Category Archives: President Obama

An open letter to President Obama (Part 32 of my response to State of Union Speech 1-24-12)

March 13, 2012 – 2:05 pm

Rep Michael Burgess response

Uploaded by on Jan 25, 2012

This week Dr. Burgess provides an update from Washington and responds to President Obama’s State of the Union address.

Sen. Toomey responds to State of the Union address 2012

Leader Cantor On CNN Responding To President Obama’s State of the Union Address

Uploaded by on Jan 25, 2012

President Obama’s state of the union speech Jan 24, 2012

Barack Obama (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images)

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

I am an avid reader of the National Review and I remember watching those famous debates at Harvard between John Kenneth Galbraith and William Buckley. You probably were at some of those debates. Below is a portion of an article that talks about your recent State of the Union address:

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE          www.nationalreview.com           PRINT

JOHN HOOD
The president’s State of the Union Address contained the usual list of uncontroversial, small-bore ideas. It also contained some surprisingly good rhetoric, such as this passage: “Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.”

If only President Obama really believed that. In the very same speech, he defended his administration’s past bailouts and handouts, and called for more.

But the real thrust of the speech came at the end, when Obama made his pitch for such ideas as higher taxes on the wealthy and a reorganization plan for the federal government. Once again, the current president invited comparison with Franklin Roosevelt.

In 1937, with his tax and regulatory policies kicking in to trigger another sharp economic downturn, President Roosevelt resorted to two main arguments to defend himself: (1) greedy capitalists were sabotaging the economy, and (2) he still lacked the power necessary to advance his agenda in Washington.

Roosevelt prevailed with his court-packing scheme to intimidate the conservative Supreme Court into capitulating on the constitutionality of Obamaca . . . – er, I mean the New Deal. But Roosevelt’s other initiative, a reorganization plan designed to increase his power vis-à-vis the Congress, didn’t fare so well. Led by Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan and Democratic senator Josiah Bailey of North Carolina, among others, a bipartisan coalition arose to defeat the bill in 1938. More than 100 Democrats crossed party lines to vote it down. That fall, Roosevelt suffered one of the worst midterm election defeats in American political history.

Now we have President Obama giving a State of the Union address in which he complains about undertaxed capitalists and calls for a reorganization plan that, no matter how attractive it may sound on the surface, is likely to transfer more power to the executive branch.

Who will challenge Obama’s politics of envy and block his latest grab for power? Who will play the role of Vandenberg or Bailey? Of the presidential candidates still auditioning for the part, none has yet proved he possesses the mix of personality and principle necessary to the task.

― John Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation, a public-policy think tank in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

Uploaded by on Jan 25, 2012

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) gives a conservative response to the 2012 State of the Union address.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Current Events | Comments (0)

An open letter to President Obama (Part 31 of my response to State of Union Speech 1-24-12)

March 12, 2012 – 9:11 am

Leader Cantor On CNN Responding To President Obama’s State of the Union Address

Uploaded by on Jan 25, 2012

President Obama’s state of the union speech Jan 24, 2012

Barack Obama (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images)

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

I am an avid reader of the National Review and I remember watching those famous debates at Harvard between John Kenneth Galbraith and William Buckley. You probably were at some of those debates. Below is a portion of an article that talks about your recent State of the Union address:

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE          www.nationalreview.com           PRINT

TEVI TROY
Three things struck me about President Obama’s lengthy State of the Union address. First, this concept of “an economy that’s built to last” is a fatally flawed view of how an economy works. When market advocates talk about the economy, they discuss the economy in terms of its fluidity, its variability, or, most famously, its creative destructiveness. Obama’s view, in contrast, seems to be one of building a hard immovable structure, as if one could pin down a moving, breathing economy at one mythical point in time.

In addition, Obama devoted only 44 words out of 7,000 to his expensive and unpopular health-care law, his so-called signature achievement. He made the claim that “our health-care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program,” which an AP fact check called only “half true.” Even that may have been generous. The law does in fact create a new program, with multiple new government bureaucracies to administer its subsidies, exchanges, and new insurance regulations.

Finally, I was distressed by the fact that the president mostly ignored our looming debt crisis, a topic Governor Daniels covered at far greater length in his significantly shorter remarks. The president can say all he wants that we can solve our problems if we would just work together, but he must first recognize the problems before that can happen.

— Tevi Troy is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Current Events | Comments (0)

Videos by Cato Institute on failed stimulus plans

March 9, 2012 – 7:43 am

In this post I have gathered several videos from the Cato Institute concerning the subject of failed stimulus plans.

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Government Spending Doesn’t Create Jobs

Uploaded by on Sep 7, 2011

Share this on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/qnjkn9 Tweet it: http://tiny.cc/o9v9t

In the debate of job creation and how best to pursue it as a policy goal, one point is forgotten: Government doesn’t create jobs. Government only diverts resources from one use to another, which doesn’t create new employment.

Video produced by Caleb Brown and Austin Bragg.

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Keynesian Catastrophe: Big Money, Big Government & Big Lies

Uploaded by on Jan 19, 2012

The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell explains why Obama’s stimulus was a flop! With Glenn Reynolds.

See more at http://www.pjtv.com and http://www.cato.org

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Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Bigger Gov’t Is Not Stimulus

Uploaded by on Dec 15, 2008

Based on a theory known as Keynesianism, politicians are resuscitating the notion that more government spending can stimulate an economy. This mini-documentary produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation examines both theory and evidence and finds that allowing politicians to spend more money is not a recipe for better economic performance.

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Obama’s So-Called Stimulus: Good For Government, Bad For the Economy

Uploaded by on Jan 26, 2009

President Obama wants Congress to dramatically expand the burden of government spending. This CF&P Foundation mini-documentary explains why such a policy, based on the discredited Keynesian theory of economics, will not be successful. Indeed, the video demonstrates that Obama is proposing – for all intents and purposes – to repeat Bush’s mistakes. Government will be bigger, even though global evidence shows that nations with small governments are more prosperous.

