In 6 Months Since Budget Deal: Debt Up More Than $1 Trillion

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President Barack Obama signing the Bipartisan Budget Act on Monday, Nov. 2, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

(CNSNews.com) - In the six months that have passed since then-retiring House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cut a budget deal with President Barack Obama that suspended the legal limit on the federal debt until March 15, 2017, the federal debt has increased by more than $1 trillion.

The Senate passed “The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015” with a vote held in the early morning hours of Friday, Oct. 30. Obama signed it on Monday, Nov. 2.

At the close business on Oct. 30, 2015, the total federal debt was $18,152,981,685,747.52. By the close of business on April 28, 2016—the latest date for which the Treasury has published the number--the total federal debt was $19,186,207,744,589.55.

That is an increase of $1,033,226,058,842.03.

On Monday, Nov. 2--the day Obama signed the Bipartisan Budget Act and thus suspended the debt limit--the debt took a big leap. It closed that day at $18,492,091,120,833.99—up $339,109,435,086.47 from its $18,152,981,685,747.52 closing on Friday, Oct. 30.

Prior to that, the part of the federal debt subject to the then-legal limit of $18,113,000,080,959.35 had been frozen just below that limit for more than seven months (from March 13, 2015 through Oct. 30, 2015), during a “debt issuance suspension period” that Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had declared on March 13, 2015, to push back the date at which the debt limit would be exceeded.

In a July 29, 2015, letter to Speaker Boehner, Lew indicated he was planning to extend the then-ongoing debt issuance suspension period, and explained its basic operations.

“On March 16, 2015, the outstanding debt of the United States reached the statutory limit,” Lew wrote. “As a result, Treasury had to begin employing extraordinary measures to continue to finance the government on a temporary basis. These measures, which we have used in previous debt limit impasses, include a debt issuance suspension period with respect to investment of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and suspension of the daily reinvestment of Treasury securities held by the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan. The debt issuance suspension period currently lasts until July 30. Tomorrow, I expect to extend the debt issuance through October 30.”

According to the official summary of the law, Section 901 of the “Bipartisan Budget Act,” which Congress passed on Oct. 30 and Obama signed Nov. 2, provided that the “public debt limit is suspended through March 15, 2017.”

The $1,033,226,058,842.03 increase in the debt in the six months since then equals approximately $6,828 for each of the 151,320,000 persons whom the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated had a full or part-time job in the United States as of this March.

COMMENTS

Debt Up $70,612.91 Per Household in Obama’s First 7 Years

$8,314,529,850,339.07:

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(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

(CNSNews.com) - The debt of the federal government increased by $8,314,529,850,339.07 in President Barack Obama’s first seven years in office, according to official data published by the U.S. Treasury.

That equals $70,612.91 in net federal borrowing for each of the 117,480,000 households that the Census Bureau estimates were in the United States as of September.

During President George W. Bush’s eight years in office, the federal debt increased by $4,899,100,310,608.44, according to the Treasury. That equaled $44,104.65 in net federal borrowing for each of the 111,079,000 households that, according to the Census Bureau, were in the country as of Jan. 20, 2009, the day that Bush left office and Obama assumed it.

In the fifteen years from the beginning of Bush’s first term to the end of Obama’s seventh year in office, the federal debt increased $13,213,630,160,947.51.

That $13,213,630,160,947.51 increase in the debt during the Bush-Obama years equals $112,219.57 for each of the 117,748,000 households that were in the country as of September.

When Bush took office on Jan. 20, 2001, the federal debt was 5,727,776,738,304.64. When Obama took office eight years later, on Jan. 20, 2009, the federal debt was 10,626,877,048,913.08.

As of Jan. 20, 2016, when Obama completed his seventh year in office, the federal debt was $18,941,406,899,252.15.

COMMENTS

Federal deficit to soar in 2016 after Ryan-Obama tax deal

www.washingtontimes.com

President Barack Obama stands with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. in Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, during an event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 13th amendment that abolished slavery. (Associated Press) ...more >

The tax-cut deal inked by President Obama and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month has put a major dent in the federal budget, helping send the deficit soaring by 24 percent, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.

The $544 billion deficit projected for 2016 marks the first year since 2009 that the red ink has grown, and it powers the deficit back up over the half-trillion mark, where it had been for most of Mr. Obama’s tenure.

And the rest of the decade will only get worse, the CBO said, with Social Security beginning to draw down its trust funds in 2018, and overall deficits surging back above the $1 trillion mark by 2022.

SEE ALSO: UnitedHealth loses $720 million offering plans under Obamacare, may withdraw next year

Struck by the grim news, budget watchdogs said politicians needed to heed the wake-up call.

“Turning a blind eye to the problem, as so many congressional and presidential candidates have done, merely means they are passing the buck to the next generation as concerns about political damage outweigh policy advantages,” said Steve Bell, senior director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

CBO projections contained some good news, with the economy showing signs of solid growth in 2016 and 2017, finally overcoming some of the “slack” that built up during the 2008 Wall Street collapse and the Great Recession. Analysts said more people will be enticed back into the labor force, but inflation and interest rates will also rise as the economy ticks along.

