No Deal Pending on Sequestration, Because of the Opportunity it Presents

Joe Scarborough got it got it right, when he said that America won't remember the Sequester of 2013 "as some cataclysmic fiscal event", but when he goes on to say about the Republicans that "you would think its leadership would have taken to heart Mr. Obama’s warnings and struck a deal before their abysmal approval ratings sank even lower", he fails to see the point.  Obama had absolutely no intention of striking a deal.  These cuts after all, amount to a paltry 2% of PROJECTED spending (which is always a MINIMUM of 3% higher than the previous year).  As the former White House Chief of Staff to the President, Rahm Emanuel used to always say, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste".  This issue literally presents the President with yet another opportunity to slam the Republicans and get more public support for his programs, his methods, his tax increases and so on.  So what was Obama's end game?  Blow this up to an issue, even though he knew it's a non issue, then blame the Republicans!

 

Think about it, Joe himself reported on how the Republicans wanted to give the President control over exactly what would be cut, yet he refused?  Not only did he refuse, he actually threatened to VETO any bill that gave him that kind of authority and responsibility!  Why would he do this?  Simple, the President doesn't want ANY cuts whatsoever, no matter how small and no matter how much waste is pointed out, but more importantly he wants to have another issue to beat up the Republicans over.  The plan is to hype up the damage to the economy over the next year so the Republicans lose in the Midterm elections.  Obama ends up with Nancy Pelosi in charge of Congress again and he can go back to pushing things like his Climate Change agenda and other tax increases.

DEBT LIMIT - A GUIDE TO AMERICAN FEDERAL DEBT MADE EASY.

For those with short attention spans:
Total Household Debt:                          $140,000.00
Household Income:                                 $21,000.00
Household Spending:                              $38,200.00
New Debt:                                             $16,500.00
Amount Cut:                                                $385.00

Translated to the Federal Government:

Total Federal Debt:             $14,000,000,000,000.00
Federal Income:                    $2,100,000,000,000.00
Federal Spending:                 $3,820,000,000,000.00
New Debt:                            $1,650,000,000,000.00
Amount Cut:                              $38,500,000,000.00

Either way you look at it, it's only about 1% of the budget.  Let's keep in mind this video was made about a year ago with the original budget deal.  The new budget deal calls for "800 Billion" in cuts... [over 10 years], or about 80 Billion a year.  Pretty much all the other numbers are about the same, except the income has increased to around 2.3 Trillion a year.  The new "cuts" will amount to only around 2% or about double the original budget deal a year ago.

If the new numbers were put into the video the amount the guy had "cut" from his budget would be around $800.00 a year, instead of $385.00 a year.  Either way we're talking about tiny, insignificant "cuts" that only perpetuate the incredible levels of spending.

Obama Close to Shutting Down Alaskan Pipeline

The entire NPRA area joins ANWR in now been deemed "Off Limits' by the Obama Administration

President Obama is campaigning as a champion of the oil and gas boom he's had nothing to do with, and even as his regulators try to stifle it. The latest example is the Interior Department's little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

The area is called the National Petroleum Reserve because in 1976 Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the "energy needs of the nation." Alaska favors exploration in nearly the entire reserve. The feds had been reviewing four potential development plans, and the state of Alaska had strongly objected to the most restrictive of the four. Sure enough, that was the plan Interior chose.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his plan "will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives." He added that the proposal will expand "safe and responsible oil and gas development, and builds on our efforts to help companies develop the infrastructure that's needed to bring supplies online. The problem is almost no one in the energy industry and few in Alaska agree with him. In an August 22 letter to Mr. Salazar, the entire Alaska delegation in Congress: 

The Areas we WERE drilling were relatively tiny, in comparison to the size of Alaska or even the U.S.A.

Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Don Young—call it "the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades." This decision, they add, "will cause serious harm to the economy and energy security of the United States, as well as to the state of Alaska." Mr. Begich is a Democrat.

The letter also says the ruling "will significantly limit options for a pipeline" through the reserve. This pipeline has long been sought to transport oil and gas from the Chukchi Sea, the North Slope and future Arctic drilling. Mr. Salazar insists that a pipeline could still be built, but given the Obama Administration's decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline, Alaskans are right to be skeptical.

Alaskans also worry that the National Petroleum Reserve will become the same political football as the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, or ANWR, which Washington has barred from drilling because of dubious environmental objections. The greens now want Congress to rename the energy reserve the "Western Arctic Reserve" to give the false impression that it is a fragile wildlife area. Some parts of the area are environmentally sensitive, but those 1.5 million acres (around Teshekpuk Lake) had already been set aside. Most of the other 11.5 million acres are almost indistinguishable from acreage owned by the state that is being drilled safely nearby.

