May 17th, 2012 Edition

NEWSMAX

Boehner: Spending Cuts Must Exceed Debt Limit Hike

REUTERS

May 15, 2012

Democrats and Republicans are on another collision course over increasing U.S. borrowing authority as President Barack Obama told Republicans on Wednesday that he does not want spending cuts to accompany such legislation.

House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell met at the White House with Obama and Democratic congressional leaders.

A Boehner aide said the speaker — the top-elected Republican — asked Obama if he is proposing that Congress pass a debt-limit increase without spending cuts.

"The president said, 'yes,'" the aide said.

On Tuesday, Boehner took a hard stance when he warned that any debt limit increase, which likely will be needed at the end of the year, would have to come with spending cuts that would more than offset the higher borrowing authority.

White House spokesman Jay Carney did not answer directly when asked whether Obama wants a debt limit increase without spending cuts.

But in remarks to reporters, Carney noted that Obama already has signed into law more than $2 trillion in deficit reductions and that the president wants a "balanced approach" to resolving the nation's debt problem — a phrase that Democrats have used to refer to tax increases on the wealthy alongside spending cuts.

At the White House lunch on Wednesday, Boehner told Obama: "As long as I'm around here, I'm not going to allow a debt ceiling increase without doing something serious about the debt," according to the aide.

Read more on Newsmax.com: Boehner: Spending Cuts Must Exceed Debt Limit Hike

TOWNHALL

BREAKING: Democrat-Held Senate Rejects Obama's Horrific Budget, 99-0

by Guy Benson

May 16, 2012

For the second consecutive year, the Democrat-controlled United States Senate has unanimously rejected President Obama's 2013 budget. The final vote was 99-0, making the the running two-year tally 196-0. This move follows the House of Representatives' 414-0 rebuke of the same fiscal blueprint earlier this year. Astonishingly, not a single Senate Democrat has voted in favor of any budget forthree years, even as they refuse to offer a plan of their own. Democrats have claimed that three fig leaves mitigate this embarrassing spectacle:

(1) "The Senate has already passed a budget!" False. The Senate has not passed a budget. It "deemed" itself a budget as part of a separate piece of legislation over the summer. That law did not address tax policy, entitlement programs, and a slew of other items that a real budget entails. Harry Reid's hand-picked Senate Parliamentarian has confirmedRepublicans' contention that the Senate has not fulfilled its basic budgetary obligations. This is the 1,113th day in a row that this has been the case.

(2) "Republican obstructionism!" False. Budgets explicitly cannot be filibustered. If Democrats introduced a budget, whipped their members, and called a vote, it would pass. Simple as that. Republicans couldn't do a thing to stop it. But that would require Democrats to put their long-term plans on paper, which they've been avoiding like the plague for entirely political reasons.

(3) "This vote is a gimmick!" If Democrats want to label an up-or-down vote on a Democratic president's budget a "gimmick," they're welcome to do so. In some ways, it's an appropriate description, given the pitiful gimmicks upon which Obama's budget relies -- even to achieve the fraudulent "savings" it claims. Had it not been defeated by Congress 513-0, Obama's budget would have added $11 Trillion to the gross national debt. It would literally never balance.

The Senate will now move on to vote on four separate Republican-proposed budgets, including the House-passed version. They will all receive more votes than President Obama's brainchild, but none is expected to pass. Stay tuned for updates...

UPDATE - The Senate has defeated the House-passed Ryan budget, 41-58. I counted five Republicans joining Democrats in voting it down, at least one of whom voted no because it doesn't go far enough. Democrats voted in lockstep against this budget, as they have on every proposed budget for the last three years. Head-to-head tally: Paul Ryan 41 - Barack Obama 0
UPDATE II - The Senate has defeated Senator Pat Toomey's (R-PA) budget resolution, 42-57. This is the seventh consecutive proposed Senate budget that has failed to attract even one Democrat vote.
UPDATE III - The Senate has rejected the two remaining GOP budget alternatives, authored by Senators Lee (17-82) and Paul (16-83). Harry Reid's Senate once again goes oh-fer on budgets, in an age of $16 Trillion debt, a national credit downgrade, and a struggling economy. Disgraceful.

CVN FEATURE ARTICLE
Only in America
Contributed by CVN Member Terry Sigmon
Author Unknown

10) Only in America could politicians talk about the greed of the richat a $35,000 a plate campaign fund raising event.

9) Only in America could people claim that the government still
discriminates against black Americans when we have a black President,
a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is
black. 12% of the population is black.

8) Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible
for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury
Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means
Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher
taxes.

7) Only in America can we have terrorists kill people in the name of
Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims
might be harmed by the backlash.

6) Only in America would we make people who want to legally become
American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens
of thousands of dollars for the privilege while we discuss letting
anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just become American
citizens.

5) Only in America could the people who believe in balancing the
budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as
"extremists."

4) Only in America could you need to present a driver's license to
cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.

3) Only in America could people demand the government investigate
whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas
went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company
(Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes
(Nike).

2) Only in America could the government collect more tax dollars from
the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a trillion
dollars more than it has per year for total spending of $7 million PER
MINUTE, and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.

1) Only in America could the rich people who pay 86% of all income
taxes be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't
pay any income taxes at all.