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Big Government Is Not Stimulus: Why Keynes Was Wrong (The Condensed Version)

Uploaded by on Jan 13, 2009

The CF&P Foundation has released a condensed version of our successful mini-documentary explaining why so-called stimulus schemes do not work. Based on a theory known as Keynesianism, politicians are resuscitating the notion that more government spending can stimulate an economy. This mini-documentary produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation examines both theory and evidence and finds that allowing politicians to spend more money is not a recipe for better economic performance.

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Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth

Uploaded by on Aug 17, 2009

This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video analyzes how excessive government spending undermines economic performance. While acknowledging that a very modest level of government spending on things such as “public goods” can facilitate growth, the video outlines eight different ways that that big government hinders prosperity. This video focuses on theory and will be augmented by a second video looking at the empirical evidence favoring smaller government.

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Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Economic Growth Causes Consumer Spending, Not the Other Way

Uploaded by on Nov 29, 2010

Politicians and journalists who fixate on consumer spending are putting the cart before the horse. Consumer spending generally is a consequence of growth, not the cause of growth. This Center for Freedom and Prosperity video helps explain how to achieve more prosperity by looking at the differences between gross domestic product and gross domestic income. www.freedomandprosperity.org

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Deficits, Debts and Unfunded Liabilities: The Consequences of Excessive Government Spending

Uploaded by on May 10, 2010

Huge budget deficits and record levels of national debt are getting a lot of attention, but this video explains that unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs are Americas real red-ink challenge. More important, this CF&P mini-documentary reveals that deficits and debt are symptoms of the real problem of an excessive burden of government spending. www.freedomandprosperity.org

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Now that I have been critical of the Democrat President, I wanted to show that I am not concerned about taking up for Republicans but looking at the facts. President Clinton did increase government spending at a slower rate than many other presidents. Here are two  videos that praise both Reagan and Clinton for both accomplished this feat.

Spending Restraint, Part I: Lessons from Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton

Uploaded by on Feb 14, 2011

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both reduced the relative burden of government, largely because they were able to restrain the growth of domestic spending. The mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity uses data from the Historical Tables of the Budget to show how Reagan and Clinton succeeded and compares their record to the fiscal profligacy of the Bush-Obama years.

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Spending Restraint, Part II: Lessons from Canada, Ireland, Slovakia, and New Zealand

Uploaded by on Feb 22, 2011

Nations can make remarkable fiscal progress if policy makers simply limit the growth of government spending. This video, which is Part II of a series, uses examples from recent history in Canada, Ireland, Slovakia, and New Zealand to demonstrate how it is possible to achieve rapid improvements in fiscal policy by restraining the burden of government spending. Part I of the series examined how Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were successful in controlling government outlays — particularly the burden of domestic spending programs. www.freedomandprosperity.org

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It seems that liberals will never wake up. On 3-8-12 a Arkansas Times blogger pointed out that Obama’s stimulus in 2009 was not made up of just increased but also tax cuts. That is true but the real truth is that there have been about 1/2 dozen stimulus efforts by President Obama and all of them have failed.  Over and over they have tried stimulus plans but they don’t work. Take a look at this excellent article from the Cato Institute:

Keynesian Policies Have Failed

by Chris Edwards

Chris Edwards is the director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute and the editor of Downsizing Government.org.

Added to cato.org on December 2, 2011

This article appeared on U.S. News & World Report Online on December 2, 2011

Lawmakers are considering extending temporary payroll tax cuts. But the policy is based on faulty Keynesian theories and misplaced confidence in the government’s ability to micromanage short-run growth.

In textbook Keynesian terms, federal deficits stimulate growth by goosing “aggregate demand,” or consumer spending. Since the recession began, we’ve had a lot of goosing — deficits were $459 billion in 2008, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, and $1.3 trillion in 2011. Despite that huge supposed stimulus, unemployment remains remarkably high and the recovery has been the slowest since World War II.

Policymakers should ignore the Keynesians and their faulty models, and instead focus on reforms to aid long-run growth…

Yet supporters of extending payroll tax cuts think that adding another $265 billion to the deficit next year will somehow spur growth. That “stimulus” would be on top of the $1 trillion in deficit spending that is already expected in 2012. Far from helping the economy, all this deficit spending is destabilizing financial markets, scaring businesses away from investing, and imposing crushing debt burdens on young people.

For three years, policymakers have tried to manipulate short-run economic growth, and they have failed. They have put too much trust in macroeconomists, who are frankly lousy at modeling the complex workings of the short-run economy. In early 2008, the Congressional Budget Office projected that economic growth would strengthen in subsequent years, and thus completely missed the deep recession that had already begun. And then there was the infamously bad projection by Obama’s macroeconomists that unemployment would peak at 8 percent and then fall steadily if the 2009 stimulus plan was passed.

Chris Edwards is the director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute and the editor of Downsizing Government.org.

 

More by Chris Edwards

Some of the same Keynesian macroeconomists who got it wrong on the recession and stimulus are now claiming that a temporary payroll tax break would boost growth. But as Stanford University economist John Taylor has argued, the supposed benefits of government stimulus have been “built in” or predetermined by the underlying assumptions of the Keynesian models.

Policymakers should ignore the Keynesians and their faulty models, and instead focus on reforms to aid long-run growth, which economists know a lot more about. Cutting the corporate tax rate, for example, is an overdue reform with bipartisan support that would enhance America’s long-run productivity and competitiveness.

If Congress is intent on cutting payroll taxes, it should do so within the context of long-run fiscal reforms. One idea is to allow workers to steer a portion of their payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts, as Chile and other nations have done. That reform would feel like a tax cut to workers because they would retain ownership of the funds, and it would begin solving the long-term budget crisis that looms over the economy.

