Trump wants $800 billion, 10-year cut in entitlement programs

Trump wants $800 billion, 10-year cut in entitlement programs https://t.co/R5P5MKJiiq pic.twitter.com/r1TaUNTJxf

— Roll Call (@rollcall) May 11, 2017

This is a promising initiative

Federal law requires cost-benefit analyses of regulations, but no similar accountability for spending programs. https://t.co/Lm3p3gIHVu

— Cato Institute (@CatoInstitute) March 19, 2017

House GOP budget cuts $5.5T in spending, balances in nine years

GOP budget plan kills Obamacare, eliminates deficit in less than 10 years http://t.co/jBeLjGfvCU

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) March 17, 2015

House Budget Cmte hearing on FY2016 Budget – LIVE online here: http://t.co/BwlSEhX25Q

— CSPAN (@cspan) March 17, 2015

Republican budget offers deep cuts to end deficits in 2024: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Republicans on T... http://t.co/NqM9L3aarS

— TopFinancialBlog (@FinancialBlogs) March 17, 2015

House GOP budget deficit is $346 billion in 2016, $152b in 2017; gets to balance in 2024 pic.twitter.com/7XSFpXAJjS

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) March 17, 2015

Plan to kill #ObamaCare? GOP proposes budget to repeal health care law 'in its entirety' http://t.co/MfdJYUUNGn pic.twitter.com/fNKf3GyPE6

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 17, 2015

The surprising Republican unity on the House budget: http://t.co/CX1GKHa8fC pic.twitter.com/EviyFj6HXD

— The Hill (@thehill) March 18, 2015

.@StephenMoore: House GOP budget plan gets it right. Here's why... http://t.co/LrbnIXfwYm @Heritage

— Fox News Opinion (@fxnopinion) March 17, 2015

◼ Repeal and Replace is unveiled - The Hill

House Republicans are offering a budget Tuesday that would balance in nine years and cut $5.5 trillion in projected spending over the next decade.

The budget would keep spending ceilings under a 2011 budget deal in place, but would provide as much as $90 billion in additional war funding — much more than the $51 billion proposed by President Obama.

House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price’s (R-Ga.) blueprint repeals ObamaCare and proposes a premium support system for Medicare similar to the one proposed in previous House budgets by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Price’s predecessor.

It does not touch Social Security but proposes that a bipartisan commission study the entitlement program’s problems and then submit proposals to Congress.

The Breakdown of Where Your Tax Dollars Go http://t.co/E17LlQUB8F pic.twitter.com/xNolrdpgp8

— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) March 17, 2015

House GOP Budget Sets Stage For Showdown With The President http://t.co/XwuGlWvBCR

— Worldwide News (@Koran_Inggris) March 17, 2015

OBAMA/DEMOCRATS/RINOS WILL VETO! GOP budget plan kills Obamacare, eliminates the deficit in less than 10 years http://t.co/8sQ4k3pXSD

— Bob Miller (@Miller51550) March 17, 2015

Full details on House GOP budget blueprint can be found at http://t.co/PGGknxnD9M

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) March 17, 2015

UPDATED: Obama blasts GOP’s budget proposal: http://t.co/ijfKWeoSXv | Getty pic.twitter.com/17Po8kEG3f

— POLITICO (@politico) March 17, 2015

Why They Fear Scott Walker

◼ As I write this, the No. 1 “most read” story on the Washington Post’s website is its investigation into the college years of Scott Walker, headlined: “As Scott Walker mulls White House bid, questions linger over college exit.” - Seth Mandel/Commentary

The story didn’t come up with anything newsworthy...

The system as it’s currently set up means educational attainment correlates, in general, to higher income. But that education gets increasingly expensive, which puts it in easier reach of those with higher income, who tend to have more education, etc. As the Economist notes, “the best predictor of an American child’s success in school has long been the parents’ educational level”–though money, which is also now related to educational level, “is an increasingly important factor.”

The Democrats’ approach thus perpetuates inequality, which they blame on “the rich” in order to win national office, which they use to perpetuate this system of inequality–another cycle.

Scott Walker calls this whole scheme into question. It’s not that his experience teaches that you don’t need a college degree to get a good job; it’s that you shouldn’t need to need a college degree to have professional and/or political success. Kids shouldn’t be discouraged from going to college and getting their degree as long as the current system persists, in which it usually makes sense for them to get that degree (if they can).

