Republican Payroll Proposal

The Republican Proposal Extends Current Payroll Tax Relief, Reduces The Deficit By $111 Billion And Trims The Size Of The Federal Government
Prevents A Tax Increase, Protects Social Security:
Provides a one year extension of the temporary Social Security tax holiday that passed in 2010, protecting all individuals from tax increases, including the job creators targeted by the Democrat plan. Ensures that the Social Security Trust Fund is not harmed by this temporary tax holiday.

Reduces The Deficit, Trims The Size Of Government:
Reduces the deficit by $111 Billion. Uses The Simpson-Bowles model to freeze federal civilian salaries and reduce the size of the civilian federal work force.

· Simpson-Bowles Plan: “Impose a three-year pay freeze on federal workers and Defense Department civilians. Out of duty and patriotism, hardworking federal employees provide a great service to this country. But in a time of budget shortfalls, all levels of government must trim back.” (Simpson-Bowles Commission, “The Moment Of Truth,” P.26, 12/10)

· Simpson-Bowles Plan: “Over time, the Commission recommends cutting the government workforce – including civilian defense – by 10 percent, or by 200,000.” Ibid

· President Obama: “The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require broad sacrifice. And that sacrifice must be shared by the employees of the federal government.” (President Obama, Remarks By The President On The Federal Employee Pay Freeze, 11/29/10)

· CBO Table: “Budgetary Effects for… the Temporary Tax Holiday and Government Reduction Act” $111.5 Billion. (“Budgetary Effects For A Senate Proposal, The Temporary Tax Holiday And Government Reduction Act,” Congressional Budget Office, 11/30/11)

Means Tests Government Benefits For Millionaires and Billionaires:
Adds a new means test to government health benefits, unemployment compensation and food stamps so that millionaires aren’t receiving federal benefits that are better targeted elsewhere.

· President Obama: “I’ve said that means testing on Medicare… would be appropriate.” (President Obama, Press Conference, 7/15/11)

· Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA): “If you don't need them, if you are millionaire, why should you have these benefits?” (Sen. Feinstein, Floor Remarks, 1/25/10)

· Jack Welch, Former GE Chairman: “I shouldn’t be getting Medicare benefits at the level I’m getting.” (Jack Welch, CNBC, 10/7/11)

Gives Millionaires & Billionaires Another Opportunity To Help With The Deficit:
Includes Sen. John Thune’s ‘Buffet Rule Act of 2011,’ which makes it easy for millionaires like Warren Buffet who want to pay more taxes to reduce the federal deficit with a voluntary contribution via their tax returns.

· Warren Buffet: “I think that people at the high end, people like myself, should be paying a lot more...” (ABC News’ “This Week,” 11/21/10)

No Tax Hike On Job Creators:
Does not include a single dollar of new taxes on job creators.

· President Obama: “The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up -- take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.” (NBC, 8/5/09)

· President Obama: “You don't raise taxes in a recession.” (NBC, 8/5/09)

---

Tags: Us Senate, Republican Payroll Proposal, payroll To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Barney Frank’s Negative Impact

by William Warren:

---

Tags: Barney Frank, Congress, Housing Market, Political Cartoons, William Warren To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Malazy? How About No More Bailouts

The NRSC: Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter. Same problems. Same excuses.

Also read: Bobby Eberle: Wow... There really IS someone worse than Jimmy Carter
When asked to choose the worst president in the history of America, a familiar name comes to mind. Even Democrats will remember the years of gas lines, energy shortages, inflation, unemployment, and hostages. I'm talking about the 39th president of the United States: Jimmy Carter. But now, a new report by Gallup reveals that Barack Obama has journeyed into Carter-like territory. In the history of their polling, no one has had a lower approval rating at this point in a presidential term than Obama.

---

Tags: Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Malaise, Lazy, Soft, Hope, Change, Inflation, Stagnation, Stagflation, Misery Index, Unemployment, GDP, Growth, Economy, Failure, Crisis of Confidence, Speeches, 1979, 2012, Bobby Eberle, article To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Former Sec. of State Colen Powell Called to Account For Comments Against Tea Party

Bill Smith, Editor: General Colen Powell, who still claims to be a Republican, continues to evidence that he envisions a different Republican Party than the majority of conservatives. Powell served as Secretary of State under Republican President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. Then Republican General Colen Powell shifted political positions and failed to support Republican War Hero John McCain. In stead, Powell aligned with and endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008.

Colin Powell - RINO- Any Doubt?

Powell has again aligned with a position supported by Barack Obama - an extreme distaste for the TEA Party whom they see as too conservative and thus divisive to the liberals agenda. Powell is one of the Republicans the liberal media finds useful on their networks. Powell commented on ABC This Week that the Tea Party is the cause of the divisive and unproductive tone in Washington.

And I used to think VP Joe Biden made the greatest gaffes. Powell doesn't seem to see the radical progressive agenda of President Barack Obama as the problem.

Being a military officer, I find myself at odds the General's statements and opinions. We both took the same Oath of Office. But it is very evident that somewhere along his career in Washington, D.C., he lost tract of reality. Of course, few Generals sees the battlefield as clearly as those on the battle.

Below is an Open Letter to Colin Powell from Ned Ryun, President of American Majority. It addresses Powell’s comments on ABC’s This Week regarding the Tea Party:

November 28, 2011
Secretary Powell:

As someone who works closely with thousands of tea party members and conservative grassroots activists across America, I disagreed with your recent comments on ABC’s This Week suggesting the Tea Party was a cause of the divisive and unproductive tone in Washington. You further stated that the Tea Party’s reluctance to compromise would not produce a winning Presidential candidate.

On the contrary, Tea Party members would agree that compromise is part of the legislative process. They know how the system works. However, when government spending is spiraling out of control and the nation is $15 trillion in debt, in no small part due to President Obama, there comes a time when Americans must say enough. There comes a time when people must make tough choices to turn America back from its course toward statism.

The Tea Party and conservative grassroots are simply advocating what most Americans want – lower taxes, less spending, smaller government and an environment that will create jobs. There is little room for compromise given how dire the situation is. No more new programs. No more new bureaucracies. No additional spending needed. No more taxes. As someone who worked for Ronald Reagan, you should appreciate that government is the problem, not the solution. That is far from an extremist point of view. It is a rational, common sense one.