SEE ALSO: Flint residents still charged up to $200 a month for poisoned water

But spending and taxes remain the biggest problem for the budget, with the twin deals at the end of last year to break the sequester budget caps that had held spending in check, and to extend a series of special interest tax breaks.

Combined, they meant the government needed more money than ever — but had less flowing in.

Overall, spending will spike by 6 percent in fiscal year 2016, to reach $3.9 trillion. That amounts to 21.2 percent of the country’s output as measured by gross domestic product.

By contrast the government will collect just $3.4 trillion in taxes, or 18.3 percent of GDP.

Those trends will continue for the next decade, the CBO report. Taxes will hold steady at about 18 percent of GDP, while spending will rise from 21 percent to 23 percent — producing ever-worse budget news for the next president to handle.

Deficits peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009, as the government under first President George W. Bush and then Mr. Obama spent freely to try to prop up banks and to stimulate the economy after the 2008 downturn. The numbers dropped steadily through 2012, when the hole was $1.1 trillion, then dropped more quickly in 2013, falling to $680 billion, and to $439 billion by last year.

At the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest said the economic numbers are proof that the president’s policies have finally righted the economy and produced 70 consecutive months of job gains.

“That’s an indication of a strong bounce back from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” he said.

But Mr. Earnest refused to say whether the president’s 2017 budget, due to Congress in a few weeks, will make progress in cutting the deficit.

“Stay tuned,” the spokesman said.

Mr. Obama has never presented a balanced budget to Congress, and fought the spending cuts that helped reduce the deficits during his time in office. Instead, he’s pushed for tax increases, with the new money being used to finance his plans for broader government spending.

Those budgets have routinely been rejected by Congress, and with Republicans in control of both chambers, Mr. Obama’s latest plan is unlikely to do any better.

Just five months ago the CBO had projected the deficit would drop in 2016. Instead, it will rise some $105 billion.

“That increase is largely attributable to legislation enacted since August — in particular, the retroactive extension of a number of provisions that reduce corporate and individual income taxes,” the CBO said.

As deficits grow again, the debt will also pile up. Debt held by the public, which excludes borrowing from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, already accounts for 73.6 percent of GDP. TheCBO last year had projected debt might dip as the deficit dropped, but now says it will continue its steady rise, topping 85 percent by 2026.

The president and Congress did find bipartisan agreement on the tax package and spending hikes last year, undoing several years of progress in holding the line on spending. Indeed, government spending actually dropped in 2012 and 2013, then ticked up in 2014 and 2015.

This year, that trickle will become a flood.

Most of the increased spending will come from the government’s health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, which will surge $104 billion, or 11 percent, compared to 2015.

COMMENTS

Obituary 1776 - 2016

THINK ABOUT IT AFTER YOU READ IT  THEN READ IT AGAIN!  

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always Temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent Form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until The time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous Gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority Always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from The public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally Collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a Dictatorship."     "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the Beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 Years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:     From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage." The Obituary follows:     " United States of America ",  Born 1776, Died 2016 It doesn't hurt to read this several times. Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning The last Presidential election:     Number of States won by:         Obama: 19               Romney: 29 Square miles of land won by:    Obama: 580,000      Romney: 2,427,000 Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million  Romney: 143 million Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:                                            Obama: 13.2             Romney: 2.1     Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Romney won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.     Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low Income tenements and living off various forms of government Welfare..."     Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of Democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population Already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase..     If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million Criminal invaders called illegal’s - and they vote - then we can say Goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years .     If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.     If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how Much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our Freedom..

Democrat Leaders Dance, Gloat, Declare Speaker Paul Ryan ‘Gave Away The Store’

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by NEIL MUNRO18 Dec 2015472

Democratic leaders are unanimous in declaring a complete victory over House Speaker 

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

58%

 and his close allies, who wrote the $1.1 trillion omnibus budget without asking House conservatives for any input — or even for some public objections to help their closed-door negotiations.

The Democrats’ victory, and Republican Ryan’s defeat, was garishly displayed when his omnibus got more Democratic votes in the House and in the Senate than it got Republican votes.

“I said I would not accept a lot of [conservative] ideological riders that were attached to a big budget deal,” President Barack Obama said Friday, at his end-of-year press conference. “And because of some terrific negotiations by the Democrats up on Capitol Hill and I think some pretty good work by our legislative staff here… it was a good win,” he said. “We met our goals,” he said.

In 2015, “we wanted to get rid of sequestration, we were able to do that,” gloated the Democrats’ leader in the Senate,

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

2%

. “We wanted to make sure there is parity between defense and the middle class, we wanted to make sure that we kept these poison pills off the legislation… All three goals we had, we accomplished,” he said. Ryan’s omnibus deal “caps off a successful year for Senate Democrats,” he added.

