A Win for America!

Senate Democrats lost this week in their attempt to burden the American public and future generations with a massive omnibus-spending bill. Senator Harry Reid was unable to gather the necessary 60 votes to end debate on the bill introduced earlier this week. Obviously, no one had bothered to read the 1,924 page monstrosity but the few details that came out related to the bill made it unpopular amongst the American public. Democrats tried to add multiple earmarks to the bill that were earlier requested by Republicans to try and increase the likelihood that the bill would pass. The over 6,400 earmarks totaled about $8 billion out of the more than $1.24 trillion bill, but they symbolized everything that is wrong with Washington and how it operates. Senator Reid thought that he had nine Republicans supporting the bill, but once the American public heard about the bill and expressed their disgust for the typical Washington operations and let out a huge, “Hell NO” response to the absurd bill.

One of the great differences in Washington mentality between the Republicans and the Democrats could be summed up with this one bill. The Democrats supported a 1,924 page bill that most likely never read, while the Republicans supported a one page continuing resolution to keep the government open for a short term. I guess the Democrats didn’t believe the American public spoke earlier this November when they spoke with overwhelming volume that the same old same old Washington operations must change. It looks like starting now; things are beginning to do just that! Republicans will have to draft budgets and spending bills. Let’s hope that they understood the message of the past elections and pass spending bills that the keep the government open but without all the massive extra spending. Hopefully, they don’t use the past year as the budget base lines for each of the government agencies, since they were dramatically increased with the stimulus bill. Rather use as the budget from a few years ago as the base line.

Senate Omnibus bill

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided that in order to fund the federal government for the 2011 fiscal year, which started October 1, 2010, that the Senate would try to pass an Omnibus Spending bill that totaled 1,924 pages and would cost the American taxpayer $1.25 trillion. The federal government runs out of money on Saturday, so in order to keep the government running some sort of spending bill must be passed this week.

Much has been made about this piece of legislation introduced by Hawaii Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The fact that it is 1,924 pages long, totals in excess of $1.25 trillion and includes by some estimates over 6,500 earmarks doesn’t seem to concern Senator Reid. Did he skip over the election results this past November? Does he seem to forget that the American public don’t want excessive spending, including pork barrel earmarks? Over $8 billion in the recent draft are earmarks. Some of the earmarks are for such needed items as $1 billion for the implementation of ObamaCare.

Senator Jim DeMint has decided that in accordance with Senate rules, that the entire bill will be read aloud. Senate staff anticipates that this endeavor will take approximately forty hours. The federal government runs out of money on Saturday, so that leaves very little time to pass a bill to fund the government. That leaves only a few days for the Senate to conclude its yearly business before the scheduled Christmas and New Years break. A very big vote will have to be taken to see if the bill would get the needed sixty votes to end debate. Currently, there doesn’t seem to be consensus as to whether or not this bill will hit that mark. Anticipating the fact that the bill likely won’t get out of the Senate, the House has passed a continuing resolution that would fund the government at its current levels.

Democrats in the House and Senate have put the country in this position for their lack of work over the past year. Why didn’t the Congress take up any appropriations bills prior to the start of the fiscal year? Why did Congress decide to delay until the very last minute to write a piece of legislation with a cost of over $1 trillion that would keep the government open? Isn’t it the job of Congress to write and pass legislation that would keep open the government? Is it because they know that the American public is opposed to such wasteful spending? That prior to the election and now especially in the wake of the election results, that the Congress would finally listen to their employers and pass a simple bill without all the excess pork barrel spending? The Democrats were afraid to bring this legislation up before the election because they knew that the American public would not like it and would vote against Democrats for supporting this type of wasteful spending. So, following an election defeat, they have decided that in order to keep open the government, they must pass this terrible piece of legislation. Hopefully, the Senate bill will be defeated and a simple continuing resolution will be passed and the next Congress can do its job and pass a budget to keep open the government and fund Maybe they will even fund it at the 2008 levels where the recent massive increase in government spending over the past two years won’t be the base lines. We as tax payers can only hope!

What a strange weekend it was...

This past weekend, the National Football League had a series of bizarre situations that has led to one of the strangest weeks ever in the NFL. The strange situation started Saturday afternoon when the New York Giants were on their way to Minneapolis for their game Sunday afternoon against the Vikings. Their plane was diverted to Kansas City, where they were stuck in the airport for a few hours while the Minneapolis airport stopped accepting flights. Eventually, they spent the night in Kansas City and Sunday morning the NFL announced that the game would be played on Monday night in Detroit. Folks tat had tickets for the game in Minnesota could use those tickets while the NFL gave away free, first come first serve general admission tickets at Ford Field. According to press reports, people started lining up for tickets in Detroit at 2:00am. Many have seen the video of the snow coming through the roof of the MetroDome. Who would have thought that the city of Detroit would host two NFL games this weekend?

