The Senate resumed consideration of S. 23, the patent reform bill. Votes on amendments are possible today. Yesterday evening, an amendment from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) expressing the senate of the Senate that Congress should pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution failed to get the 60 votes needed to be adopted. The vote was 58-40.
Today the House passed H.R. 4 - The Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act - by a vote of 314- 112 (76 Democrats supporting). This act repealed the job-killing 1099 reporting mandate which required businesses to report to the IRS most business-to-business transactions totaling over $600 in a year from a business. This included all small businesses having to report even purchases from Wal-Mart, Staples, gas stations, etc.
The sponsor of the act Congressman Dan Lungren (R-CA) said: “I am thrilled that H.R. 4 passed with such strong bipartisan support. It is my hope that the Senate will pass this bill without delay. We need to finally provide assurance to small business owners that they will not be subject to this unfair and unnecessary tax reporting burden. The small business community is the backbone of our nation’s economy and our country’s job making machine. Let’s stop imposing obstacles on those who make this country work.”
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), a former small business owner, praised the passage of this Pledge to America legislation "repealing ObamaCare’s job-destroying 1099 paperwork mandate. . . . Two hundred economists and experts have said ObamaCare’s maze of tax hikes, penalties, mandates, and deficit spending are ‘barriers to job growth.’ To help end some of the uncertainty that’s making it harder for small businesses to hire new workers, the House has already voted to repeal the full job-destroying health care law. We have also voted to defund it. By repealing the 1099 mandate, we are continuing to listen to the American people and taking another step towards creating a better environment for job creation in America.”
Yesterday, President Obama signed a bill keeping the government funding for two weeks that cuts spending by $4 billion after it passed both the House and Senate with large bipartisan majorities. Speaking on the Senate floor today, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell observed, “We’ve insisted on shrinking the size of government. And yesterday we delivered, by forcing the first actual cut in government spending in recent memory. While it was just a small, first step, yesterday we showed it’s possible to change the status quo in Washington. Not bad.”
Of course, this is only the beginning, and now it’s time to begin work on a bill to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, since Democrats failed to do so last year. But Republicans don’t run the government, and eyes naturally fell on the president to see if he would lead. Leader McConnell hasn’t seen much initiative from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue yet. He said today, “The White House responded to all this by announcing they wanted to have a meeting. And Republicans are happy to go. But putting a meeting on the schedule doesn’t change the fact that neither the White House nor a single Democrat in Congress has proposed a plan that would allow the government to remain open and that would respond to the voters by reining in spending.”
After he signed the short-term bill yesterday, President Obama said in a statement, “I’m calling on Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress to begin meeting immediately with the Vice President, my Chief of Staff, and Budget Director so we can find common ground on a budget that makes sure we are living within our means.”
Saying that this country must live within its means is an audacious statement coming from a president who championed an $814 billion failed stimulus bill, all of which was paid for with deficit spending. It’s audacious coming from an administration that is leading the country into another consecutive year with a deficit over a trillion dollars. And it’s audacious coming from a White House that proposed a budget for the following fiscal year that grows the debt to $20 trillion in five years and never once in a decade spends less than it’s taking in.
Meanwhile, Democrats, who control the Senate, still have not put forward a budget to deal with the rest of the current fiscal year, while they complain about the budget the House has produced. The New York Times writes today, “Republican leaders said they were already in talks with Democrats and the White House but would take part in budget meetings if they were invited. They noted that the Republican-led House had passed a $61 billion package of cuts covering the remaining seven months of the current fiscal year while the Democratic-controlled Senate had not produced any legislation beyond passing the temporary budget measure drafted by the House. ‘The House’s position is: We passed a bill. It’s out there,’ Speaker John A. Boehner said. ‘And I think it’s time for them to outline for us what’s their position to keep the government funded. We’ve done our work in the House.’”
The Times notes, “Contending with sharp internal splits about how far to go in cutting spending and a reluctance to show their hand, Senate Democrats have not made public any specifics on their ideas for cuts, frustrating Republicans who see themselves as making hard, substantive proposals with no corresponding effort in the Senate.”