In 2008, you endorsed Barack Obama, calling him a “transformational figure.” Today while criticizing the Tea Party you conveniently ignore the divisive and dangerous behavior of the Obama Administration over the last three years. While trying to save face in light of your misguided decision to back Obama, you are unfortunately blinded to the reality that the Tea Party is the only force in American politics that is steadfast in its commitment to save the nation you once fought for. Our government is on an unsustainable course of borrow, tax, spend and grow that will ultimately reduce the financial, political and religious freedom of every American.

It appears you believe that fiscal conservatives should again buckle to liberal demands of raising taxes, playing the class warfare game and increasing spending. You cite our Founders’ willingness to compromise as an example of what we can achieve when we come together, but your analogy has little merit in these times. Our Founders never compromised on the fundamental ideal of a government that was limited in its scope and power. Today, the cost and size of our government goes far beyond what our Founders envisioned and it places an undue burden on every American.

In the end, Mr. Secretary, America needs leaders and movements that actually stand for something. The majority of Americans aren’t getting it from the President you support. They aren’t getting it from either political party. The Occupy Wall Street crowd is a band of miscreants who advocate more government intervention in our lives and income distribution. The only movement in America that has demonstrated it can be effective at driving a message about what really needs to be done to save this country is the Tea Party.

You make for a compelling interview precisely because no one knows exactly which side of the debate you are on. That is truly unfortunate. One thing seems to be for certain, though, whether it’s Obama’s version of the status quo or Washington’s broken system, you are not in favor of materially changing the way our government does business.

One would hope that your long experience would lead you to embrace rather than attack a movement that has captured the attention of millions of Americans who agree that government must actually live within its means. I hope you take time to understand just how important ending the status quo in Washington is for the future of America and who is really talking about the kind of change we need.

Respectfully,

Ned Ryun
President
American Majority

Thank You Ned Ryun, and No Thank You Colin Powell.

---

Tags: American Majority, Ned Ryun, Open Letter, Colin Powell, attack, Tea Party To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

GOP Senators Demand Obama Set Politics Aside And Decide On Keystone Pipeline & More Jobs

Today in Washington, D.C. - Nov. 30, 2011:
The Senate resumed consideration of S. 1867, the Fiscal Year 2012 Defense Authorization bill and will begin voting on cloture oat 11AM.  Yesterday, according to The NY Times  by a vote of 61 to 37, the Senate turned back an effort to strip a major military bill of a set of disputed provisions affecting the handling of terrorism cases. The most disputed provision would require the government to place into military custody any suspected member of Al Qaeda or one of its allies connected to a plot against the United States or its allies. The provision would exempt American citizens, but would otherwise extend to arrests on United States soil. The executive branch could issue a waiver and keep such a prisoner in the civilian system.

Yesterday the House approved: H.R. 1801, (404-0), Risk-Based Security Screening for Members of the Armed Forces Act; H.R. 3012, (395-15), which lifts the per country cap on employment-related visas; H.R. 2192, (407-1), which eases bankruptcy rules for members of the National Guard and Reserves, and H.R. 1801, ( 404-0), which requires a program easing airport screening rules for members of the Armed Services.

The House also approved by unanimous consent HR 2465, the Federal Workers' Compensation Modernization and Improvement Act. This bill would give the DOL more power to identify employees who illegally work elsewhere while receiving federal workers' compensation. DOL would be able to check Social Security Administration earnings data to make sure a workers' comp recipient isn't double dipping.  The House bill differs from a Senate workers' comp bill sponsored  by Sen. Susan Collin (R-ME). That bill would require federal and postal employees on workers' comp to retire when they turn 65, which the House bill does not require.

Today, the House, is scheduled to consider under suspension (super majority needed to pass)
H Res 364 — Capitol Visitor Center meeting room designation. Also, HR 3094 — National Labor Relations Bill is pending.

At a press conference this this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, joined by Sens. Dick Lugar (R-IN), John Hoeven (R-ND), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), John Thune (R-SD), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), David Vitter (R-LA), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), called on President Obama to make a final decision on whether to allow the Keystone XL pipeline project go forward.

The Keystone XL pipeline would transport oil extracted from oil sands in Western Canada to American refineries in Texas. The project would create tens of thousands of jobs and allow the United States to get more energy from its friendly northern ally instead of from the Middle East. The pipeline has been described as a “lifeline” for jobs and “the largest shovel-ready project out there” by labor unions and energy interests alike.

According to Bloomberg News, “At a time when almost one in 10 Americans is unemployed, TransCanada Corp. (TRP) expects to create 20,000 jobs to build the pipeline, Chief Executive Officer Russell Girling told reporters on Oct. 7.” Writing in The Huffington Post earlier this month, even the AFL-CIO’s president of the union’s Building and Construction Trades Department says, “For America's skilled craft construction professionals, any discussion of the Keystone XL project begins and ends with one word: JOBS. Today, roughly 14% of the American construction workforce is unemployed -- which is significantly higher than the overall national unemployment rate of 9%.” He adds, “Throughout America's Heartland, the Keystone Pipeline represents the prospect for 20,000 immediate jobs, and as many as 500,000 indirect jobs via a strong economic multiplier effect. . . . The privately-financed Keystone XL pipeline project is projected to create tens of thousands of U.S. jobs in construction and manufacturing, and without one single dollar of government assistance.” CNBC reported in September, ‘We're building what is the largest infrastructure project in North America,’ said TransCanada spokesman James Miller, expressing confidence the pipeline will be approved. ‘We're putting a lot of people to work.’”

During the press conference, Sen. Lugar announced his bill (cosponsored by 37 senators) which would require the Secretary of State to issue a permit within 60 days that allows the Keystone XL project to move forward, unless the president determines the pipeline is not in the national interest. The bill also established Congressional affirmation that the project is good for job creation, economic growth, and national security. Further, it contains environmental and states’ rights protections, especially for Nebraska.

