Balanced Budget Amendment the Answer? Pryor says no, Boozman says yes (part 2)

Senator Hatch launches his campaign to put America’s fiscal house in order by passing the Balanced Budget amendment; a constitutional amendment that would force the congress and the president to balance the national budget each year.

Photo detail 

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:

Deficit spending is an unconscionable form of fiscal child abuse. There are hundreds of groups in Washington that pretend to speak for the interests of children. But who in Washington, among the thousands of powerful special-interest lobbyists and self-proclaimed do-gooders, speaks for the children who are going to have to pay off our irresponsible debts? The single most pro-child policy that any of us can pursue in Washington today is to reduce the crushing burden of debt our government is now preparing to place on the next generation’s backs.

I sincerely wish that we did not need a constitutional amendment to cure Washington’s addiction to red ink. Unfortunately, the destruction of our nation’s once firmly held moral rule against deficit spending–what James Buchanan called “the collapse of the constitutional consensus”–requires us to amend our Constitution and command Congress to do what it used to feel honor bound to do–balance the budget.

Tax-and-spend opponents of a balanced-budget amendment argue that a constitutional requirement is just “a gimmick.” No one really believes that. If the amendment were a gimmick, Congress would have approved it long ago. Defense contractors, corporate lobbyists, federal workers, teachers’ unions, the welfare industry, and other powerful special-interest groups ferociously attack the amendment, not because they think it won’t work, but because they shudder at the thought that it will. What frightens the predator economy in Washington is that gift-bearing politicians may have the federal credit card taken away from them.

The U.S. House of Representatives last year wisely approved a balanced-budget amendment, but it was defeated in the Senate. The matter is now out of your hands. The real issue is, What can be done in the meantime to make the budget process work better and to end deficit spending?

Last year the House passed a courageous budget, crafted by Budget Committee chairman John Kasich, that promised a balanced budget by 2002. But one thing is a virtual certainty: no matter how sincere your intentions of balancing the budget, the deficit will not be eliminated by 2002 unless new budget enforcement rules are implemented to ensure that this admirable, though minimal, goal is honored.

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Jan 25, 2010

Labor Department numbers show that the Obama Administrations $787 billion stimulus was a flop. Instead of holding the unemployment rate at 8 percent or below, the jobless rate soared to 10 percent. Now there is discussion of second so-called stimulus, which politicians are calling a jobs bill. But making government bigger, this CF&P Foundation video explains, is a recipe for long-run stagnation and lower living standards, regardless of what the policy is named. www.freedomandprosperity.org

It has been 150 years since the beginning of the Civil War that started in April of 1861 at Ft Sumter.

The Grand Review of the Army down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

The Grand Review of the Army down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C

 

April 14, 2011 – 5:56 am Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Mike Pence and the Republicans should hold the Democrats’ feet to the fire.

I must say that I agree with about everything that Mike Pence says below and I disagree with about everything that Chris Van Hollen has to say. However, I am not pleased that the Republicans do not try to get a balanced budget in 3 years instead of trying to balance it in 10 years. I must agree with the analysis that Van Hollen gives here concerning the hypocritical nature of the Republicans ploy:

It will be hugely dangerous for the Republican colleagues to play a game of chicken on the debt ceiling. You would see an economic catastrophe if the United States defaulted on its debt. Now, the budget proposal that they’re bringing forth will require increases in the debt ceiling for years and years to come. So for them to say we’re not going to support an increase in the debt ceiling on this. And then put a budget on the floor that will require it is just irresponsible.

It is my view that the Republicans should make the Democrats balance the budget now or not vote to raise the debt limit.

VAN HOLLEN: Facts, facts. AMANPOUR: Because I want to move on.

VAN HOLLEN: The facts are that not one penny of taxpayer money goes to Planned Parenthood or anybody else for abortion. And what Mike and his colleagues tried to do was use a funding bill, a spending bill, to impose changes in law that should be debated, but not as part of this…

AMANPOUR: No, I need to go forward now, because you made your position clear, sir, you made it clear. I understand where you stand on this. I understand this. What I want to know now, is you have a huge fight coming up. You have got the debt ceiling. You’ve got a potential catastrophe, if you believe Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary. What’s going to happen there? What needs to happen for you to vote yes to raise the debt ceiling, the amount America can borrow?

PENCE: Well, look, I will not support an increase in the debt ceiling without real and meaningful changes in spending in the short-term and in the long-term. We’ve got to change the way we spend the people’s money. Again, we have a $14 trillion national debt. The president sends the budget to Capitol Hill that will double the national debt in the next ten years. And simply expanding the credit card is not the right answer.

AMANPOUR: On this issue, how will that fight be fought?

