Earlier this week, America’s entitlement problem came into full view as millions of Americans, the main stream media and a million talking heads on cable news lambasted Senator Jim Bunning for daring to refuse unanimous consent for a bill extending unemployment and COBRA benefits and Medicare reimbursements among other things.  Senator Bunning sought to highlight our debt problem and ensure that the Senate enforced their previously passed Pay-Go bill by blocking the vote.  While the mainstream media was busy lambasting Senator Bunning for filibustering (side note: He was not filibustering, he was refusing unanimous consent. If you are going to talk about it, get it right MSM) against millions of Americans who rely on those benefits because of the difficult economic situation, they ignored that this bill has a price tag of approximately $10 billion.  Senator Bunning’s sin was daring to ask “How are we going to pay for this?”  After being hammered by both sides of the aisle, the press, cable news, late night talk shows and the blogosphere, Senator Bunning finally relented last night and allowed the vote to proceed with it passing 78-19.

While it is certain that many people are relying on this money to help them get through this hard time, the American reaction to this is a microcosm of what would happen if more politicians would dare ask the question, “How are we going to pay for this?”  Anyone who has been paying attention to the meltdown that is currently in play in Greece knows that people don’t like their benefits being taken away, whether they can pay for them or not.  What needs to occur in this country before we can address our debt problem is to acknowledge that we have an entitlement problem. For decades unions, politicians, teachers, parents and the media have been telling us that we deserve everything that the government hands us and that it is our right to take as much as we can get.  All the while, our debt has been silently growing while we gorged ourselves on all the benefits we can’t pay for.  As evidenced by the riots that have spilled into the streets in Greece after their government “announced a fresh austerity package that includes an immediate freeze on pensions, further salary cuts for public sector workers and sharp increases in excise and value added taxes,” taking away people’s “rightful” benefits does not go over well.  The outpouring of hatred directed at Senator Bunning over the past couple of days for denying Americans the money they are “entitled” to begs the question, what would happen if the government really did start cutting programs, benefits and subsidies?

While I would love more politicians to begin to ask the “How are we going to pay for it?” question and begin massive cuts of government programs, it is not easy and that it is rarely attempted.  People don’t like being told no, especially after being told yes for so long.  I am warning you, unless Americans have a dramatic change in the way they look at what they are entitled to, the day cuts begin, bust out your rubber bullet guns and face shields and riot gear because it is going to be a bumpy riotous road to defeating the debt.

I’ve made no secret of my frustration with the big-government policies of the Republican Party under George W. Bush. Congressional candidate Todd Young has taken to pointing out this irresponsibility, telling the Herald-Times that the “Republican Congress was the most fiscally irresponsible Congress in American history – until this present Congress.” While it’s good to see a Republican not be shackled by partisanship and willing to criticize his own party for bad policy, it is important to add the perspective that was missing in Young’s remarks about the Republican Congress.

(Read more after the leap)

Earlier this month, Baron Hill cheered the passage of PAYGO rules by Congress.

What Baron didn’t mention was that the approval of these so-called “Pay As You GO” rules was accompanied by a record increase in the Federal debt ceiling to accomodate the vast new deficits created by the spending that has been advocated by Obama and voted for by Baron Hill.

This hypocrisy was not lost on ABC News:

President Obama used his weekly address to highlight the “pay-as-you-go” rule he signed into law Friday – within the bill which also raises federal debt limit to $14.3 trillion — a number which Obama does not mention once during his address.

Such interesting contradictions, such as voting simultaneously to skyrocket the debt ceiling while passing phony deficit reduction fig leaves, reminds me of the entertaining confession of Saint Augustine: “Lord make me good, but not yet.”

Of course, the problem with PAYGO is that there is no becoming good later, because PAYGO is a scam. It’s a hoax devised by budget-busting Blue Dog Democrats to try and hoodwink their constituents into believing that they actually care about the deficits they are voting to create.

