Obama’s New Budget: Soak the ‘wealthy’ and end the Iraq war

Obama Intends to Trim Deficit By 2013

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on businesses and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.

In addition to tackling a deficit swollen by the $787 billion stimulus package and other efforts to ease the nation’s economic crisis, the budget blueprint will press aggressively for progress on the domestic agenda Obama outlined during the presidential campaign. This would include key changes to environmental policies and a major expansion of health coverage that he hopes to enact later this year.

"Obama Hood" will rob from the "rich" and give to the...government.

A summary of Obama’s budget request for the fiscal year that begins in October will be delivered to Congress on Thursday, with the complete, multi-hundred-page document to follow in April. But Obama plans to unveil his goals for scaling back record deficits and rebuilding the nation’s costly and inefficient health care system tomorrow, when he addresses lawmakers and budget experts at a White House summit on restoring “fiscal responsibility” to Washington.

Yesterday in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said he is determined to “get exploding deficits under control” and said his budget request is “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”

Reducing the deficit, he said, is critical: “We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control.”

Obama faces the long-term challenge of retirement and health programs that threaten to bankrupt the government years down the road, as well as the more immediate problem of deficits bloated by spending on the economy and financial system bailouts. His budget proposal takes aim at the short-term problem, administration officials said, but also would begin to address the nation’s chronic budget imbalance by squeezing savings from federal health programs for the elderly and the poor.

Obama "stimulus" is called higher taxes.

Even before Congress approved the stimulus package this month, congressional budget analysts forecast that this year’s deficit would approach $1.2 trillion — 8.3 percent of the overall economy, the highest since World War II. With the stimulus and other expenses, some analysts say, the annual gap between federal spending and income could reach $2 trillion when the fiscal year ends in September.  (Read more.)

B.S. Report–What a novel, original plan President Obama has:  continue to soak the most productive citizens by confiscating their justly-earned wealth–to give to the least-productive citizens through government programs.  Gee, that has never been tried before, has it?

Obama is such a smooth operator he can almost make you forget that his ideas are absolutely archaic.  And do you really believe that Obama is going to limit his tax hikes to those earning $250k a year?  That and ending the Iraq war is going to pay for his trillions in spending increases?  That won’t even keep us at the status quo.

No, the moment President Obama has the favorable climate to do more, i.e. health care reform, he will.  What’s most annoying is his absolute certitude–critics liked to talk about how GW Bush never admitted he was wrong, but he didn’t hold a candle to Obama and his team’s arrogance.

For instance, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said, “We will cut the deficit in half by the end of the president’s first term. The plan would keep the deficit hovering near $1 trillion in 2010 and 2011, but shows it dropping to $533 billion by 2013, he said — still high but a more manageable 3 percent of the economy.”  (Conveniently, the plan would be in time for the re-election campaign…no sense in doing things that might work immediately…even the spending in the “stimulus” package isn’t due until late in 2010 and onward.)

Where is he getting these numbers from?  Well, as Rodney Dangerfield famously said in the movie ‘Back to School,’ “How about Fantasyland?”

The Oscars vs. The Lakers…What To Watch?

It’s A No-Brainer!

B.S. Report–This is expected to be one of the most boring Oscar telecasts ever…that’s a pretty tall order to fulfill but I think they can pull it off.

Famous “Oscars” versus Famous Lakers!

Oscar "the grouch"

"Little Oscar," mascot of Oscar Meyer and driver of the "Weinermobile."

"Little Oscar's" ride...

Hall-of-Famer Oscar Robertson

"Oscar Madison"

"Oscar" the Academy Award

Wilt Chamberlain

Elgin Baylor

Jerry West

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Earvin "Magic" Johnson

They both have a glorious past but Oscar’s best days are behind him while the Lakers are presently sporting the NBA’s best record!  You’ve got to go with the Lakers!  They clearly have a much stronger line-up today than the Oscars…

“They hate me, they really hate me!” That’s right Jane Fonda, they still do!

NEW YORK (AP) – It’s been decades, but Jane Fonda still can’t shake her “Hanoi Jane” image from the Vietnam War.

About a dozen Vietnam veterans and other protesters on Saturday picketed the theater where the 71-year-old actress is starring in the Broadway play “33 Variations,” telling passers-by that she had once visited their Viet Cong enemy in Hanoi.

