the weeks ahead to again address the question of government contracts for commercial space businesses such as SpaceX, the company wanted to give it (and attendees of the nearby FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference) an opportunity to see the capsule. Members of Congress and of the Obama administration were invited to attend a Thursday evening viewing, and company officials said the response has been enthusiastic.
Keep this momentum going! The House Republican leadership was forced this week to increase its proposed budget cuts to $100 billion because of tea party movement pressure, both in the House and back at home. Key quote from this New York Times report:
The reversal was the most concrete demonstration yet that the wave of fiscal conservatives who catapulted Republicans into the House majority is reshaping the political and policy calculations being made by the party leadership.
Repeal the damn bill! The director of the Congressional Budget Office admitted today that Obamacare will destroy about 800,000 jobs.
The revolt of the freshman Republicans is working: The House science panel is going to revisit its budget cut proposals for science from yesterday and find ways to cut more.
This is truly hopeful news: Freshman GOP to leadership: Business as usual is over.
Stand by for oinks! The House spending plan would cut billions from federal research agencies such as NIH, NSF, NOAA, NASA, and a host of Department of Energy programs. Specifics at the link.
Repeal the damn bill! The House will vote next week to block all funds to Obamacare.
Oink-oink! Senate Democrats met with lobbyists and special interest groups in a big closed-door meeting on January 24 to plan their opposition to any spending cuts. Key quote:
The Jan. 24 meeting was attended by approximately 400 people, sources told ABC, and served as a “call to arms” for those determined to fight Republican budget cuts.
The first post-2010-election House appropriations committee hearing on NASA’s budget will take place this week. Key quote:
“The goal of the hearings is to help identify top management challenges and find ways to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in these respective departments and agencies,” the chairman of the CJS subcommittee, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA)
Fed chairman Bernanke issued a grim warning yesterday about the federal government’s overwhelming debt. Key quote:
The national debt is currently about 60 percent of the economy, or Gross Domestic Product, [Bernanke] said, adding that it is projected to reach 90 percent of GDP by 2020 and 150 percent of GDP by 2030. But Bernanke’s citation of $9.5 trillion in national debt didn’t include the $4.6 trillion owed by the government to trust funds for things such as Social Security and Medicare, which have paid out cash to the Treasury in exchange for promisory notes. The full national debt – when both forms of debt are included – is already just under 100 percent of GDP, which is currently around $14.6 trillion.
Go Rand Go! Senator Paul accuses Republicans of being too wimpy in their recent budget proposals.
This closer look at the GOP’s proposed budget cuts will give you an idea which pigs are about to squeal.
Update: In fact, the squeals have already started, among Senate Democrats.
The pigs are winning! A GOP budget proposal offered today only proposes $32 billion in budget cuts for this year, rather than the $100 billion they promised during the campaign.
By a vote of 51-47, the Senate today rejected a full repeal of ObamaCare. A second vote, 81-17, did repeal the 1099 tax paperwork provision.
No surprises here. This just illustrates the need to throw more of these clowns out of office in 2012. For one thing, many of the 81 Senators who voted to repeal the 1099 tax provision had voted for it only 10 months ago. Have they finally learned to read?
I guess it was the supermarket confrontation that’s making Harry Reid do it: The Senate may vote today on the repeal of Obamacare.
Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) was confronted in a supermarket on Saturday over his refusal to allow a vote on the repeal of Obamacare.
A Senate vote to repeal Obamacare could come as early as this week.
Repeal it already! From the courts to the White House, everyone knows this law is a turkey.
Big news! A Florida judge today has ruled the entire Obamacare law is unconstitutional. Key quote:
In his ruling, Judge Roger Vinson, a Republican appointee, said that the law’s requirement to carry insurance or pay a fee “is outside Congress’ Commerce Clause power, and it cannot be otherwise authorized by an assertion of power under the Necessary and Proper Clause. It is not constitutional.” The ruling also said that the entire law “must be declared void,” because the mandate to carry insurance is “not severable” from the rest of the law. [emphasis mine]
Repeal it already! Another US judge is expected to rule on Obamacare today. Key quote:
The judge, Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court in Pensacola, Florida, was expected to rule on a lawsuit brought by governors and attorneys general from 26 U.S. states, almost all of whom are Republicans. Obama is a Democrat. The plaintiffs represent more than half the U.S. states, so the Pensacola case has more prominence than some two dozen lawsuits filed in federal courts over the healthcare law.
And you still think NASA (or any other federal program) is going to get a lot of money? The Congressional Budget office (CBO) admitted today that Social Security is now officially broke. Key quote:
The CBO’s revenue/expenditure estimates now place the program in permanent deficit. There had been some hope that payroll taxes would recover sufficiently post-recession to put the program back into the black (the theoretical black) for at least a few more years, putting off the day of reckoning for an election cycle or more. No more: The new CBO estimates put Social Security in the red for as far as the eye can see. [emphasis mine]
Wayne Hale nails NASA’s biggest spaceflight problem. Key quote: “We always stop.”
Though the money is not yet appropriated by Congress, NASA has set the date, June 28, for a third and final space shuttle mission.
More progress: Republicans in Congress say there will be no bailout for the states.
It’s just a start: GOP set to roll out $2.5 trillion in cuts over next 10 years.