Related posts:

Stimulus plans do not work (part 2)

Dan Mitchell discusses the effectiveness of the stimulus Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Nov 3, 2009 11-2-09 When I think of all our hard earned money that has been wasted on stimulus programs it makes me sad. It has never worked and will not in the future too. Take a look at a few thoughts from […]

Stimulus plans do not work (Part 1)

Government Spending Doesn’t Create Jobs Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Sep 7, 2011 Share this on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/qnjkn9 Tweet it: http://tiny.cc/o9v9t In the debate of job creation and how best to pursue it as a policy goal, one point is forgotten: Government doesn’t create jobs. Government only diverts resources from one use to another, which doesn’t […]

Dumas thinks we don’t need Balanced Budget Amendment but should balance it on our own

In his recent article Ernie Dumas sticks to his guns that we should balance the budget without being forced to with a “Balanced Budget Amendment,” but I wonder how well that has worked so far? I have made this a key issue for this blog in the past as you can tell below: Dear Senator […]

Maybe the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd should be angry at Obama

(Picture from Arkansas Times Blog) When I think about all the anger and hate coming from the Occupy Wall Street crowd, I wonder if they have read this story below? Solyndra: Crooked Politics or Just Bad Economics? Posted by David Boaz Amy Harder has a good take on the Solyndra issue in National Journal Daily […]

Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 13 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor)

Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 13 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor) Office of the Majority Whip | Balanced Budget Amendment Video In 1995, Congress nearly passed a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget. The Balanced Budget Amendment would have forced the federal government to live within its […]

Mark Pryor not for President’s job bill even though he voted for it

Andrew Demillo pointed this out  and also Jason Tolbert noted: PRYOR OPPOSES THE OBAMA JOBS BILL THAT HE VOTED TO ADVANCE  Sen. Mark Pryor has been traveling around the state touting a six-part jobs plan that he says “includes a number of bipartisan initiatives, is aimed at creating jobs by setting the table for growth, encouraging new […]

Is a lack of money the problem for our public schools?

Is a lack of money the problem for our public schools? Everything You Need to Know About Public School Spending in Less Than 2½ Minutes Posted by Adam Schaeffer Neal McCluskey gutted the President’s new “Save the Teachers” American Jobs Act sales pitch a good while back, as did Andrew Coulson here. Thankfully, it seems […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, spending out of control, Taxes | Comments (0)

Obama’s March 16, 2006 speech against raising debt ceiling

March 8, 2012 – 6:39 am

Obama’s March 16, 2006 speech against raising the debt ceiling is here:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans–a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.

Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.

Sen. Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., (Senate – March 16, 2006)

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3 Reasons Why The Debt-Ceiling Debate is Full of Malarkey

Uploaded by on Jul 15, 2011

All anybody in Washington can talk about these days is the debt limit or debt ceiling — the total amount of money the federal government is authorized to borrow at any given time. After a decade in which spending increased by more than 60 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars and the debt limit was raised no fewer than 10 times, the government is about to max out its $14.3 trillion credit line, leading to fears that Washington is going to default on its bonds, stop cutting Social Security checks, and destroy the economy more than it already has.

But the current debate over the debt ceiling is full of malarkey for at least three reasons.

1. August 2 is a phony deadline. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has pushed back the drop-dead date when the U.S. finally reaches its limit a bunch of times already: March 31, April 15, May 31 were all cited as deadlines before August 2 was inked in as Armageddon. But this time, he means it, man, really.

2. Reaching the debt limit is not the same as defaulting on our debt — which would indeed be catastrophic.

Think about it: You can max out your credit cards but as long as you keep paying the minimum amount due each month, your creditors don’t go crazy. Interest on the debt is a small fraction of total outlays and the government has a series of tools — from using cash on hand to selling assets to scrimping on nonessential payments — to make sure interest payments are made and seniors aren’t put on an all cat-food diet.

3. Legislating-by-Panic is no way to run a country. The reason we’re in this mess is because government can’t stop spending. And the government can’t even pass a budget on a year’s notice. But we’re expecting them to come up with a good plan for the country’s borrowing in a couple of weeks? Trying to force through an expansion of the country’s credit line by promising cuts in spending down the road is exactly why we’re in this situation to begin with.

It makes far more sense to do something like sell some TARP assets — the government is sitting on $320 billion in outstanding direct loans and equities investments — to cover interest payments through the end of the fiscal year then force Congress and the president to come up with a budget that cuts spending — and borrowing — for real, next year, not is some distant future.

For more information, check out Nick Gillespie’s 5 Uncomfortable Facts About the Wonderful, Horrible Debt-Limit Debate: http://reason.com/archives/2011/07/08/five-uncomfortable-facts-about

And Mercatus Center’s Jason J. Fichtner & Veronique de Rugy’s The Debt Ceiling: What is at Stake: http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/Debt%20Ceilling.deRugy.Fi…

About 2.35 minutes.

Produced by Nick Gillespie and Meredith Bragg, edited by Joshua Swain.

Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions, and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube Channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.