So why is President Obama delaying a decision on a project Sen. Thune called a “no-brainer” today? A Houston Chronicle editorial laid bare the answer: “The Obama administration's decision to postpone a ruling on the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline till 2013 is a poorly disguised political punt. . . . The ruling has 2012 presidential politics written all over it . . . .” Rolling Stone added, “Big campaign donors… pressured the president to deny the permit.” And Reuters wrote last month, “Reeling from months of protests, President Barack Obama's advisers are worried that administration approval for a planned oil pipeline from Canada could cost him political support from Democrats in 2012.”

If the president really wants “shovel-ready” projects that will enhance American infrastructure and create jobs, there’s clearly no reason to delay or block the Keystone XL pipeline, unless politics are more important to this White House.

---

Tags: Keystone pipeline, jobs, US Senate, US House, Washington, D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Barney Reads the Wall

A.F. "Tony" Branco:

The announcement by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) to retire
made for a gay (def: "merry - cheerful - joyful") day.

---

Tags: Massachusetts, Republican, Barney Frank, Barney Frank retires, Democrats Anonymous, democrats dump Obama, A.F. Branco, political cartoon, a gay day To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

November 2011: Porker of the Month - Energy Secretary Steven Chu

By CAGW President Tom Schatz: Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu Porker of the Month for his weak oversight of DOE’s loan guarantee program (LGP), which resulted in huge losses to taxpayers when solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, the recipient of a $535 million loan guarantee, filed for bankruptcy in September.

The LGP program, which received a massive increase in funding in the 2009 stimulus package, has been the subject of three Government Accountability Office reports since its inception, all detailing its management weaknesses, arbitrary selection process, and vulnerabilities to manipulation and politicization.

The collapse of Solyndra was quickly followed by the bankruptcies of three other LGP recipients – Massachusetts-based Beacon Power and Evergreen, Inc. and Oregon-based SpectraWatt. CAGW President Tom Schatz commented, “Sec. Chu and his colleagues dismissed numerous warning signs that the LGP was a ticking time bomb…If this is the Obama administration’s idea of how America can ‘invest’ in its economic recovery, taxpayers would much rather keep the money and do it themselves.”  For trying to pick winners and losers in a volatile sector, for acting as if winning a Nobel Prize in physics also magically confers the title of venture capitalist, and for frittering away taxpayers’ hard-earned money, Sec. Chu is CAGW’s November 2011 Porker of the Month. Read more about the Porker of the Month.
-------------
CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.


---

Tags: CAGW, November, 2011, Porker of the Month, Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, DOE, loan guarantee program, LGP, solar panel manufacturer, Solyndra, bankruptcy, Massachusetts, Beacon Power, Evergreen, Inc., Oregon, SpectraWatt To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Chuck Woolery on Budget Cuts

Legendary game show host Chuck Woolery discusses ways to cut the federal budget in this humorous fireside chat-style video. So easy a game show host could do it. The Congressional Supercommittee was charged to cut $1.2 Trillion (over 10 years). Results: Failed! Chuck takes a few minutes and cuts over $1.5 Trillion. He may be a comedian but this is "no joke."

---

Tags: Chuck Woolery, Budget Cuts, Supercommittee, domestic spending,
us deficit, cut spending, national debt, government spending To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Fundamental Question to Harry Reid and President Obama: "Where's The Leadership?"

No Recovery! No Leadership!
Img by Chrissy

Today in Washington, D.C. - Nov. 29, 2011:
According to American Research Group, 60% of adults think the economy is in a recession; 24% say the economy is not in a recession.

Dismal Economic Snapshot:
Current Deficit: $98.5 billion
Current National Debt: $15.04 trillion
Debt Per Household: $133,521
Debt Per Individual: $48,086
Unemployment Rate: 9%
Consecutive Months of Budget Deficit: 37

Both the Senate and House will be in session today. The Senate resumed consideration of S. 1867, the Fiscal Year 2012 Defense Authorization bill. Votes on amendments are likely today.

Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on the Defense authorization bill, setting up a cloture vote for Wednesday. We identified yesterday that Defense Authorization Bill Has A Hidden Provision Threatening American Citizens. Another source on this issue - Battlefield US: Americans face arrest as war criminals under Army state law.

Also, an amendment /  provision  was added  by voice vote to the Defense Authorization Bill that would add the National Guard chief to sit with the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines ― none of whom have ever served in the Guard ― and provide the Guard, for the first time, permanent representation among the nation's senior military officers.  Interesting since the NG belong individually to the States and are under the control of State Governors.  However, in the last 25 years the US Military suffered draw downs and then subsequent reliance on on activating National Guard units to fill military units.  The response by the senators is to grant the NG chief a voice on the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are responsible for logistical operations, training and support of the US Military.

Yesterday the Senate voted 88-0 to confirm Christopher Droney to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit.

The House today may take consider the following bills which are under
suspension (super majority needed to pass):
HR 1801 — Armed forces security screening
HR 2465 — Workers’ compensation (Federal Workers' Compensation Modernization and Improvement Act)
HR 3012 — Immigrants (Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act)
HR 2192 — National Guard debt relief

Yesterday, MarketWatch reported, “Senate Democrats said Monday they’ll seek a tax of 3.25% on incomes of more than $1 million to pay for a one-year extension of a payroll tax cut, setting up a fresh clash over tax policy with Republicans. ‘Americans want us to cut taxes on the middle class, and ask millionaires to pay their fair share,’ Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Monday.”

And according to Roll Call today, “Reassured by recent polling data on the public's anger over rising income inequality, Senate Democrats will continue to push for tax increases on the wealthy to offset aid to the middle class — an issue they believe will help define the 2012 elections.”

Democrats are so focused on pushing this surtax, they’ve been proposing measures that include it for months now. Yet they seem untroubled that it would hit small business owners at a time they’re already struggling to create jobs. A month ago, the Chamber of Commerce warned Democrats that the tax increase “would significantly impair the ability of small businesses and entrepreneurs to create jobs and grow the U.S. economy.” The Chamber singled out the tax hike as “a burdensome and onerous tax increase on America’s small businesses, entrepreneurs and other job creators.”

Around the same time, a coalition of jobs groups wrote of Senate Democrats’ favorite tax, “the Obama Administration's own data demonstrates that 4 out of 5 of the taxpayers who will face this surtax are business owners” and pointed out that “the burden of the proposed tax increases would fall disproportionately on the income of America's small and mid-sized businesses.”

