Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles.
Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty
are battlefields which have their heroes
obscure heroes
who are at times greater than
illustrious heroes.
Victor Hugo
Image of the Day: Performance of the Federal Reserve
or "Heck of a Job, Helicopter Ben" on That Second Mandate
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| Courtesy of Daily Reckoning and ZeroHedge |
All They Want to Do Is Dance (Around Fiscal Responsibility)
While Our Grandchildren's Future is Burning
Obama and Congress Selling Out Quickly
All They Want to Do is Spend, Spend, Spend
According to the Washington Times:
Despite the deep budget sequester cuts that have tightened belts across the government, the Coast Guard is in a rush to empty its budget coffers — the annual fourth-quarter push for federal agencies to spend all of their money or risk smaller budgets the next year.“The standards haven’t changed,” said Carlos Diaz, a Coast Guard spokesman. “We’ve got to spend our entire operational budget every year.”
Known as Christmas in July [i.e., the start of the last fiscal year quarter], the push to spend out budgets has been documented by government auditors for years. The philosophy is that if agencies return unspent money at the end of a fiscal year, Congress will decide it didn’t need all of it and will cut funding the next year. So federal employees go into overdrive by buying office furniture, playground equipment, musical instruments and other items, according to audit reports. Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican and one of the leading fiscal hawks on Capitol Hill, said that must not happen this year.Tom Coburn is a favorite senator (and will be the inaugural member to attain the blog's Most Favored Politician status).
Reason's pollster Emily Ekins, who I believe is the prettiest pollster on the planet, had earlier pointed out how Republicans, Democrats and independents differ on whether the government spends too much:
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| Courtesy of Reason |
Nick Gillespie conveniently forgets that it took a GOP Congress to achieve a balanced budget for the first time in decades, he wants to publicly lash the 2003-2006 Republicans for losing their way (and certainly the Patriot Act, the DHS super-bureaucracy, the TARP legislation, and the unfunded war and Medicare drug benefit are inexcusable GOP-led initiatives, but let us recall GOP conservatives, at minimum, revolted against TARP and the new unfunded liability). As for the Dem disingenuous fiscal conservatism, it was just as politically opportunistic as FDR's faux fiscal hawk criticism of Hoover and Clinton's attacks on GHW Bush for agreeing to a tax hike demanded by the Democratic-controlled Congress. Remember, Ted Kennedy argued that Bush's 70% (if not more) increase in federal education spending didn't go nearly far enough, and the Democrats' key criticism of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit was an unfunded "doughnut hole". In fact, since the Democrats led one or both chambers of Congress since 2007, the budget has gone up more than a trillion dollars and the publicly-held debt has better than doubled. I will say Gillespie seems to recognize this: "I would argue also that while Democrats were relatively more critical of the government during the Bush years, they were also getting a huge heaping serving of what they wanted - a large and growing government that spent more and more and regulated more and more - so the gulf between Dems and Reps was relatively small." (Nick, do you want to also bust the urban legend that Bush and McCain were ideological deregulators?) I would also point out that the Bush wars were consistent with "progressive Democrat" intervention wars/rationale during the twentieth century.
I am not being partisan here: I think Bush deserves more of the blame because he was reluctant to veto anything. This encourages Spenders Gone Wild. The term-limit Republicans gave way to the career politician "Bridge to Nowhere" Republicans where an Alaskan GOP senator threatened to resign his seat if his boondoggle wasn't approved. But compared to Democrat super-spending and super-deficits, the GOP spenders were strictly amateurs. There's also a big difference in overspending once you reach your credit limit, i.e., GDP-sized debt; personally, I'm more a transactor (pay as you go operational budget) vs. revolver.
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| Courtesy of Gallup Via Reason |
Military Intervention: Pro and Con
No surprise whose argument I accept here (non-inventionist). Notice that the pro-side is not discussing a direct threat to America in advocating the application of military power.
Obam-Me, Putin Wants to Play With You
More on Detroit and Self-Government
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel and Townhall |
Stevie Wonder, "Part-Time Lover"
