Articles tagged as

Spending

DHS Tries to Explain Why It Needs 1.6 Billion More Rounds of Ammo

The speculation about why the US Department of Homeland Security would want to buy another 1.6 billion (with a b) rounds of ammunition over the next few years as been ‘enthusiastic’-if not just creepy at times, but worry not, they have put the issue to rest.

The Homeland Security Department wants to buy more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition in the next four or five years. It says it needs them — roughly the equivalent of five bullets for every person in the United States — for law enforcement agents in training and on duty.

The article goes on to tell us that they spend  about 15 million rounds annually on training.  Just for perspective during the Iraq war the US military used about 70 million if the rumors are true.   It looks like the pre-Obama military (in response to the needs of the global war on terror) were placing its orders in the 100 million rounds a year range, though I suspect that figure is a bit soft.   And if you want more perspective, even if DHS and its associated agencies used up 20 million rounds a year on practice fun and friends  it would take them 80 years to use up the 1.6 billion rounds they’ve requested.

Democrats can’t even write a budget for the next 12 months, why is Obama’s DHS contracting ammo purchases to cover the rest of the century?

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The White House is out with its Sequester Doom & Gloom – but what does the chart really say?

Ah yes, Obama hoisted on his own petard.  How “smooth” is it for the White House to start hauling out these “the Sequester is going to hurt children and old people” stats, but fail to note “Oh yeah, our boss was the one that first suggested this with his last self-serving hissy fit on the last debt ceiling fight”:

  • Some 600,000 poor women and children will no longer get free milk and cheese
  • 2,100 fewer food inspections will take place if federal budget cuts expected to kick in March 1 actually take place.
  • federal agencies notified hundreds of thousands of federal workers that furloughs could be around the corner
  • 70,000 children would get kicked out of early childhood intervention programs that help poorer children catch up to middle-class peers, heading into kindergarten.
  • 1,000 fewer criminals would be prosecuted due to furloughed federal prosecutors.
  • 4 million fewer “Meals on Wheels” would be delivered to the elderly.
  • 1,000 fewer research grants would be awarded, cutting research and laboratories for some 12,000 scientists and students.

Oh, the horror of it all – this PROGRESSIVE policy of “try to trick the Republicans” – Obama set this up to take a hard toll on the Military, believing that the Republicans would cave before letting that happen.  Seems, however…

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Data Point – Future Entitlement Spending

When you look at future Federal budgets and wonder why you can’t feed YOUR kids because the Progressive programs (and the debt for funding them) are sucking it away from you, you can blame ourselves for putting these chuckleheads at the helm. (H/T: Heritage)

As the Un-Aborted Celebrate Forty Years Of Aborting…

I have already observed, on several occasions, the professional lefts efforts to perpetrate a prevailing media narrative about the sorry state of higher education, the “crumbling” mental health apparatus and our inadequately funded alcohol awareness and treatment programs.  They are doing this to fertilize the budgetary soil for the necessary tax and spending increases required to (they would argue) help alleviate the growing injustice of under-educated, alcohol abusers, with a side order of mental health issues, that only an increase in state-managed taxpayer dollars can possibly resolve.

Well I am here to help.  With one wave of my blogging wand I will “educate” the people on how we can reduce the prevalence of “mental health issues” and “alcohol abuse” in the Granite State (or anywhere), without more spending or taxes, all the while mocking the motley cabal of un-aborted, specula-wielding, would-be-tax-increasing left-wing harpies and their policy-cuckolded camp followers, who have been celebrating four decades of “legally” clawing defenseless unborn children out of women’s wombs.

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Democrats and Taxes “Simplified.”

I posted this on Facebook yesterday.  It is a simplified look at Democrats and taxes.  I though I’d share it with the Grok audience. Rule #1 – Insist that we need more revenue so we must raise some taxes. Rule#2- Tell people that if they let you raise “these” taxes you will then cut “those” … Read more

Spending as A Percetage of GDP 1950 – 2010

A new study from the St. Louis Fed has provided us with this nifty graph. The Graph below shows spending by major categories as a percentage of GDP.  Some may find this surprising.

There are more charts at the link, also here at Hot Air.  Take particular note of the graphs on revenue and spending relative to GDP and Government Spending by category.  (Follow the link for those.)

You will also find  that since the new progressive era began (Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama) that mandatory government spending (as opposed to discretionary) appears to be our biggest driver of debt.  (Big Gubmint doin’ too much.)

spending as a percentage of gdp 1950-2010

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Obama – always the victim

A primary tool of any Community Organizer is to create a set of people to believe they are victims.  Victims of a circumstance, victims by “authority”, victims by ginning up a fabricated storyline (see: Reverands Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as examples).  Well, isn’t it rather obnoxious to see the most powerful man in the … Read more

Somehow, most of us DO think the Feds have a spending problem, Mr. Obama!

“What stunned House Speaker John Boehner more than anything else during his prolonged closed-door budget negotiations with Barack Obama was this revelation: “At one point several weeks ago,” Mr. Boehner says, “the president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.’” …Under this scenario, federal spending would average 23% of GDP over the next … Read more

Forward is the New Backward

Taxes and Democrats The pledge politics lie and broad based taxesReality thy name is payroll tax cut, or more to the point the absence of same.  That’s right, the federal government will no longer be subsidizing your lifestyle.  The “holiday” is over.  They are taking back that which is theirs.  And all of our paychecks are going down as a result.