As Leader McConnell pointed out, “The fact is, if Democrats had a plan of their own that would cut one dollar in spending I think we would have seen it by now. But we haven’t. Democrats have abdicated all responsibility for their own recklessness over the past two years. They’ve left it to us to do something about it. We made a step in the right direction yesterday after months of resistance on their part. Now we look forward to their plan. It’s time for Democrats to present a serious plan of their own that addresses this crisis. It’s time for Democrats to take the concerns of the American people seriously.”
In Conclusion, lets review the Presidents "Living Within Our Means" statement. And, I will not even revisit the extravagant waste on White House parties, entertainment, vacations, and global trips bowing before world leaders. Lets review:
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| H/T image by Emperor Palpatine |
PRESIDENT OBAMA IN 2009: “[W]e've Got To Get Serious About Starting To Live Within Our Means, instead of leaving debt for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. That's not the responsible way.” (President Obama, Remarks At A Caterpillar Plant, 2/12/09)
CBO ON STIMULUS COST: “When ARRA Was Being Considered, The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) And The Staff Of The Joint Committee On Taxation Estimated That It Would Increase Budget Deficits By $787 Billion Between Fiscal Years 2009 And 2019. CBO Now Estimates That The Total Impact Over The 2009–2019 Period Will Amount To $814 Billion.” (“Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output From July 2010 Through September 2010,” Congressional Budget Office, 11/10)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “We’re Going To Have To Get Serious About Cutting Back On Those Things That Would Be Nice To Have But We Can Do Without. That’s What Families Across The Country Do Every Day – They Live Within Their Means.” (President Obama, Remarks On Unveiling Of The Budget, 2/14/11)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “[T]he Most Important Thing I Can Do As President Is Make Sure That We’re Living Within Our Means, Getting A Budget That Is Sustainable…” (President Obama, Press Conference, 2/15/11)
Table S-14. Federal Government Financing And Debt; Total, Gross Federal Debt
Actual 2010: 13,529 [Billion Dollars]
2011 Estimate: 15,476 [Billion Dollars]
2012 Estimate: 16,654 [Billion Dollars]
2013 Estimate: 17,750 [Billion Dollars]
2014 Estimate: 18,761 [Billion Dollars]
2015 Estimate: 19,776 [Billion Dollars]
2016 Estimate: 20,825 [Billion Dollars]
2017 Estimate: 21,867 [Billion Dollars]
2018 Estimate: 22,924 [Billion Dollars]
2019 Estimate: 24,023 [Billion Dollars]
2020 Estimate: 25,165 [Billion Dollars]
2021 Estimate: 26,346 [Billion Dollars]
(Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Of The U.S. Government Summary Tables, The White House, 2/14/10, P.203)
USA TODAY: “Obama’s Budget Ducks Tough Choices… He Whiffed." "President Obama likes to talk about those ‘Sputnik moments’ when the nation rises to difficult challenges like the one posed by the Soviet space program in the 1950s. On Monday, he had a chance to turn his federal budget proposal into his own such moment. He whiffed. … It's becoming hard not to conclude that Obama doesn't much care about the debt threat or has decided to wait until after the 2012 elections. Either would be a shame, and economically risky.” (Editorial, “Our View: Obama's Budget Ducks Tough Choices,” USA Today, 2/15/11)
THE WASHINGTON POST: “The President Punted. Having been given the chance, the cover and the push by the fiscal commission he created to take bold steps to raise revenue and curb entitlement spending, President Obama, in his fiscal 2012 budget proposal, chose instead to duck. To duck, and to mask some of the ducking with the sort of budgetary gimmicks he once derided.” (Editorial, “President Obama's Budget Kicks The Hard Choices Further Down The Road,” The Washington Post, 2/15/11)
ERSKINE BOWLES, Democratic Chairman Of The Fiscal Commission: “The White House Budget Request Goes ‘Nowhere Near Where They Will Have To Go To Resolve Our Fiscal Nightmare.’” (“Obama Spending Plan Criticized For Avoiding Deficit Commission's Major Proposals,” The Washington Post, 2/14/11)
Tags: US House, US Senate, Washington, D.C., health care law, 1099, small business, Barack Obama, spending, living within our means To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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