VAN HOLLEN: It will be hugely dangerous for the Republican colleagues to play a game of chicken on the debt ceiling. You would see an economic catastrophe if the United States defaulted on its debt. Now, the budget proposal that they’re bringing forth will require increases in the debt ceiling for years and years to come. So for them to say we’re not going to support an increase in the debt ceiling on this. And then put a budget on the floor that will require it is just irresponsible.

AMANPOUR: One of the questions I asked David Plouffe was about who has the ideas. Congressman Ryan has put forth a budget that many people are saying is a good attempt to deal with this. When are we going to hear — and are you frustrated that there isn’t one detail on your side — although, again, David Plouffe said the president is going to put more details out this week.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, the president had a budget. And we, the Democrats in the House, are going to have an alternative budget this week as we debate it. The problem with the Ryan plan, the Republican plan is it’s totally unbalanced. That’s what the co-authors of the fiscal commission, bipartisan fiscal commission said, because what he does is he takes deep cuts, he ends Medicare. He ends the Medicare guarantee for seniors. He’s going to require seniors to go not private insurance market and they’ll have to eat all of the rising costs of health care, while they provide big tax breaks for millionaires, and the corporate special interest. That is just not the priorities of the country. And I think it’s wrong to do that.

AMANPOUR: Do you think, Congressman Pence, and this is the last question, there will be some bipartisan compromise? Because, on the big issue, it has to be bipartisan crafting.

PENCE: Well, let me say, House Republicans under Paul Ryan’s leadership have offered a vision to put America back on a pathway toward a balanced budget. It deals with issues in entitlement. It reduces the national debt. For Americans 55 or older, we’re not proposing a single change in Medicare. Chris knows that. What we want to do for Americans under the age of 55 is make sure they can participate in the same health plan that members of Congress do.

VAN HOLLEN: That is not accurate.

PENCE: This is going to be a big debate…

VAN HOLLEN: Members — no members of Congress…

PENCE: ..there’s no repeal — there’s no repeal of the Medicare guarantee.

VAN HOLLEN: Members of Congress have what is called a fair-share deal. We do not bare the entire risk of increased costs. They are asking seniors to bear risks, they are not asking themselves…

PENCE: Members of Congress have the same premium support system, Chris knows that.

AMANPOUR: We will be watching this, debating it…

VAN HOLLEN: There’s a fair share guarantee. And Mike should check the law, because they’re ask seniors to absorb the entire risk of — the higher risk of increased costs. Members of Congress do not bear that risk in the same way.

AMANPOUR: We are certainly going to bring this up with our round table. And we’ll keep talking about it, because this will be the issue ahead. Thank you both very much indeed for joining us.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you.

_________________________________

It has been 150 years since the beginning of the Civil War that started in April of 1861 at Ft Sumter.

Officers of 114th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment …

Officers of the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment while away the hours during the lengthy Siege of Petersburg in 1864-65. “There’s a lot of daily life that goes on backstage behind the camps around battlefields,” Knauer says. If these men from the Army of the Potomac joined their unit at its founding, in 1861, they may have served at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, among other major battles of the war.

Officers of the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment ...

 

April 13, 2011 – 11:19 pm Categories: Prolife | Post a comment

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 11)

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 10pm CST on April 13, 2011.

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:

Education

$8,000

Return Pell Grants to their 2009 funding level of $24 billion, which is still double the 2007 level.

$2,000

Trim Head Start by $2 billion and convert it into vouchers.

$2,000

Scale back the Education Department bureaucracy.

$1,500

Eliminate dozens of small and duplicative education grants.

$298

Eliminate state grants for Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities.

Consolidating duplicative programs. Past Congresses have repeatedly piled duplicative programs on top of preexisting programs, increasing administrative costs and creating a bureaucratic maze that confuses people seeking assistance.

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It has been 150 years since the beginning of the Civil War that started in April of 1861 at Ft Sumter.

Alberta Martin, pictured in April 2003
Martin was described as “the last link to Dixie”

 

At 97, last known Civil War widow is living link to history
Associated Press ^ | 4/12/03 | PHILLIP RAWLS

Posted on Tuesday, February 03, 2004 9:46:40 PM by Jaysun

ENTERPRISE, Ala. – America’s last known Civil War widow never had a hoop skirt or a mansion like Tara.

Alberta Martin was a sharecropper’s daughter with a young baby and no job when, in 1927, she married a man 60 years her senior. Yes, former Confederate soldier William Jasper Martin was old, but his $50-a.m.onth pension as a Civil War veteran ensured there would be food on the table and – many years later – fame.

“Miz Alberta,” as everyone calls her, is 97 now and in a wheelchair. But Civil War re-enactors and history buffs take her to Sons of Confederate Veterans events from Gettysburg to St. Louis. They see that she has regular visitors at a nursing home in Enterprise and make sure that, after a lifetime in poverty, she can be comfortable in her final days as a living link to history.

