John Brummett in his article Obama’s pitch-perfect excuse for liberalism,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 18, 2011 notes:

He proposed hitting the wealthiest twice.

First, he would let their Bush tax cuts expire — this after he caved to the Republicans on this very point in December. He appears to be trying to atone, declaring, “We cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.”

“Refuse” is not one of those usual wiggle words.

Then Obama would cap our top earners’ itemized tax deductions so that they cannot continue removing ever-increasing slabs of income from taxation through itemization while poor folks remove only shards through the standard deduction.

Republicans accuse Obama of “class warfare.” But they declared that war already. Obama is merely engaging on the side under siege.

This country once taxed its tip-top incomes with a 91 percent marginal rate, using the proceeds to fund two races it would gloriously win — on nuclear arms and to the moon…

This was the best thing about Obama’s speech: It aspired to be more than an incremental version of modern Republicanism. It aspired to be altogether different from modern Republicanism.

Brummett brings up the past when at one time we have a tax rate of 91% for the richest people in the USA. What Brummett does not tell you is that when that tax rate was lowered then tax revenues went up. 

The real cause of the debt is entitlement spending!!!!!

Brian Riedl is the author of the article “The Three Biggest Myths About Tax Cuts and the Budget Deficit,” (Heritage Foundation, June 21, 2010), and the next few days I will be sharing portions of his article.

Before coming to Heritage in 2001, Riedl worked for then-Gov. Tommy Thompson, former Rep. Mark Green (R-WI)., and the Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly. Riedl holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from the University of Wisconsin, and a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University.

Entitlement Spending Dominates Spending Growth. Even within spending, the cause of rising long-term deficits can be identified. Between 2008 and 2020:

• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs are set to increase by 2.6 percent of GDP, and
• Net interest costs are projected to rise by 2.8 percent of GDP. (See Chart 5.)[15]

This 5.4 percent increase explains nearly the entire increase in the budget deficit by 2020. Even that assumes that Congress will not reverse the modest reductions in the Medicare growth rate that are supposed to partially offset the costs of the new health care law.

If these four costs simply remained at their 2008 percentages of GDP, then the 2020 projections would show revenues at 18.2 percent of GDP, spending at 21.1 percent of GDP, and the deficit at 2.9 percent of GDP—close to the historical averages.[16] The long-term budget deficit problem is an entitlement spending problem.

This can be shown another way. Over the next decade, the annual cost of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and net interest is projected to surge from $1.6 trillion to $3.5 trillion. This nearly $2 trillion budget increase will dwarf the budget increase for defense ($314 billion) as well as the extensions of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 ($98 billion) or less than $250,000 ($306 billion).[17] Thus, the vast majority of deficit expansion will come from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and net interest.

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I am doing a series on famous Arkansans. Here is the 4th part on Wayne Jackson who grew up in West Memphis.

Elvis Presley “Suspicious Minds”

EIN – Tell me about your company ‘Sweet Medicine Music’?

W.J – I’ve been a songwriter since I was a kid and I’ve been playing my trumpet since I was 11. I love writing songs so I formed a publishing company called “Sweet Medicine Music.” We had a major success back in 1999 with Amy Grant’s version of ‘Christmas Can’t Be Very Far Away’ which I wrote with Roger Cook.

You know, I’ve come a real long way from when my parent’s house used to back up to a cotton patch and I practised my trumpet – since I thought that it was the only way I knew that might get me out of there.

EIN – What have you been up to recently, have you been busy?

W.J – I sure have. Firstly, I have just completed writing book two in my autobiographical series, “In My Wildest Dreams”. The first book “Across The River To Memphis” dealt with Memphis in the 1960s, including my first glimpses of Elvis. The second book in the series, “The Memphis Horns” deals with Memphis in the 70’s, Stax and even more glimpses of Elvis. Both books are very entertaining and, although not history books, they give lots of information and stories that you won’t find anywhere else!

In the recording studio last year I spent time with Neil Young. We made a record called, “Prairie Wind” and a movie by the same name. I had a ball. Then you might have seen us on Saturday Night Live on TV where we performed some of the music from that movie! Wow, if you saw the show you know how much fun we had. And this year I wrote the horns for Tony Joe White’s new CD, “Uncovered.” I know that you’ve met Tony – & let me tell you that he is as funky as always and he inspired me to do my very best work! I can’t wait for you to hear it!

(EIN Note: Neil Young’s ‘Prairie Wind’ CD on Amazon.com gets the review.. “With Wayne Jackson of the soulful Memphis Horns…Neil Young has previously released a lot of albums in different musical styles, but Prairie Wind feels like a homecoming, and ranks with his very best”)

EIN – It’s great to know you’re still working as hard as ever & with such great performers. What a wonderful history you have.

W.J – I tell you what it has been wonderful, it’s been great times – I don’t have any complaints! I have some pretty good friends.

Please let me say hello to all the fans of Elvis in Australia & New Zealand and let me say that Elvis was truly a wonderful young man and they would have loved him personally had they met him.
Wayne Jackson was interviewed by Piers Beagley for EIN, September 2002/2006.

– Copyright Elvis Information Network 2002/2006.