Americans have seen enough of the status quo when “Democrats decide they’d prefer to have a political issue to run on than solutions to vote on,” as Sen. GOP Leader McConnell put it. It’s time to drop the political posturing and for Democrats to work with Republicans on bipartisan legislation that can address our economic problems. Democrats’ singular focus on raising taxes on job creators and political gamesmanship is not going to help our economy.

Rob Jesmer, NRSC Executive Director, has hit the nail on the head: "After the Supercommittee failed to reach a deal, Harry Reid proclaimed, 'Republicans never found the courage.' But, what have the Democrats in the Senate done other than fight tooth and nail to defeat every spending cut our party's proposed? They've worked hand-in-glove to support President Obama's drive to spend, spend, spend!

"Despite the political blame games here in Washington, they're not fooling the American people. It's Harry Reid and Barack Obama who continue to fail the country. They've chosen time and again to reject Republicans' bold solutions to reduce our country's staggering $15 trillion debt. Instead, they've opted to kick the can down the road again."

And so my fundamental question to Harry Reid and President Obama is "Where's the leadership?"

---

Tags: Washington, D.C., Us House, US Senate, defense Authorization Bill, federal spending, no leadership To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Congress and Entertainment Industry Plan to Kill the Internet and How Citizens And Others Are Fighting Back

Threats to Internet Free Speech

by E.D. Kain, Forbes: Two bills are moving through the Senate and the House at the moment, aimed at creating a host of new controls and regulations over the internet, and threatening to change the way everybody does business and interacts online.

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is the House’s attempt to severely censor the internet ostensibly in order to clamp down on piracy. The companion bill in the Senate is the Protect IP Act. The two bills create an armada of new regulations that help big corporations and hurt regular people, start-ups, and clamp down on innovation.

In the Senate, Democratic senator Patrick Leahy is leading the push to pass Protect IP. In the House, Republican congressman Lamar Smith is leading the charge for SOPA. Over at the Daily Kos, kos writes:

This bill would’ve been rushed through with no debate through both chambers had it not been for the singular efforts of Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a true hero of grassroots media and the social web.

Wyden has put a hold on the bill in the Senate, and has promised a full filibuster. Currently, there appear to be 60 votes to overcome that filibuster, but the delaying tactics would tie up the Senate for a full week. And if it doesn’t pass this year, supporters have to start from scratch all over again next year—this time under the full glare of a spotlight.

Wyden is now being joined with Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington, Jerry Moran of Kansas . . .  and Rand Paul of Kentucky (…).

I agree – Ron Wyden is one of the heroes of the Senate as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been a fan for a long time, and still think that he had the best healthcare plan of the bunch back when that was still news.

On the other side of the aisle, for all of our political disagreements, I think Rand Paul has been a breath of fresh air on many civil liberty issues.. . .  What I want – what I care about – are elected officials who want to stop madness like SOPA, the Patriot Act, and TSA abuses (not to mention things like assassination of US citizens and nation-building.)

The internet, for all its problems, has been an experiment in human ingenuity and creativity. These new bills could stomp on many of the best things about the internet. Free social media, collaboration, freedom of thought and opinion.

Conservative Patrick Ruffini [On the Huffington Post] writes:

The problem with the bill, and its Senate companion, the PROTECT IP Act, is not in its goals: no one disagrees artists should be paid for their work. It’s that it uses illegitimate means — censoring and blocking websites like they do in repressive regimes from China to Iran — to pursue these objectives. Furthermore, each subsequent version of the bill took even more draconian steps to regulate the Internet, effectively leaving any site with a user-contributed content no choice but to pre-screen every posting to comply with the law. Try that with 50 million tweets a day.

If passed, these bills will grow in size and scope with every new layer of bureaucracy and every new cave-in to powerful special interests. Once passed into law, they will be almost impossible to revoke. It’s always easier to make laws than it is to unmake them. For many Americans, the new laws will mean ordinary people will be forced to either break the law or live with a highly regulated, highly censored internet.

Or, as my Forbes colleague Andy Greenberg reported, people will have to take matters into their own hands, like some Reddit users are doing as they draw up plans to build an alternative for a post-SOPA world:

Redditors have flocked over the last week to a new subgroup on Reddit.com they’re calling the Darknet Plan - or sometimes Meshnet, as the name seems to still be in flux – with the aim of building a mesh-based version of the Internet that wouldn’t be subject to the control of any corporation or government, with a focus on anonymity, peer-to-peer architecture and strong resistance to censorship.

In the last few days, about 10,000 users have joined the group, and about 200,000 have visited, according to Chris Bresee, the 17-year old Vermonter who founded the project and goes by the name “Wolfeater” on the site. Bresee, a high school senior, created the Darknet Plan more than a year ago, but he attributes the sudden spike in interest to the Stop Online Piracy Act and the awareness of the possibilities of government censorship that the bill has created: If passed in its current form, SOPA would use Domain Name System filtering to effectively disappear infringing sites from the Internet. “I would say the Darknet Plan is driven almost in its entirety by fear of censorship coming out of Congress,” says Bresee, whose Vermont senator Patrick Leahy introduced the precursor to SOPA known as Protect-IP.”  That’s what’s driven me, and I think that’s what’s driven the other ten thousand users to join.”

That’s the thing about the internet and about human ingenuity more broadly and the power of peer-to-peer interactions. Whether we’re talking about Craigslist or Reddit’s Darknet plan, the power of social collaboration and the disruptive power of the cyber-grassroots is going to be impossible to contain even with SOPA.

But it’s going to make it hard for a lot of people, especially every day people who aren’t cyber-libertarian-hacker types. For many of us, the internet is already confounding enough. . . . Read The Full Article

---

Tags: INSERT TAGS To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Tea Party Leader Calls Comparisons to Occupy Wall Street ‘Insulting’

by Rob Bluey, Heritage Foundation: Media coverage of Occupy Wall Street has dominated the news lately, supplanting stories about the Tea Party movement and the grassroots uprising that took Washington by storm. For one of the movement’s early leaders, it has come as no surprise. Jenny Beth Martin is a co-founder and national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. Today she continues to fight against big government, albeit while fending off comparisons to Occupy Wall Street.