What Baron can count on is that local newspapers, such as the News & Tribune, will parrot his press releases praising PAYGO without ever taking the time to investigate the facts about it. For example, the News & Tribune never mentioned that the PAYGO bill itself contained a provision that blew the roof off of the Federal debt ceiling.

On the subject of PAYGO, Citizens Against Government Waste notes just a few of its many problems and the hypocritical contradictions of so-called “Blue Dogs” like Baron Hill:

(Read more after the leap)

A letter in Sunday’s News & Tribune:

Resident unhappy with Hill’s votes

Dear Congressman Baron Hill,

I believe you could save the taxpayers a lot of money if you would just throw the Constitution in the trash, get rid of the House of Representatives, and Senate, with the exception of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and, of course, the president. They are making all the laws anyway.

That way we could save all your salaries, the salaries of your staffs, the expense of your offices, the expense of all those “fact-finding trips,” their travel to and from Washington, and the expense of upkeep of the Capitol. Perhaps, we could rent it to the Chinese. They will probably be looking for a large office building soon.

You may be able to see the sarcasm in the above statement. I believe in the Constitution, even if you, as my elected representative, don’t.

As I understand that document, you are to represent your constituents, not your leaders. According to the polls, 61 percent of us are against the health care bill. That doesn’t seem to affect you in your vote.

You call yourself a Blue Dog Democrat. Your record doesn’t support that. I cannot vouch for all bills, but lately you have voted right down the line with Pelosi.

The so-called “stimulus bills” have failed, I feel, and now I am hearing that the president wants another one. I have always heard that, “an idiot is one who keeps doing the same thing and expects a different outcome.”

I wish you would take a page from the Democrat’s hero playbook — President Kennedy — and reduce taxes to the people that do the hiring, putting people to work.

Tax revenues go up and we will surely need to have more tax money to pay for all the free money you have given out. This has worked every time it has been tried, so we shouldn’t get a different result.

— Gordon McCall, Charlestown

Exactly. It’s like I said earlier:

Baron is always there when Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi need him.

When the vote margins on the Obama-Pelosi agenda are close or when the issue is important to them, Baron is there.

When they don’t need him or when the issue is minor, Baron makes a big phony celebration of being “independent.”

When Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi needed his vote for the $787 billion “stimulus” boondoggle, Baron was there.

When Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi needed his vote to raise taxes on working Americans, Baron was there.

When crooked Congressman Charlie Rangel needed Democrats to vote to cover up his corruption, Baron was there.

When Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi needed his vote for cap-and-trade to strangle Hoosier jobs, Baron was there.

When Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi needed his vote for a government takeover of health care paid for by slashing Medicare, Baron was there.

When they need him, Baron is always there.

Show me one place where Baron voted against something on final passage that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi wanted when what they wanted didn’t pass anyway, and it will be the first.

(Originally written in the Community Blogs by derektrovi)

(h/t to KevinMaddenDC and JRForbes1 for finding this story and raising awareness)

“Dems to lift debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion: http://bit.ly/6Xhykh ”

IF Sen. Evan Bayh is truly a “deficit hawk”; IF Sen. Evan Bayh TRULY cares about Indiana; then he will FIGHT tooth and nail against this measure to increase the debt ceiling. If not for our current opinions on insolvency or independence from foreign debt, then FIGHT to free future generations from the SLAVERY of owing people we don’t even know let alone our hesitance in liking them (like China – you know – the country where they run over students with tanks and imprison people of faith).

Think about when you owe someone, particularly when they have alterior motives to lending you money. How do they treat you? How do they hustle you, all the while you can’t be sure if they really want you to pay them back in full, because they’ll still have something on you, to call you on. “Oh, you don’t feel the same way about doing something for me? Hey, don’t you owe me some money?” That’s how it begins.

Think about when you owe a large sum of money to a creditor, like a credit card company. After a while, they raise the interest. How does it feel when it seems you can never pay them back? Maybe you’re making INTEREST payments, but you never quite seem to muster the funds to pay for the principle. What else do they do? They probably keep raising your credit limit though, don’t they? It will mean that you will continue to depend on them. You will continue to owe them more money because something else keeps coming up. A health emergency happens. A child has a need or a want that is too strong for you to deny it (it’s almost Christmas afterall and the other kids’ parents are buying X gift!). The car breaks down. The cost of gas rises up again. But how do we fix this?

