The Democrat-controlled Congress, with help from President Obama's big government vision, is on track to double the national debt in four years.
USA Today published an interactive chart that provides annual revenue, spending, deficit and national debt numbers. The most frightening number is the national debt.
When the Pelosi/Reid left-wing Democrats took control of Congress, the national debt stood at $9 trillion.
The Democrats rushed the so-called "stimulus" bill thorough Congress so quickly that not one single member had a chance to read the
1,000 odd page, bailout boondoggle:
“If all of that wasn’t enough, here I have, 1,100 pages, not one member
of this body has read. Not one. There may be a staffer in the
appropriations committee that read all of this last night. I don’t
know how you can read 1,100 pages between midnight and now. Not one
member’s read this. What happened to the promise that we’re going to
let the American people see what’s in this bill 48 hours? No - we
don’t have time to do that." -- House Republican Leader John Boehner
Boehner had a lot more to say in opposition to Democrats’ “stimulus” legislation and in support of the House GOP’s economic recovery plan, which will create twice as many jobs as the Democrats’ bill at half the cost.
“Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, the American economy needs help. Our neighbors, our friends, our constituents, they’re hurting and there’s not a member in this body on either side of the aisle that doesn’t understand that. And I think everyone in this chamber on both sides of the aisle understands that Congress needs to act and act now to help American families and small businesses and help bring confidence back into our economy.
“The question is how do you do that? The President, when he outlined his desires for this bill, summed it up simply when he said this bill needs to be about jobs. I don’t think there is anybody in this chamber agrees that this bill needs to be about jobs, preserving jobs in America, helping to create new jobs and helping to get our economy rolling again. But a bill that was supposed to be about jobs, jobs, jobs has turned into a bill that is all about spending, spending and spending. This is disappointing.
“The American people expect more of us. They expect to have something that’s going to work for them - and my opposition to this bill isn’t the fact that we’re doing a bill, we need to act. But how? When you look at some of the spending in this bill, it will do nothing about creating jobs in America.
[. . .]
“But our ideas weren’t considered. We weren’t allowed in the room. We
weren’t allowed to participate at all. And all the talk about
bipartisanship that we have heard over the last several months went
down the drain.
President Obama reveals that his sly attempt to appear bipartisan by nominating Republican Senator Judd Gregg to be Commerce Secretary is nothing more than pure partisan politics.
In an effort to mollify ruffled feathers of "black and Hispanic leaders" about Gregg's commitment to funding the 2010 census, Obama has already decided to clip the wings of his Secretary of Commerce-designate:
The director of the Census Bureau will report directly to the White House and not the secretary of Commerce, according to a senior White House official.
"Funding the 2010 census" is Democrat code for cooking the census books.
The CQ article points out that Gregg battled with President Clinton over “emergency” funding for the 2000 census. Michael Barone fills in some of the detail:
Ten years ago the Clinton administration attempted to use sampling
instead of an actual headcount for the Census enumeration which is used
for reapportioning the House of Representatives and for redistricting
of all kinds. It was resisted by the Republican Congress, notably by
Florida Congressman Dan Miller, who chaired the relevant House
subcommittee. And it was finally abandoned after career Census Bureau
statisticians, who like most professional statisticians prefer sampling
to headcounts, conceded that they could not guarantee that the sampling
procedures they proposed to use would be more accurate than a headcount.
I have expected Democrats to attempt to use sampling again, and
Republicans no longer have majorities in Congress. But Gregg could
exercise an important supervisory role here, by at least insisting on
the kind of statistical rigor that Census Bureau career statisticians
showed they had when the Clinton administration (in my view)
contemplated cooking the numbers.
The idea of course was to draw on the fact that headcounts tend to
undercount minorities (though the 2000 Census did so less than in the
past) and to impute huge numbers of black and Hispanic residents, thus
giving Democrats more congressional and state legislative seats.
Obama's co-option of Gregg isn't about bipartisanship. Removing Gregg from the Senate is a very partisan effort to give the Democrats a leg up in the 2010 Senate campaign. So as not to be an impediment to the Democrats' scheme, Bonnie Newman, New Hampshire Democrat Governor John Lynch's designated replacement for Gregg's vacancy to be, had to agree not to run for election in 2010:
Lynch said Newman has agreed to serve only the remaining two years of Gregg's six-year Senate term. Gregg's departure is expected to make the seat more competitive next year for Democrats.
If President Obama isn't going to let his Secretary of Commerce-designate do the job of Commerce Secretary, Senator Gregg should reconsider and remain in the Senate where he is allowed to oppose such power grabbing schemes.
As one source noted, "in politics you never know," but based on the information they have heard and shared with PIX News, Governor Paterson is poised to name Kirsten Gillibrand as New York's next Senator at a
noon news conference Friday in Albany.
Gillibrand serves as U.S.
Representative to New York's Twentieth Congressional District, which
stretches across the upstate counties of Saratoga, Dutchess, Columbia,
Rensselaer, Washington, Warren, Delaware, Greene, Essex and Otsego.
After Caroline Kennedy withdrew from consideration for Hillary vacant Senate seat, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was considered the frontrunner to get the appointment. But appointing Cuomo would lead to a political battle because Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the legislature would have to approve Cuomo as Attorney General.
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, says president-elect Obama's Senate seat will stay vacant until Democrat Governor Blagojevich is removed and a new appointment can be certified:
"At this point we've clearly reached an impasse," Durbin told reporters at his Chicago office.
That's Democrat speak for the courts don't see things our way.
Durbin also said the "Senate cannot waive a 125-year-old rule requiring the signatures of
both the governor and the secretary of state on any election or
appointment."