Effective January 1st the payroll tax rises from 4.2% to 6.2%.  That hits everyone.  And there is a lesson to be learned here if liberals, and people who refuse to pay attention, pay attention.  That 2% subsidy you just lost–that is what the Democrats call it when they don’t tax rich people, business owners, or oil companies, a subsidy–really is your money, just like it really does belong to everyone else who goes to work or runs a business or takes on investment risk.

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Are New Hampshire Democrat’s Pushing a Mental Illness Narrative?

Mental illness is a moving target, but one that keeps getting bigger.  Here in New Hampshire, if you Google Mental Illness, you will discover that it is getting bigger here as well.  Mental illness is up, we are told.   More patients are going unreported or untreated.  And just in time for a Democrat Budget writing House and their spend then-tax-den mother (Governor Maggie Hassan) to ignore the delicate state of the economy, rising payroll taxes, unemployment, wage stagnation, and the cornucopia of looming federal burdens, cliffs, debt, and spending, and Obama care, to justify growing our own budget right here in the Granite State on top of all that.

Look,see!?  Mental illness.  It’s right there!  We (politicians and government) are the only ones’ who can do something about that.  We have to do something…

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For a meager mess of porridge; so what DOES the Republican Party stand for now?

From RedState Twitter Feed:

RSBooBooKitty: Blank Check Barry and his Blue Journalism Gang just knocked over the Hapless Hill Savings Bank of Other People’s Money. #RSRH

Such a Happy New Year start – Senate Republicans caved into Obama’s Progressive Punish the Successful campaign.  $620 Billion more in taxes.  Only $15 Billion in reduced spending.  A ratio of $41 in new taxes to $1 in spending cuts.  Welcome to Obama’s definition of “balanced” deficits.   Obama poured coals on their head during his press conference, utterly belittling them and what they stand for:  “Keep in mind that just last month Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.”…“Obviously the agreement that’s currently being discussed would raise those rates and raise them permanently.”

#GROVEL.  Trading a mainstay of Republicanism, a pillar of Republican philosophy – lower taxes, limited government.  They voted for neither.  Again.  Again, they didn’t even read the 157 page bill.

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Fiscal Cliff Deal? A classic case of the Left embiggining Government

Update:

  • Current tax rates would be permanently extended for singles making $400,000 or below, and permanently extended for couples making $450,000 or below
  • For singles, capital gains and dividends of $400,000 or below would be permanently taxed at 15 percent; capital gains and dividends above $400,000 would be permanently taxed at 20 percent
  • For couples, capital gains and dividends of $450,000 or below would be permanently taxed at 15 percent; capital gains and dividends above $450,000 would be taxed at 20 percent
  • The Alternative Minimum Tax would be permanently patched
  • Estates over $5 million would be taxed at 40 percent, and that tax rate would be permanently extended

Nothing on spending cuts (like, I’m surprised??)

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Or “Running out the clock always results in running out with somebody else’s wallet.”

The Corner is reporting that the AP is writing that a deal has been struck:

  • We shall punish the hardworking and successful:

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Your childrens’ future…

H/T John Hinderacker and Michael Ramirez…emphasis mine. “If there is one thing we know for sure about the federal government, it is that it spends way too much money–around $3.54 trillion in FY 2012, with a $1.1 trillion deficit. You would think that the man who presides over this mess, Barack Obama, would have the … Read more

Quotes worthy of note….

“Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute calculates that Greece owes 875 percent of GDP for unfunded liabilities; the United States owes 911 percent, or almost twice as much as France at 549 percent.”  —Mark Steyn Are we broke?

MYTH 3: We have a “revenue” problem

You can read Myth’s 1, 2 and 4 here should you care to; my purpose for the moment is to mug and pummel the idea that spending is not the problem and this helps illustrate that.

The revenue problem refers to the notion that revenues are too low. Typically, special attention is drawn to the tax rates paid by the “wealthy.” However, taxes are not too low. In actuality, taxes are too high. Once again, take a look at the last 20 years. In 1992, federal tax revenue totaled $1.642 trillion in 2012 dollars. In 2012, revenue skyrocketed to $2.435 trillion in 2012 dollars. While federal spending has eclipsed revenue by more than $1 trillion each of the last four years, too little revenue has not been the culprit!

Put another way, imagine that you are earning 793 billion more dollars today than you were twenty years ago and yet your lifestyle still exceeds your income by more than a trillion dollars a year.

Do you think the someone with the Name tag that reads ‘Hello My Name is: Federal Government” could use a little  intervention?

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Has Jeanne Shaheen Had A Come To Jesus Moment on Taxes?

Eighteen Democrat US Senators have sent a letter to Harry Reid requesting that the Medical Device tax portion of Obama-Care be delayed. The letter does not say it directly, preferring to dance around the issue, but it is obvious that these 18 Democrats, New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen among them, believe the Medical Device tax … Read more

Dots Progressives Can’t Connect?

It is not about state spending, Healthy states are about libertyEvery year United Health Foundation releases a report on America’s Health Rankings.  This is a state by state assessment, and every year New Hampshire is one of the healthiest places in the nation to live.  Last year we were ranked second, this year third, but always in the top three or four.

The two states that beat us are the two that always seem to, Vermont and Hawaii.  Hawaii was number one this year, Vermont number two.  And I was wondering why?  Was there a wide range of separation or just one or two core measures where the reported difference was so wide as to keep New Hampshire down?

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Data Point – Federal Subsidies for electric power

    Yes, the enviros can complain that coal gets more of a subsidy than solar; true enough.  Add the subsidies for the top 4 items vs the renewables?  No contest – fossil fuels get $4.557 billion while renewables get $5.954 Billion.  In the end, however, is what is the bang for the buck.  It … Read more

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