“Well, if you would’ve told me this year that we’d be standing here celebrating the passage of an omnibus bill, with no poison pill riders, at higher [spending] levels above sequesters than even the president requested, I wouldn’t have believed it, but here we are,” Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer told reporters shortly after the $1.1 trillion omnibus bill was passed.

“Almost anything, the Republican leadership in the Senate achieved this year, they achieved on Democratic terms… Democrats had an amazingly good year,” he declared.

Over in the House, the Democrats’ upbeat press conference began with laughter, according to the transcript.

(Leader Pelosi. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. I know you’re out there. I see you.

[Laughter]

Some of you, for the second time this morning – thank you for coming by. We’re very pleased to say that today, we delivered sweeping victories for hard-working American families. The Omnibus bill makes vital investments that will create jobs, strengthen our future and grow the paychecks of American people… We passed the best possible, under the circumstances, appropriations bill… the Republicans’ obsession with lifting the oil-export ban, they really gave away the store. Democrats were able to strip scores and scores of poison pills, destructive poison pills, some of which they had to have, which they ended up with not having… it is a monumental improvement… But again, we feel very, very good about what it is.… and thank the Speaker for his cooperation.

You can watch it all here, including the claim by Maryland 

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

6%

, the Democrats’ deputy leader, that “this was an extraordinarily big victory.”

The Washington Post scored the results, and kindly give only 10 victories to the Democrats, and then four to Ryan.

At his press event, Ryan claimed a victory, but had little evidence to prove his point. “Today, the House came together to ensure our government is open and working for the American people,” he said in a statement. “This bipartisan compromise secures meaningful wins for Republicans and the American people, such as the repeal of the outdated, anti-growth ban on oil exports,” said the statement.

What did he trade to get that one win? — “scores and scores of poison pills, destructive poison pills, some of which they had to have, which they ended up with not having,” according to Pelosi.

So Ryan claimed “meaningful wins,” but very few of them.

“The legislation strengthens our military and protects Americans from terrorist threats, while limiting the overreach of intrusive government bureaucracies like the IRS and the EPA,” he said, weakly, before changing the subject by promising to do better in 2016. “Congress can now move into 2016 with a fresh start and a plan to return to regular order in order to better protect taxpayer dollars,” he claimed.

On the Michael Medved radio show, Ryan defended stepped up his claims — with a stronger adjective, but not more evidence.

We scored major policy wins for conservatives—for our country—in this bill. We advanced our principles. Did we advance all of our principles as far as we want to go? No, because we’re in divided government. But we did advance them in the right direction. So the way I look at these things, is take what you can get now, and then go fight for more later. And I think we’ve set ourselves up for more success in 2016.

Ryan didn’t tout one of the most unpopular inserts in the bill  — the GOP-approved legislation to import up to 200,000 extra foreign workers to take American’s blue-collar jobs.

Ryan’s main claim to success was the removal of the barrier to the export of crude oil — and to get that win, he gave up a huge list of conservative priorities.

“If you take a look at what’s in this bill, at what this bill actually does, it has a permanent lift—a permanent removal—of the ban on petroleum exports, on crude oil exports. That’s something we’ve been trying to do for 40 years in this country. Think of what we get by removing the ban. And the Obama administration, on oil exports—when America can export its oil, that means we can compete with OPEC. We can put OPEC out of the business of controlling the world’s oil markets. We can take Putin out of business with respect to selling oil and gas to his customers. We can create more jobs. We can become more independent. We can keep our prices low by having more control over the marketplace and create more jobs right here in America. It’s fantastic for our foreign policy. It’s really good for American jobs. And it’s something we’re actually getting done that we haven’t been able to do for decades.”

The commenters on his website tend to disagree with Ryan’s claim of “meaningful wins.”

“Ryan… just spit in the face of his constituents,” said one. “Why vote Republican? The Democrats claim this bill as a great victory for their priorities and party! Did Republicans cut the budget? NO,” said the next commenter.  “And they wonder why Trump is beating them. I suppose now that they’ve funded all of Obama’s priorities through 2018, they can play “Pretend Opposition Party” in 2016 and hope we’ll forget how they boned us,” said the next comment.

Many GOP politicians — especially the roughly 100 Representatives and Senators who voted against the deal — are very unhappy, including 

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)

70%

, who posted this statement on his website:

A rotten process yields a rotten result, and this 2,000-page, trillion-dollar bill is rotten to its core, resulting from secret, backroom negotiations and getting dumped in the dead of the night on Americans with barely two days before the vote. Corporate lobbyists had a field day, but working Americans lost out. Take just one sordid example: this bill will quadruple the number of foreign guest-worker visas at a time when millions of Americans are still looking for full-time work and working-class wages remain stagnant.

At the Senate Democrats’ press conference, Schumer gloated at length and in great detail, unlike Ryan. He’s always worth listening to, if only because he’s expected to take over Sen. Reid’s leadership position in January 2017.