Click to comment on this interview

Right: Wayne Jackson & Andrew Love. The Memphis Horns still funky after all these years.NOTE: For more information about Wayne Jackson’s autobiographical books, discography, historical journey & photos go to his website “Sweet Medicine Music”.There you can also find out about how to purchase Wayne’s handwritten sheet music of the legendary horn parts to his classic songs, including ‘Dock of the Bay’, and ‘Suspicious Minds.’

Politicians and interest groups claim higher taxes are necessary because it would be impossible to cut spending by enough to get rid of red ink. This Center for Freedom and Prosperity video shows that these assertions are nonsense. The budget can be balanced very quickly by simply limiting the annual growth of federal spending.

Steve Brawner in his article “Safer roads and balanced budgets,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 13, 2011, noted:

The disagreement is over the solutions — on what spending to cut; what taxes to raise (basically none ever, according to Boozman); whether or not to enact a balanced budget amendment (Boozman says yes; Pryor no); and on what policies would promote the kind of economic growth that would make this a little easier.

Over the next few days I want to take a closer look a Cato Policy Report from July/August 1996 called “Seven Reforms to Balance the Budget” by Stephen Moore. Stephen Moore was the Cato Institute’s director of fiscal policy studies, and afterwards, a Cato senior fellow. This article is based on testimony he delivered before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight on March 27, 1996. Moore commented:

2.) A Supermajority Requirement to Raise Taxes

Americans have been hit with 12 tax hikes in the past 20 years; each one has succeeded in further expanding the size of government rather than reducing the debt. Requiring a three-fifths or two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate to pass a tax increase would allow Congress to pass tax hikes in cases of national emergency but would make it very difficult for Uncle Sam to continue the annual ritual of peacetime tax hikes. Several states, including Arizona, California, and Oklahoma, have enacted such measures; they have stopped tax increases dead in their tracks. As one Arizona taxpayer advocate of the supermajority requirement recently told me, “Now the legislature doesn’t even bother to propose new taxes.”

Congress passed the part of the “Contract with America” that promised new rules requiring a 60 percent vote to raise income taxes. That was a good start. But now that hurdle should be made to apply to all revenue-raising bills.

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Another famous Arkansan.

A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smoldering settler/rancher conflict forces him to act in this classic Oscar winning western.

Fellow conservative Senators speak out on why a Balanced Budget Amendment is necessary NOW to curb government spending.

Steve Brawner in his article “Safer roads and balanced budgets,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 13, 2011, noted:

The disagreement is over the solutions — on what spending to cut; what taxes to raise (basically none ever, according to Boozman); whether or not to enact a balanced budget amendment (Boozman says yes; Pryor no); and on what policies would promote the kind of economic growth that would make this a little easier.

Over the next few days I want to take a closer look a Cato Policy Report from July/August 1996 called “Seven Reforms to Balance the Budget” by Stephen Moore. Stephen Moore was the Cato Institute’s director of fiscal policy studies, and afterwards, a Cato senior fellow. This article is based on testimony he delivered before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight on March 27, 1996. Moore observed:

I would urge that a new budget act contain the following seven provisions, which are discussed in order of priority.

1.) An Enforceable Legislative Balanced-Budget Requirement

Don’t wait for a balanced-budget amendment. Act now. The most urgent reform for this Congress to undertake is passage of a balanced-budget law that enforces the deficit targets established in the House budget resolution.

What I have in mind is a new Gramm-Rudman-Hollings formula that establishes iron-clad enforceable deficit targets. One of the great myths in Washington is that Gramm-Rudman was repealed because it wasn’t working. Gramm-Rudman was repealed by the pro-spending constituencies in Congress precisely because it was working too well.

Gramm-Rudman was enacted in 1985, when Congress was under intense public pressure to immediately reform the budget and reduce the $200 billion budget deficit. The controversial law required Congress to balance the budget by 1991 by meeting a series of annual deficit reduction targets. If Congress missed those targets, the law would trigger automatic spending cuts–a process called “sequestration”–to reduce the deficit to the mandated level.

Critics charge that the act was a dismal failure because Congress continually veered off the balanced-budget track. It is true that Congress routinely missed the deficit targets. Actual deficits under Gramm-Rudman were, on average, about $30 billion per year above maximum deficit targets.

Still, Gramm-Rudman had a positive effect on the federal budget. The best way to measure its impact is to compare the actual deficits recorded during the five years the act was in effect with what the deficit was projected to be by the Congressional Budget Office without Gramm-Rudman. The 1989 deficit was about $100 billion lower than had been expected in 1985 without Gramm-Rudman. The deficit fell from 6 to 3 percent of GDP under Gramm-Rudman.

The most dramatic effect of Gramm-Rudman was to curb government expenditures. Government spending in the five years before the act grew at a rate of 8.7 percent, but it slowed to only 3.2 percent in the five years Gramm-Rudman was in effect. Even entitlement spending was curtailed under Gramm-Rudman to a 5 percent growth rate, because Congress realized that if it allowed programs like Medicare and Medicaid to rise uncontrollably, that would eat up the rest of the budget and cause painful automatic cuts in discretionary spending.

Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) and House Majority Leader Dick Armey have introduced legislation to restore many of the features of Gramm-Rudman. The most vital reform is a series of deficit reduction targets that, if missed, would trigger automatic across-the-board spending cuts–a sequester. I would urge that any new sequester process include all federal outlays except interest payments and Social Security benefits. That would impose a much-needed dose of discipline on the budget process.

Table 1: 40 Years of Government Growth

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Another famous Arkansan.