Her role became even more significant when Gertrude Janeway, the last widow of a Union veteran, died in January in Tennessee at age 93.

Martin’s eldest son appreciates the late-in-life recognition and comfort that has come to his mother.

“She lived a rough, rough life back in the ’20s and ’30s. They sharecropped and had a miserable life,” said Harold Farrow, 78, of North Little Rock, Ark.

His mother was a seventh-grade dropout working in an Alabama textile mill when she met a cab driver named Howard Farrow. They stood before a preacher to get married, but never got a marriage license to make it official.

It didn’t matter. Howard Farrow liked his whiskey, she recalled, and he died in a traffic accident six months after Harold was born.

Alone and living with her father, she began to notice “the old man” who walked by her house on his way to play dominoes with friends. William Jasper Martin was nearly 82 and she was barely 21. Their courting consisted of a few conversations.

“He asked my daddy if he could let him have me. My daddy told him that he didn’t care if I didn’t,” she recalled.

On Dec. 10, 1927, Alberta and W.J. Martin were married in a ceremony at the courthouse in Andalusia in south Alabama. She wore “just a plain blue cotton dress.”

Theirs was never a typical or an easy marriage.

Their wedding night was spent in her half-brother’s crowded house with lots of other family. “When we went to bed, we had the baby in between us and he went to crying,” she said.

Two days later, they rented their first house, starting with a stove and a table as the only furnishings.

Even in those days, people wanted to know why a young woman would marry such an old man?

Martin, who had a sense of humor when she had nothing else, usually gave a comical answer: “It’s better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.”

But for a woman as poor as Martin, the real answer was simpler: “He had $50 a month.”

“Sometimes I would look out over the fields and wonder what it was like to be married to a younger man,” she recalled.

For her husband, the marriage brought late-in-life joy. On Oct. 10, 1928, their son, Willie, was born, and the old man loved to go to town and carry the boy on his shoulders, proudly displaying his offspring.

They had been married nearly five years when the Civil War veteran died in 1932.

Two months later, his widow married his grandson by a previous marriage.

The marriage of Alberta and Charlie Martin caused the gossip to fly. They got kicked out of their church. People gave them funny looks.

Alberta Martin made no excuses.

“I was lonesome,” she said.

They were eventually welcomed back by the church, and their marriage worked, with the couple marking their 50th anniversary before Charlie died in 1983.

Afterward, Martin lived with her son Willie, making do off her third husband’s pension as a World War II veteran.

She told people she was a Civil War widow and she ought to be getting the Civil War widow’s pension that Alabama still had on its law books from 1895. Her daughter-in-law even wrote then-Gov. George Wallace to explain her situation.

But when you’re a poor widow with little education, it’s hard to get anybody’s attention in the state capital.

In 1996, Enterprise dentist Ken Chancey and other members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans took up her cause. They got state officials to approve her for a pension.

They even bought the first air conditioner for a woman who had lived her entire life in the sweltering summers of south Alabama.

These days, they bring her sacks of her favorite snack – Cheetos – and relish her recounting of the stories that W.J. Martin told her about the Civil War, about how food was in such short supply near the end of the war that he would grab whatever he could find in roadside gardens while on the march.

“He’d get a handful of peas or a watermelon or whatever he could and eat it,” she said.

At 96, Martin’s hearing is going and some days so is her memory.

But when her memory won’t work like she wants, she can still find her sense of humor and a smile: “I’m old enough to forget, ain’t I?”

One thing that’s not left to Martin’s fading memory is her funeral. It’s already planned in great detail.

It will be a Confederate heritage ceremony, complete with Civil War re-enactors and a Confederate brass ensemble. A mule-drawn wagon will carry her casket to a cemetery near Elba where her last husband is buried, and a Confederate battle flag will cover her casket.

While others debate the appropriateness of the Confederate battle flag, Martin talks proudly of her burial plans.

“It’s my flag,” she says.


April 13, 2011 – 10:15 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Pat Lynch: Need to raise taxes on rich (Real Cause of Deficit Pt 6)(Famous Arkansans, Wayne Jackson)

 

The liberal Pat Lynch in his article “Worry Inc.” Arkansas Democrat- Gazette, April 4, 2011 commented:

While the budget cutters are busy going after programs that help mere citizens, any notion of bringing taxrates for the wealthy back to the levels of the Clinton era, when there was a federal surplus, is off the table.

Liberals always think they can raise the taxes on the rich and everything else will take care of itself. The problem with our deficit is not that the politicians need more money but they need to spend less. I heard Congressman Tim Griffin say that on Monday.

Brian Riedl of The Heritage Foundation discusses the newly released budget by President Bush.