Unbelievably, Durbin, made his comments after the Illinois Supreme Court ruled against the Senate Democrats. In its decision, the court found that Senate Rule II, the rule that Reid and Durbin cited as justification for the Democrat's refusal to seat Senator Burris, is merely a recommendation, not a requirement the "Senate cannot waive":
As their name indicates, these forms are merely recommended. State officials are not required to adopt them, but “they may use [them] if they see fit.” Standing Rule II, United States Senate, Committee on Rule & Administration.
In any event, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White signed a separate statement on Friday certifying that Burris' appointment letter was legally filed with the state. The Illinois Supreme Court decision and Secretary of State certification aren't good enough for Reid and company:
But aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it was not clear
if White's statement would meet the Senate's 125-year-old certification
requirement.
That's Democrat speak for we don't see things the court's way.
The bottom line here is that the Democrats were afraid to call a special election and let the voters decide who should replace Obama because a Republican might have won the seat. Now, the Democrats are afraid to accept Senator Burris because a Republican might be able to beat Burris in 2010.
On election night, both Republican incumbent and Democrat challenger Franken each received 42 percent of the vote. Now a Survey USA poll finds they're both less popular.
Only 38 percent of Minnesotans surveyed view Coleman favorably. 44 percent have an unfavorable view. But Franken scored a bit worse with 37 percent favorable and 45 percent unfavorable.
Watch the following video report from KSTP TV Minneapolis and St. Paul:
Illinois' highest court has ruled that the certificate of appointment for Roland Burris, the Chicago Democrat appointed by impeached Democrat Governor Blagojevich to replace Barack Obama, does not require the secretary of state’s signature.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Illinois senior Sen. Dick Durbin had been very clear that their path to seating Burris began with the signature of Secretary of State Jesse White, citing a Senate rule from 1884 that seems to require it.
The Illinois State Supreme Court disagreed.
No further action is required by the Secretary of State or any other official to make the Governor’sappointment of Roland Burris to the United States Senate valid under Illinois law.
There is another legal fight pending over Blagojevich's appointment of Burris. Judicial Watch, has filed a lawsuit against the United States Senate for denying Burris his "rightful position as the junior Senator from Illinois."
Republicans push back against turning a stimulus package into a bloated boondoggle.
Republican Senators spent the day at a retreat at the Library of Congress with three distinguished economists--Martin Feldstein, Larry Lindsey, and Peter
Wallison--talking about how to get the economy going.
At the conclusion of the retreat Senators McConnell and Alexander spoke about what an economic stimulus ought to contain:
Senator Alexander: We -- as the leader said, we want to be full participants in any kind of stimulus package that actually helps our economy grow, helps create jobs, helps stabilize housing.
We're not interested in just spending money that we don't have for projects that we don't have to have at a time of such high deficits.
Watch the video;
The "spending money that we don't have for projects that we don't have to have" line sounds much more reasonable than talking about as much as a $1.3 trillion boondoggle on top of what is already a $1.2 trillion deficit.
According to the Associated Press, Feldstein and Lindsey support a big bailout:
Feldstein recommended a $400 billion investment in one year, Obama aides said, and Lindsey said the package should be in the range of $800 billion to $1 trillion.
So why did not the Senators hear from an economist like Harvard's Greg Mankiw, who served on Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and is reported to be skeptical about the need for an economic stimulus?
The Associated Press has learned Senate Democrats plan to accept Roland Burris for President-elect Barack Obama's vacant seat.
[. . .]
Knowledgeable Senate officials in both parties said the saga was widely expected to end with Burris being seated. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly for Senate members.
The likelihood that Burris, a Democrat, will eventually prevail increased Tuesday after a key chairwoman got behind the former Illinois attorney general, driving a crack in what had been a united front by Senate Democrats against a Blagojevich appointee.
Did the Democrats cave in exchange for a Burris promise not to run in 2010? If so, would that not mean that all the Democrats ethical-sounding talk about any appointment by pay to play scandal-plagued Illinois Democrat Governor Blagojevich was just a cover for the Democrats' real concern -- that Obama's Senate seat might be lost in an election?
California Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, broke with President-elect Obama and her Senate colleagues again Tuesday to support Roland Burris in his effort to assume Obama's now vacant U.S. Senate seat.
"The question is really one, in my view, of law," Feinstein told reporters in a Capitol hallway.
"Does the governor have the power, under law, to make the appointment?
And the answer is yes. Is the governor discredited? The answer is yes.
Does that affect his appointment power? The answer is no, until certain
things happen" she said.
Failure to seat Burris "has
ramifications for gubernatorial appointments all over America," she
said, describing him as "a senior, experienced politician."
Obama said he agrees that the Senate Democrats cannot accept the appointment of Roland Burris:
“Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate
Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an
appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very
Senate seat. I agree with their decision, and it is extremely
disappointing that Governor Blagojevich has chosen to ignore it.
Feinstein also broke with Obama over reports Panetta is going to be Obama's CIA director, even though Panetta is not an "intelligence professional."
Feinstein's defection is significant because she the outgoing chair of the Senate Rules Committee that soon could take up Burris' case.
The appointment of Burris, and the accompanying racism charges is embarrassing Democrats. Illinois Democrat Congressman Bobby Rush, accused the Senate leadership of racism:
"While they might not be termed racist, their action is racist," Rush told FOX News. "I think that if Roland Burris hadn't been an African American, then he would have been allowed to accept the appointment and become a senator."
Majority Leader Reid's office didn't appreciate the Rush accusation:
Reid spokesman Rodell Mollineau called Rush's comments "outrageous and over the line."
"I would ask you to not hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer and separate the appointee from the appointer," Rush said.
In the end the Democrats will be forced to seat Senator Burris. But first, Obama must find a way to save face after, in yet another exercise of his poor judgment, Obama agreed to punish Burris for the alleged crimes of Blagojevich.
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