It’s the Spending, Stupid

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Barack Obama, who seemingly has remained in campaign mode since first entering public life, continues to insist House Republicans obey his command to hike tax rates on upper income earners. If Republicans do note cede to his demands, Obama is willing to let everyone’s taxes go up and to cut one trillion dollars from the budget, a disproportionate amount of which will come from defense.
Were Obama sincerely interested in solving America’s fiscal dilemma, this would not be his stance.

He continues to make campaign appearances claiming that these higher tax rates are needed to lower the U.S. deficit and cut the national debt.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The amount of revenue collected by the IRS as a result of such a tax rate increase would fund U.S. federal spending for less than nine days.

According to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office, at current spending levels the federal government is borrowing forty six cents of every dollar it spends. Through the first two months of fiscal year 2013 the government is already almost $300 billion in debt.

Medicare, Social Security and interest on the debt are the biggest drivers of the debt. The true costs of Obamacare have yet to be revealed, but given the U.S. federal government’s track record it is safe to predict that it will be far more expensive than projected and finish in the red every year.

Collecting eight days’ worth of spending from upper level incomes will do nothing to affect the level of spending on any of these programs.

Additionally, Obama willfully ignores that at current tax rates, revenues are up by thirty billion dollars over last year.

Obama, his “progressive” political allies and the obedient lapdogs within the “progressive” Party Pravda continue to foster the notion that raising tax rates on the highest income earners, those who already pay forty percent of all income tax revenue, will be a panacea, the magical elixir needed to solve America’s fiscal woes.

They also continue to lay the blame for today’s deficits on former President George W. Bush. Bush’s highest deficit was $438 billion during his last year in office. Obama’s government is poised to post another $1 trillion deficit, which will mark the fifth straight year of $1 trillion or more deficits.

America’s current financial predicament is the result of wasteful “progressive” spending on big government socialist programs.

That is the reason.

America’s debt and deficit dilemmas can only be solved through reduced spending. If and when the United States falls off a fiscal cliff or receives another credit downgrade, it will be because of “progressives”, not Conservatives.

The conversation should be about how to cut spending, not about how to increase taxes.

Political Party or media employer notwithstanding, anyone who says differently is being intellectually dishonest.

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/

Virginia Moves to Make Card-Check Unconstitutional

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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

(CNSNews.com) – Virginia is moving towards making card-check – the controversial union proposal to replace secret-ballot elections with simple card-signing petitions – unconstitutional in the state.

The effort is led by State Sen. Bryce Reeves (R-Spotsylvania) who said that “no citizen” should be denied the ability to vote by secret ballot.

“It’s really a simple bill,” Reeves told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday. “It’s there to improve voter integrity and privacy. I personally believe that no citizen should be forced to reveal how they voted in any election be it federal, state, local, or even a union election.”

The proposed amendment would add a section to Virginia’s Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right to a secret ballot election in all cases, even in the case of a union election.

The proposal is intended to block so-called card check legislation that failed to pass Congress two years ago. That bill, which remains a Democratic and union priority, would have allowed unions to organize a workplace simply by getting a majority of workers to sign union cards, avoiding the need for a secret-ballot election where both the union and the business owners can compete for workers’ votes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Shootings: Mike Huckabee Responds to the Question of ‘How Could God Let This Happen?’ (+video)

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On Your World this afternoon, Mike Huckabee sat down with Neil Cavuto to discuss the horror that unfolded this morning in Newtown, Conn. A 20-year-old man fatally shot 20 children, six adults and himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He also shot his mother, a kindergarten teacher at the school, at their house before the rampage.

Cavuto pointed out that after tragedies like this, many people ask, “How could God let this happen?”

See Huckabee’s answer, and the full discussion with Neil Cavuto:

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Administration’s ‘Deferred Action’ Program Halts 102,000 Deportations

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photo credit: z2amiller

The administration has issued stays of deportation for 102,965 illegal immigrants under President Obama’s new non-deportation policy, officials announced Friday.

Another 157,151 applications are still under review under the policy, officially known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which grants a tentative legal status to illegal immigrants who qualify — though it does not grant them a path to citizenship.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Homeland Security branch that administers the program, said 12,014 applications were rejected off the bat, while as many as 177,000 more applications are having their biometric data taken before entering the final review.

Mr. Obama announced the policy in June, saying he would no longer deport illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children as long as they haven’t committed any major crimes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Bloomberg News Hid Conflicting Fiscal-Cliff Poll Numbers, Pushed Results Favorable to Obama

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A poll conducted last week by an Iowa-based firm showed Americans are conflicted about whether or not to support raising tax rates on wealthy Americans to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff.” But that’s not how Bloomberg News, which commissioned the poll, reported the results Thursday.

In a story headlined “Americans Back Obama Tax-Rate Boost Tied to Entitlements,” Bloomberg reported that the poll showed most Americans support President Barack Obama’s insistence on increasing taxes for high-income earners.