In an interview with Ginni Thomas at The Daily Caller, Martin talked about the early rise of Tea Party and two of its champions in Washington — Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). But her most profound comments came on the subject of Occupy Wall Street, a movement she complained was “manufactured” by the media in search of an alternative to the Tea Party.

“The distinctions between Occupy Wall Street and the tea party movement are so vast that it really becomes insulting, the comparisons,” Martin said.

She added:

I wasn’t surprised when the president or the Democrat leadership embraced Occupy Wall Street. Even with the press, they have been clamoring … for the past two-and-a-half years they couldn’t find any comparison between the Tea Party movement and anything they had going on their side. And so I think that they’ve manufactured something. They’re trying to say this is the equivalent of the Tea Party movement and it’s not. But they need that so desparetely on their side, they’re willing to embrace lawlessness just so they can say that there’s a comparison.

Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street by
John Camejo for Referenced Times article

That’s a similar message to the one Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner and First Coast Tea Party co-founder Billie Tucker delivered in a Washington Times commentary earlier this month. They noted that Tea Party activists respect the values set forth by the Founding Fathers, while the Occupy Wall Street protesters want to dramatically change America.

“Any comparisons between the Tea Party, which desires to liberate ‘We the People’ from big government, and the Wall Street occupiers, who want more government regulation,” Feulner and Tucker wrote, “is either misguided or made to intentionally confuse Americans.”

---

Tags: Billie Tucker, Daily Caller, First Coast Tea Party, Founding Fathers, Jenny Beth Martin, Jim Demint, Jim Jordan, Occupy Wall Street, tea party, tea party movement, Tea Party Patriots, Washington Times, illustrator John Camejo, Ed Feulner, Rob Bluey, Heritage Foundation To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Obama’s Safety Net

A.F. "Tony" Branco:

---

Tags: 2012 elections, Obama, Obama incompetence, Obama lazy remark, Occupy Wall Street, OWS protesters, A.F. Branco, political cartoon To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Potential Surrender of American Liberty in Defense Authorization Bill - Frank's Quitting

Today in Washington, D.C. - Nov. 28, 2011  [Edited 9/29/11]

Rep. Barney Frank (MA), liberal Democrat and the co-author of the disastrous 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, will not seek re-election in 2012. Frank will forever be known, not for his being gay, but for being reprimanded by Congress for his using his congressional status on behalf of a male prostitute he employed as a personal assistant, including his male partner running a prostitution ring out of his office. Although Massachusetts will lose one Congressional seat due to redistricting, the restricting did not, as some people alleged, affect enlarged the size of Rep. Frank's district.

Presently 16 Democrats and and 6 Republicans have announced they will not run for re-election to the House of Representatives. One of them is Republican Ron Paul who is retiring from Congress but is a active candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination. Paul's district is expected to be safely in Republican hands.

Tomorrow the US House will be in session.

Now A Very Concerned Vet

Defense Authorization Bill with Hidden Provision Threatening American Citizens:
Today, the US Senate reconvened and resumed consideration of S. 1867, the Fiscal Year 2012 Defense Authorization bill. The bill has 270 amendments pending. Included in the bill is the worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) which passed in a closed-door committee meeting without even a single hearing. It is hard to imagine that Sen. McCain, a decorated war veteran, would have authored and and supported a provision that will direct American military resources to be used - not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone - but against American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even American citizens within the United States. It is a strange world when this site finds agreement with the ACLU on an issue.

This provision as written needs to be stopped. Another democrat Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. However, the best option is having no option of using the military in within the U.S. against its own citizens. That is the present general provision of "Posse Commitatus" which prevents the direct participation by a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law. There have been several efforts to amend this general provision and all have been formerly repealed.

It is proper for the U.S. military to stand on our very borders facing outward to stop invasions and attacks.  However, it is improper to have it fighting its own citizens and enforcing laws regardless of the incumbent United States president.

At 5 PM, the Senate will take up the nomination of Christopher Droney to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit. At 5:30, the Senate will vote on the Droney nomination. Droney is the replacement for President Obama’s previous, extremely controversial pick for this seat, Judge Robert Chatigny, whose nomination was withdrawn after objections from Senate Republicans.

Justice Elena Kagan Remains in the News:
The Washington Post reports today, “Just a little more than an hour after some House Democrats recently demanded an inquiry into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s ethics, Senate Republicans stepped up the pressure on Justice Elena Kagan to take herself out of the court’s decision on the health-care reform act. . . . Federal law requires judges, including those on the Supreme Court, to disqualify themselves when their ‘impartiality might be reasonably questioned’ . . . . In addition, it calls for recusal when the judge has served in the government and ‘participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case or controversy.’”

The Post notes, “The charges against Kagan arise from her work as solicitor general, the government’s top appellate lawyer. If she were still in the job, Kagan would be defending the health-care law at the Supreme Court rather than deciding whether it is constitutional. Kagan was notified by the White House in March 2010 — just before the law was passed — that she was under consideration to be named to the high court. She said during her confirmation hearings that she played no role in preparing for the inevitable legal challenges that were to come. . . . But congressional Republicans say e-mails released to conservative groups under public records requests raise questions about the White House’s contention she had been ‘walled off’ from discussions about the health-care act. One e-mail from then-Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal says Kagan wanted to make sure her office was involved in strategy decisions, although Katyal said he took the lead and Kagan was not involved. Another e-mail seemed to indicate enthusiasm for the bill. In response to a message at the time of the vote from Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe, then working at the Justice Department, Kagan wrote: ‘I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing.’ [Rep. Lamar] Smith [R-TX], the [House] Judiciary Committee chairman, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have pressed Holder for more information, which his department has been reluctant to provide.”

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Leader McConnell, and Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Mike Lee (R-UT) wrote, “[E]mails finally produced by your Department in response to lawsuits to enforce the Freedom of Information Act suggest involvement by then-Solicitor General Kagan in the Administration's preparations for defending the [Obama administration’s health care law]. In January 2010—two months before then-General Kagan was even aware she was being considered as a potential nominee to the Supreme Court—your Department began planning to defend this law against legal challenges. Neil Katyal, Ms. Kagan's principal deputy, stated he would "speak with Elena" about her office participating in a Department working group that would plan the Administration's litigation strategy, exclaiming that he wanted the Administration to ‘crush’ those challenging the [health care law].”