(Read the rest on derektrovi’s Hoosier Access user blog here)

Shocking, I know.

Pick your jaws up off of the floor; Young would be far and away a better member of Congress than Baron Hill.

Blue Indiana has a post up ripping Todd Young for, well, daring to say that things aren’t going so well in the grand adventure that Baron and Barack have taken us on since the start of the year.

Where to begin…

The News and Tribune published a puff-piece a few days ago that took a look at the fledgling candidacy of Todd “I know Dan Quayle” Young, the political neophyte from Carmel Bloomington, Indiana who has pledged to run in the Ninth District next year.

The interesting thing about the interview isn’t what Young says, as much as it is what he doesn’t say. Namely, anything at all. Here’s a sampling:

“There’s no silver bullet to turn things around,” he said. “But there are some common sense steps we can take.”

Sounds great! Like what, Todd? The national debt, you say?

“Essentially our standards of living will go down,” Young said. “We have to pay it off or it just gets passed on.”

Continuing to add to the national debt will result in higher taxes which Young is opposed to. Debt is not just a financial dilemma – it’s a moral issue to Young.

“We are better people than to borrow from our kids,” he said.

Hm. Good point. So what are you planning to do about it?

National security is a top concern, though he wants to hear testimony before Congress from military leadership before stating his opinion on what America should do about Afghanistan.

At some point, Young believes definitive action will have to be taken to keep Iran from possessing nuclear weapons, but he said the situation hasn’t escalated to that point yet.

Wait, what happened to the debt issue? Your plan to bring down the debt is military action in Iran? That doesn’t seem to make much sen…

Americans should be free to shop for insurance across state lines, all businesses should be treated to the same tax breaks and medical liability reform needs to be pushed, Young said.

A combination of the three would bring more people under the health coverage umbrella, he said. But Young added the working poor could still not afford health coverage even with the plan he suggests, so Americans should accept the government will have to subsidize benefits for some, he said.

Wait, what about Iran and those nuclear weapons? And you’re for subsidizing benefits? Now let me get this straight…

Young believes by touting fresh ideas and declaring his candidacy early, he’ll be a formidable opponent for Hill next November.

…and, fin.

I’ll give Todd some props, especially as the lowly law student I am — he sure can spot some issues! The problem, of course, is when it comes to providing anything close to an answer to the problems facing the Ninth District, our humble Hoosier State, or the nation as a whole.

And lest you think the article left out Todd’s slam-bang plans, a quick jaunt over to his faux-Obama website reveals an issue page that highlights little, and provides leadership on even less. This, for example, is the entirety of Todd’s “plan” to solve not only the ballooning national debt, but any and all problems associated with the U.S. Constitution:

Make Congress deliberate before it acts. Congress will have to slow down. This means that Congress will give more careful consideration to how it spends your hard-earned tax dollars.

Empower citizens to participate. Bills will shrink, be less complicated, and contain fewer subjects, so that We the People can actually read them, too.

Stop the corrupt tit-for-tat Washington politics. Fewer bad proposals will be passed due to “log-rolling.”

Restore transparency and integrity to spending. No more secret clauses or pork-barrel earmarks will be inserted into bills at the last moment.

Awe-inspiring, eh?

First of all, let me say that I won’t go so far as to compare Young’s website to that of Obama. Striking visual motif similarities aside, Young’s website has no online community full of crazed Kool-Aid drinking lefties ready to drive the country into the ground.

Read more after the leap.

MSNBC.com paints a grim picture of the federal budget deficit:

WASHINGTON – The federal budget deficit has surged to an all-time high of $1.42 trillion as the recession caused tax revenues to plunge while the government was spending massive amounts to stabilize the financial system and jump-start the economy.

The imbalance for the budget year ended Sept. 30 more than tripled last year’s record. The Obama administration projects deficits will total $9.1 trillion over the next decade unless corrective action is taken.