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

Riedl’s budget research has been featured in front-page stories and editorials in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. He has discussed budget policy on NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, and C-SPAN. He also participates in the bipartisan “Fiscal Wake-Up Tour,” which holds town hall meetings across America focusing on the looming crisis in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

____________________________________________________

In my last post I included this:

Myth #2: Future deficits are “the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.”

Fact: These policies play a relatively minor role in the growth of future deficits. 

During his 2010 State of the Union Address, President Obama asserted:

At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.[7]

In other words, according to President Obama, the massive budget deficits are President Bush’s fault, but the data do not support this assertion. President Bush implemented the three policies mentioned by President Obama in the early 2000s. Yet by 2007—the last year before the recession— the budget deficit had stabilized at $161 billion. Since the combined annual cost of these three Bush-era policies is now relatively stable, they cannot have suddenly caused a trillion-dollar leap in budget deficits beginning in 2009.[8]

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However, the larger problem is that the President’s entire methodology fails basic statistics. With Washington set to collect $33 trillion in taxes and spend $46 trillion over the next decade, how does one determine which spending programs “caused” the $13 trillion deficit? By the President’s methodology, one could blame any $13 trillion group of spending programs (or tax cuts) for the entire budget deficit. For example, the President could have blamed much of the 10-year budget deficit on Social Security (10-year cost of $9.2 trillion), antipoverty programs ($7 trillion), net interest on the debt ($6.1 trillion), or non-defense discretionary spending ($7.5 trillion).[12] (See Chart 3.) There is no legitimate, mathematical reason for President Obama to ignore all of these more expensive policies and single out the $4.7 trillion in tax cuts, the funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Medicare drug entitlement. A better methodology would focus on which program costs are actually growing and pushing the deficit up.

Finally, there is some hypocrisy at work. President Obama criticizes President Bush for “not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.” Yet he would extend $4 trillion of these policies (while repealing $700 billion in tax cuts) without paying for them either. By his own faulty logic, he is almost as irresponsible as President Bush.

_______________________________________

This is part of the series I am doing on Famous Arkansans. This is part two on Wayne Jackson who grew up in West Memphis.

Elvis “In the Ghetto”

EIN – You had worked with so many of the great soul singers so did the booking for an Elvis session cause you any anxiety?

W.J – To be honest with American Studios and the Elvis sessions, they were just plain recording sessions. The “Gods from Heaven” did not come down & there was no fire & brimstone either. It was just a recording session that just happened to be with Elvis. There was of course a lot more magic in recording Elvis than there was in recording a nobody but American studios had some great talent going through it at the time.

The first time I actually heard Elvis sing ‘In the Ghetto’ however I was quietly sitting with my horn and looking at the music. I hadn’t heard any of it yet and I suddenly realised that this was really special stuff. I just got a chill up my spine hearing that. I knew that it was going to be a landmark record for Elvis because it was about such a current topic. I thought “My God, here we all are genuinely in the ghetto!” There really was a guy with an automatic rifle on the roof in case of something bad happened – especially after Martin Luther King died.

You see American Studios was in the worst part of town. Stax was a little nearer Graceland, but American & Hi studios, all of them were in the worst parts of town. ‘Suspicious Minds’ was also an emotional subject for Elvis at that time as well and it was a thrill to be involved in those songs, knowing that they would be so important to his future career as they were.

EIN – Interestingly Dusty Springfield’s fabulous LP ‘Dusty In Memphis’ was released on the same day January 13, 1969 that Elvis came in to American Studios to record! Featuring the same line up as Elvis’ band wasn’t ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’ a stunner?

W.J – It was one of the best of the era. There was so much music and also a lot of poverty and we all worked to earn something extra and I was one of those people.

EIN – Were you brought in for sessions or did you play for whoever came along.

W.J – Chips Moman produced Stax’s big early hit ‘Last Night’ and I played on that. He liked my horn sound and so anytime they needed horns at American they’d call us up. We also worked Muscle Shoals studios too!
At the time I’d known Elvis for lots of years and recently he had been singing those poor “Movie Songs” which we were not that excited about since we’d recently been recording three number 1 records each a week! But the songwriters really had their day with him, including Mark James and ‘Suspicious Minds.’ In fact Mark James is a good friend of mine and we wrote some songs together.

EIN – How did Chips Moman’s session work out since there were a lot of overdubs. Were you there when Elvis recorded the vocals?

W.J – Next door was a restaurant & upstairs there was kid of a holding area. Because the studio was so small we would often go off with the Backing singers while the rhythm section worked out the backbone of the songs. We would be playing poker upstairs while they were cutting tracks downstairs. Then we would come down and Elvis would be singing and we’d put the horns in with the track. Elvis liked to sing with the horns and hear them together with the background vocals. So although we did overdub the horns on ‘In The Ghetto’ Elvis actually sang with us while we overdubbed those. You’ve got to understand that the studio was surprisingly small so that there was not much room for the band plus the horns & back-up voices.