“A majority of Americans say President Barack Obama is right to demand that tax-rate increases for the highest earners be a precondition for a budget deal that cuts U.S. entitlement programs,” the story, written by reporter Julie Hirschfeld Davis, began.

The poll asked respondents, “President Obama has said he will not negotiate with Republicans on cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare, until they agree to raise tax rates on the wealthy. Do you think he is right or wrong to insist on that as a precondition to broader negotiations?”

As Bloomberg reported in its story, 58 percent percent of respondents indicated that the president was “right” to insist on the precondition, while 37 percent said he was “wrong.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Americans for Prosperity Files Police Complaint Over Tent Destruction

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On Thursday the conservative group Americans for Prosperity filed a police complaint after union activists destroyed a tent they had set up in Lansing, Mich., Fox News reported.

One of those inside the tent at the time it was destroyed told Greta van Susteren that two knife-wielding men in ski masks entered the tent and began cutting the canvas straps that tethered the tent to the ground.

According to the witness, rampaging union supporters overturned tables with hot coffee.

“It was scary,” she said.

According to an article at Talking Points Memo, AFP spokeswoman Annie Patnaude said protesters “threatened to blow up propane tanks inside the tent, potentially creating a deadly conflagration.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: Solar Firms Under Investigation for Stimulus Swindle

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photo credit: mountain/ash

The nation’s three most productive solar installation firms are under investigation for allegedly exaggerating business costs to get larger cash payments through a federal stimulus program.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general is asking SolarCity, SunRun and Sungevity to justify the more than $500 million in federal grants and tax credits they got for their work, according to The Washington Post.

The companies in question received payments through Treasury’s 1603 program, which was designed to increase renewable energy use.

The cash grant program pays installers up to 30 percent of the project cost. So by inflating business expenses, the firms would be eligible for a larger payout.

The firms might have to repay the government if found to have abused the program and could face other penalties.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Troops to Syrian Border

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photo credit: CJCS

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, TURKEY — The United States authorized on Friday the deployment of 400 troops for two Patriot missile-defense batteries along Turkey’s border with Syria, a move that could put American forces near the front lines of the Arab country’s escalating civil war.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta signed the order authorizing the deployment of the batteries Friday morning while flying from Kabul to this military base in southern Turkey.

Speaking to U.S. airmen inside a hangar, Panetta said the crisis in Syria has made this base, roughly 60 miles from Syria, and others in the region exceptionally important.

“This is a challenging time, a critical time,” Panetta said. “You are in a critical place doing a critical task.”

Pentagon press secretary George Little told reporters the U.S. troops operating the Patriots will be tasked with a defensive mission only. The surface-to-air missiles could technically be used to enforce a no-fly zone over northern Syria, but NATO officials have stressed that they are not gearing up for such a move, which would mark a sharp escalation in the West’s involvement in Syria’s conflict.

Read more from this story HERE.

Surrender: McConnell Prepares to Raise the White Flag on Taxes

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is privately signaling that Senate Republicans are open to a strategy that would effectively allow the Bush-era tax rates for high earners to expire in order to avert the year-end fiscal cliff.

At a dinner with lobbyists Thursday night, McConnell disclosed that Senate Republicans were eyeing a so-called “two-bill strategy” increasingly being pushed by lawmakers in both parties, according to multiple sources in the room.

The idea would be to advance two bills, giving each party an opportunity to vote on the approach they favored, but only one would be signed into law: The extension of the Bush-era rates for families who earn less than $250,000 annually.

But House Republicans haven’t bought into this scenario yet, the latest divide between the House and Senate GOP in the already tense negotiations.

Under one possible scenario, the House would take up a Senate-passed bill to extend the Bush-era rates for all but the top 2 percent of wage earners and increase taxes on capital gains and dividends from 15 percent to 20 percent, sending that to President Barack Obama’s desk on the backs of Democratic votes in the House.

Read more from this story HERE.

Family of Slain Border Agent Brian Terry Sues Federal Officials Over ‘Fast and Furious’

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PHOENIX (TheBlaze/AP) — The family of a slain Border Patrol agent has sued federal officials over the botched “Fast and Furious” gun operation.

Agent Brian Terry was mortally wounded on Dec. 14, 2010, in a firefight north of the Arizona-Mexico border between U.S. agents and five men who had sneaked into the country to rob marijuana smugglers.

Federal authorities conducting “Fast and Furious” have faced tough criticism for allowing suspected straw gun buyers for a smuggling ring to walk away from gun shops in Arizona with weapons, rather than arrest them and seize weapons. Further, there were no solid tracking mechanisms to trace the guns once they crossed into Mexico.

The lawsuit filed Thursday and made publicly available on Friday came from Terry’s parents against six managers and investigators for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The family also sued a federal prosecutor who had previously handled the case but is no longer on it, and the owner of the gun store where two rifles found in the firefight’s aftermath were bought.

Read more from this story HERE.