The Patriot Post Chronicle 12-05-2012

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 12-05-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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Stop Playing Games

December 5, 2012

The Foundation

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." --Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

"Both the White House and House Republicans are pretending that their goal is 'reducing the deficit,' which they suggest means making real spending choices. ... Since 1974, Capitol Hill's 'baseline' has automatically increased spending every year according to Congressional Budget Office projections, which means before anyone has submitted a budget or cast a single vote. Tax and spending changes are then measured off that inflated baseline, not in absolute terms. The most absurd current example is Mr. Obama's claim that his '$4 trillion' plan reduces the deficit by about $800 billion over 10 years by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But those 'savings,' as he calls them, are measured against a White House budget office spending baseline that is fictional. Those wars are already being unwound and everyone knows the money will never be spent. But they are called 'savings' to gull the public and make the deficit reduction add up to a large-sounding $4 trillion. ... In Washington, Democrats designed this system to make it easier to defend annual spending increases and to portray any reduction in the baseline as a spending 'cut.' Chris Wallace called Timothy Geithner on this 'gimmick' on 'Fox News Sunday' this week, only to have the Treasury Secretary insist it's real. Republicans used to object to this game, but in recent years they seem to have given up. In an October 2010 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, House Speaker Boehner proposed that 'we ought to start at square one' and rewrite the 1974 budget act. But he then dropped the idea, and in the current debate the GOP is putting itself at a major disadvantage by negotiating off the phony baseline. In a press release Tuesday, his own office advertised the need for 'spending cuts' that aren't even cuts. If Republicans really want to slow the growth in spending, they need to stop playing by Beltway rules and start explaining to America why Mr. Obama keeps saying he's cutting spending even as spending and deficits keep going up and up and up." --The Wall Street Journal1

Upright

"I have several pet peeves, and one of them is the idea that when Americans get to keep their own money, it somehow 'costs' the government." --columnist John J. Miller

"The message coming out of Washington, especially from our leftist politicians and the news media, is that we solve our budget problems by raising taxes on the rich. If Americans were more informed, such a message would be insulting to our intelligence. There are not enough rich people to satisfy Congress' appetite." --economist Walter E. Williams

"When President Obama put forth his first offer on the fiscal cliff, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said, 'You can't be serious.' We could say the same thing to the Speaker after his counteroffer [Monday]. In a letter signed by House Republican leadership ... Boehner offered to raise taxes by $800 billion and cut spending by $1.4 trillion, with no substantive reforms to the entitlement programs that are driving U.S. spending and debt. ... They said, 'we recognize it would be counterproductive to publicly or privately propose entitlement reforms that you and the leaders of your party appear unwilling to support in the near-term.' ... The leadership pointed to a plan they said was suggested by Erskine Bowles, the co-chair of President Obama's debt commission and formerly Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff. It raises taxes, but not by raising tax rates -- instead, by lowering the amount or number of tax deductions or exemptions available. ... Now is the time for leaders to get serious. That means serious entitlement reforms that will deliver real savings and improve the programs." --Heritage Foundation's Amy Payne

"The most frightening aspect of the White House proposal is that it wasn't an error. Perhaps the proposal was thoroughly calculated. This suggests a president who doesn't care about the outcome of the cliff negotiations -- who thinks that he wins politically no matter what. He's betting that either the GOP will be far more responsible than he is and do anything to avert a crisis, or that the cliff gives him the tax hikes his partisans are demanding. Win-win, save for the enormous pain to average families across the country." --columnist Kimberly A. Strassel

"With a chip on his shoulder larger than his margin of victory, Barack Obama is approaching his second term by replicating the mistake of his first. Then his overreaching involved health care -- expanding the entitlement state at the expense of economic growth. Now he seeks another surge of statism, enlarging the portion of gross domestic product grasped by government and dispensed by politics. The occasion is the misnamed 'fiscal cliff,' the proper name for which is: the Democratic Party's agenda." --columnist George Will

Essential Liberty

"I've come to realize what a good test one's attitude towards guns is about whether someone's mind is liberty oriented. If one is okay with police having guns -- whoever is designated as having authority -- but panicked at the thought of their fellow man or themselves having guns, then that is someone who does not think like a free person. He places a magical aura around whoever is in charge and only thinks they can wield power. This will come up again in other areas, such as letting government make economic decisions but fearing individual people making those decisions themselves." --columnist Frank J. Fleming

Insight

"It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law ... that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts." --American journalist H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

Demo-gogues

Some big "ifs": "As I travel around the world, it's fascinating; European leaders, Asian leaders, they all say to me, America is actually poised to be the world leader for another century -- if we can fix some of this political dysfunction. ... We've got a lot of national security challenges, but if we get our economy together, and if we can get our political system to work well, I am really confident about our future." --Barack Obama

Charade: "I'll go anywhere and I'll do whatever it takes to get this done. It's too important for Washington to screw this up. Now's the time for us to work on what we all agree to, which is let's keep middle-class taxes low. That's what our economy needs. That's what the American people deserve." --Barack Obama

Jolly Old Saint Barack: "I've been keeping my own naughty and nice list for Washington." --Barack Obama

Fools, indeed: "We would be somewhat foolish to work out something on stopping us from going over the cliff and then a month or six weeks later Republicans pull the same game they did before and say, 'We're not going to do anything -- unless this happens, we're not going to agree to increasing the debt ceiling.' I agree with the president, it has to be a package deal." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Pat on the back: "Now remember, we've already done more than a billion dollars worth of cuts. We've already done that. So we need to get some credit for that." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who neglects to mention that reduction in growth is up against $1 trillion deficits each year

The BIG Lie: "Entitlements is not [sic] the issue. And if so, cool heads can sit down and engage the American people and tell us how many seniors in nursing homes do we want to throw out in the street? ... And then who wants to make a fuss about Medicare when it's solvent until 2024? ... Who wants to make a fuss about Social Security when it's solvent -- and it's about, 'You earned it'?" --Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) (Social Security has run a deficit for the last two years, and that won't change without reform.)

The next BIG Lie: "Remember, we had a $5.6 trillion surplus in 2000-2001 from the Clinton administration." --Sheila Jackson Lee (The actual "surplus" was $127 billion.)