This bill is a great victory for the principles Democrats stand for. And as we look back in the year of the Senate, I think there have been three major trends, two of which are getting noticed, but the third is getting overlooked.

First, the Senate is getting things done.

Second, we are getting them done, because Democrats are not obstructing the same way Republicans did when they were in the minority, and those two points have been talked about in the media and elsewhere.

But third, the point that has been missed is that the bills were passing reflect Democratic values. We are getting, even though were in the minority, we are passing a program that we have been for all along. Today’s omnibus vote is a metaphor for that. The vote marks the end of the road the Democrats began mapping out last spring.

When Republicans made clear they were going to try to jam through partisan appropriation bills through the senate. [GOP] Senator [Mitch] McConnell thought he could jam the defense appropriation bill through, but Democrats stood firm and blocked him. Sen. McConnell said over and over again he wants to stay at sequestration levels. He said over and over again, that he wanted to put much more money into defense than into the nondefense. He didn’t get either of those, and we said the opposite, and we got what we wanted.  The relief from devastating cuts knowns as sequestration, the relief that was equal, no poison pill riders, the three principles Democrats laid out, Republicans opposed, are all laid out, are all in that bill today.

The bill were passing today, passes the test of Democratic values with flying colors and fits the framework we laid out years ago. And if you need any proof of this, look what happened on the floor a few minutes ago. Senator McConnell offered an amendment to strip out the omnibus portion of the bill, and a majority of Republicans voted for it. They don’t like it. But, our strategy worked. And the idea that we’d let people know that if the government was shut down, it would be because of their intransigence, maybe both Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell understand that they couldn’t shut down the government and that meant they couldn’t make unreasonable demands and that meant we were going to have a budget with Democratic priorities.

But it’s not just the budget. This has happened over and over again, take the transportation bill. Democrats demanded a long-term bill with increased investments. Republicans wanted a short term bill with flat funding. What’d we get? A long term bill with increased investments.

How about the Export-Import bank? Senator McConnell said, no. Most of the Republicans said, no. We now have an export import bank.

How about when Republicans sought to hold hostage funding [in early 2015] for the Department of Homeland Security and Democrats banded together to fully fund the department and protect the president’s order on immigration. And finally, the bill that Ranking Member [Democrat Sen. Patty] Murray mentioned the Education Bill, loaded with Democratic values, attempts to switch the funding formula, attempts to do all of these other things, didn’t happen.

So, anything, almost anything, the Republican leadership in the Senate achieved this year, they achieved on Democratic terms.

By sticking together, as we have been, we’ve been unified under Harry Reid’s leadership, by fighting for the middle class, which we have focused on like a laser, while Republicans carry the water for the special interests; Democrats had an amazingly good year, as a minority party. We can only hope that our Republican colleagues will be as a cooperative minority, as we were this year, when Democrats take back the senate in 2016.

In comparison, Ryan only declared “This bipartisan compromise secures meaningful wins for Republicans and the American people, such as the repeal of the outdated, anti-growth ban on oil exports.”

“And I think we’ve set ourselves up for more success in 2016,” he says.

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WT "White House Declares Total Victory Over GOP in Budget Battle."

RUSH: The country was just sold down the river again by your very Republican Party. 

I have a headline here from the Washington Times:  "White House Declares Total Victory Over GOP in Budget Battle." That headline's a misnomer.  There was never a battle.  None of this was opposed.  The Republican Party didn't stand up to any of it, and the die has been cast for a long time on this.  I know many of you are dispirited, depressed, angry, combination of all of that. But, folks, there was no other way this could go. Because two years ago when the Republican Party declared they would never do anything that would shut down the government and they would not impeach Obama, there were no obstacles in Obama's way and there were no obstacles in the way of the Democrat Party. 

When you surrender the power of the purse -- and that's the primary power the House of Representatives has.  Not a penny of money can be spent in this country by this government without the House of Representatives authorizing it.  Obama can spend all he wants, but if the House doesn't give him the mechanism, he can't spend any of it.  But the Republicans squandered that.  They gave up the power of the purse.  The reason they did that is because for some inexplicable reason, they are literally paranoid and scared to death of even being accused of doing something that would shut down the government. 

So to avoid even the accusation that they were going to or would ever even think of shutting down the government, they signaled that whatever Obama wanted to spend, he would get, because they figured that had less damage to them politically than the allegation that they were shutting down the government.  So, very simply, ever since the Republican Party became the party of keeping the government open at all costs, we get bills like this.  There's simply no stopping the Democrats.  There's no mechanism.  Every constitutional mechanism found in the power of the purse, Separation of Powers, the Republican Party years ago gave it away, in total fear of the media. 

