Trumps biggest disappointment over his tenure (from our point of view) was spending. But he appears to be trying to rectify that. I’d question the timing. We’d have had a good deal more success cutting the budget with Republican majorities in both chambers, which is to say, at least a snowball’s chance in hell. With a Democrat majority House, we have none. But maybe that’s the point?
Articles tagged as
Spending cuts
The magnificent small-government activists of Grafton, New Hampshire
I have written and spoken in the past that because of the Free State Project, “New Hampshire is the luckiest state in the history of the United States.” (State Rep. Cynthia Chase—a statist transplant from statist Rhode Island—recently
reinforced that view with her public outburst that “Free Staters are the single biggest threat New Hampshire is facing today”; after my Grokster buddy Steve MacDonald broke the story on GraniteGrok.com it went viral, resulting in priceless national publicity for the Free State Project).
The power of native New Hampshire activists joining with Freestater immigrants was demonstrated Monday night at the annual town meeting in the Free Town of Grafton where efforts to increase local spending and taxing were decisively defeated and reversed. An initial motion to reduce— instead of increase—the annual town spending budget by 20% failed by a single vote. A following motion to reduce the budget by 10% passed. Successive motions to reduce various spending warrant articles by 10% also passed. How could this happen? Easy….
No Debt Ceiling Increase without Cut, Cap, and Balance
To the Editor:
Both President Obama and Speaker Boehner failed to deliver acceptable proposals for raising the debt ceiling and both failed to explain the real situation to the American people.
President Obama hasn’t provided specifics for a plan, he makes no real attempt at compromise, his desired taxes on “the rich” provide a minuscule income, he continues to lie about the Bush tax cuts which actually increased tax revenues and shifted more of the tax burden to the rich, and he continues to threaten seniors and financial catastrophe. (We hear similar threats every time our leaders try to pressure our representatives into doing bad things.)
Maybe the House Got the Message
Perhaps the House of Representatives did get the message from last November‘s election and from polls indicating that Americans are serious about cutting deficit spending. On Tuesday, in a bi-partisan vote (82 Democrats, 236 Republicans) the House overwhelmingly rejected President Obama’s request to unconditionally increase the debt ceiling. Only 97 Democrats voted to continue reckless spending.
Despite alarmist claims about not raising the debt ceiling, the Secretary of the Treasury can dispense its approximately $2 trillion revenues on a priority basis. Our country need not default on our debt or fail to pay the military, seniors, the poor, or other critical obligations UNLESS OBAMA’s administration CHOOSES NOT TO MAKE THOSE PAYMENTS.
Two Congressmen And A Free Throw
The US House just finished it’s work on HR1, cleaning up after democrats who in 2010 abrogated yet another obligation when they found themselves incapable of writing the budget they really wanted right before an election.
The liberal-progressives wanted more spending but that was not politically advantageous. And since the single driving-force behind all Democrat decisions is politics the budget got relegated to the back of the bus, where the electorate’s short attention spans were meant to forget that democrats were never fiscally conscious representatives–they just tried to play them on the campaign trail.
But avoiding the high profile budget battle was more evidence that they had something to hide. The Democrat House majority was appropriately sedated and placed under observation, while the Senate saw minor adjustments but no change in leadership. So the process of changing our spending ways would still have to go through a Democrat controlled Senate and across the desk of a President who thinks the words "spending cuts" are just a rhetorical flourish used to provide cover for more spending.
Obama’s budget is proof enough of that.
But Obama only proposes a budget. The House is in charge of spending. So the new Republican congress went to the back seat of the Hopey-changey bus and picked up the budget obligations abandoned by the 111th congress. This wwas a free shot at changing the fiscal direction of the country before writing their own first official budget, which was not due until later in 2011. It was a gimme, a free throw, but one that had to survive the democrat Senate and the Spender in Chief.
So how did it turn out?