EIN – Like Sun Studios?

W.J – Did you visit Sun Studios? Well it was just like that room – which still has all the magic hanging around in there. Sun Studios is probably the most important place in the world for Rock’n’roll and you can certainly feel that something very important happened in that room. I reckon you might even feel it even if you didn’t know what it was because there are such energies left over from all that creativity. But that all happened before I got into the business. I never got to play at Sun until Johnny Rivers did a session, Rufus Thomas too. We also worked with U2 when they recorded there in 1988 to produce their ‘Rattle & Hum’ album.

April 13, 2011 – 12:40 pm Categories: Famous Arkansans, President Obama, Taxes | Post a comment

Some Democrats mad Fayetteville Finger did not make it (Part 20)

Max Brantley thought the “Fayetteville Finger” was a joke when he first heard about it, but he later embraced it and was disappointed when the Democrats could not get it passed. Likewise other liberals John Brummett and Pat Lynch were surprised that that it did not make it.

The http://bluearkansasblog.com/ was the latest to rant and rave ab0ut the Fayetteville Finger getting put to rest:

So here we have it.  Democrats, despite controlling majorities in both the house and the senate, caved to Republicans on the Fayetteville Finger.  All they had to do was vote as a block, let the Republicans scream, and pass the damn map that would have allowed us to compete in three of the four districts.  Now we’re stuck with this map for ten years that may not even come close to doing that.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that the first gained some southern delta counties rather than moving west, but I wish we could have helped Democrats in the second and fourth as well.  Can we still compete in the 4th with this map, post Ross?  God I hope so.  Do we have a shot at taking down Griffin still?  I think so, but it will be tricky.  I’m a never say never, charge hell with a bucket of water kind of guy…but I have to say, this leaves a foul taste in my mouth….

From here, well, we do our best of what we got.  Things look pretty good in the 1st and so-so in the second.  I don’t care about Ross but I was hoping that after he steps down in 2014 we could nominate and elect a good Democrat from that district.  I’d like to be more enthused and ready to rally the troops, but it’s hard to do that when folks in the Democratic Party are working so hard to undermine Democrats.

_________________________________

It has been 150 years since the beginning of the Civil War that started in April of 1861 at Ft Sumter.

Wives and children sometimes followed their husbands ...

Wives and children followed their husbands

Wives and children sometimes followed their husbands to war, particularly in the early period of the conflict. “(The soldiers) were in the camp, and the women were right there and the kids were right there. They called them camp followers,” Kelly Knauer, editor of ‘TIME Civil War: An Illustrated History.’ This image, from 1861, may be a family portrait; the soldier was a member of the 31st Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, attached to the Army of the Potomac in Washington. View more photos in the new book TIME The Civil War: An Illustrated History.

 

April 13, 2011 – 11:03 am Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Balanced Budget Amendment the Answer? Pryor says no, Boozman says yes (part 1)

 John Thune came to Arkansas to campaign for John Boozman last summer in his race against Senator Lincoln. One of the main issues in the race is the values of Arkansas voters and Thune claimed that the people in Arkansas were upset that the Federal Government was so committed to deficit spending.  In Thune’s view, Arkansas would send Washington a message by electing Boozman to the Senate.

Photo detail 

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 stated:

Over the past 50 years Congress has lost all control over federal spending. As Table 1 shows, even after adjusting for inflation, the federal government spends almost four times more today than it did 40 years ago. Entitlement spending has seen the largest growth. My overall conclusion from the data is that government today is America’s number-one growth industry.

A top priority for this Congress should be passage of a new budget act. The 1974 Budget Reform and Impoundment Control Act has been a monumental failure. One of the purposes of that act was to eliminate deficit spending, but this is the actual legacy of that legislation: in the 20 years before the act, the federal deficit averaged just 1 percent of gross domestic product, or $30 billion 1994 dollars. In the 20 years since the 1974 act, the average budget deficit has been $170 billion per year, or 3.5 percent of GDP. We have accumulated more than $4 trillion in debt since 1976. By any objective standard, the budget process has not worked better under the 1974 act–it has worked much worse.

Figure 1 shows how the budget deficit has grown since Harry S. Truman was president. Despite recent progress in reducing the deficit, the long-term prognosis remains grim. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that if we stick with the Clinton budget plan, the deficit will begin rising after 1996 and reach a record high of $350 billion within 10 years.

The 1974 Budget Act cannot be fixed. Tinkering won’t do the trick. Congress ought to repeal the act before it does more damage to our national economy.