Now, there's also a factor that needs to be mentioned, too, and that is that many Republican donors want every bit of this money spent, and they have donated voluminously to key Republicans in order to get the money spent. So it's not all Republican fears. It's not all Republican caving.  A lot of it is Republican fealty and loyalty to some of their donors.  Some people today looking at this, and this is 2,009 pages.  It's said to be a spending bill.  Among the things that it does, it fully funds Obamacare. 

It fully funds Planned Parenthood.  That, to me, is unforgivable, with everything now known about what goes on behind closed doors at Planned Parenthood, and that the federal government, led by a Republican Party, sees fit to pay for it.  It is beyond comprehension, and it is a total squandering of moral authority to fully fund the butchery at Planned Parenthood.  This spending bill fully pays for Obama's refugee plans, fully.  This spending bill, this budget bill quadruples the number of visas Obama wants for foreign workers.  This is even a slap at American union workers.  Not the leaders.  The union leaders seem to be in favor of it, but blue-collar people, known as working people, have been sold down the river along with everybody else here. 

This spending bill even fully pays for every dime asked for by Obama on all of this idiocy that's tied up into climate change.  Everything Obama wanted, everything he asked for, he got.  You go down the list of things, it's there. 

And this is causing some people to wonder if they just dreamed all that stuff about Boehner resigning.  And then other people are wondering if they even dreamed all that stuff about the Republicans winning the largest number of seats they've had in Congress since the Civil War.  We had two midterm elections in 2010 and 2014, which were landslide victories for the Republican Party.  The Democrat Party lost over a thousand seats nationwide in just those two elections.  People went to the polls in droves wanting exactly what was rubber-stamped last night (or what will be) stopped. 

And instead they showed up in record numbers and they it turned out and they just defeated Democrats down the ballot. In the process, they elected Republicans to stop this.  And now the Republicans have the largest number of seats in the House they've had in Congress since the Civil War.  And it hasn't made any difference at all.  It is as though Nancy Pelosi is still running the House and Harry Reid is still running the Senate.  "Betrayed" is not even the word here.  What has happened here is worse than betrayal. Betrayal is pretty bad, but it's worse than that. 

This was out-and-out, in-our-face lying, from the campaigns to individual statements made about the philosophical approach Republicans had to all this spending.  There is no Republican Party!  You know, we don't even need a Republican Party if they're gonna do this.  You know, just elect Democrats, disband the Republican Party, and let the Democrats run it, because that's what's happening anyway.  And these same Republican leaders doing this can't, for the life of them, figure out why Donald Trump has all the support that he has?  They really can't figure this out?

Repeated stabs in the back like this -- which have been going on for years -- combined with Obama's policy destruction of this country, is what has given rise to Donald Trump.  If Donald Trump didn't exist and if the Republican Party actually does want to win someday, they'd have to invent him.  It's just mind-boggling when you figure out everything that has been granted Obama. All the money, the tax increases, the Cadillac plans in Obamacare. All kinds of punitive things in Obamacare, delayed yet again so that people will not be made aware of the pain and suffering Obamacare's gonna cause. 

This budget even gives Obamacare cover by delaying some of the most harsh aspects of it.  And the reason for that is, delay the harsh aspects and you prevent people from learning what they are, at the same time you get more years for the tentacles of Obamacare to deeply weave themselves into the fabric of society, making repeal of the thing more politically difficult.  So you could also say that the Republican budget bill actually improves the odds of Obamacare surviving and growing.  You have to look long and hard for this whole thing to find any opposition to anything the Democrat Party wants. 

Jeff Sessions, senator from Alabama, is calling this a betrayal, fully funding the Obama immigration agenda, the climate change agenda, increasing foreign workers.  He said, "This is why Trump is now triumphing here and probably will win.  The voters have come to believe that their own party's elites are not only uninterested in defending their interests, but -- as with this legislation and fast tracking the president's international trade deal -- Republican voters would not be wrong to conclude that their own Republican leaders are hostile to them, just as Democrat leaders are hostile to Republican voters." 

And as Sessions points out, "This legislation represents a further disenfranchisement of the American voter." Clearly! In the last two midterm elections, the American electorate has stood up and loudly stated, 'No. We don't want this. Stop this."  It didn't matter.  It's so bad that over at Slate.com they're making excuses for Paul Ryan.  I think in some places in the left-wing media, they can't believe the scope of the betrayal.  They're feeling a little guilty at how easy this has been.  They're feeling a little guilty here.  I'm joking, of course.  But one of the Salon.com columnists said, "Hey, you know, you guys need to cut Ryan some slack.  He was left with a huge mess and not much time to fix it." 

Isn't that what they always said with Boehner? "He was left with a huge mess"? Isn't that what they always say about Obama?  "He was left with a huge mess. Man, it was much worse than he even knew.  Nobody told him the truth."  It seems to be a constant refrain and excuse.  "According to Sessions, the American people elected Republicans to the majority in Congress in 2014 as a rejection of the Obama administration's immigration policies," and any number of other things. "'That loyalty has been repaid with betrayal,' he said. ... Sessions added, 'As feared, the effect is to fund the president’s entire immigration agenda.'"