The point is that the system itself shouldn’t persist, at least in its current form. Walker, then, is living proof that the system can and should be reformed, and the world won’t end. Walker is representative of the potential of those outside the liberal economic elite and those who are severely underserved by the government’s college racket and union-friendly approach to education. That’s why Walker’s personal story matters, and why it’s such a threat to the left. KEEP READING

◼ NYT Columnist Blames Scott Walker for Teacher Layoffs That Occurred Before He Was Governor - John McCormack/Weekly Standard

Republicans Are Winning the Fiscal Fight

◼ This is the great untold story of the Obama presidency. A president who wanted to “fundamentally transform” the country has completely failed to make America more like France. He didn’t even make us more like Germany. - Daniel J. Mitchell/The CATO Institute

...there’s been a remarkable shift in fiscal policy.

Many Democrats presumably can’t be happy that the lion’s share of the Bush tax cuts were made permanent. As a result, revenues are now projected to average only 18 percent of GDP over the next 10 years. That’s a smaller tax burden than we had throughout the Clinton years. And you can’t finance big government in the long run without a lot more revenue.

And they definitely can’t be happy that domestic discretionary spending is now below where it was during the Bush years, when measured as a share of GDP. And with sequester-enforced budget caps, it’s quite likely that number will drop even further.

Republicans, meanwhile, should be happy that all their fiscal battles have paid dividends. As a general rule, GOPers think that they lost the various shutdown fights, appropriations battles and debt limit showdowns. But short-term polling doesn’t matter nearly as much as the long-term policy results (not to mention the fact that voters just gave the GOP a landslide victory).

Perhaps even more important, looking forward, is that House Republicans for four consecutive years have approved budget resolutions that assume genuine reform of Medicare and Medicaid. And they’ve won their biggest majority since before World War II, so GOPers can feel reasonably confident that voters (perhaps sobered up by the fiscal disarray in Europe) understand the need to modernize these programs.

A turning point in 2017?

It’s unlikely that either party will alter the fiscal outlook over the next two years. At the risk of stating the obvious, any White House initiatives to expand the burden of government will get a chilly reception on Capitol Hill. But it’s equally true that Republicans have almost no chance of forcing additional spending restraint over a presidential veto.

But 2017 could be different, at least for Republicans. If they manage to win the White House and hold the Senate, then serious entitlement reform is genuinely possible. So not only will America have avoided becoming France or Germany during the Obama years, but the country would also be spared that fate in the 2020s and 2030s when tens of millions of baby boomers will be retired.

The best the Democrats can hope for, by contrast, is to block entitlement reforms by retaining the White House and/or retaking the Senate. But since it’s virtually impossible for them to get control of the House, there isn’t much opportunity to go on offense.

“On November 4, the people of Maryland rejected massive spending increases and tax increases and a failing economy,” Hogan said... "We’ll have to have the courage to say no."

◼ WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST STUNNED: MD GOVERNOR-ELECT TO KEEP CAMPAIGN PROMISE - Rich Tucker/Breitbart

Apparently, Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney is used to politicians lying on the campaign trail—so much so that he seems astounded that at least one elected official is saying he intends to keep his vow.
“If Maryland Gov.-elect Larry Hogan (R) has a secret plan to be flexible and compromise with Democrats over taxes and spending when he takes office next month, he’s doing an excellent job of hiding it,” McCartney writes.
But there’s no need for a "secret plan" or "flexibility."
Hogan’s election stunned the political establishment—the sort of people who write columns for the Washington Post. Hogan never led in any pre-election polls but swept to victory over Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown. Hogan won because he promised to trim the size and expense of Maryland’s expansive government....

“There was a monopoly where everybody agreed, and we got bad government,” Hogan told McCartney. Hogan is vowing to spend state money on useful projects, while also reducing spending. “The priorities are out of whack. Less than 10 percent of the people use mass transit. Most people in the state want the roads to be fixed,” the governor-elect points out.

“There’s going to be some natural friction, but it doesn’t have to be hostile,” Hogan concludes. Indeed not. Especially if elected officials bow to the will of state voters. What a concept that would be.

OBAMA Planned To Cut CDC Budget For Public Health Preparedness And Response

◼ President Obama proposed to cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) funding in his fiscal year 2012 budget proposal. - DAILY CALLER

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is currently blasting out ads accusing Republicans of voting to cut CDC’s Ebola-fighting capabilities in February 2011 by voting for a bill to cut $60 billion from the federal budget, including from the CDC, in anticipation of the fiscal year 2012 budget battle. The House passed the bill on Feb. 19, 2011, but the bill never passed the Senate.