Related posts (these posts show how much study I have down on this issue before, frankly all 66 of these representatives are my heroes!!):

Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 49) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but […]

Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 48)

Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 48) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but […]

Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 31)

Congressmen Tim Huelskamp on the debt ceiling Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 31) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative […]

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 25)

Uploaded by RepJoeWalsh on Jun 14, 2011 Our country’s debt continues to grow — it’s eating away at the American Dream. We need to make real cuts now. We need Cut, Cap, and Balance. The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 25) This post today is a part of a series […]

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 15)

Sen Obama in 2006 Against Raising Debt Ceiling The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 15) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from […]

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 14)

Today I read a post by Max Brantley on the Arkansas Times Blog concerning the falling poll numbers for the Tea Party.   Wednesday, August 17, 2011 – 06:54:18 The Tea Party: is the fun over An interesting New York Times op-ed reviews the plunging poll approval numbers for the Tea Party and delves into the […]

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 7)

Duncan Hunter at San Diego Eagle Forum.MP4 The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 7) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a […]

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 6)

Rep Himes and Rep Schweikert Discuss the Debt and Budget Deal The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 6) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did […]

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 5)

Rep. Quayle on Fox News with Neil Cavuto   The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 5) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate […]

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 2)

“What good is a debt limit that is always increased?” The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 2) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not […]

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 1)

This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but from a liberal. Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-Mo.) called the newly agreed-upon […]

Michele Bachmann voted against Debt Deal (House Roll Call)

Bachmann Explains “No” Vote on Raising the Debt Ceiling Uploaded by RepMicheleBachmann on Aug 2, 2011 On Monday, August 1, 2011, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann appeared on “Hannity” to explain why she voted “no” on the plan to raise the debt ceiling. _______________________________________ Full House roll call By: Associated Press August 1, 2011 08:46 PM EDT […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in spending out of control | Comments (2)

Raising the debt ceiling again so fast?

March 8, 2012 – 6:15 am

It seems to me that we should stop raising the debt ceiling so much or we will end up like Greece. Below is some great information from Reason Magazine:

Uploaded by on Mar 1, 2011

[Editor’s Note: Go to http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/01/raising-the-debt-limit-it-just for details, charts, and links]

Some say the world will end in fire and some say in ice.

But in Washington, a lot of people say it will end if we don’t continually raise the debt ceiling.

The statutory debt limit, or debt ceiling, represents the maximum amount of debt the federal government can carry at any given time. The limit was created in 1917 so that Congress wouldn’t have to vote every time the government wanted to increase the amount of debt (which was becoming a more and more frequent occasion). Since then, the Treasury Department has had the authority to issue new debt up to whatever the limit is to fund government needs. Last year, the limit was raised to $14.3 trillion, an amount that is about to reached.

As it approaches, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said failing to raise the limit would likely mean the U.S. would default on its debt, creating “real chaos” in place of the fake chaos that’s out there now. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that failing to raise the limit would be “deeply irresponsible” and and Austan Goolsbee, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, has said that not raising the limit would create “the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”

Eh, maybe.

As Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, has pointed out, we’ve maxed out the nation’s credit card in the past without such dire results. In the mid-1980s, the mid-1990s, and in 2002, for instance, the debt limit wasn’t raised for months at a time and the government got along just swell. The government has a big bag of tools it can use, ranging from playing around with the amount of spending that is liable to the limit to prioritizing interest and debt payments over other outlays. Interest on the debt for this year is projected to be about $225 billion and government revenue is expected to be around $2.2 trillion, so the government can easily pay the vig and avoid defaulting.

What it shouldn’t do is simply keep piling on the debt. The limit has been raised no fewer than 10 times in the past decade. When Republicans ran the White House and the Congress, they voted overwhelmingly to charge it and Democrats, including Sen. Obama, hollered bloody murder. In 2006, he called the need to yet again increase the debt limit “a sign of leadership failure.” Now that Dems run the show, the GOP has suddenly rediscovered its inner cheapskate.

So it goes.

The boldest plan to rein in spending and debt comes from newcomer Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a Tea Party favorite who dispatched Republican incumbent Bob Bennett in the primaries before coasting to victory in the general election last fall. Lee has vowed to block passage of a debt-limit increase unless Congress signs on to his balanced-budget amendment which would cap annual federal spending at 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The amendment would require a super-majority of two-thirds in the Senate and House of Representatives. Lee’s bill is competing with another Republican proposal from Sens. Hatch (Utah) and Cornyn (Texas) to cap spending at 20 percent of GDP. The Hatch-Cornyn bill has weaker rules on its higher cap as well.

In 2010, spending came to about 24 percent of GDP and it’s expected to come in around 25 percent of GDP in 2011. Since 1950, total federal revenues have averaged 17.8 percent and have reached higher than 20 percent exactly once. Spending over the same time has averaged just under 20 percent.

Whether Lee’s proposal carries the day — and there’s a strong case that its passage would do more to calm financial markets than simply bumping up the federal credit line — neither the Democratic nor the Republican leadership has yet to advance a serious proposal to cut spending and reduce outstanding debt. Indeed, both the president’s budget proposal for 2012 and the generally non-existent Republican response are not only deeply irresponsible but clear signs of insanity.

That ain’t right. But it does help explain why a government that has increased spending over 62 percent in real dollars can no longer get by on a $14 trillion debt ceiling.

For more info, go to http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/01/raising-the-debt-limit-it-just

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

Federal government spending money so fast they will pass debt ceiling before election

March 8, 2012 – 5:12 am

Sen Obama in 2006 Against Raising Debt Ceiling

Uploaded by on Jun 20, 2011

Rep. Stearns on the House Floor cites Sen. Obama’s opposition in 2006 to increasing the debt ceiling, 6-14-11

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It has greatly troubled me for sometime that the federal government spends so much over their budget every year. That is probably the number one reason I started my blog (www.theDailyHatch.org ) a little over a year ago. The results have been overwhelming. I have had over 170,000 hits and have even been quoted in a national magazine.

Back in the summer of 2011, 66 brave souls in the Republican party voted against the debt ceiling compromise in the House of Representatives and I actually took time to put up 48 different posts praising those 66 tea-party type conservatives. One of them was Cliff Stearns. Representative Stearns actually went on C-Span and mentioned President Obama’s March 2006 vote against raising the debt ceiling and he quoted him directly. The funny thing is I agreed totally with every word of his speech.

Why do we have to keep spending money like this? Here is an excellent article from the Cato Institute that reflects my views:

Hitting the Ceiling

by Michael D. Tanner

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.

