Day: July 29, 2011

The Cut, Cap And Balance Two-Step (Part 1)

This may have been defeated….but you WILL see it again…trust me.

A lot of media has been dancing around the newest budget two step……called the Cut, Cap and Balance Act of 2011….I know if you are at least mildly interested in what is happening in Washington, you have heard the term used and most likely, used often……..but what is it?  (I know that is on your mind because the media is very cloudy on the issue)…….

First of all the different parts of the act……..

  1. Cut – Substantial cuts in spending that will reduce the deficit next year and thereafter.
  2. Cap – Enforceable spending caps that will put federal spending on a path to a balanced budget.
  3. Balance – Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — but only if it includes both a spending limitation and a super-majority for raising taxes, in addition to balancing revenues and expenses.

I will set about to explain each part of this issue as best as I can…..but wait!  I seems that someone has beat me to it….a great site, Blue Wave News (go to blogroll and visit)……….one of their writers a FleetAdmiralJ, a Dem no doubt has done an excellent job of explaining each part of the Act…….I will breakdown his post in 3 or 4 parts or if you are in a hurry go to my blogroll and click on the site……..http://bit.ly/mRYhLS

Title I: “Cut”

Title I is, appropriately named, “Cut.” It’s meant to cut the 2012 federal budget. Sec. 101 would cap discretionary spending budget authority for FY 2012 at $1 trillion, 19.4 billion and would cap FY 2012 discretionary outlays at 1.225 trillion.

Just for comparison, FY2010 (which is the last year we had a real budget), the total discretionary budget was $1.378 trillion, so that would be a cut of $349 billion for budget authority and $153 billion in outlays. And that’s not taking into account any increase in defense spending between FY 2010 and FY 2011. Based on FY2010 numbers, a $349 billion cut in appropriations would result in a essentially a 50% cut in non-defense discretionary funding, if no defense funding were cut from FY2010 levels. Even if one went with the $153 billion in outlays, that’s a 21% cut.

Just for some scope, to make up $349 billion, we would have to eliminate, entirely, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation, the State Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Agriculture (give or take a billion).
(To make up $153 billion, if you want to use that number, you would merely only have to cut Health and Human Services and Transportation, plus another 2 or 3 billion).

If one were to carry that cut over 10 years, one would be looking at $3.5 trillion in cuts from the discretionary budget alone based on budget authority, or $1.53 trillion using the outlays number, assuming budget growth is equal to inflation.

Title I also caps the money that can be spent on the “Global War on Terrorism” (their term in the bill) at $126.5 billion. I’m not entirely sure if that is in addition to the discretionary spending or not.

Title I then also caps direct, or mandatory spending, at $680.7 billion, exempting Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Benefits and Services, and national debt interest (note: Medicaid is NOT on the exempted list). This may or may not result in any mandatory cuts in 2012. Based on FY 2010 numbers (PDF), that would be a cut of $60.3 billion (taking out gains from TARP), though would be pretty much even with expected expenses based on FY 2012 projections made in January 2011.

My final analysis of the entire act will be in the last part of this series……please keep reading and let me know what you think of each part or the whole thing….your choice…..

Who’s The Crook?

They are all bums…..they are all liars………they are all crooks……and they are all corrupt…….you have heard this all before….no matter which party you lean to…..the other is all a bunch of crooks and liars……Personally, I have been saying it for at least 30 years….maybe more……but now……there is some validity to the accusations……….

Voters are more convinced than ever that most congressmen are crooks.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters now view most members of Congress as corrupt. That’s up seven points from June and the highest finding yet recorded. Just 29% think most members are not corrupt, and another 25% are not sure…

Similarly, a whopping 85% of voters think most members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people. That’s a record high for surveys stretching back to early November 2006. Only seven percent (7%) believe most of the legislators are more interested in helping other…….

Could it be that the voter is just pissed at Washington….well, yes and no……I will tell you why I say yes…..

I recently wrote a piece about the insider trading being committed by members of Congress……..

Four university researchers examined 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House representatives from 1985 to 2001, and found what they call “significant positive abnormal returns,” with portfolios based on congressional trades beating the market by about 6 percent annually.

What’s their secret? The report speculates, but does not conclude, it could have something to do with the ability members of Congress have to trade on non-public information or to vote their own pocketbooks — or both.

The researchers, Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University, James W. Boyd of Lindenwood University, Ping Cheng of Florida Atlantic University and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski of Augusta State University, noted that the circumstances are ripe for abuse.

“In the course of performing their normal duties, members of Congress have access to non-public information that could have a substantial impact on certain businesses, industries or the economy as a whole. If used as the basis for common stock transactions, such information could yield significant personal trading profits,” they wrote.

So members are getting rich trading on information that the rest of us do not…….that is illegal…it is called insider trading…..the SAME thing that Martha Stewart was convicted of doing…..so why has the media NOT made a bigger deal out of this…..I mean Wiener’s wiener was NOT illegal…insider trading is…..why is the justice dept not investigating?

And then there is the investments of the House majority leader, Eric Cantor….while what he is doing is NOT illegal….it is a conflict of interests with his duties as the majority leader…..

Debt ceiling negotiations were shut down by House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) last week. This raised renewed fears that the U.S. is on the verge of total credit default, and it raised a question as to whether Cantor – the GOP’s key operative in debt ceiling talks – has a “glaring” conflict of interest. According to Salon, Cantor may be fighting against government credit default in Congress, but he’s personally invested in a mutual fund that will “skyrocket” should default occur.

SO one of the so-called “geniuses” of the GOP is betting against the country as he negotiates the economy situation……is that about it?  And the media has not jumped on this story either….they had rather let Nancy Grace’s head explode or report on a runaway Chihuahua…than focus on the real problems with this country…..it is ruled by criminals and liars…..you would think the justice dept would be all over a report like this….you would think!

All this is sickening!  These people are corrupt and crooks and especially liars…..the sooner we find a way to replace these criminals the better….at this point I am open to anything for a real change…..