But the Obama administration proposed to cut CDC funding, including for public health preparedness and response, in its very own budget proposal released the very same week as the House vote.

Obama’s original budget plan for fiscal year 2012 cut funding for a CDC public health emergency preparedness program by $72 million. The proposed cuts would have taken money away from municipal and state health departments to hire health workers and monitor for public health hazards and disease outbreaks.

SORRY, BUT WE SPENT THE COST OF A MAJOR PLANETARY MISSION ON A WEBSITE THAT STILL DOESN’T WORK

◼ Bill Nye To Obama: Don’t Slash Space Science Funding. - Slate, ◼ via Instapundit

“In the end, the lion’s share of cuts to planetary exploration have come from the White House.”

◼ Bill Nye's Open Letter to President Barack Obama

RYAN SAVES GOP FROM ITSELF

◼ Everyone acknowledges that Ryan-Murray is not a great deal. But the fact is, its passage will avoid a government shutdown. That’s crucial. - Larry Kudlow/Human Events

If the GOP wants to retake the Senate and hold the House in 2014, the key issues must be the catastrophic pitfalls of Obamacare and better economic growth. A shutdown would be a distraction. It would take the heat off Obama and Obamacare, and all the Democrats who falsely promised that if you like your insurance and doctor, you can keep them.

Obama’s “like it, keep it” promise was just named the lie of the year in the annual PolitiFact survey. Reminding voters of that lie is much more important than a government shutdown — which would be blamed on Republicans anyway....

The purest path for the budget talks would have been a clean bill keeping all the sequestration budget cuts. But the votes were never there in the House. Defense hawks and others would have left that bill short by 40 to 50 Republican votes. And Democrats would never have supported it. Hence the shutdown threat....

◼ Because we like to be helpful, here's the speech Paul Ryan *should* have given about the budget deal - Dan Calabrese/CainTV

Crunching the budget deal numbers

◼ The Ryan budget fraud is even worse after you read it... - Robert Romano/Americans for Limited Government. /Net Right Daily ◼ Via HotAir
◼ CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE COST ESTIMATE

Paul Ryan: A Firm Step Forward

◼ The Bipartisan Budget Act reduces the deficit and doesn’t raise taxes — that’s a start. - Paul Ryan/National Review

When Senator Murray and I started these negotiations, we agreed on some ground rules. We knew if we tried to force each other to violate one of our core principles, we’d never get anywhere. I wasn’t going to raise taxes. She wasn’t going to change major entitlements.

Instead, we looked for common ground. There was some overlap between the budget she proposed in the Senate and the budget I proposed in the House. We knew we wouldn’t resolve all our differences. So we found some commonsense ideas both parties could support.

Here’s what we came up with: The Bipartisan Budget Act will provide $63 billion in sequester relief — split evenly between defense programs and other domestic priorities — in exchange for $85 billion in savings elsewhere in the budget. In other words, this bill will reduce the deficit by an additional $23 billion, without raising taxes. And most important, it will cut spending in a smarter way.

How do we cut spending? First, we eliminate waste. We stop paying Medicaid bills that dead-beat dads should cover. That alone is a $1.4 billion cut. We stop sending unemployment checks to criminals. And we stop sending government checks to dead people. There’s no reason to tolerate fraud....
__________________
John Boehner: Over at National Review, Paul Ryan notes the House-Senate budget agreement "will reduce the deficit by $23 billion. It won't raise taxes. And it will cut spending in a smarter way. It doesn't go as far as I'd like. But it's a firm step in the right direction."

He's right. This agreement keeps in tact the strict spending caps at the heart of the Budget Control Act, while replacing one-time spending cuts with permanent reforms that produce real, lasting savings.
__________________
◼ Conservatives: We’re ‘under attack’ on Hill - Politico
__________________
◼ This Liberal and This Conservative Think the Ryan-Murray Budget Plan Is a Raw Deal for Americans - Heritage

GOP SPLIT ON BUDGET DEAL

DRUDGE HEADLINES:

Rand Paul: 'Shameful'...
Cruz: 'Deeply Concerning'...
REPORT: McConnell to vote against...
Analysis: Majority of sequester replacement comes from new revenue...
STOCKMAN: BUDGET BETRAYAL, FINAL SURRENDER

BOEHNER GOES OFF ON RIGHT...
'This Is Ridiculous!'...
Longtime GOP staffer sacked for leaking...
__________________
◼ A Least Bad Budget Deal - Wall Street Journal Editorial

◼ Republican establishment bites back - Yahoo News
◼ Ryan budget deal gets positive review at closed-door Republican conference - The Hill

Yet despite Ryan’s imprimatur, the deal faced opposition from a sizable chunk of the most hardcore conservatives, who criticized the agreement at an event shortly after the GOP meeting.