The Senate Republicans’ letter summed up their concerns: “President Obama chose to nominate a member of his Administration to the Supreme Court knowing it was likely that, if confirmed, she would be in a position to rule on his signature domestic policy achievement—‘litigation,’ Mr. Katyal noted to former Solicitor General Kagan, ‘of singular importance’ to the Administration. Among other involvement in this matter, it appears that she was privy to discussions of legal claims and litigation strategy concerning court challenges to the PPACA. And it is apparent that she herself enthusiastically supported this legislation as a member of the Administration which is now defending it. When a former member of the Administration is in a position to rule on litigation in which she apparently had some involvement and which concerns legislation she herself supports, public confidence in the administration of justice is undermined.”

---

Tags: INSERT TAGS To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

America, Wake up! We have a problem

OMG for America (OMG!=Obama Must Go!): Super cut by committee or deeper cut by calamity? Disgrace or danger? That is the question.


Check Out The Following:
Obama Must Go - OMG America Website; FaceBook; Twitter; YouTube

---

Tags: Super cut by committee, United States, America, Conservative, Liberal, Debt, Crisis, Taxes, OMG, Barack Obama, Economics, Economy, Video To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Yet Again, Government is the Internet and Communications Authoritarian Problem

Seton Motley, President, Less Government: We just recently tried to congressionally undo the Barack Obama Administration’s egregious and illegal Internet-Network Neutrality power grab to keep the government out of what has become – in the Leviathan’s absence – a free speech, free market Xanadu.

(Hope for continuing Internet freedom now lies in the hands of the D.C. Circuit Court.)

During our year-plus long push to try to stave off the Obama administration’s huge overreach, we pointed out that if one looks around the planet, one sees time and time and time again – in China, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia,… – it is the government that is the threat to Internet and communications freedom, and not the eeeee-vil corporations that the Media Marxist Left shake as their Shibboleth to allegedly justify our government taking over the Web.

Of course, governments lord over not just the Internet, but all forms of communications (and, of course, everywhere and everything else).

Prior to the fall, Egypt President Hosni Mubarak’s regime commandeered control of some of their nation’s cellular phone networks – so as to force feed the people propaganda.

Over the past five days, Egyptians have been hit with a steady stream of pro-Mubarak text messages.

“Youth of Egypt, beware rumors and listen to the sound of reason — Egypt is above all so preserve it,” read one text, according to a photograph and translation posted on this Flickr account. Another, received Sunday by an Associated Press reporter in the country, called on “honest and loyal men to confront the traitors and criminals and protect our people and honor.”

And now we have yet another example of government being the wireless authoritarian problem. Behold Pakistan.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority told mobile carriers to begin blocking text messages Nov. 21 containing words from a list of more than 1,600 “obscene” terms….
The list met widespread Internet criticism, in part for including believed benign words such as “Jesus Christ,” “athlete’s foot,” “poop,” “fairy” and “harder.” An unconfirmed version of the list has been circulating online. Some 1,100 of the words are in English, while less than 600 are in Urdu, Pakistan’s national language….
Pakistan is no stranger to digital bans from the government. In May 2010, the country blocked Facebook
for two weeks after a competition to draw the Prophet Mohammed sparked controversy. YouTube was blocked temporarily in 2008 following news that images from a competition to draw the Prophet Mohammed had leaked onto the site.

Despite all of this government wireless authoritarianism all around the world, our Media Marxist Left is suing to…increase our government’s control over cell phones and the wireless Web because they deem it a failing that our government now only has said totalitarian sway over the wired Web.

All of this despite the fact that when cornered, these Media Marxists begrudgingly admit they can’t cite a single example of a single private corporation – their psychosomatic bete noir – currently doing anything even remotely similar to what governments all around the world are doing all the time.

As always, Leftists never allow facts to get in the way of a good beating.

These Media Marxists at Free Press aren’t “public interest groups” – they are government interest groups. They are interested only in dramatically increasing the Leviathan’s size, scope and sphere of influence on all things Internet and communications (and anywhere else they can get).

The First Amendment was written to stop the government – and only the government – from censoring us.

Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech….

The word “corporation” (or “company,” or any variation on that theme) does not appear anywhere within said Amendment.

And as we’ve seen over and over – the world over – it is government that is far and away the largest problem, and the entity against which we need the Amendment’s protections.

It is thus a perverse, fundamentally warped and disingenuous effort by the Media Marxists – and anyone else – to cite protection of the First Amendment as a pseudo-justification for jamming the government into what has always been a government-free zone.

The Internet in all its forms – wired, wireless and on your cell phone – was here in America just such a government-free zone until the Media Marxists led the illegal government charge to impose Net Neutrality. Again, in the erroneous name of “protecting” the First Amendment.

As always, we need protection from the “Protectors” – Leftists and Big Government – far more than we do from anyone or anything else.
--------------
Seton Motley is the President of Less Government and he contributes to numerous sites and blogs.

---

Tags: Big Government, Federal Government, control of the Internet, communication authoritarian, problems, PJMedia, Seton Motley, Less Government To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Congress, Can You Spare a Dime?”

"When growing up, my father, who is now 92 years old, talked about his family’s struggles during the Great Depression. On more than one occasion, he told me how the expression, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” came to represent the national agony of those times. . . . For the sake of our children and grandchildren, please take a moment now to sign onto our “Congress, Can You Spare a Dime?” Citizen’s Demand. - Thomas A. Schatz

---

Thomas A. Schatz, President, CAGW: Do you remember or have you ever heard the song, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"  Drawn from the 1932 musical New Americana, it became known as the “anthem of the Great Depression.”

Now, to avert a double-dip recession or potentially worse if we don’t get our nation’s finances in order, we urgently need all Americans to ask: “Congress, Can You Spare a Dime?”

If Congress would cut spending by just 10 percent, or a dime for every dollar the government spends, it would slam the brakes on our nation’s dangerously mounting debt and pave the way to a balanced budget.  Let’s face it, Washington is in gridlock. Individual cuts in even the most obviously wasteful programs are difficult to achieve because no one can agree on the same set of cuts and everyone has a different list of priorities.