Added to cato.org on March 7, 2012

This article appeared in National Review (Online) on March 7, 2012.

If you liked last year’s battle over raising the debt ceiling, just get ready for the fight to come.

Last summer’s agreement, you will recall, raised the federal government’s debt limit from $15.194 trillion to $16.394 trillion in exchange for promised future reductions in spending. Until recently, the consensus has been that federal borrowing will bump up against the new limit sometime between late November of this year and early January 2013.

But buried in President Obama’s 2013 budget was the news that the national debt will hit $16.334 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2012, or September 30, 2012. This is just $60 billion below the current debt limit. Since the federal government is continuing to borrow at a rate of over $130 billion a month, we will likely reach the debt ceiling by mid-October — before Election Day.

From a budgeting perspective, there will not be an immediate crisis. The Treasury Department could, if it chooses, employ “extraordinary measures” to enable the government to keep paying its bills until well after the elections. Despite their name, these measures are not all that “extraordinary,” involving such things as delaying contributions to the civil-service pension fund or suspending sales of certain nonessential securities. In fact, the Treasury used such measures last year from May until the final debt agreement in August, and no one really noticed.

Can Republicans really be trusted to fight for spending cuts just weeks before the election?

But as a political matter, it will be a very different matter.

Suppose that instead of using such measures to push off the day of reckoning until after the election, President Obama threatens default. Suppose he insists on a tax increase as part of any deal to raise the debt ceiling, and threatens international economic chaos and a collapsing stock market if Republicans fail to go along. Can Republicans really be trusted to fight for spending cuts instead, just weeks before the election?

And regardless of what happens before the election, another fight over the debt ceiling will be coming shortly thereafter. Every Republican candidate will have to go on record about whether or not they would raise the debt ceiling and what concessions they would demand.

Republicans, of course, will have a good argument to make about how the president’s spending has driven up the debt. The fact that a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling barely lasted a year could be powerful. But Republicans would have a better time making this argument if they were actually doing something to reduce spending. After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined.

And Republicans continue to talk about undoing the sequester that is responsible for more than half the projected savings to come out of the 2011 deal. In particular, Republicans want to undo cuts to the defense budget, and may be willing to give up domestic-spending cuts in exchange.

Meanwhile, what of Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee after last night’s primaries? Can anyone think of a single major spending program that Romney would eliminate? (Cutting funding to Planned Parenthood doesn’t count, especially given the way Republicans mishandled the contraceptive-mandate debate).

President Obama’s reckless spending could be a godsend to Republicans. It was, after all, debt and spending that energized the Tea Party and led to the 2010 election wave. Not only is it an issue that unites all factions of the Republican base, it is also of importance to independents and suburbanites, including those suburban women who have been turned off by the Republican-primary debate.

But if Republicans don’t want to be blindsided by President Obama come October, they need to start preparing for this debate now.

Related posts:

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Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 48)

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The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 25)

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The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 14)

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The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 6)

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The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 5)

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The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 2)

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Michele Bachmann voted against Debt Deal (House Roll Call)

Bachmann Explains “No” Vote on Raising the Debt Ceiling Uploaded by RepMicheleBachmann on Aug 2, 2011 On Monday, August 1, 2011, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann appeared on “Hannity” to explain why she voted “no” on the plan to raise the debt ceiling. _______________________________________ Full House roll call By: Associated Press August 1, 2011 08:46 PM EDT […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

An open letter to President Obama (Part 29 of my response to State of Union Speech 1-24-12)

March 7, 2012 – 8:06 am

Congressman Rick Crawford State of the Union Response 2012

Uploaded by on Jan 24, 2012

Rep. Rick Crawford responds to the State of the Union address January 24, 2012

President Obama’s state of the union speech Jan 24, 2012

Barack Obama (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images)

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

I am an avid reader of the National Review and I remember watching those famous debates at Harvard between John Kenneth Galbraith and William Buckley. You probably were at some of those debates. Below is a portion of an article that talks about your recent State of the Union address:

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE          www.nationalreview.com           PRINT

Obama’s Final SOTU?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
This was a 2012 campaign speech poorly disguised as a State of the Union Address. But mostly, it was incoherent.

How far we have come in this mishmash from seas rising and temperatures cooling! Obama took credit for things that happened over his opposition, kept silent about his failures (especially the debt), omitted his “successes” (Obamacare) and largely made things up as he hoped and changed his way through. No one listening to Obama would ever dream that we are up to $16 trillion in debt, facing an implosion of Medicare and Social Security, and have a nonexistent housing market, high unemployment, and soaring gas and food prices.

Some details: The war on terror and Iraq are praised for having brought results, but unmentioned is that Obama once opposed all the very protocols and policies that he inherited — and now embraces.

September 2008 was just yesterday, frozen in amber as Obama’s talisman that wards off all responsibility for 2009–2012; the three-and-a-half years in between never happened.

The Democratic Congress’s $4 trillion-borrowing between 2009–2011did nothing; one year of a Republican House wanting a stop to the debt apparently means killing jobs.

The evil Chinese found a way to make things more cheaply than we did and must stop it.

Given soaring gasoline prices and Solyndra, green was sorta then, and natural gas is sorta now. So Obama takes credit for oil and gas production, but to do so shamelessly must tell untruths: Gas production is up only because of someone else’s private genius utilizing fracking and horizontal drilling — in spite of Obama’s cutting back on 40 percent of federal leases, EPA bullying, cap-and-trade utopianism, and his administration’s canceling things like Keystone — and gasoline demand is down because his economy has been so bad the last three years.

Wall Street greed must be watched. That’s why Obama has hired three straight Wall Street multi-millionaires who made their fortunes on Wall Street — much of it from the Freddie/Fannie bubble he serially faults others for.

Losing millions of jobs between 2009–12 was all Bush’s fault, gaining back less than half of them was all to the credit of Obama.