"Planned Parenthood Unscathed in Spending Bill," from a very happy and cheering TheHill.com.  "Planned Parenthood is praising Democrats in Congress after the spending bill released early Wednesday morning spared the organization from cuts.  As expected, the spending bill does not defund Planned Parenthood, a clear deal-breaker for Democrats, but the absence of spending cuts is still noteworthy given the intensity of the push to defund the group..." There was never any intensity to... It's what we now know. 

There wasn't any intensity to defund.  All there was is just a bunch of words, just a bunch of people standing up saying they were going to.  This wouldn't stand.  They were gonna lead an effort to defund it. But nobody ever meant it.  "Planned Parenthood Vice President Dana Singiser praised congressional Democrats on Wednesday for 'holding the line against these harmful policy riders and cuts to key women's health programs.'"  Also from TheHill.com, another reporter cheering as well. "Funds for Obama Climate Deal Survive."

They were never threatened, never in peril.  There wasn't a battle.  "Secret Deal Quadruples Foreign Workers -- Chamber of Commerce Backs Guest Worker Program."  Translation:  More cheap labor will eagerly be brought into the country under a visa program or they will be employed.  "Hey, why not, Rush?  The unemployment's rate's 5%.  We got plenty of room for foreign workers."  Right.  That, to me... All this Republican campaign stuff going on obfuscating or clouding this a little bit, but that really is the news of the last 12 to 18 hours.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH :Sanctuary cities, fully funded.  All Mideast immigration programs, fully funded.  All these things that have been exploited by terrorists.  

Sanctuary cities, fully funded.  All refugees, fully funded.  The release of criminal aliens, fully funded. 

Everything!

The Democrat leftist wet dream has just been paid for.

TRUMP MAKES STATEMENT ON BUDGET DEAL

- DECEMBER 17, 2015 -

​DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON BUDGET DEAL

(New York, NY) December 17, 2015 – "If anyone needed more evidence of why the American people are suffering at the hands of their own government, look no further than the budget deal announced by Speaker Ryan. In order to avoid a government shutdown, a cowardly threat from an incompetent President, the elected Republicans in Congress threw in the towel and showed absolutely no budget disc

The American people will have to absorb higher deficits, greater debt, less economic liberty and more corporate welfare. Congress cannot seem to help itself in bending to every whim of special interests. How can they face their constituents when they continue to burden our children and grandchildren with debts they will never be able to repay? Our government is failing us, so we must do something about it. Who knows how bad things will be when the next administration comes in and has to pick up the pieces?

The only special interest not being served by our government is the American people. It is time we imposed budget discipline by holding the line on spending, getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse, and by taking on our debt. To do these things, we need a President who can lead the fight to hold Congress and the rest of government accountable. Together, we can Make America Great Again." – Donald J. Trump

Next Release: Statement on Donald J. Trump Record of Health

Obamacare, Horse Tracks, NASCAR, Loans, FUNDED

Tax deal doles out year-end goodies for NASCAR tracks, racehorses, college students

www.washingtontimes.com

Paul Ryan wrote the agreement with Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee.

"Millions of working families with children will not find themselves suddenly taxed into poverty. Millions of college students won't have the rug pulled out from under them when the tuition bill arrives. Charities can confidently plan and expand the good work they do. And small business and enterprises on the forefront of innovation now have the economic certainty they deserve," Mr. Wyden said.

Tax breaks on everything from racehorses and film productions to NASCAR racetracks to college tuitions and teachers' out-of-pocket classroom expenses are covered in the massive deal.

Also included is a permanent extension of the research and development tax credit, created by Congress in the early 1980s as a temporary boost to the slumping economy. It's been extended 16 different times, but the new bill writes it into the tax code for good.

And the agreement unravels one of the key tax increases in Obamacare, in a move budget watchdogs had long warned against, saying it would make the massive health overhaul a bad deal for taxpayers.

That provision is the so-called "Cadillac Tax," a 2.3 percent excise tax levied on high-value health plans. The tax was expected to particularly strike at the generous plans unions sometimes negotiated for their members in lieu of pay hikes.

Mr. Obama had fought for the tax, saying it was an important incentive to try to control exploding costs in the health care market, but Democrats in Congress, prodded by their union allies, linked arms with the GOP to impose a two-year delay on the Cadillac Tax, which was to go into effect in 2016.

© Copyright 2015 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Here is the link.
PAUL RYAN TRILLION DOLLAR BABY http://www.sickbias.com/2015/12/paul-ryan-trillion-dollar-baby.html

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1730413297194596&id=1461608194075109

PAUL RYAN TRILLION DOLLAR BABY

If John Boehner Made the Spending Deal Paul Ryan Just Did, Conservatives Would’ve Called for His Head

www.slate.com

House Speaker Paul Ryan talks to reporters following the weekly House GOP Conference meeting at the Capitol on Dec. 16, 2015, in Washington.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

When Paul Ryan was handed the speaker’s gavel in late October, he pledged to restore normal order to the People’s House and eliminate the sort of backroom deals that rank-and-file members complain are shoved down their throats at the 11th hour. So, late Tuesday night, Ryan unveiled a few thousand pages of consequential tax, spending, and regulatory legislation costing roughly $2 trillion and gave Congress and the public two whole days to review everything.