They're still not fonda Fonda...I can't blame them.

“Jane Fonda is a traitor,” said Dan Maloney of the Gathering of Eagles, which bills itself as a national, nonpartisan veterans group. “She got on Hanoi radio and called every U.S. serviceman a war criminal.”

Fonda was tagged with the sobriquet “Hanoi Jane” in 1972 after visiting the North Vietnamese capital, where she made radio broadcasts critical of U.S. policy and sat on an anti-aircraft gun laughing and clapping, as she describes in her autobiography, “My Life So Far.”

Though she still defends her anti-war activism, Fonda has acknowledged that the incident was “a betrayal” of American forces.

“That two-minute lapse of sanity will haunt me until the day I die,” she wrote.

Fonda currently plays a musicologist in the Moises Kaufman play about reconciliation, set against the woman’s obsession with Beethoven’s 33 variations on a waltz. It marks her return to Broadway after 46 years.

B.S. Report–She’s never really apologized to those men–sure, she gave a left-handed apology meaning that “I’m sorry if what I did hurt anyone, that was not my intention blah, blah, blah,” but she has never admitted that her actions were wrong.

Well, they were not only wrong, but treasonous.  If we took treason seriously, she might be just getting out of jail right now.  But look at all her fabulous entertainment we would have missed…

Pilot of downed plane described as “by the book”

Plane piloted by Marvin Renslow crashed into Buffalo home.

Pilot Reaches His Dream; Ends In Tragedy

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Marvin Renslow’s dream of becoming a commercial pilot did not come easy. For years he had to fit his training around jobs in travel reservations and sales. Even after he got hired by a regional carrier he had to moonlight at a grocery, stocking shelves to make ends meet for his wife and two children.

It’s that kind of dedication that makes Renslow’s friends cringe to hear that his actions at the controls may be to blame for the plane crash that killed 50 people outside Buffalo, N.Y., this month. They describe him as meticulous, levelheaded and in love with the job it took him until his early 40s to achieve.

“He was always by the book,” said Jeff Linquist, a former roommate and a pilot with a private license. “There’s a lot of guys out there that do fly by the seat of their pants, but he wasn’t one of them.”

Renslow, 47, was at the controls of Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J., to Buffalo in icing conditions on Feb. 12 when the plane tumbled wildly out of control and plummeted onto a house, where it burst into flames. All 49 people aboard the plane and one man in the house died.

A National Transportation Safety Board member said the pilot appeared to have ignored recommendations from the NTSB and his employer that the autopilot be turned off in icy conditions. Investigators also raised the possibility the pilot overreacted by yanking the yoke back, further destabilizing the plane.

Pilot Marvin Renslow

Renslow’s employer, Colgan Air, said he was qualified “fully in accordance with all applicable Federal Aviation Regulations.”

To Renslow’s former colleagues, the phrase “pilot error” hardly matches up with the man they knew as a cool and collected manager who studied aviation for more than a decade before finally getting his commercial license.

“It makes me mad,” said Denise Gambill Harrison, who worked with Renslow at Piedmont Airlines, where he worked in travel reservations. Harrison said she helped Renslow study for his pilot’s license and that he once flew her in a small aircraft over North Carolina. “He’s a very thought-precise person. He thinks. Sometimes too much, probably.”  (Read more.)

B.S. Report–When you think of a pilot you think of a person with perhaps a military upbringing, or maybe even a “silver-spoon” background.  But when you see the amount of sacrifice and persistence that this guy Renslow showed to reach his dream of becoming an airline pilot, it is quite a positive illustration of the American spirit.

It also shows just how vibrant life still is in the United States when we allow individuals to pursue their own dreams.  This type of bottom to top mobility is so common in the U.S. that we take it for granted.  We shouldn’t–we’re virtually alone when it comes to the ability of people to move from one income bracket to another, or from one social strata to another.

We’re presently in the process of eroding that ability by steadily handing over to government more and more decision-making authority that used to reside in the personal realm.  That is, we, as Americans, have always believed that we are in charge of our lives and not government, and that it is up to us as individuals to make our life’s most important decisions.  We need to arouse that sentiment again.