The centerpiece of any budget reform quite clearly should be an amendment to the Constitution outlawing deficit spending. Most members of this committee are keenly aware of the need for a balanced-budget requirement, so I will not dwell on it.

Table 1: 40 Years of Government Growth

Billions of 1995 Dollars
  1955 1995 Real Growth
1955-95 (%)
National defense 242.8 271.6 11.9
Health 1.7 272.4 16,374.2
Income security 28.8 223.0 674.0
Social Security 25.2 336.1 1,236.4
Education & social services 2.5 56.1 2,117.4
Vetrans’ benefits 26.6 38.4 44.5
Community development 0.7 12.6 1,618.8
Interest 27.6 234.2 750.0
Int’l affairs 12.6 18.7 48.2
Science & Technology 0.4 17.0 3,937.8
Agriculture 20.0 14.4 -27.9
Justice & general govt. 5.2 32.1 523.4
Transportation 7.1 39.2 453.1
Energy & natural resources 7.2 26.5 268.4
Offsetting recipts -19.8 -41.4 108.6
       
Total Outlays 388.9 1,538.9 295.7

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Senator Pryor in this clip below praises President Obama and his healthcare program. Mark Pryor praises all the great work the three Democrat Representatives have done and talks about their upcoming re-elections. Little did he know that only Mike Ross would be re-elected. He spent extra time talking about the re-election prospects of Senator Lincoln.

April 13, 2011 – 7:44 am Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 10)

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  9:55 pm CST on April 12th.

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:

Community Development

$6,000

Eliminate the Community Development Block Grant program.

$598

Eliminate the Rural Utilities Service.

$523

Eliminate the Economic Development Administration.

$480

Eliminate NeighborWorks America (formerly the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation).

$200

Consolidate the Rural Housing and Development Programs and convert them into block grants.

$73

Eliminate the Appalachian Regional Commission.

$48

Eliminate the Denali Commission.

$31

Eliminate the Minority Development Business Agency.

$8

Eliminate the Delta Regional Authority.

Empowering state and local governments. Congress should focus the federal government on performing a few duties well and allow the state and local governments, which are closer to the people, to creatively address local needs in areas such as transportation, justice, job training, and economic development
April 12, 2011 – 9:53 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Mike Pence is probably voting against Continuing Resolution #2 this week (Part1)

Rep. Mike Pence and Rep. Chris Van Hollen  join ABC’s “This Week” with Christaine Amapour on April 10th, 2011

I think one of the most important facts from the clip above is the statement that Rep. Pence made here:

Planned Parenthood’s clinics focus mainly on abortion. In 2009, Planned Parenthood performed 977 adoptions, 7,000 prenatal, 332,000 abortions.

With that one fact alone in mind, I was very upset that Rep. Pence voted for the Continuing Resolution. Now I am told that he will probably not vote for the continuing resolution this week because the Pence Amendment (that bans federal funding to Planned Parenthood has been removed).

Here is a portion of the transcript below from the above interview:

// AMANPOUR: And we’re joined now by Republican Congressman Mike Pence. He’s from Indiana. He’s a Tea Party favorite and who we saw earlier vowing to shut down the government if Democrats wouldn’t agree to steep budget cuts. And also we’re joined by Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. He’s dealing with some angry colleagues this morning. Congressmen, thank you both for coming. Welcome to “This Week.” You’ve been all over the air for the last 12 minutes talking about shut it down if it didn’t go right. Will you vote for this deal?

PENCE: Well, first, Christiane, let me say, I’ve been battling runaway federal spending under both political parties ever since I arrived in Congress. I, for one, want to celebrate the fact that we are now debating on Capitol Hill less spending…

AMANPOUR: Will you celebrate with your vote? PENCE: Well, less spending, instead of more spending. And what I was saying repeatedly at the rally that you just clipped and on the floor of the Congress, was that House Republicans needed to pick a fight. And I think John Boehner fought the good fight. I think he drove a hard bargain here. I want to see the details. But from what I know, it sounds like John Boehner got a good deal. Probably not good enough for me to support it, but a good deal nonetheless.

 AMANPOUR: You won’t support it? PENCE: Look, this country’s in trouble. We’ve got — we were asking for a 2 percent cut in the budget. And that ended up being too much of a cut for this administration and for liberals in Congress. AMANPOUR: But you say you won’t support it, yet Speaker Boehner did a good job. I mean, what happened, do you think he’s — he folded too early?

PENCE: Well, I said — I said John Boehner — well, look, I cannot bring myself to be critical of a basketball player that gets two on one all night. I can’t bring myself to be critical of John Boehner, who has squared off against the White House and liberals in Congress, who couldn’t accept a 2 percent budget cut, and who dug in and were willing to shut down the government to continue to send $1 million a day to the largest abortion provider in America….