Jim Newell is a Slate staff writer.

To be fair to Ryan, the buzzer-beating legislating has more to do with the workload and deadlines John Boehner left him than anything he did wrong. The agreement Ryan reached with fellow congressional negotiators also looks much like one Boehner would have reached: Each side scores some points, but Republican congressional majorities again will fail to deliver a high-profile, base-pumping, ideological victory over some nefarious aspect of the “Obama agenda” on which conservatives had drawn a red line. Will this land Ryan in the same hot water that eventually cooked Boehner? He’ll get a pass, for now.

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The two towering paper stacks are the 2016 omnibus appropriations package, which funds the government through next September, and a “tax-extenders” bill that, well, extends (and in many cases makes permanent) a bunch of tax breaks that were set to expire. Though they will be voted on separately, they were negotiated together. The omnibus is more favorable to Democrats, and the tax extenders are more favorable to Republicans.

Considered as a whole, an overriding theme is that everyone gets a lot of money but neither side hammers home that big-ticket ideological victory. In other words, it’s a compromise, something Democrats usually accept as part of the process while Republicans scream bloody murder.

Republicans’ major “get” in the omnibus is a lift on the longtime ban of crude oil exports. That’s a big deal. But since it’s such a big deal, Democrats dangled it to win all sorts of other concessions of their own (even if these were mainly concessions to the status quo). In terms of energy and the environment, Democrats won multiyear extensions of critical tax credits for solar and wind energy production. They successfully nixed a rider that would have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed “waters of the United States” rule that would expand its jurisdiction against polluters under the Clean Water Act. Riders blocking proposed regulations of power plants were cut out. The U.S. government’s contributions to the international Green Climate Fund will continue, a crucial component of the Paris climate agreement.

Somehow the financial services industry, which owns the United States Congress,came up on the losing end too. A provision that would designate fewer financial institutions as “systemically important” (and thus subject to greater oversight under Dodd-Frank) was dropped. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will maintain its independence from congressional appropriations—i.e., Republicans who want to defund it. Another rider that would have blocked a proposed Labor Department rule better aligning financial advisers with their clients’ interests was cut.

The Zadroga Act, a health care and compensation fund for 9/11 first responders and nearby workers, will be reauthorized until 2090, a hilarious year to settle on but one that effectively means permanent. Jon Stewart is an effective lobbyist.

Conservatives also lost on their most well-publicized demands that have dominated cable news.Language restricting Syrian and Iraqi refugee resettlement, defunding Planned Parenthood, or blocking President Obama’s executive actions on immigration will not be included. (The Senate will, however, take up the stand-alone Syrian and Iraqi refugee bill that passed the House with a veto-proof majority. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has said that it will not fare nearly as well there.) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s annual chip-away at campaign finance regulations, which this year would have blown up the McCain-Feingold fundraising coordination caps between parties and campaigns, did not make it through. (This was an interesting fight, in which Democrats joined up with Tea Party conservatives who don’t want to enhance the power of party committees.)

Meanwhile, over in tax-extenders land, Republicans made all sorts of business tax breaks permanent without any new way to pay for them, so, hooray! This roughly $600 billion package of treats includes permanent extensions of the research-and-development tax credit and other depreciation credits. Democrats got extensions of certain tax credits from the 2009 stimulus. Both got to chip away at funding for the Affordable Care Act, by delaying implementation of the so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost health plans (this one was technically tacked onto the omnibus, not the tax package) and the medical device tax. This half of the deal will be a big, fat budget-buster, and it will pass with mostly Republican votes.

Both packages, and the way in which they were negotiated, look … an awful lot like the packages that Boehner would have negotiated and the way in which he would have negotiated them. Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus, who have said at various points that they would not vote for a spending bill that funded either Planned Parenthood or Syrian and Iraqi refugee resettlement, are sticking to their word. Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, does not expect his group to support to omnibus and doesn’t even expect that many rank-and-file Republicans to support it either. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, among the more vocal Freedom Caucus members, also predicted that a majority of Republicans would vote against the $1.1 trillion appropriations package that he’s calling the “Boehner legacy bill.”

In other words, Ryan will have to pass the omnibus with the same organic governing coalition of mostly Democrats and some Republicans that Boehner himself used to pass most necessary legislation. That’s a violation of the so-called Hastert rule in which a speaker has pledged to only call up legislation that has support of a majority of the majority party. Ryanassured conservatives that he would abide by this rule if they supported his bid. On his first big funding bill, Ryan will just … not follow the rule that he said he would follow.

