'That's just how it is for progressives. They want what they want, when they want it, and if you dare to protest their use of your money — then they’ll really make you pay...'

A fabulous essay, at the House of Eratosthenes, "Progressives: I’m Taking Your Ball and Going Home."

President Armageddon

A great editorial on the sequester, at WSJ, "The Washington Monument ploy and other Obama gambits":

Americans need to understand that Mr. Obama is threatening that if he doesn't get what he wants, he's ready to inflict maximum pain on everybody else. He won't force government agencies to shave spending on travel and conferences and excessive pay and staffing. He won't demand that agencies cut the lowest priority spending as any half-competent middle manager would.

It's the old ploy to stir public support for all government spending by shutting down vital services first. Voters should scoff at the idea that a $3.6 trillion government can't save one nickel of every dollar that agencies spend. The $85 billion in savings is a mere 2.3% of total spending. The agencies that the White House says can't save 5% received an average increase in their budgets of 17% in the previous five years—not counting their $276 billion stimulus bonus.

Continue reading.

BONUS: Speaker Boehner's op-ed at the paper, "The President Is Raging Against a Budget Crisis He Created" (via Memeorandum).

Take it From Calvin Coolidge on Taxes and Spending

Following up on yesterday's post, "The Calvin Coolidge Comeback."

Here's Amity Shlaes, at WSJ, "The Coolidge Lesson on Taxes and Spending":

Only Reagan could fix this.

That's the intuitive reaction to the surge of spending and budgetary challenges in Washington today. It's hard to think of another Republican with the fortitude to push back against the outlays, to make government smaller, to lower taxes. And to show that such moves can yield prosperity.

The "only Reagan" assumption is too narrow—especially when it comes to the fiscal challenge. For while Reagan inspired and cut taxes, he did not reduce the deficit. He did not even cut the budget. But if you look back, past Dwight Eisenhower and around the curve of history, you can find a Republican who did all those things: Calvin Coolidge.

A New Englander and former Massachusetts governor, Coolidge came to Washington as vice president and moved into the White House only in 1923 after the sudden death of President Warren Harding. He later won the office himself and served until 1929. The 30th president cut the top income-tax rate to 25% (lower than the 28% of the historic Reagan cut of 1986). Coolidge reduced the national debt and balanced the budget. When he departed the White House for his home in Northampton, Mass., he left a federal budget smaller than the one he found.

Three factors gave Silent Cal the ability to cut as he did, each suggesting a governing approach that would be useful today...

Continue reading.

Federal Spending Set to Climb Nearly 2 Percent This Year

At IBD, "Austerity? Federal Spending Set to Climb 2% This Year":

In the wake of Wednesday's news that the economy contracted slightly in the last three months of 2012, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid laid the blame on budget cuts.

"The economy was rejecting the austerity and brinksmanship," he said.

That theme — that spending cuts are putting economic growth at risk — has been gaining traction these days, particularly among those on the left.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said the GDP drop showed that pushing "big austerity measures now will hurt the recovery."

Former Obama economic adviser Jared Bernstein asserted U.S. policy has been based on "austerity at (a) time when we need a fiscal push."

And the liberal Center for American Progress complained that "fiscal austerity threatens the U.S. economy."

On the surface, it might look that way.

In its GDP report, for example, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said government spending dropped 6.6% in Q4. And unless Congress acts, more than $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts will start to kick in as part of the so-called sequester.

But dig a little deeper, and there's little to back up all this austerity talk.

Spending: Up

According to monthly spending data from the Treasury Dept., total federal spending — which includes transfer payments and other federal outlays not counted by the BEA — increased by $98 billion in Q4 compared with Q3. And spending was up $31 billion when compared with Q4 2011.

For the entire year, spending in 2012 was virtually unchanged from 2011, and was up $86 billion over 2010, a year when the government was still spending stimulus money in earnest.

Plus, the "fiscal cliff" deal worked out between President Obama and the Republicans actually added almost $50 billion to planned spending in 2013, and a total of $332 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Almost half of the 2013 increase will go to pay extended unemployment benefits, which Democrats have long argued are highly stimulative.

Reid himself has said that unemployment benefits "help our economy because recipients spend the cash they receive on the things they need right away."

In addition, even if the "sequester" should go through, federal spending will continue to climb.

No Real 'Cuts'

In fact, if nothing else changes, spending in 2013 will be $3.6 trillion, an increase of nearly 2% over 2012, according to data from the CBO. That's because the sequester's "cuts" are actually just reductions in planned spending hikes.

More at that top link.

And see Holly Robichaud, at the Boston Herald, "Need to face reality":

This week Senator Mary Landrieu claimed that our nation doesn't have spending problem. This U.S. Senator is denying that we face $16 trillion in debt. That equals $146,000 per taxpayer. I don't have an extra $146,000 to give to the federal government. Do you? This announcement of Landrieu comes on the heals of the President telling Speaker Boehner there is no debt problem.

I know that liberals want to tax the rich. Even if we tax the rich 100%, that won't make a dent in our debt. This money is going to be paid by the middle class and future generations unless we rein in spending.

It is time for some honesty from the Democrats!

Well, don't hold your breath. The left lives on lies. Pure lies. All the time. From Obama down to the most disgusting trolls of the progressive fever swamps.

Obama's Spending Will Require Massive Tax Hikes on the Middle Class

It's harsh, but at some level I hope people really get socked and feel it. Maybe that's what it will take to wake people the f-k up.

At IBD, "Now They Tell Us: Obama's Tax Promises Were Bogus":

Remember all those mainstream news reports before the election about how President Obama's expansive spending plans would require massive tax hikes on everyone, not just millionaires and billionaires? Neither do we.

But somehow after the election, reporters are finally admitting that Obama's budget numbers simply don't add up and that new taxes on the middle class — including a European-style value added tax — are "inevitable."

New York Times columnist Eduardo Porter, for example, wrote this week that the $620 billion in tax hikes on the rich that Obama secured as part of the fiscal-cliff deal are "hardly enough to stabilize the nation's debt in the next 10 years, let alone deal with the long-term budget deficit."

Fortune senior editor-at-large Shawn Tully wrote last week how "steep deficits and mountainous debt will rise even after the new revenue is counted."

An article on CNBC's website in early January noted that the fiscal-cliff deal "merely masks the bleak long-term outlook for the country."

These stories go on to say that there's no way Obama can finance his ambitious plans without raising taxes on everyone.

The Financial Times ran a piece shortly after Obama signed the fiscal-cliff deal noting "that maintaining a basic welfare state . .. implies higher taxes for the middle class as well as for the rich."

Targeting The Middle

CNN reported that while "President Obama wants to balance spending cuts with tax increases ... experts say he can't do that without hitting the middle class."
That story quotes Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert Bixby saying that "it's hard to make the numbers work" if you exempt "the middle class from any pain."
Hmm.

As we recall, Obama endlessly promised the country that he could spend — sorry, "invest" — more on roads and education while cutting the deficit simply by trimming some fat out of government programs and asking "millionaires and billionaires to pay just a little bit more."

No one in the mainstream press seriously challenged Obama on this at the time, even though it was painfully obvious to anyone who looked at the budget forecasts that Obama was peddling fiscal snake oil.

Continue reading.

Here's that Eduardo Porter piece, from the New York Times, "Higher Taxes on Everyone Could Ease Spending Cuts."

I'm going to read around at some of those additional reports cited by IBD. The Obama campaign was one big lie after another. My favorite? "Al Qaeda has been decimated!"