“I think it is terrible plan,” Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) said. “It makes promises to the American people that are false. Today the Democrats realized they were right all along, that we would never hold the line on the sequester.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said the agreement violated the agreement struck in January between Boehner and the conservatives, which followed a fiscal cliff deal that deeply divided the party.

“I would argue that this agreement, while it has some positives, is a marked departure from what we all agreed,” he said. “It is not going to put us on the path to balance.”

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said he could not swallow any deal that promises future cuts for near-term spending increases.

But a few members were more positive at the monthly Conversations with Conservatives event.

Rep. Vicki Hartlzer (R-Mo.) said she was leaning yes.

“It replaces sequester cuts to our national defense without raising taxes,” she said.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who is spearheading opposition to the bill conceded that it will likely get a majority of House Republicans behind it.

"I think it probably will," he said. "This was not a bill designed to get our support...it was designed to get the support of defense hawks and appropriators and Democrats."

◼ Budget Deal Hits Military Retirees with Pension Cuts, Federal Retirees Untouched - Washington Free Beacon

What the Tea Party Congress accomplished:

◼ 3.6 trillion reasons why the 112th Congress was a huge success - Conn Carroll/Washington Examiner @conncarroll

...if you look at the hard numbers -- if you look at the tax-and-spending trajectory that the United States was on before the 112th Congress was sworn into office, and then look at the path the U.S. is on now -- you'd see that Republicans in Congress have made tremendous progress in shrinking the size and scope of the federal government.

Just weeks after Huelskamp was first sworn in, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its annual Budget and Economic Outlook for fiscal years 2011 through 2021. That document showed the federal government was on track to spend $3.7 trillion in 2011, or 24.7 percent of the entire U.S. economy, and a total of almost $50 trillion ($49.8 trillion to be exact) through 2021. At the same time, tax revenues were set to rise from just 14.8 percent of GDP in 2011 to 20.8 percent in 2021.

Huelskamp and his Republican colleagues changed all that. The 2011 Budget Control Act cut spending by $1.5 trillion, and the sequester cut it by an additional $1.2 trillion. At the same time, House Republicans were able to preserve nearly all of the expiring Bush tax cuts and cut the debt.

The CBO's Budget and Economic Outlook for fiscal years 2013 through 2023 shows just how much House Republicans have actually accomplished....

Oddly enough, if you work and would like a tax cut, according to Pelosi you’re asking the government to increase spending… and that’s bad for our economic future. If you lose your job end up receiving unemployment checks which cost billions of dollars per year, you’re boosting the economy and creating jobs.

◼ NANCY PELOSI: 'TAX CUTS ARE SPENDING' - William Bigelow/Breitbart In 2006, the year before Pelosi became Speaker of the House, the Congress's budget was $2.65 trillion. By fiscal year 2011--the last year of her speakership--that figure had jumped to $3.59 trillion. ◼ Nancy Pelosi: Tax cuts are spending, and we must curtail spending - Doug Powers/Michelle Malkin ◼ “But spending is also related to tax cuts,” said Pelosi. Tax cuts are spending. Tax expenditures, they are called. Subsidies for big oil, subsidies to send jobs overseas, breaks to send jobs overseas, breaks for corporate jets. They are called tax expenditures. Spending money on tax breaks." - Terence P. Jeffrey/CNS ◼ This is another great illustration of how these people think. What she's saying is that a tax cut equals government spending. Meaning anybody who benefits from a tax cut, tax break, tax loophole, is benefiting from government spending. That is why, by the way, anytime a tax cut is proposed, they start saying, "Well, how are we going to pay for it?" - Rush

“It seems childish – take my ball and go home”

◼ Kansas Teens: Obama Ruined Our Spring Break - Todd Starnes/FOX

A group of Kansas teenagers says the Obama Administration has ruined their spring break trip to Washington, D.C. after their tour of the White House was canceled – a victim of the Sequester.

“President Obama is just being petty,” said Dalton Glasscock, an 18-year-old high school student from Wichita, Kan.

Glasscock is a member of the Kansas Federation of Teenage Republicans – one of the dozens of high school and middle school groups around the nation that received cancelation notices.

“I think he’s taking it out on young people especially,” said Glasscock. “President Obama is using American children as pawns in a game of political chess.”