AMANPOUR: So you’ve described it. But the bottom line is, I mean, you have come close and you have basically said you’re not going to support it. Right?

PENCE: Well, look, I want to see the language in the bill. I think John Boehner got a good deal, but it’s probably not good enough for me to support it. Right.

 AMANPOUR: OK. So I think you’re saying you’re not going to support it. What are you saying? Are you going to support it? VAN HOLLEN: I’m going to look, Christiane. We don’t know yet what the cuts are. In other words… AMANPOUR: How long is this going to take? VAN HOLLEN: Well, the vote will come up this week. They’ll probably put the cuts on the Internet, I hope, so that everybody can see them. AMANPOUR: Will it pass, do you think? VAN HOLLEN: I think this will pass. And I’m very determined to work with my colleagues to prevent a government shutdown, because it will have huge disruption in the economy. That’s the seesaw that we’re living with here. But, look, these guys took this to the brink, not only to do something that won’t create a job, but to impose their own right-wing policies on the country. No, we can disagree about a very controversial issue, and we do. But using this budget process to impose that position on the country, and threaten shutdown to shut down the government.

AMANPOUR: I was going to ask you that question. Why did you need to do that at this time? Why muddy the water, since you were really about money and about spending cuts? PENCE: Let me say, first off, it’s nonsense to say that Republicans were willing to shut down the government over this. Speaker John Boehner made it clear that the policy issue, including my amendment on abortion providers, had been negotiated, at the time that — I think it’s in The Washington Post this morning. What was clear here, this administration, and liberals in Congress were willing to shut the government down to continue to fund abortion providers in this country. And that’s the bottom line. Why would I fight for it? Let me explain. I’m pro life. I don’t apologize for it. I also think it’s morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use it to fund abortion providers.

AMANPOUR: But you know the federal funds don’t do that?

PENCE: Well, look, in February of this year, the Pence amendment passed on a bipartisan basis by 240 votes. It denied federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America. I’ve never advocated to reduce funding to Title X. They tried to make this about women’s health. It wasn’t about that. Let me share with you, though, this fact. Planned Parenthood’s clinics focus mainly on abortion. In 2009, Planned Parenthood performed 977 adoptions, 7,000 prenatal, 332,000 abortions.

April 12, 2011 – 8:23 am Categories: Prolife, Uncategorized | Post a comment

Fayetteville Finger missing from latest map (Part 19)

Rob Moritz and John Lyon in their article “Panels, Senate OK redistricting plan to split five counties,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 11, 2011 wrote:

(NEW MAP BELOW)

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A new congressional redistricting plan advanced at both ends of the Capitol today, possibly signaling an end to a stalemate that has prolonged the regular legislative session more than a week past its scheduled April 1 recess.

The proposal would split five counties, including — to the displeasure of lawmakers from Fort Smith — Sebastian County. It also would split the city of Alma into separate congressional districts.

The Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee endorsed the proposal in the form of Senate Bill 972 by Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville. The full Senate then suspended its rules so it could take up the bill in the same day, and the measure passed 23-12.

Meanwhile, the House state agencies committee endorsed the proposal in the form of an amendment to House Bill 1836 by Rep. Clark Hall, D-Marvell. The House is expected to take up the bill Tuesday. Both chambers are scheduled to convene at 10 a.m.

The bill is similar to a proposal by Hall nicknamed the “Fayetteville finger”, which was supported in the House but rejected by the Senate state agencies panel. Unlike that bill, however, the new proposal would keep Fayetteville in the 3rd District.

Under the proposal, Washington and Pope counties would remain in the 3rd District, while Sebastian, Crawford and Newton counties would be split between the 3rd and 4th districts. The proposal would divide the city of Alma in Crawford County between the 3rd and 4th districts.

Madison, Franklin and Johnson counties would move from 3rd District to the 4th. A small portion of Searcy County would move from the 1st District to the 3rd.

In the southeastern part of the state, Lincoln, Desha and Chicot counties would move from the 4th District to the 1st. Jefferson County would be split between the 4th and 1st districts, with Pine Bluff remaining in the 4th District.

Yell County in west-central part of the state would move from the 2nd District to the 4th….

Hall told reporters he still preferred his Fayetteville-to-the-4th plan, but “unfortunately they had three senators down there that did not see it that way, and therefore we’re having to compromise and Sebastian County is receiving (the effect of) their lack of action.”


Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said the governor considered the proposal “a good compromise.”

House Speaker Robert S. Moore Jr., D-Arkansas City, said the Legislature could wrap up work on congressional redistricting and formally adjourn the regular session Tuesday, two weeks earlier than planned.

Lawmakers were to have come back April 27 to formally end their business.