Another strange event happened in Washington, DC during the Washington Redskins – Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. The Redskins were trailing the Buccaneers, and started a last minute drive to try and tie the score. The Skins moved the ball down the field and finally ended up with the ball close to the goal line. Watching the game on television, on first down, the Skins gained nine yards to set up second and one. The Skins ran four additional plays, with the final play being a touchdown. However, it appeared as though the Skins got an extra play since they didn’t get a first down. The touchdown didn’t affect the final score since the Skins missed the extra point and lost by a point.

The most disgusting incident of the day happened during the Miami Dolphins – New York Jets game. On a punt by the Dolphins, Dolphins cornerback Nolan Carroll was running down the sideline to cover the punt and the Jets strength and conditioning coach, Sal Alosi, stuck out his knee and tripped Carroll. Carroll stayed on the ground for a few minutes and was helped off the field by the Dolphins trainers. TV commentator, Dan Fouts couldn’t believe what had just happened. He might have replayed the play five or six times and each time mentioned how disgusting the play was. According to press reports, Mr. Alosi allegedly called both Dolphins coach Tony Sparano and Nolan Carroll prior to their flight back to Florida to apologize. Everything about this play was terrible. Every child that plays sports learns certain things about sportsmanship and any idiot would know that what Alosi did was wrong. Now the ig question is what type of punishment should he get? The league has fined and suspended other front office personnel who get arrested for drunk driving, so you can be sure that they will punish Alosi. The question is will it match the crime? Unless the NFL fines him at least $50,000 and then the Jets fire him, the punishment is way too light. This act was terrible and sends the wrong message to every kid who watches and follows the NFL. It would basically be saying that cheating is ok, as long as you play/work for a team that the league likes and wants to promote. It will be interesting to see what happens.

No matter whether you enjoy the NFL or not, this week provided a lot of strange situations that will probably leave fans questioning what is going on in the league. Too often already this year, fans have questioned the officiating and now they are even more examples of how each game gathers a ton of interest by the fans. While there were some great games yesterday, I don’t think these situations were the type of interest the league was hoping for.

Not a good week for the President...

Since the November elections that saw Republicans pick up multiple seats at each and every level of government, many alleged Washington insiders and political columnists have been debating whether or not President Obama will realize that in order to help his re-election campaign in 2012, move to the center and compromise with Republicans in Congress.

As many have pointed out, following the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, President Clinton, at the advice of his former political advisor Dick Morris adapted a policy of “Triangulation” where the President adopted small conservative ideas and was successful in getting them passed into law. The idea behind this political strategy was to appeal to independent voters who hope that those in Washington can work together for the betterment of the country. Last weekend, the President announced an agreement with the Republican leadership on a package to maintain the current tax rates for all Americans, provide unemployment assistance for an additional year and cut the payroll tax for a year. The announcement caused many political commentators to state that this was the first step for President Obama to bring himself more toward the middle of American politics after nearly two years on the far left.

There has been a lot of discussion on why President Obama campaigned as a moderate Democrat but has ruled as a liberal. As has been reported, following a meeting with Republicans following his election, he told Representative Eric Cantor, now the number two Republican in the House of Representatives, that “I won” as the reason his policies were going to be implemented without any real Republican input. The announcement of the deal caused a lot of questions within Washington. Many liberals are incensed that he agreed to a deal that maintained the current tax rates for all Americans. They believe that “rich” Americans must pay more in taxes to finance the governments programs. Republicans believe that with an economy that is growing slower than necessary and with unemployment creeping closer to ten percent, that no one should see an increase in their taxes.

President Obama came before the press on Tuesday to try and explain the rationale for his decision to agree with the Republican Congressional leadership. During the press conference, instead of speaking about why it was important to maintain the tax rates at their current level, the President attacked both Republicans for “holding the middle class hostage” and the Democrats for holding to a too rigid policy belief. President Obama was unable to make a concise statement as to why the agreement was good for Americans. In fact, he was unable to explain almost anything related to the agreement. He looked like a spoiled kid that complained that all the other kids were being mean to him and so he took his baseball and left the game. All last week, the White House pushed out endorsements of the deal from anyone and everyone who might possibly endorse the deal. Does the fact that the major of Kokomo, IN supports the deal, make any major difference in getting the deal accepted during the lame duck session? Not really, all it does it make the President look irrelevant and small. When the press conference and endorsements garnered negative reaction from almost everyone, the President turned to the one politician who most Americans still admire (politically, not personally), Bill Clinton.