What makes this “Congress, Can You Spare a Dime?” National Campaign so powerful is that it is a memorable rallying cry that will force federal agencies to squeeze the waste out of their budgets.  Cutting 10 percent is the least that every business and family must do when faced with a financial crisis.

What also gives this “Congress, Can You Spare a Dime?” National Campaign such potential to catch fire is that most Americans understand that we can reduce spending by 10 percent without cutting the muscle from the government’s most essential programs.

A recent Gallup poll found that “most Americans think the federal government wastes more than half of the tax dollars it collects.” That means most taxpayers would get behind a campaign to cut just 10 percent from every federal agency.   If you have any doubt that at least 10 percent can be cut from every agency budget, let me give you just three options to reach this goal:

CAGW’s Prime Cuts 2011 database alone lists recommendations that would slash $1.8 trillion in government waste over the next five years. That amount equals 9 percent of the $20.1 trillion that the federal government will spend during that period of time.

A March 2011 Government Accountability Office report identified more than $200 billion in duplicative federal programs that can be consolidated or eliminated. The most outrageous finding is that the federal government has 56 programs in 20 different agencies to promote financial literacy at the same time that our nation is on the verge of bankruptcy!

The government made more than $125 billion in improper payments last year. CAGW has long played a leading role in calling for an end to improper payments, which include over-payments, duplicate payments, and payments to the deceased, and we helped to enact the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010, which is intended to cut that $125 billion figure in half over the next five years.

Clearly, wasteful spending remains pervasive within the federal government.  If American families and businesses across the country can trim the fat from their budgets, so too can Washington.  We are not asking for much, just a dime out of every dollar spent.

If you are profoundly worried that President Obama and his big-spending congressional allies who refuse to curb their unprecedented $1 trillion-plus annual deficits are destroying America financially, I urge you as strongly as possible to sign onto our “Congress, Can You Spare a Dime?” Citizen’s Demand.

Your endorsement of this critical CAGW Citizen’s Demand will say that you not only care deeply about the future of this country, but you demand that Washington make the same financial concessions you and your family have had to make to keep your household budget balanced.

This concrete evidence of your support for a 10 percent cut in federal spending will help us draw media attention to this “Congress, Can You Spare a Dime?” National Campaign both here in Washington and across the country. When we tabulate and publicize your Citizen’s Demand, along with countless others from across the nation, Washington officials will know the extent and feel the heat of public outrage at our nation’s dire financial condition.

At the end of last month, America's national debt surpassed 100 percent of gross domestic product. Our debt is growing by $2.8 million every minute, or $4 billion every day. Time is truly running out on America’s financial future.

Add your voice to that of tens of thousands of other Americans from coast to coast who are demanding a 10 percent cut in federal spending. Please sign the “Congress, Can You Spare a Dime?” Citizen’s Demand today.

---

Tags: Congress, Spare a Dime, Thomas A. Schatz, CAGW To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Goodbye UNESCO a Model for Goodbye UN

by Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum: A trigger provision buried in U.S. laws since 1990 quietly took effect at the end of October. The U.S. taxpayers' annual donation of 22 percent of UNESCO's budget was summarily terminated when UNESCO voted 107 to 14 (with 52 abstentions) to approve full membership for Palestine.

The cutoff of U.S. handouts includes not only our major annual gift to UNESCO of $80 million but also some extra-budgetary donations of $2 million and $3 million a year for special projects, mostly in Iraq. The Palestinians can now request admission to three other UN agencies and, if accepted, U.S. law will require us to terminate our handouts to those agencies, too.

The idea of an automatic cutoff of U.S. spending when a recipient takes anti-American actions is a splendid idea. I can think of lots of appropriations where a rule like this would save us money, so let's start with the United Nations itself.

For example, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, speaking in Bangladesh on November 14, urged world leaders to finalize financing for a multibillion-dollar fund to fight the effects of climate change. He is urging the UN climate-change conference that opens November 28 in Durban, South Africa, to raise $100 billion a year for a Green Climate Fund to help poor countries cope with global warming.

Americans should recognize this language as UN gobbledegook to transfer U.S. wealth to foreign countries run by corrupt dictators. The 190 countries expected to attend the Durban conference would probably think that is a nifty idea.

Ban Ki-moon started his drive for a huge UN climate change fund by making a tear-jerking plea, about a melting North Pole glacier, at the Copenhagen UN conference in December 2009. But despite President Obama's attendance, designed to encourage UN wishful thinking, Copenhagen results were zero.

Following the failed Copenhagen conference, Ban Ki-moon assembled a 20-member High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing to make recommendations to the Green Climate Fund. Members included (surprise, surprise) George Soros.

The U.S. never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed by Bill Clinton, but our Senate did ratify the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. This UNFCCC created a committee charged with designing a Green Climate Fund, which was supposed to develop a plan to raise $100 billion a year, and get it approved at the UNFCCC meeting to be held in Durban, South Africa next month.

The Cancun Agreements, adopted at the UN Climate Talks in December 2010, established the Green Climate Fund. Cancun also set up a committee charged with making recommendations to the Durban conference.

Of course, nobody knows what these international bureaucrats (spending other nations' money) will finally decide is the cost to "go green." Some estimates use the figure $600 billion annually, and others estimate $1.9 trillion annually for the next 40 years.

The committee hasn't yet made progress with the plan to get guarantees from developed countries (i.e., the U.S.) to take action domestically and collectively to pledge the money. The current strategy is for the poor countries to use the Durban, South Africa conference to demand that the developed countries ante up $100 billion annually by 2020.

The most scary part is how the committee, consisting of representatives of 40 nations, plans to get the $100 billion a year. No plans have been finalized, but the committee is hoping for UN taxes on carbon, international travel and shipping, international financial trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives and currency, and a wire tax for producing electricity, plus eliminating individual-country subsidies to fossil fuels and diverting that money to the Green Climate Fund.

The strategy behind this potpourri of special taxes is, first, to bypass Congress, realizing that even our big-spending politicians are not stupid enough to vote for a UN appropriation of such magnitude. Second, the amount of money that could be raised by these special taxes paid by individuals and corporations could reach or even exceed the extravagant goals of the Green Climate Fund.