If the Hoover Dam is now Obama’s model, then canceling the massive Keystone Pipeline was his missed chance.

Every corporation must pay their fair share — perhaps even non-income-tax-paying Obama pal GE’s Jeffery Immelt?

Schools should be much more flexible — that’s why Obama opposed charter schools and backs teachers’ unions. Dropouts drop out not on their own volition, but because they can’t stay on the premises and therefore won’t be allowed out until they turn 18.

Obama wants job training instead of unemployment entitlements, but that’s why he vastly expanded the latter.

Outsourcing is bad, but we brag on a globalized Siemens when it outsourced European jobs to hire Americans. Somehow Wall Street (without help from Fannie and Freddie insiders and incompetent or risk-taking buyers) forced houses on the innocent who did not know what they were doing.

Illegal aliens somehow dropped in; none willingly broke the law getting or staying here.

Cutting deficits is critical; that is why Obama ran up $6 trillion in four years.

A man who tried to prevent up-and-down votes while was a senator no longer likes that as president.

Reaching out to Syrian dictator Assad and restoring diplomatic relations with him was part of the Obama plan to see him gone.

Reset with Iran was then, threatening it is now.

The worst relationship in history with Israel is really the strongest.

Massive defense cuts are proof of a brilliant Obama new strategic reassessment.

And on and on, with not a word about looming financial insolvency and a ruined health-care system. In Obama’s peasant idea of a limited good, a few bad guys get ahead only by ensuring lots of good guys don’t.

One bright note: In a brief, matter-of-fact rebuttal, Mitch Daniels said more in ten minutes than Obama did in over an hour — in over three years, in fact — and more than all the Republican candidates have said in four months.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of the just-released The End of Sparta. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

Uploaded by on Jan 25, 2012

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) gives a conservative response to the 2012 State of the Union address.
By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

President Obama’s 3-6-12 Press Conference video and transcript (Part 6)

March 7, 2012 – 8:05 am

Uploaded by on Mar 6, 2012

President Barack Obama hold a news conference in the White House briefing room on Tuesday, March 6, 2012.

________________________________

Here are some more links to other posts I have done on President Obama:

Brummett misses the boat on Obamacare again March 6, 2012 – 9:25 am , An open letter to President Obama (Part 27 of my response to State of Union Speech 1-24-12), March 6, 2012 – 7:21 am , Brantley is wrong about Republicans losing debate on Obamacare and conscience March 6, 2012 – 6:58 am ,“War on Women?” March 5, 2012 – 10:03 am ,Obama’s budget according to the Heritage Foundation March 2, 2012 – 2:53 pm, and Obama needs to eliminate the Dept of Education March 2, 2012 – 7:27 am

Below is a portion of the 3-6-12 Presidential press conference:

Transcript of President Obama’s press conference on March 6, 2012:  

“Norah O’Donnell.  How are you?”

Question:

“Thank you, Mr. President.  Today is Super Tuesday, so I wonder if you might weigh in on some of your potential Republican opponents.  Mitt Romney has criticized you on Iran and said, ‘Hope is not a foreign policy.’  He also said that you are ‘America’s most feckless President since Carter.’  What would you like to say to Mr. Romney?”

President Obama:

“Good luck tonight.”

(Laughter.)

Question: 

“No, really.”

President Obama:

“Really.”

(Laughter.)

“Lynn, since you’ve been hollering and you’re from my hometown, make it a good one.”

Question:

“My question is about the switch of the G8 summit from Chicago to Camp David.  A reason given from the White House is that now you wanted a more intimate summit.  People of Chicago would like to know what do you know now that you did not know when you booked hometown Chicago for the G8 that led to the switch?  And what role did security threats possibly play in the decision?”

President Obama:

“Well, keep in mind, Lynn, we’re still going to be showing up with a whole bunch of world leaders.  We’ve got this NATO summit.  Typically what’s happened is, is that we try to attach the G8 summit to the NATO summit so that the leaders in the G8 summit don’t have to travel twice to whatever location.  So last year, in France, we combined a G8 with a NATO summit.  We’ll do so again.

“I have to say, this was an idea that was brought to me after the initial organizing of the NATO summit.  Somebody pointed out that I hadn’t had any of my counterparts, who I’ve worked with now for three years, up to Camp David.  G8 tends to be a more informal setting in which we talk about a wide range of issues in a pretty intimate way.  And the thinking was that people would enjoy being in a more casual backdrop.  I think the weather should be good that time of year.  It will give me a chance to spend time with Mr. Putin, the new Russian President.  And from there, we will then fly to Chicago.

“I always have confidence in Chicago being able to handle security issues.  Whether it’s Taste of Chicago or Lollapalooza  — (laughter) — or Bull’s championships, we know how to deal with a crowd.  And I’m sure that your new mayor will be quite attentive to detail in making sure that everything goes off well.

“All right?  Okay.  Go ahead, last one, last question.”

Question:

“Thank you.  Mr. President, just to continue on that — when the NATO leaders gather in Chicago in May, do you expect that they’ll be able to agree on a transition strategy?  And are you concerned at all that the Koran burning and the episodes that have followed since then threaten your ability to negotiate with partners?”

President Obama:

“Well, keep in mind that the transition policy was in place and established at Lisbon, and we’ve been following that strategy that calls for us turning over increasing responsibility to Afghans and a full transition so that our combat role is over by the end of 2014.  And our coalition partners have agreed to it.  They are sticking with it.  That continues to be the plan.

“What we are now going to be doing over the next — at this NATO meeting and planning for the next two years, is to make sure that that transition is not a cliff, but that there are benchmarks and steps that are taken along the way, in the same way that we reduced our role in Iraq so that it is gradual, Afghan capacity is built, the partnering with Afghan security forces is effective, that we are putting in place the kinds of support structures that are needed in order for the overall strategy to be effective.