The feds and Alaskan officials disagree about how much oil and natural gas is in the petroleum reserve. Some early federal estimates put the range between six and 15 billion barrels of oil, but in its latest survey the Bureau of Land Management projects closer to one billion. State officials and industry experts put the figure much higher based on the earlier surveys and improved drilling techniques.

The truth is no one knows. Prudhoe Bay turned out to be much more productive than originally believed, but surely the best strategy is to allow private drillers to risk their own money to find out. The oil and gas industry isn't in the business of drilling dry holes on purpose.

The Interior power play couldn't come at a worse time for Alaska, whose economy and government are heavily reliant on oil jobs and revenues. As recently as the 1980s, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline carried some 2.2 million barrels of oil a day from the North Slope to the port of Valdez. Yet as the once-rich fields of Prudhoe Bay and the Kuparuk River have declined, oil flow has dropped to one-third of that volume. North Dakota recently passed Alaska as the second highest oil-producing state behind Texas.

The problem isn't that Alaska is running out of oil but that federal rules are preventing the state from developing those resources. No matter what Mr. Obama says now, in a second term his great Alaska energy shutout will continue.

This story originated on WSJ

The Five Trillion Dollar Lie

Romney is planning on cutting taxes by 20% across the board, in conjunction with eliminating some tax deductions.  The plan is to broaden the number of people who the Government collects taxes from while at the same time lowering the overall rate.

Obama counters by asserting that this amounts to a Five Trillion Dollar give-away to the rich over the next 10 years.  

The problem with Liberals is that they see taxation as a zero sum game.  They fail to realize that cuts in taxes produces more economic activity that produces more taxes

The whole thing reminds me of the Reagan era.  Let's face it, Reagan had a plan to cut taxes from 75% to 50%, then subsequently to 28%.  So overall, he cut the rates by 67%!  Or more than THREE TIMES what Romney's proposing. If Obama was running against then "Candidate" Reagan, he would have claimed that Reagan's plan would cut taxes by 15 Trillion in today's dollars.  However, the truth is, that Reagan's plan DOUBLED total revenue for the Federal Government over the 8 years that he was President.

In fact, if you look throughout history, every time that tax rates have been cut, Federal Revenue's end up increasing.  Why?  Simple.  When Job Creators get to keep more of their money, they create MORE JOBS.  With more jobs, the government needs to support less people and instead collect taxes from more people   Not just Income taxes, but sales, gas, Import, ... everything.

If we look to history as our guide, when Harding cut taxes from 75% to 25%, unemployment went from near 14% to less than 2% over the next 4 years AND paid down all the debt the Government had racked up from WWI!

When Hoover increased taxes from 25% to 63% in reaction to the Market Crash, instead of the anticipated boom in Revenue, revenue PLUMMETED with new company creation coming to a halt, and unemployment hitting 15%

When FDR increased the rate to 90%, revenue fell even more and unemployment hit nearly 1 in every 4 workers!  A stat that stuck for nearly an ENTIRE DECADE!  Only the War ended up pulling us out of that malaise.

Tax cuts passed after FDR eventually got the economy going again, but since they kept going up and down over the next several decades, not until Reagan was elected did we see another "Harding Style" revival of the economy.

Let's also not forget that the last time the budget was balanced was when Clinton cut the capital gains rate from 28% to 20%.  Sure he increased the "INCOME" tax from 28% top rate to 39%, but that happened during his first term and DID NOT close the budget gap, instead it widened on his first term!

The problem with Liberals is that they see taxation as a zero sum game.  They fail to realize that cuts in taxes produces more economic activity that produces more taxes, more jobs and removes people off government doles.  Increased taxes have the opposite effects, Job creators move to other countries or change operations to get out of paying the increased taxes.  Apple is a perfect example.  Apple used to manufacture most of their components here in the U.S.  With the tax and regulatory environment here in the U.S. becoming increasingly unfavorable, they moved their operations to the Asian rim, where the top rate is 25%, Capital investments are fully tax deductible and Capital Gains taxes are half what they are here and also tax deductible.  What good does it do California and the Federal Government to have an effective rate of nearly DOUBLE, when they've moved their operations offshore?  They now can't collect it.

There is one thing though that's undoubtedly true about that Five Trillion Dollar Number, while Bush added 4 Trillion in debt in his two terms as president, Obama has added 5 Trillion in new debt in just his first term.