We should prepare ourselves for this by using the UNESCO model. Congress should pass a law specifying that if the UN imposes any taxes to be paid by individuals or corporations, that's the day we terminate all U.S. appropriations to the UN.

Maybe these UN tax-hungry globalists will get some help from the Occupy Wall Street bunch for the plan to tax individuals instead of relying on congressional appropriations. One OWS leader just demanded "a 1 percent Robin Hood tax on all financial transactions and currency trades."

Don't laugh. A financial transaction tax was endorsed by Bill Gates and by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who lobbied President Obama at the G-20 Summit in Cannes to join him.

---

Tags: UNESCO, Goodbye, UN, Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Occupy Pavement - Works for Me

Source unknown

---

Tags: Occupy, pavement, OWS To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Panetta’s Political Defense Cut Threat

by Bill Wilson: On Nov. 14, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a letter to Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham threatened to gut the nation’s defenses under the guise of enforcing the sequestration provisions of the Budget Control Act of 2011.

“Absent Congressional approval, current law does not provide flexibility.  It dictates sequester cuts must be applied in equal percentages to each ‘program, project, and activity,’” wrote Secretary Panetta, apparently quoting the legislation.

“The impacts of these cuts would be devastating for the Department,” he added.
For example, Panetta claims there will 23 percent cuts to every single project not exempted under the law rendering them “unexecutable”, 20 percent cuts in personnel and “the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history.”

It is hard to imagine Congress would have ever enacted the legislation if what he says is true.

But, leaving congressional intent aside, there is a major flaw to this portion of the letter, and the analysis that flows from it.  Namely, there is no requirement in the legislation that sequester cuts be applied in equal percentages to each “program, project, and activity.”

The Secretary is not even quoting from the legislation itself.  There is no portion of the bill where one can find an instance of the words, “program, project, and activity.” In fact, one can neither find the words “project” nor “activity” in the bill.

Members of Congress should be curious to see what he was actually quoting, but it does not appear to have been the legislation.

The legislation actually says, “Each non-exempt account within a category shall be reduced by a dollar amount calculated by multiplying the enacted level of sequestrable budgetary resources in that account at that time by the uniform percentage necessary to eliminate a breach within that category.”

That does not mean, for example, that if a project costs $2 million, that under sequester it is now cut by 23 percent to $1.54 million.  By our reading, it would mean the overall defense budget would be reduced below its previous baseline to meet the new budget caps.  That might mean some previously planned programs are delayed or cancelled, but it hardly means that every single item on the budget is supposed to be short-funded.

In fact, defense spending under the sequestration will actually rise by 18 percent from 2013 to 2021, as revealed by National Review’s Veronique de Rugy using Congressional Budget Office data.  That occurs after a slight reduction from 2012 to 2013 in the teens of billions.  Hardly the nightmare scenario that the Secretary outlines.

Nonetheless, Panetta is threatening to slash across-the-board every single “program, project, and activity,” when it is actually up to Congress to set up spending levels via the appropriations process within the context of the budget caps starting with Fiscal Year (FY) 2013.

But even if Panetta and the Obama White House were to insist on their odd interpretation of the law, it could easily be modified before FY 2013 without removing the budget caps that Congress previously agreed to.

There may be a better explanation for Panetta’s bombshell announcement earlier this month.  It may have been a threat to scare Republicans on the Supercommittee into supporting a bad deal that included tax increases on producers and job creators during a sharp recession.

Panetta and Obama may be using our service men and women as pawns in their relentless drive to piles taxes on the American people.  If so, that would mean they were willing to put our fighting men and women in jeopardy just to get more private wealth in the government’s control.  And that is simply deplorable.

---

Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government. Follow Bill on Twitter at @BillWilsonALG.

---

Tags: DOD, budget, military men and women To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Obama Administration: Approving Only 35 Percent of Gulf Drilling Plans

Rob Bluey: A new report from a New Orleans-based group reveals that the Obama administration is approving just 35 percent of the oil drilling plans for the Gulf of Mexico so far this year. It is also taking an average of 115 days — nearly four months — to secure approval from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

Those numbers contrast sharply from previous years. This historical average is a 73.4% approval rate. The approval time has nearly doubled; the historical average is 61 days for the government to approve plans.

For plans that require drilling activity, the numbers are even worse. New regulations require all deepwater drilling plans to undergo an environmental assessment process. Those plans have an average approval time of 222 days or more than seven months.

The data were included in the latest release of the Gulf Permit Index from Greater New Orleans Inc. It has monitored this trend since last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The delays have continued for more than 18 months later.

Drilling permits don’t fare much better under the Obama administration either. One sign of hope might be a recent uptick in shallow-water permits. Greater New Orleans Inc. reported:

Deep-water permit issuance continues to lag the monthly average observed in the year prior to the oil spill. Only 5.0 deep-water permits are being issued per month since September 2011, representing a 0.8-permit — or a 14% — monthly reduction from the average of 5.8 permits per month. This number also represents a 2.0-permit — or a 29% — reduction from the historical average of 7.0 permits per month over the past three years.

Shallow-water permit issuance is rising above the historical average. Since September 2011, 8.3 shallow-water permits, on average, were issued. That number represents an increase of 1.2 permits — or 31% — from the monthly average of 7.1 permits per month observed in the year prior to the oil spill. However, this number represents a 6.4-permit — or a 44% — reduction from the historical average of 14.7 permits per month over the past three years.

The slowdown of activity in the Gulf of Mexico is having an impact beyond Louisiana, where one deepwater rig can create 700 jobs locally. Lack of production harms employment across America It also strips much-needed revenue from the federal government, according to Nick Loris, an energy expert at Heritage.

“Allowing access for exploration and creating an efficient regulatory process that allows energy projects to move forward in a timely manner will not only increase revenue through more royalties, leases, and rent,” Loris recently wrote, “it will also create jobs and help lower energy prices in the process.”

---

Tags: BOEMRE, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement, deepwater drilling, drilling permits, energy prices, Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans, oil drilling, oil spill, regulations To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Black Friday Special - Shoppers Meet Occupy Wall Street

A.F. "Tony" Bronco:

---

Tags: Free Wall Street, holiday shopping, Occupy Wall Street, OWS, OWS protesters, thanksgiving, Wal-Mart, A.F. Branco. political cartoon To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!