“Now, yes, the situation with the Koran burning concerns me. I think that it is an indication of the challenges in that environment, and it’s an indication that now is the time for us to transition.

“Obviously, the violence directed at our people is unacceptable.  And President Karzai acknowledged that.  But what is also true is President Karzai I think is eager for more responsibility on the Afghan side.  We’re going to be able to find a mechanism whereby Afghans understand their sovereignty is being respected and that they’re going to be taking a greater and greater role in their own security.  That I think is in the interest of Afghans.  It’s also in our interests.  And I’m confident we can execute, but it’s not going to be a smooth path. There are going to be bumps along the road just as there were in Iraq.”

Question:

“Well, are these bumps along the road, or are you seeing a deterioration in the relationship, based on the Koran burning itself, the violence that has followed, that inhibits your ability to work out things like how to hand off the detention center?”

President Obama:

“No, I — none of this stuff is easy, and it never has been.  And obviously, the most recent riots or protests against the Koran burning were tragic, but remember, this happened a while back when a pastor in Florida threatened to burn a Koran.  In Iraq, as we were making this transition, there were constant crises that would pop up and tragic events that would take place and there would be occasional setbacks.

“But what I’ve tried to do is to set a course, make sure that up and down the chain of command everybody knows what our broader strategy is.  And one of the incredible things about our military is that when they know what our objective is, what our goal is, regardless of the obstacles that they meet along the way, they get the job done.

“And I think that President Karzai understands that we are interested in a strategic partnership with the Afghan people and the Afghan government.  We are not interested in staying there any longer than is necessary to assure that al Qaeda is not operating there, and that there is sufficient stability that it doesn’t end up being a free-for-all after ISAF has left.

“And so we share interests here.  It will require negotiations, and there will be time where things don’t look as smooth as I’d like.  That’s kind of the deal internationally on a whole range of these issues.

“All right?  Thank you guys.

“Oh, can I just make one other comment?  I want to publicly express condolences to the family of Donald Payne, Congressman from New Jersey — a wonderful man; did great work, both domestically and internationally.  He was a friend of mine.  And so my heart goes out to his family and to his colleagues.”

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

President Obama’s projections are way off on future deficits

March 7, 2012 – 8:04 am

Rep Michael Burgess response

Uploaded by on Jan 25, 2012

This week Dr. Burgess provides an update from Washington and responds to President Obama’s State of the Union address.

_______________

Here is an excellent piece from the Heritage Foundation with a reaction to the president’s proposed budget:

Obama’s Budget Sings a Golden Oldie: “Do You Believe in Magic?”– J.D. Foster Imagine if every President magically got an extra year. Budgets are always full of contestable assumptions and assertions, and President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget is no exception. But few budgets get an extra year—certainly none in recent memory, until now. It’s not that President Obama’s budget assumes his first term will last five years instead of four, or that a second term would last an extra year. But there is an extra year in the budget. It shows up in the economic assumptions, specifically, his assumptions for economic growth. Every budget rests on two basic pillars: the President’s policy proposals in conjunction with current law, and the economic assumptions that drive tax receipts and much of federal spending. A President can be forgiven a little optimism in formulating these economic assumptions, as every Administration believes its policies would produce a stronger economy. And, after all, these economic forecasts, while painstakingly developed, are nevertheless little more than SWAGs, which is budget speak for Silly, Wild-A** Guesses. Even so, ever since the humorous debates about rosey-scenario forecasts dating back to the 1980s, a budget’s economic forecasts rarely diverge substantially from the conventional wisdom as evidenced by the Blue Chip forecast, essentially an average of selected private-sector forecasters. It’s not that the Blue Chip forecast is more likely than any other to be right, but at least it does reflect something of a safe, prudent consensus. The January Blue Chip forecast as reported in the budget has growth in real output in 2012 of 2.2 percent, which agrees with the Congressional Budget Office forecast. The Administration shows a substantially higher forecast of 2.7 percent. That’s a big difference for the most important year—the current year. A pattern of the Administration projecting substantially stronger growth continues in the forecasts for every year up until 2017—what would be the end of President Obama’s second term if re-elected, when at last the Administration’s forecast returns to earth. The net effect of these uber-strong annual economic growth forecasts is that from 2012 to 2017, the Administration projects a whopping 3.9 percent more cumulative growth than does the Blue Chip forecast. In economic terms, that’s like adding an extra year of growth—an extra very good year of growth. And the effect of this irrational economic forecasting exuberance on the deficit in 2017? The budget tells us that, too, in a sensitivity table (3-1). According to the President’s own budget, the deficit in 2016 would jump by about $195 billion, from $649 billion to about $844 billion, if they used the more conservative Blue Chip forecast. If only we could count on this magical economic year of growth, maybe we could wish our fiscal troubles away. As the Lovin’ Spoonful sang it: “Do you believe in magic?”

_________________________________

I don’t know much about projections and the assumptions they are based on. However, I do know that it is impossible to claim that this budget proposal cuts anything when in fact it adds 8 trillion to the deficit in coming years.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

President Obama’s 3-6-12 Press Conference video and transcript (Part 5)

March 7, 2012 – 8:03 am

Uploaded by on Mar 6, 2012

President Barack Obama hold a news conference in the White House briefing room on Tuesday, March 6, 2012.