On Friday the two President’s met at the White House to discuss the agreement and then went to a press conference in the White House press briefing room. President Obama provide a few opening remarks and then provided President Clinton the opportunity to provide his impression of the agreement. President Clinton, without a teleprompter or notes, was able to easily and concisely describe the benefits of the agreement for all Americans. President Clinton continued to speak and it became apparent that President Obama needed to leave and didn’t want to be in the press briefing room any longer. He jumped in and stated that he had another appointment to attend (a holiday party) and that his wife would be upset if he didn’t arrive soon. President Clinton, without missing a beat, stated that he should go but he would continue to answer the press’ questions, which he did for another twenty minutes or so.

President Clinton showed to many Americans why he is still so respected – he knew the issue, was able to articulate it in a manner that Americans would understand, and he was able to do it without a teleprompter telling him exactly what to say. The differences between President Obama and President Clinton was no more apparent then the press conference. Americans saw why they like Clinton still today and why they don’t seem to trust or respect Obama in this one event. I would bet that most Democrats, after watching the press conference longed for the days of the Clinton Administration and wondered how the Obama Administration has gotten so far off track. What America saw was a former President who appeals to all, or at least most, Americans and the current President who is losing more and more Americans every day. I would imagine that Democratic political consultants and policy advisors to the current President will be using this event as an example of how not to handle a post election loss as well as a policy loss on a major issue facing the American public. The past week has made the President look small, ineffective. It has made his liberal supporters look worse, if that was possible. It was not a good week to be President Obama…

The tax debate

This past week has seen a rather interesting discussion occur within Washington, DC. President Obama announced an agreement on maintaining the current tax rates while at the same time as an extension of unemployment benefits with Senate Republicans. This has led Democrats in the House of Representatives, led by Representative Peter DeFazio to state that the deal was unacceptable and therefore not likely to pass the House of Representatives during the current lame duck session. Representative DeFazio and others within the Democratic caucus are not the only ones who are not happy with the President’s agreement. Over the past few weeks, most Democratic lawmakers had used the term, “hostage takers” to describe the Republican position of maintaining all tax rates at their current levels rather than raising taxes on any American. Liberal blogers are up in arms with the agreement, vowing to delay and or defeat the agreement. So who is the “hostage taker” now? The Democrats have decided that they would rather raise taxes on every American that pays federal income taxes, rather than to allow a small portion of Americans to maintain their current tax levels. Do any of these folks remember what just happened in the election this past November? Republicans won on every level – picking up six Senate seats, sixty-three House seats, numerous Governor and state House seats. Do you think it was because all the Republican candidates were terrific candidates who were running against dimwitted Democratic lawmakers?

Does this seem crazy to anyone else? What this reaction seems to state, is that the liberals believe that everyone should see their taxes raised, rather than to see some stability in the tax code. Liberals believe that the original tax cuts, passed under former President Bush, unfairly were focused on the rich. What they seem to miss is that every single American who paid federal income taxes saw their taxes reduced under the Bush tax cuts. Democrats ran on the phrase, “tax cuts for the rich.” I guess their opinion was anyone with a job should be considered rich. Somehow, I know that most Americans disagree with this assessment.

In today’s economy, with the high unemployment rate and the uncertainty within the business community, not only on where the economy is going, but also with regard to the federal government’s involvement within the economy, many businesses are reluctant to add employees. Democrats now are also complaining that the business community has a large stockpile of cash sitting in their bank accounts and instead of adding employees or facilities. It just seems to me that unless liberal Democrats get exactly what they want, and only that, nothing is going to be good enough.

The mainstream media organizations keep talking now about the potential in-fighting within the Republican party and seems to ignore the huge disagreement within the Democratic party. Maybe they just see the fact that most moderate Democrats lost this past November and the only elected Democrats on the national level seem to represent either the inner cities, or either coasts. Whatever happens, if the lame duck Congress does not pass the agreement between President Obama and the Republicans in Congress, every single American will see an increase in their federal taxes starting January 1, 2011 and any belief that the US economy would improve over the course of the next few years would be eliminated. Yeah, Charles Krauthamer might be right in that this agreement is a second stimulus that will only help President Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012, but hopefully that means that the unemployment rate is closer to 7% as opposed to the current 9.8%.