Lots of tornadoes tonight in Arkansas. My family and I have been watching the TV all night long and the tornadoes have been going through Saline County all night long.

Let me point something out about the way the Democrats handled the healthcare debate. President Obama said it would be posted on the internet before  it was voted on. Also there is the claim that costs will magically go down. Take a look at the video clip below by John Fund. 

U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor at the 2009 Democratic Party Jefferson Jackson Dinner, Arkansas’s largest annual political event. Look at how happy Pryor is about Obamacare. 

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Sometime I wonder why the Democrats can not see the light concerning the need to cut spending and attack the huge federal debt. Below is a portion of an article by John Fund of the Wall Street Journal that was published on April 20, 2011:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself at 7:26 pm CST. 

In my past posts I could have been accused of giving just general ideas of where to cut. Now I am starting in with specifics that are taken from the article “Federal Spending by the numbers, Heritage Foundation, June 1, 2010 by Brian Riedl. He notes:

• Because of overstaffing, the U.S. Postal Service selects 1,125 employees per day to sit in empty rooms. They are not allowed to work, read, play cards, watch television, or do anything. This costs $50 million annually.
• Washington will spend $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job.
• Stimulus dollars have been spent on mascot costumes, electric golf carts, and a university study examining how much alcohol college freshmen women require before agreeing to casual sex.
• Examples from multiple Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports of wasteful duplication include 342 economic development programs; 130 programs serving the disabled; 130 programs serving at-risk youth; 90 early childhood development programs; 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities; and 72 safe water programs.
• A GAO audit classified nearly half of all purchases on government credit cards as improper, fraudulent, or embezzled. Examples include gambling, mortgage payments, liquor, lingerie, iPods, Xboxes, jewelry, Internet dating services, and Hawaiian vacations. In one extraordinary example, the Postal Service spent $13,500 on one dinner at a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, including “over 200 appetizers and over $3,000 of alcohol, including more than 40 bottles of wine costing more than $50 each and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnny Walker Gold.” The 81 guests consumed an average of $167 worth of food and drink apiece.
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  In: Guy Ritchie

  Filmmaker Guy Ritchie will join the Beckhams and other celebrities at Will and Kate’s royal nuptials. Ritchie is described on the official guest list as “a friend of Prince William and Miss Middleton.” Wills allegedly frequents Ritchie’s popular pub in London, Punch Bowl.

  The couple’s (William and Kate) eight-year courtship started in college

  

  

  2006

  Middleton attended Prince William’s graduation from the Royal Military Academy in a wide-brimmed picture hat.

  
  

John Brummett in his article “Dear visa, my debt ceiling is capped,” April 25, 2011, Arkansas News Bureau, he asserted:

Nine times in the last decade the federal government has crept near its debt ceiling and Congress has voted to raise it.

Tea party types say they intend this time to tie their votes to raise the debt limit to actual and concurrent spending reductions.

But this is no equation. You absolutely owe your debt. Quite separately, it’s up to your future behavior whether you can fashion spending reductions to gain control of tomorrow’s debt so that you don’t have to keep dealing with these kinds of untenable financial and political situations.

Jeffrey Scribner wrote the excellent article “Let’s not increase the Debt Ceiling,” www.LewRockwell.com, April 22, 2011. Here is a portion of that article:

It so happens that there are just about enough votes in the current House of Representatives to prevent an increase in the debt ceiling. If the debt ceiling is not increased, there will be bigger spending cuts in the 2011 budget and the 2012 budget and every budget after that because we are very close to the debt ceiling. If the debt ceiling is not increased, money cannot be spent that would raise the debt over that ceiling. Deficit spending would end immediately. Congress will be finally forced, at least for a little while, to allocate austerity rather than funding their favorite expenditure with borrowed money.

The voters could then decide whether to re-elect those who voted to increase the debt ceiling or those who tried to be responsible and voted not to. Some people are saying that failure to raise the debt ceiling will cause a catastrophe. If that happens, the voters can consider it. What if there is no catastrophe – just a lot less spending? The voters can consider that, too. Some big spenders are claiming that failure to increase the debt ceiling will cause a recession. We have managed to get into a recession and sustain it while adding to the debt every minute. Deficit spending has not prevented a recession. Moreover, there is reason to believe that not extending the debt limit will actually be good for the economy. Government spending will be curtailed. Some government services will also be curtailed. This provides fertile ground for more free enterprise solutions, more little companies, more employment in the private sector and more GDP growth. Why should we believe those who say increase the debt ceiling or suffer a recession?

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Prince William and Kate Middleton were interviewed by ITV’s Tom Bradby shortly after they announced their engagement. Erica Hill speaks with Bradby about how the royal couple is coping with the global attention.

John Brummett in his article “Dear visa, my debt ceiling is capped,” April 25, 2011, Arkansas News Bureau, he observes:

The first thing I intend to do is join the tea party. Then I’m going to refuse to raise my debt limit. Then I’m going to call the Visa people.

“Y’all have me down here owing $6,000,” I’m going to say. “But I’ve become a fiscal conservative. I’m getting really disciplined fiscally. I’m taking my household back.

“My self-imposed debt ceiling is $4,000. I’ve opted not to raise it. Nary a cent. I only went over it because the oral surgeon demanded immediate payment.

“So $4,000 is the most you rascals will get out of me. You may as well quit compounding the interest on this outstanding balance. I am serious about this. You may consider this baby capped at four grand.

“Oh, by the way: Don’t even think about canceling this card. I have a second round of dental work coming up and the oral surgeon doesn’t give these implants away.

