Bernanke to Congress: We’re Much Closer to Total Destruction Than You Think

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.

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Cutting the Full $100 Billion

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.

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Are Health-Care Waivers Unconstitutional?

Are the more than 700 waivers to Obamacare that the Obama administration has handed out unconstitutional? The final paragraph sums it up well:

Waivers can be used for good purposes. But since the time of Matthew Paris [around 1251], they have been recognized as a power above the law โ€” a power used by government to co-opt powerful constituencies by freeing them from the law. Like old English kings, the current administration is claiming such a power to decide that some people do not have to follow the law. This is dangerous, above the law, and unauthorized by the Constitution.

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Bernanke headlines a day of grim warnings about the nationโ€™s fiscal standing

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 Bernankeโ€™s citation of $9.5 trillion in national debt didnโ€™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 โ€“ when both forms of debt are included โ€“ is already just under 100 percent of GDP, which is currently around $14.6 trillion.

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Senate Rejects Full ObamaCare Repeal but Votes To Kill โ€˜1099โ€™ Provision

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?

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White House quietly exempts friends from Obamacare

Repeal the damn bill! And even the White House agrees as it quietly exempts its political friends from Obamacare. Key quote:

How can you get your own free pass from Obamacare? Maybe you can just donate $27 million to President Obamaโ€˜s campaign efforts. Thatโ€™s what Andy Stern did as president of SEIU in 2008. He has been the most frequent guest at Mr. Obamaโ€˜s White House.

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