________________________________

Here are some more links to other posts I have done on President Obama:

Brummett misses the boat on Obamacare again March 6, 2012 – 9:25 am , An open letter to President Obama (Part 27 of my response to State of Union Speech 1-24-12), March 6, 2012 – 7:21 am , Brantley is wrong about Republicans losing debate on Obamacare and conscience March 6, 2012 – 6:58 am ,“War on Women?” March 5, 2012 – 10:03 am ,Obama’s budget according to the Heritage Foundation March 2, 2012 – 2:53 pm, and Obama needs to eliminate the Dept of Education March 2, 2012 – 7:27 am

Below is a portion of the 3-6-12 Presidential press conference:

Transcript of President Obama’s press conference on March 6, 2012: 

Question: 

“Thank you, Mr. President.  Do you believe Rush Limbaugh’s apology to the Georgetown law student was sufficient and heartfelt?  Do you agree with the decision of the growing number of sponsors that have decided to drop his show or stop supporting his show?  And has there been a double standard on this issue?  Liberal commentators have made similarly provocative or distasteful statements and there hasn’t been such an outrage.”

President Obama: 

“I’m not going to comment on what sponsors decide to do.  I’m not going to comment on either the economics or the politics of it.  I don’t know what’s in Rush Limbaugh’s heart, so I’m not going to comment on the sincerity of his apology.  What I can comment on is the fact that all decent folks can agree that the remarks that were made don’t have any place in the public discourse.

“And the reason I called Ms. Fluke is because I thought about Malia and Sasha, and one of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about, even ones I may not agree with them on.  I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way.  And I don’t want them attacked or called horrible names because they’re being good citizens.  And I wanted Sandra to know that I thought her parents should be proud of her, and that we want to send a message to all our young people that being part of a democracy involves argument and disagreements and debate, and we want you to be engaged, and there’s a way to do it that doesn’t involve you being demeaned and insulted, particularly when you’re a private citizen.

“Jessica Yellin.”

Question:

“Bill Mahr apologized for what he said about — (inaudible) — should apologize for what they said about that?”

President Obama:

“Jessica.”

Question: 

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

President Obama:

“Thank you.”

Question: 

“Top Democrats have said that Republicans on a similar issue are engaged in a war on women.  Some top Republicans say it’s more like Democrats are engaged in a war for the women’s vote.  As you talk about loose talk of war in another arena and women are — this could raise concerns among women, do you agree with the chair of your Democratic National Committee that there is a war on women?”

President Obama: 

“Here is what I think.  Women are going to make up their own mind in this election about who is advancing the issues that they care most deeply about.  And one of the things I’ve learned being married to Michelle is I don’t need to tell her what it is that she thinks is important.

“And there are millions of strong women around the country who are going to make their own determination about a whole range of issues.  It’s not going to be narrowly focused just on contraception.  It’s not going to be driven by one statement by one radio announcer.  It is going to be driven by their view of what’s most likely to make sure they can help support their families, make their mortgage payments; who’s got a plan to ensure that middle-class families are secure over the long term; what’s most likely to result in their kids being able to get the education they need to compete.

“And I believe that Democrats have a better story to tell to women about how we’re going to solidify the middle class and grow this economy, make sure everybody has a fair shot, everybody is doing their fair share, and we got a fair set of rules of the road that everybody has to follow.

“So I’m not somebody who believes that women are going to be single-issue voters.  They never have been.  But I do think that we’ve got a strong story to tell when it comes to women.”

Question:

“Would you prefer this language be changed?”

President Obama:

“Jessica, as you know, if I start being in the business of arbitrating –”

Question:

“You talk about civility.”

President Obama:

“And what I do is I practice it.  And so I’m going to try to lead by example in this situation, as opposed to commenting on every single comment that’s made by either politicians or pundits.  I would be very busy.  I would not have time to do my job.  That’s your job, to comment on what’s said by politicians and pundits.

“All right.  Lori Montenegro.”

Question:

“Mr. President, thank you.”

President Obama: 

“There you go.”

Question:

“Mr. President, polls are showing that Latino voters seem to be favoring your reelection over a Republican alternative.  Yet some of them are still disappointed, others have said, about a promise that you’ve made on immigration reform that has yet to come to pass.  If you are reelected, what would be your strategy, what would you do different to get immigration reform passed through the Congress, especially if both houses continue as they are right now, which is split?”

President Obama:

“Well, first of all, just substantively, every American should want immigration reform.  We’ve got a system that’s broken.  We’ve got a system in which you have millions of families here in this country who are living in the shadows, worried about deportation.  You’ve got American workers that are being undercut because those undocumented workers can be hired and the minimum wage laws may not be observed, overtime laws may not be observed.

“You’ve got incredibly talented people who want to start businesses in this country or to work in this country, and we should want those folks here in the United States.  But right now, the legal immigration system is so tangled up that it becomes very difficult for them to put down roots here.

“So we can be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.  And it is not just a Hispanic issue — this is an issue for everybody.  This is an American issue that we need to fix.

“Now, when I came into office I said I am going to push to get this done.  We didn’t get it done.  And the reason we haven’t gotten it done is because what used to be a bipartisan agreement that we should fix this ended up becoming a partisan issue.

“I give a lot of credit to my predecessor, George Bush, and his political advisors who said this should not be just something the Democrats support; the Republican Party is invested in this as well.  That was good advice then; it would be good advice now.

“And my hope is, is that after this election, the Latino community will have sent a strong message that they want a bipartisan effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform that involves making sure we’ve got tough border security — and this administration has done more for border security than just about anybody — that we are making sure that companies aren’t able to take advantage of undocumented workers; that we’ve got strong laws in place; and that we’ve got a path so that all those folks whose kids often are U.S. citizens, who are working with us, living with us and in our communities, and not breaking the law, and trying to do their best to raise their families, that they’ve got a chance to be a fuller part of our community.

“So, what do I think will change?”

Question:

“What would you do differently?”

President Obama:

“What I will do — look, we’re going to be putting forward, as we’ve done before, a framework, a proposal, legislation that can move it — move the ball forward and actually get this thing done.

“But ultimately, I can’t vote for Republicans.  They’re going to have to come to the conclusion that this is good for the country and that this is something that they themselves think is important.  And depending on how Congress turns out, we’ll see how many Republican votes we need to get it done.

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)