“Thank you, and remember: Vote Palin-Bachmann.”

You are thinking this is absurd. You are right, of course.

But you are not intellectually entitled to call it absurd if you are among the seven in 10 Americans telling pollsters you don’t want the federal government’s debt ceiling raised. You are not intellectually entitled if you are one of these right-wing politicians pandering to this tea-drunken grandstand by threatening to vote not to raise it.

Here is how real fiscal responsibility works: You repay the debt that you have incurred to date. You make spending reductions prospectively by showing sufficient discipline to reduce the future pace at which you incur debt. You dare not let your existing debt go unpaid lest your credit score suffer and you get denied the next time you find yourself in a bit of a pinch and need to finance a refrigerator at Sears.

Jeffrey Scribner wrote the excellent article “Let’s not increase the Debt Ceiling,” www.LewRockwell.com, April 22, 2011. Here is a portion of that article:

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The President and the Congress are playing political games while the national debt grows to out of control proportions. We should hold the government’s feet to the fire and force an end to spending using borrowed money. An opportunity to do this will arise in a month or so.

In April, almost seven months after the start of the fiscal year, Congress finally passed the FY 2011 Federal Budget, nominally $38 Billion (about one percent) less than the proposal by the President. Two things are significant here. The first is that this is the first budget for FY 2011. Congress has spent money from the beginning of FY 2011 (01 October 2010) until mid April by “continuing resolution” in the absence of any budget. The second important point is that the 2011 budget, with the aforementioned $38 Billion reduction, spends more money than was spent in 2010. It is still in deficit. It has been adding to the national debt all year through continuing resolution and will continue to add to the debt for the rest of the year via the budget that was finally passed.

The House of Representatives has also passed a “Budget Blueprint” prepared by Congressman Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee. If all spending and receipts outlined in this document are implemented by the House and Senate and are then signed by the president, spending will be reduced by about six trillion dollars and the deficit will be reduced by about four trillion dollars over ten years. Do you really believe that this will happen? Even if it does, the Federal Government will continue to run deficits and add to the national debt for the next ten years, albeit at a slower rate than the present.

What does this tell you about the difficulty in reining in the runaway spending that has become the habit of Congress? It tells me that something a lot more drastic has to be done to get a grip on Federal spending and to stop adding to the debt immediately.

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Kate and William Interview Part 2

In 1981 I got up early in the morning to watch the Royal Wedding live. Now that I have the ability to tape it, I may just record it and watch it later. Here is a clip from the 1981 wedding.

Part 2

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself at 8:24 am CST.

I just read Paul Greenberg’s article “The dance of politics,” Arkansas Democrat Gazette, April 17, 2011 and in it he stated:

    .
    Campaigning isn’t separate from the political process but part of it. No doubt Mark Pryor will recognize as much when he himself comes up for reelection in 2014. Some of us can hardly wait. When he holds his first press conference of that campaign, it would be good to remember—and quote—his attack this past week on politicians who hold press conferences to blame others when they themselves are more to blame for today’s problems.
    Senator, in a democracy, appealing to the Demos is a way to resolve issues. Through open, public, robust debate. You might want to try it instead of damning both sides with fine impartiality.
    Partisanship gets a bad rap. This republic had parties—they were called factions then—even before it had a Constitution. Indeed, it might be said that the Constitution, and whether it should be ratified, was the reason the first, inchoate American parties were formed.
    Those old Federalists and Anti-Federalists, through a series of shifting alliances and metamorphoses, would become the ancestors of today’s Republicans and Democrats, Lord bless ’em both. Because they give the American people a well-organized choice instead of just having a blob of names out there to blame or credit. Parties give politics structure. They can be held accountable, and even negotiate reasonable compromises with each other.
    Our two major, much criticized parties give American politics discipline, traction and responsibility. Don’t like what the Democrats are doing? Then vote Republican. Or vice-versa, mutatis mutandis, change places, and dosiedo. It’s the dance of politics. And it’s the dance that’s the important thing, not the dancers. No matter who winds up at the head of the line this go-’round. Factions are not just inevitable in the politics of a republic, they are useful. Even those who say both parties are worthless find they need a party of their own to say so, like the Tea Party.
    Here endeth the (civics) lesson.
    Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Political views are worth standing up for and that is why we have more than one party. Hopefully, Senator Pryor can look pass the fact that I am a Republican and can take the suggestions I have put below.

In my past posts I could have been accused of giving just general ideas of where to cut. Now I am starting in with specifics that are taken from the article “How to cut $343 Billion from the federal budget,” by Brian Riedl, Heritage Foundation, October 28, 2010(Spending cuts in millions of dollars:

$26,646

Eliminate the additional child refundable credit.

$103

Eliminate the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

Veterans

$2,500

Cap increases in Department of Veterans Affairs health care spending.

$1,930

Reduce Veterans’ Disability Compensation to account for Social Security Disability Insurance payments.

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Robert Redford, who turns 75 this year, is the 2011 winner of AARP The Magazine’s Movies for Grownups Lifetime Achievement Award. — Photo by Art Streiber

Related

The Conspirator is the first in a roster of historically based films to be produced by The American Film Company, launched by Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs. Redford insists that his first objective as an actor and filmmaker is to entertain. Yet his works have compelled audiences, sometimes uncomfortably, to examine the American experience — personally and politically. In films such as The Naturaland The Horse Whisperer he explored the complexity of relationships; inThe Milagro Beanfield War and Quiz Show he tackled inequality and injustice. The stories he tells have roots in his own experience.