That’s great news for America but might be awful news for Ryan in the long run. He’ll get a pass for a number of reasons this time: He’s finishing a process Boehner initiated; he’s offering Republicans a mammoth tax-break package in exchange; and most importantly, Freedom Caucus members would embarrass themselves if they started talking about how Paul Ryan is a failure and must be overthrown this early in his tenure. Perhaps his fetching newmanly man-beard also played some sort of hypnotic role on the House Republican Conference.

This appropriations package will expire near the end of the 2016 election, so Congress may pass a continuing resolution then to kick the major political fights past the campaign. Ryan’s next real tests on must-pass legislation should come when there’s a new president. Until then, he can enjoy the honeymoon.

The Day of Awakening is Coming, and can not be denied.

Home > Archives (Feb 28, 2014) > The Day of Awakening is Coming

February 28, 2014

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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Charlie Cook of the famous Cook Report has been in the news lately. Charlie Cook raised the possibility lately of Mrs. Clinton's physical appearance while aging and asking if it would be detrimental to her campaign should she run.  Charlie's considered the dean of these political analysts and so forth.  He tends left like everybody in Washington does, sort of, for the most part establishment types.

He's got a piece today in The Cook Report, and in his piece today, he's very worried that America may have lost its nerve, that days of malaise have set in, much like in the latter years of the Carter administration in the seventies.  In this piece he asks, "What happens When the Nation Loses Its Bootstrap Self-Image?"  And he cites some polling data.  He's a pollster, and he analyzes other polling data, and he says that 63% are confident that better days for their kids will materialize.
There are people that, no matter what's happening, think it's gonna get better. I can relate to it.  I've told you many times. I can't pinpoint when, I can't tell you what the impetus is gonna be or what the tipping point's gonna be, but I, too, believe that. It's partially my genuine overall optimism.  Folks, I really do... This may sound loony, and I've thought this for 10 years.
I really think the day's coming where we're gonna be shocked at people we call low-information, people we think aren't paying much attention, people who aren't really that informed. I think that some point they're gonna have had enough of this.  Oh, 63% say it will not be.  Okay, then there's a typo.  "Sixty-three percent are confident better days..." All right.  Okay.  I take it back.
"Sixty-three percent are not confident of better days for their kids, and 53% say life will be worse for the next generation."  Okay, so Charlie doesn't agree with me.  I misread this.  Well, I didn't misread it. There's a typo.  Despite this, it is a feeling -- I'm not gonna deny that -- and there's faith.  I'm not gonna deny that.  I just think that, at some point, people are going to say, "Enough of this!"
Obviously it's gonna require some kind of leadership to spur this.  It's just not going to happen on its own, although I even think that might happen. But it would really facilitated if there were an inspirational, can-do leader that popped up.  Right now people are peppered with nothing but pessimism, and we've got a Democrat Party which wants us to believe that our better days are behind us, that this is it and, you know, "Bunker down with us!
"We're gonna do the best for you that we can, but days of American exceptionalism are over." Chuck Hagel, when announcing military cuts, said, "We're not the dominant military power anymore.  It just isn't gonna be the case."  And, yeah, the new normal is 9% employed. The new normal is 92 million, 95 million not working.  I mean, people are bombarded with this every day, and for 10 years I've been waiting for this.  Honest to God.
I don't know how else to describe it.  For 10 years I've been waiting for this national awakening, and it's done nothing but worsen.  There is nothing close to a national awakening, and I will be the first to admit it.  The closest thing to it is the Tea Party, and so to what extent the Tea Party is gonna be successful politically in winning elections and having a majority of like-minded people in elective office, that's up for grabs.
We don't know that.
We know the Democrats are gonna lose a lot of seats, but we don't know what kind of Republicans are gonna replace them.  If they're anti-Tea Party Republicans, then big whoop.  If they're pro-Republican establishment, who just think it's what it is, the government's gonna get bigger, stay big, and we're just gonna be in charge of it now, then big whoop.
I'll take it, getting rid of Democrats, but it could be better if Tea Party types -- conservatives is what I mean -- end up winning.  So Charlie Cook: 63% are not confident of better days.  Fifty-three percent say life will be harder for the next generation -- and that's, sadly, probably true. (interruption) Well, but why get out of bed?  I'm talking about attitudinally.  I'm not talking what's possible.  I'm talking about the national attitude that's been impacted. (interruption)
We are a nation of sad sacks, but look at what the sad sacks are bombarded with every day! I mean, normal food that they eat and drink can kill 'em, and for how many years have they been hearing this stuff?  Now for five years they've been hearing what a reprobate country we've always been -- what an unfair, unjust country and how we've gotta make things right and balance what's been wrong for 250 years and so forth. It's a never ending assault on people's sensibilities.
Let's add the way they're being educated, and what they're being taught from the youngest ages about this country.

END TRANSCRIPT

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