Tag: budget (page 2)

The last time the U.S. Senate passed a budget?  1080 days ago, and counting...

The prevaricator in chief's SOTU pandering last night marked 1000 days since Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin helped the US Senate pass a budget.  1000 days since considerations for the limited resources that government is supposed to operate under have been made. Debbie Stabenow, and Carl Levin, fully 5% or one twentieth of the problem that is Democrats controlling the US senate, have made no attempts to demonstrate the leadership necessary for good government.

I'll give Michigan's two US senators some credit.  They certainly cannot be blind to the fact that failure to pass a 'limiting' budget means escalating debt and loss of control with federal spending.  They could not be THAT inane. However, even Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow know the government under a bureaucracy growing president like Obama cannot operate within a budget. Its why they don't bother.

From the Detroit news

Lansing-- Michigan would fundamentally alter the way it raises money to pay for repairs to the state's roads and bridges under a sweeping proposal expected to be unveiled today by Gov. Rick Snyder.

He's expected to suggest getting rid of the 19-cent gas tax motorists pay at the pump in favor of a tax on the wholesale price of fuel -- a move expected to bring in more funds to fix roads and bridges as inflation pushes up the price of gasoline and diesel fuel.

First off, we don't have a 19 cent gas tax. If you want to see me get red in the face, keep repeating that lie, damn lie, and statistic. I've covered it before, but here's how it works. Right now, the Michigan Gas Tax in Hamburg Township, Michigan is 37 cents. The final price when I was last at the gas station is $3.45. Of that $3.45 cents, 56 cents in gas taxes goes to the government. 37 cents goes to the State of Michigan. Multiply that by 20 gallons, and the state gets $7.40 cents every time I fill up. When gas prices are at $4.10, the Michigan gas tax is 41 cents.

There's three things wrong with the wholesale taxes.

1. Taxes go up even more when gas prices increase. That encourages higher gas prices to be even higher. We're almost $3.50 a gallon. That's damaging to any supposed recovery.

2. This does not address the 6% sales tax on gasoline - that does not go to roads. This will affect things more with a wholesale tax.

3. It continues the false assumption that the gas tax, and only the gas tax, goes to fix the roads.

4. While the non-sales tax portion of the gas tax goes to transportation, that does not necessarily equal roads.

This is the new face of fiscal and political practicality.

Now, even the impractical among us knew that the Boehner bill, as written, was as dead on arrival as the dermis underneath a Nancy Pelosi botoxic expression. We'll just have to wait and see what the mouldering Harry Reid can do to the bill before he sends it back to Boehner.

Wherever this leads, many of us in the tea party are being considered "impractical" or "hobbits" by the establishment GOP because we are not falling in line behind our christened party leaders in their Orwellian attempts to rein in spending.

But, from an equally practical standpoint, what evidence do we hobbits have from these GOP leaders that they have any intention of cutting overall spending when, according to the lexicon they employ, a $1 trillion cut in spending in reality is an $8 trillion increase in spending over ten years?

It was to NOT allow the debt ceiling to increase.

It is the most basic and simple fix for the problem known as Obama, that exists today.  It is a "defacto" balanced budget amendment, and a cure for inflationary spending that follows the president through to the end of his political career in 2012.

Why on earth would Republicans give an inch to this megalomaniac is beyond me.  And given the unlikely scenario of GDP growth in the next few years as a result of Obama policies, chasing the Debt higher is not something sane people would do, UNLESS they were trying to crash the economy.

In all this however the basic question must be asked, what is the purpose of debt?

Why does one borrow? Is it so that they can perpetually carry a liability that they do not plan on paying? Or is it a temporary measure, that merely carries through cycles that have expected ends.  All too easily the latter must be assumed to be the ideal answer. And now as our substance is already being eaten by interest and mismanagement of tax revenues, it is assumed by some that mismanaging even more has some logic to it.  No logical explanation can be made to support more debt going forward, ESPECIALLY now that is it clear the downgrade of credit decision has already been made.

".. But according to most experts, Standard & Poor's and/or Moody's will be lowering their rating regardless of the outcome, which means climbing interest rates and more difficulty securing loans -- not to mention a very volatile stock market."

He also discussed passage of the state budget and one of the most contentious pieces of the plan -- the pension tax.

It was "probably the most unpolitically favorable thing you can do as a governor," he said.

Not to mention stupid during the wrath of Obama spending in the wake of Granholm carnage.

"We could have balanced the budget without taxing pensions," Nixon said.

But you didn't.  It is record that the choice was made by the latent Democrat GoverNerd to blatently gouge everyone in taxes instead of chopping down $9 billion in Granholm spending.

The Environmental Protection Agency is known throughout corporate culture for its excessive, confusing, and extremely expensive regulations. The EPA's undying lust for climate control policies has been limiting job growth and crippling innovation. Business development has consequently suffered, citing numerous EPA regulations, such as the National Ambient Air Quality Standards and the Clean Air Act. The American Coke and Coal Chemicals Institute(ACCCI) believes that under the draconian rule of the EPA our Nation's businesses may fall behind the international competition, stating:

"In recent months, EPA has undertaken an unprecedented regulatory agenda by promulgating or proposing a host of rules in the areas of air, water, solid waste, greenhouse gases, and toxic chemicals ... in a nutshell, these new regulations will create permitting obstacles to expand and modernize our facilities and will impose significant additional costs that are difficult recoup in the face of intense international competition."

And with all of these regulations, where is the pay off? How do these blanket policies affect the individual? Upon hearing stories of small communities that are riddled with mesothelioma symptoms, you have to wonder why the EPA doesn't address issues like this more directly. Even today, individuals are just discovering that their homes and offices are insulated with asbestos. Because mesothelioma doesn't surface for up to 20 years after exposure, such a discovery can be devastating for the families who find asbestos in their home. With the mesothelioma life expectancy being no longer than fourteen months at most, American citizens are dying while the EPA stands there twiddling their thumbs and obstructing our corporations.

Slashing the EPA's budget is a necessity if we wish to create jobs, improve business, and regulate our deficit. Obama has admittedly proposed a 2012 budget cut of $1.6 billion dollars to the EPA, however the cut is only intended to reduce funding for states' clean water and drinking projects. The global climate change initiate of the EPA will remain an economic behemoth. Our business will still suffer excessive regulations. It is agitating, to say the least, that our current administration is destroying businesses in favor a trendy environmental agenda.

While clean water, a clean environment, and an overall concern for our planet are positive things, the current opportunity cost for the EPA's regulations tip the scale unfavorably for our nation. We can only hope that in the near future we are able to find a balance between environmental conservation and the prosperity of American industry.