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Fox News the cancelations are politically motivated. “It seems childish – take my ball and go home,” he said.

The Lie Gets Worse

◼ Our president’s mastery of “partisan message management” will do him in. - R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr./American Spectator

Things are going to get more interesting. For months, the President has been talking as though sequestration has to be very painful and very ugly. Now the government is closing the White House for tours because of sequestration. There will be other showy demonstrations of these painful cuts. But the cuts need not be so painful in a $3.8 trillion dollar budget.

The greater problem is that practically everything the President says has to be verified. He seems as Woodward says to forever engage in “partisan message management.” Soon the country will catch on. There is no dealing with a partisan message manager.

The idea to cut the vaccination program – at a rate higher than sequestration might do – was introduced by the president himself in his 2013 budget proposal over a year ago.

◼ Obama Proposed Vaccine Cuts, But White House Blamed Sequestration - Matt Cover/CNS

The Obama administration claims that because of the $44 billion in across-the-board spending cuts (sequestration) this year, tens of thousands of American children will not be vaccinated. However, the idea to cut the vaccination program – at a rate higher than sequestration might do – was introduced by the president himself in his 2013 budget proposal over a year ago.

Known as Section 317, the immunization program provides vaccines to states for children who might not otherwise get them. In his 2013 budget, President Obama proposed cutting the 317 program by nearly $60 million.

“The FY 2013 budget request for the Section 317 immunization program reflects a program level decrease of $57.986 million,” the administration’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) budget says. The CDC is the agency in charge of the 317 grant program....

In other words, before it was warning that thousands of children all across the country would be “hurt” by the reduced vaccine funding, the White House was planning to cut the funding itself and claiming that nobody would be hurt because Obamacare would help them get insurance....

Obama’s 2013 budget never went into effect because Senate Democrats voted it down unanimously. So the Section 317 program never saw the cuts the president had directed. However, the White House did not disclose any of this information on its sequester-consequences map, neither its planned cuts nor the notion that it claimed Obamacare would take care of the problem anyway.

Coast to coast, states brace for budget shock

◼ One day after President Barack Obama signed an order to cut spending by $1.2 trillion over a decade, NBC News takes a look at how people may feel the pinch from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles. - NBC ◼ Via Drudge
◼ DC economy to take 'the worst' - NBC
◼ White House Adviser Backs Off Doomsday Forecast - FOX
◼ SEQUESTER JESTER: KERRY HANDS OUT $250 MILLION TO EGYPT - AP
◼ Tax bills for rich families approach 30-year high - AP

With Washington gridlocked again over whether to raise their taxes, it turns out wealthy families already are paying some of their biggest federal tax bills in decades even as the rest of the population continues to pay at historically low rates.

◼ AP Shocker: 'Tax Bills For Rich Families Approach 30-Year High' - Noel Sheppard/Newsbusters
◼ Dems struggle to find next triumph - Politico
◼ 'Politicians nervous' - McClatchy

Americans’ reaction to sequestration might change course of politics.

White House Report Claims Sequestration Will Affect Federal Department That No Longer Exists

◼ If you want a thorough agency-by-agency rundown of the budget cuts sequestration would deliver, the Office of Management and Budget has you covered. - Reason

In compliance with The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, the OMB sent a detailed report to Congress in September 2012. But there's a small problem with the report: One of the cuts it warns against would affect an agency that no longer exists--and didn't exist when the OMB sent its report to congress.

The first line item on page 121 of the OMB's September 2012 report says that under sequestration the National Drug Intelligence Center would lose $2 million of its $20 million budget. While that's slightly more than 8.2 percent (rounding error or scare tactic?), the bigger problem is that the National Drug Intelligence Center shuttered its doors on June 15, 2012--three months before the OMB issued its report to Congress.

‘Twas the night before sequestration…

◼ “Nothing to report from here,” says a Senate aide. “Wish I had a good story to share.” - Byron York/Washington Examiner @ByronYork

The much-discussed slowdown in the rate of growth of federal spending called sequestration goes into effect when the clock turns to March 1, so I decided to ask a number of people on Capitol Hill what is actually going on in the last few hours before the super-controversial spending measure becomes a reality. Are people frantically trying to avoid what the administration claims will be devastating cuts? Are they negotiating? Are they yelling at each other? Hiding under their desks?

Answer: None of the above. In fact, nothing much is going on, because sequestration really is about to become a reality. And on the Hill, that means business as usual.

◼ What Difference, At This Point, Does It Make Whose Idea The Sequester Was? - Smitty/The Other McCain