Yes, after Democrats spent eight years lambasting George W. Bush for the budget deficit, President Obama is presiding over record deficit spending. Of course, the fiscal year that ended 9/30 isn’t Obama’s baby – it was enacted during the Bush administration. That said, Obama has proposed record increases in government spending including the “stimulus” bill. It just so happens that much of the “stimulus” will be spent as Democrats try to hold onto their majority in the House and turn back a GOP effort to repeat 1994.

Of course, Democrats argue that the objections to Obama’s deficit spending is based on race. That’s silly. A number of Republicans have been very critical of Bush, specifically Bush’s signature on a law that expanded the federal government’s role in primary and secondary education, a failed effort to grant amnesty to illegal aliens, his signature on a law creating a brand new federal entitlement program and his signature on the obscene “campaign finance reform” law authored by failed 2008 Republican Presidential nominee John McCain. One of the most consistent voices critical of Bush was none other than radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

(Read more after the leap)

The “stimulus” package was passed about 120 days ago.

Aren’t you glad we passed it?

Why, just look at how much it has reduced the unemployment rate from what was projected by Obama…

Fortunate we are to have acted so quickly, spent so much, and accomplished so little, no?

After having already destroyed the economy of Indonesia when he was just a wee lad–younger than he is now but still looking as young and inexperienced as he does now–Timothy Geithner has set his sights on destroying the American economy, too.

The Corner has this interesting tidbit about Timmy Terrific’s recent visit to China:

Do you remember how Obama was going to improve the United States’s image in the world? Well, he may or he may not (in a planet that is, and always wilI be, Hobbesian, I know what I’d guess, but it’s early days, I suppose), but as we wait to see how he does, it’s worth remembering that his domestic spending program is having international consequences…

Via the Daily Telegraph:

In his first official visit to China since becoming Treasury Secretary, Mr Geithner told politicians and academics in Beijing that he still supports a strong US dollar, and insisted that the trillions of dollars of Chinese investments would not be unduly damaged by the economic crisis. Speaking at Peking University, Mr Geithner said: “Chinese assets are very safe.”

The comment provoked loud laughter from the audience of students. There are growing fears over the size and sustainability of the US budget deficit, which is set to rise to almost 13pc of GDP this year as the world’s biggest economy fights off recession. The US is reliant on China to buy many of the government bonds it is planning to issue but Beijing’s policymakers have expressed concern about the strength of the dollar and the value of their investments.

Lest there be any doubt, those Chinese students are laughing “at” not “with.”

Timothy Geithner has a special place in his heart for reducing deficits, it must be said. After all, he helped increase the deficit by failing to pay his taxes.

With such a track record, and with Obama’s promises of yet more spending on top of his already huge mountain of deficit spending, no wonder the Chinese laughed at him to his face.

From the Campaign Spot:

I keep hearing people talk about the deficit that Obama inherited, but it’s nonsense. The accumulated deficit for the past three months amounts to 89 percent of the entire total for the last fiscal year. This includes April of this year, which is the month the government collects all those income-tax checks.

Even better, Obama’s deficits are getting so big that the United States government is in danger for the first time of losing its top-line bond rating, which means that interest on the debt will go sky-high.

According to this handy little chart, nothing:

From Ace:

Below, see in blue Obama’s own projections of unemployment — what he predicted unemployment would be with the Spendulous, and the higher unemployment he predicted we’d have without the Spendulous.

[The only thing added to the chart] was the red triangles indicating real-world unemployment rates in March and April.

That’s right — the unemployment numbers track exactly with Obama’s prediction of what would happen without his Spendulus.

So what has the Spendulus accomplished? According to Obama’s own predictions, nothing.

Isn’t that a comforting thought?

All of that spending (which we needed to hurry up and pass so that it wouldn’t be spent anyway) has accomplished nothing.

But all things just keep getting better.

The budget deficit will be a whopping 50% bigger this year than originally anticipated.

National Review provides perspective:

(More after the leap)