Louisiana Gov. Jindal rejects $98 million in “stimulus” funds

Jindal rejects funds, moves to the head of the Republican class.

BATON ROUGE — Saying that it could lead to a tax increase on state businesses, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday that the state plans to reject as much as $98 million in federal unemployment assistance in the economic stimulus package.

Jindal, who has emerged as a leading Republican critic of the $787 billion spending and tax-cut bill signed into law this week by President Barack Obama, said the state would accept federal dollars for transportation projects and would not quarrel with a $25-per-week increase in unemployment benefits.

Both of those items are financed entirely with federal dollars and require the state only to accept the money. The part that Jindal rejected would require permanent changes in state law that the governor said makes it unacceptable.

“You’re talking about temporary federal spending triggering a permanent change in state law, ” Jindal said.

But U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., disputed the governor’s interpretation and said the new unemployment benefits are designed to be temporary.

“This bill is an emergency measure designed to provide extra help during these extraordinarily tough times, ” Landrieu said. “To characterize this provision as a ‘tax increase on Louisiana businesses’ is inaccurate.”

Two types of cash

At issue are two pots of federal money that states can access only if they agree to change their laws to make it easier for unemployed workers to qualify for benefits. To access the first pot of money, worth $32.8 million over 27 months, Louisiana would have to offer benefits to workers who have held jobs for as little as three months before becoming unemployed. Workers now have to hold a job for at least a year before they are eligible to collect unemployment.  (Read more.)

B.S. Report–Saying “No” to any portion of the “stimulus” fraud is a good stance–especially for someone who appears to be positioning himself for a run at the presidency in the future.  This gives him some conservative bona fides for his resume.

We’ll see if any other Republican Governors follow suit.  Sarah Palin is still thinking of doing the same.  Actual conservatives might as well speak up. What more do they have to fear?  Be loud and stand on principle and maybe you can begin taking back the party.

Man hit and killed by Mardi Gras Parade float…

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Police in Louisiana say a man died after he fell off a Mardi Gras parade float and it hit him.

It happened Saturday after a parade in the Cajun town of Carencro (CARE-en-crow), about 130 miles west of New Orleans.

Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Lt. Craig Stansbury says the 23-year-old was hit as the float drove away from the parade route. Police didn’t release his name because they hadn’t notified his family.

Toxicology tests will be performed on the driver and rider.

Crowds in cities and towns across Louisiana are jamming parade routes this weekend as part of celebrations leading up to Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, just before Ash Wednesday ushers in Lent.

Hold on back there! I'm going to see what this baby can do!

Obama sets his sights on revamping (ruining) health care…

And Now For My Next Trick–Watch Me Ruin Health Care!

WASHINGTON – After focusing his first month on the economic mess he inherited, President Barack Obama now starts rolling out his own far-reaching agenda with a summit on fiscal policy, his first speech to Congress and the unveiling of his budget for 2010.

This coming week will mark a turning point from what Obama felt compelled to do, to what he wants to do. It also may test how much spending, change and ambition the American people and their elected officials can stomach in a short time.

On Monday, Obama will try to snap Washington’s collective mind-set back to fiscal restraint, just days after signing a record-breaking spending plan to stimulate the moribund economy. His afternoon-long “fiscal responsibility summit” at the White House is bound to set off sparks.

"Hmmm, What can I screw up next?"

Liberals worry that renewed attention to long-term deficits will stall their progressive agenda, which they don’t feel should suffer because of transgressions by banks, mortgage lenders and automakers. Some worry that Social Security is being unfairly lumped with Medicare’s more serious financial problems, and they are determined to squelch any hints of curbing benefits in the retirement program.

Conservatives worry congressional Democrats will live up to their reputation as free-spenders who ignore calls for restraint, sending the already soaring deficit into the stratosphere.

The debate resonates, albeit less publicly, in the White House, too.

The heart of Obama’s economic team — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers — are deficit-wary economists. They are now central to the tug-of-war in the administration and Congress over Obama’s grand vision and his team’s fiscal pragmatism.  (Read more.)

Next up...health care!

B.S. Report–With each spending bill and measure that Obama and his team passes or enacts, they defend it by saying they inherited a trillion-dollar deficit from GW Bush.  That is their rationale for adding $3 trillion more in spending?  This is what they call “stimulus.”  This is what I call “a Democratic party power grab.”