____________________________________________________________________

It appears that this may be over now, but then again Jason Tolbert indicated that there still is possibly some uncertainty in the air:

The full Senate approved the map 23 to 12 with a hodgepodge of Republicans and Democrats on both sides on the vote.  The House approve the “motion to amend” by a 63 to 19 vote which appeared to be a bit more Republican heavy on the no votes but also saw many support it.  The House still will vote on the actual engrossed bill tomorrow but today vote should be a good indication. (However, I am hearing that might not turn out to be the case.)

There are those that are not happy with this new arrangement and they say that a community of interest has been split. On the Arkansas Times Blog the person using the username “Tusk” noted:

“Max, Sebastian County isn’t in Northwest Arkansas. It’s in the Arkansas River Valley, and south of the river at that, where the Ouachita Mountains are, not the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas. There’s no “community of interest” between Sebastian County and Northwest Arkansas.”

Max Brantley responded:

Tusk,

You haven’t been listening to all the speeches claiming an unbroken community of interest from Sebastian north to the Missouri line.

April 11, 2011 – 10:38 pm Categories: Jason Tolbert | Post a comment

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 9)(Randy Goodrum, Famous Arkansan Pt B)

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 9:35 pm CST on April 11, 2011.

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:

Commerce

$500

Eliminate business subsidies from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that risks disaster for America. Runaway spending has increased annual federal budget deficits to unprecedented levels, adding $2.7 trillion to the national debt in the past two years alone. Each year’s huge federal deficit increases the mountain of national debt borrowed from future generations of Americans. Congress needs to cut federal spending sharply and quickly. This paper sets forth $343 billion in available spending cuts.
Over the past two years, Congress has added $2.7 trillion to the national debt, including a record $1.4 trillion deficit for fiscal year (FY) 2009 and a $1.3 trillion deficit for FY 2010.[1] If Congress does nothing and simply continues existing taxing and spending policies, federal deficits will grow, reaching a projected $2 trillion deficit in just 10 years—and even that assumes a return to peace and prosperity.[2]
America cannot live with such deficits interminably. Deficits mortgage the livelihoods of future generations of Americans and ultimately put U.S. economic growth, stability, and reliability at risk.
Soaring spending drives these dangerous deficits. By 2020, federal spending is set to soar to 26 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), after having averaged 20 percent after World War II. Revenues will likely return to their post–World War II average of 18 percent of GDP by 2020, even if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are made permanent.[3] Thus, given current spending and taxing policies, spending is clearly the variable that drives up the deficits.[4] To reduce deficits, Congress must cut spending.
The costs of federal entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—and interest on the national debt will drive future deficits, and Congress must promptly and carefully decide how best to reduce those costs. However, entitlement reforms will take time, and spending cuts cannot wait. Congress needs to start cutting spending now.

________________________________________

Randy Goodrum is another famous Arkansan. Wikipedia notes:

Randy Goodrum (born July 7, 1947 in Arkansas) is an American songwriter. Goodrum has written (or co-written) numerous popular songs, including Anne Murray‘s #1 hit “You Needed Me” (1978) and “Broken Hearted Me” (1979), Michael Johnson‘s “Bluer Than Blue” (1978), England Dan & John Ford Coley‘s “It’s Sad to Belong” (1977), Steve Perry‘s “Oh Sherrie” (1984), DeBarge‘s “Who’s Holding Donna Now“, cowritten with David Foster and Jay Graydon, Toto‘s “I’ll Be Over You” (1986) and Chicago‘s “If She Would Have Been Faithful…” (1987). He also co-wrote with Brent Maher a lot of Dottie West‘s hits in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including her No. 1 Country hit in 1980, “A Lesson in Leavin’“. He also has performed as a keyboardist on recordings by Amy Grant and other artists.

Randy Goodrum toured extensively with guitarist Chet Atkins and performed and produced cuts on many of Atkins’ albums. As a co-writer with Chet Atkins, Randy wrote “To B or not to B” and “Waltz for the Lonely” among others. Goodrum’s song “So Soft Your Goodbye” won a Grammy award for Chet Atkins, and Mark Knopfler, in 1991.

Goodrum has conducted numerous seminars for aspiring songwriters over the years and urges songwriters to be patient, noting that he had written songs for over 10 years before any were recorded by other artists. According to Goodrum, his biggest hit, “You Needed Me” was rejected at first because it did not have a chorus.

“When I took them “You Needed Me” they told me it wouldn’t work, that it needed a chorus. And I said “No, it doesn’t.” I had been writing a really long time at that point and I knew there were a lot of songs that were hits that did not have a chorus, like “When Sunny Gets Blue” for example. Now a less experienced writer might go back home and write a chorus and end up with a seven minute piece of garbage.” said Goodrum in a recent interview.

April 11, 2011 – 9:37 pm Categories: Cato Institute, Famous Arkansans | Post a comment