Ken Baer, a spokesman for the White House Office of Budget and Management, defended the series of initiatives.  “When the house is on fire,” he said, “you can’t say ‘I want to take a long coffee break.'”

How about this Mr. Baer:  “When the house is on fire, don’t throw gasoline on it!”   We’re already seeing the beginnings of inflationary currency but who knows how much more spending Obama can get away with before the public gets wise and rebels more vociferously?

The saddest part is that history tells us that none of this massive spending relieves a recession more efficiently than simply “waiting it out.”  Typically that means a relatively rough financial period lasting approximately 18 months.  When FDR did what Obama is now emulating, massive government spending, he extended the Great Depression by as much as 9 years!

The Obama Administration is using the poor economy as an excuse to consolidate power in Washington.  Unfortunately, we don’t have enough people, inside or outside of government, who seem to care about that fact.

Lebron James Puts On A Show In Milwaukee–55 Points, 8 3-Pointers!

Lebron James puts on a “vide0-game” type performance last night against the Bucks.

Funny Muslim Video

First saw this video of a Muslim man explaining the recent beheading in Buffalo on Debbie Schlussel’s site.  It’s from “The Nose On Your Face” site.

Your Parents Must Be So Proud…

George Mason Picks Drag Queen As Their Homecoming Queen

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — George Mason University senior Ryan Allen dresses in drag and doesn’t mind being called a queen – homecoming queen, to be exact.

Allen, who is gay and performs in drag at nightclubs in the region, said he entered the homecoming contest as a joke, competing as Reann Ballslee, his drag queen persona.

But he considers the victory one of his happiest moments and proof that the suburban Washington, D.C., school famous for its run to the Final Four a few years back celebrates its diverse student body.

“I was very touched by how Mason was so supportive through the whole process of allowing a boy in a dress to run for homecoming queen,” Allen said in a phone interview. “It says a lot about the campus that not only do we have diversity but we celebrate it.”

I'm sure the actual girls nominated must feel great losing to that.

The senior from Virginia’s Goochland County won the pageant Saturday at a sold-out Homecoming basketball game against Northeastern University.

Large portions of the crowd cheered as Allen, wearing a gold-sequined top, accepted the tiara and the Ms. Mason 2009 sash.

The school, known for racial diversity and a basketball team that pulled off a string of upsets to advance to the Final Four in 2006, was selected the nation’s top “school to watch” in the most recent U.S. News and World Report rankings.

Allen’s selection does not appear to have caused much consternation among the school’s 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students. An online article in the student newspaper prompted only two comments, both positive.

Alyssa Cordova, an officer with the school’s College Republicans, said she didn’t pay much attention to Allen’s election and is suprised by the media attention it has received.

“I just think it’s kind of silly,” she said.

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equity and a former adjunct professor at Mason, said the lack of controversy “shows that the students and the George Mason community have a good sense of perspective.”

University spokesman Dan Walsch said the school is “very comfortable” with Allen’s selection and the contest rules are not sex-specific.

“It’s just that if you’re a man who runs for Ms., you’ve got to dress the part,” Walsch said.

The contest was half talent judging and half voting by the student body. Allen received the most votes but doesn’t know how he scored in the talent competition, in which he performed in zebra-print pants and lip-synched to Britney Spears.

He said his drag queen persona is fairly popular and well-known on campus – he has hosted events as Reann for the school’s Pride Week, as well as HIV charity shows and an amateur drag night cabaret.

“Reann is very sassy, very silly. She’s an entertainer throughout. She’s not afraid to do a high kick if that’s what it takes,” Allen said. “She’s got a little camp but is not as campy as some queens.”

B.S. Report–There is really nothing about the college “experience” that can surprise me anymore…this type of thing has become “old hat.”  I’m actually pleasantly surprised when they pick a woman as Homecoming Queen.

If you’re a parent and your kid is not majoring in any of the “hard sciences,” then do yourself a favor and spend as little as possible.  Send him or her to your local community college or neighborhood university.  The education is more or less the same, you’ll save a ton of money–especially if your kid is living at home, and your kid will drink less.