House Passes Bill Requiring Obama Submit Plan To Balance Budget

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On Wednesday, the House passed legislation that demands President Barack Obama produce a balanced budget or submit a supplemental budget plan by April 1, 2013 that outlines how and in what fiscal year he aims to achieve a balanced budget.

The Require a PLAN Act passed the House in a 253-167 vote, with 26 Democrats supporting the legisation.

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), the fiscal conservative who introduced the Require a PLAN Act, said, “there is no way our nation can secure a future of growth and opportunity if the spending habits in Washington are allowed to continue to produce massive deficits while chasing every higher spending with ever higher taxes.”

“By passing the Require a PLAN Act, the House of Representatives is taking the next step in making sure Washington puts in place a plan to balance the budget so that we can begin to pay off the debt,” Price said. “All we are asking of President Obama today is that he tell the American people when and how he would balance the budget.”

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Lew’s Blues:
 GOP probing Jack Lew’s failure to respond to Medicare insolvency warnings

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Photo Credit: APThe Office of Management and Budget has declined to cooperate with a Republican inquiry into whether treasury secretary nominee Jack Lew was complicit in violating federal Medicare law.

Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee are probing Lew’s involvement in the administration’s alleged failure to respond to annual warnings about Medicare’s pending insolvency.

The administration is required by law to submit legislation to address the Medicare funding crisis within 15 days after a funding warning is issued by the Medicare Trustees.

According to Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee, the Obama administration has not responded to the last four years of funding warnings, including during 2010 and 2011 when Lew was director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The senators are requesting a detailed legislative proposal addressing the current Medicare funding warnings as well as all documents received or written by Lew regarding these warnings.

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Rubio To Give Bilingual Response To Obama’s SOTU

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In an attempt to broaden the Republican Party’s appeal to minorities, particularly Hispanics, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio will deliver the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday in both English and Spanish.

In announcing Rubio’s selection, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Rubio’s “family’s story is a testament to the promise and greatness of America,” and “he’ll deliver a GOP address that speaks from the heart to the hopes and dreams of the middle class; to our party’s commitment to life and liberty; and to the unlimited potential of America when government is limited and effective.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Rubio was a “natural choice.”

“Marco’s own experience as the child of immigrants has always informed his belief in limited government and free enterprise, which is why he has helped lead the fight against out-of-control spending and job-destroying tax hikes that continue to hold our economy back and stifle opportunity for millions,” McConnell said.

Rubio said he would discuss in his response how “limited government and free enterprise have helped make my family’s dreams come true in America” and lay out the “Republican case of how our ideas can help people close the gap between their dreams and the opportunities to realize them.”

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Flashback: Obama Interior Nominee Sally Jewell Interview On ‘Green Business’

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Photo Credit: APRecreational Equipment Inc., the outdoor retailer and the country’s largest consumer cooperative, plans to open its first distribution center on the East Coast–in Bedford, Pa.–at the end of November. REI President and Chief Executive Sally Jewell recently spoke with Forbes.com about the company’s environmental policy, her early career working for Big Oil and why environmentally friendly REI is staying out of the debate in Congress over climate change. (In 2005, Forbes profiled Jewell–see “Uphill Battle.” )

Forbes.com: REI has a multi-pronged environmental strategy–you buy clean power, build green buildings and use green packaging, just to name a few examples. Environmentally speaking, what is the company most focused on right now?

Sally Jewell: We like to say that the best electron is the one you don’t use. One of the key things that we are working on very extensively is reducing energy consumption. We have in our plans, our 2008 budget, to convert between 15 and 20 stores to solar. That won’t take 100% of the energy needs of those stores, but it will be 15% to 30% depending on the market.

Many businesses are investing in carbon-offset projects in developing countries, but REI buys renewable energy credits, sometimes called “green tags,” to promote the use of clean energy here in the U.S. Why?

We consider the use of carbon offsets, or green tags, to be kind of the last resort, where we don’t have an opportunity to directly influence the emissions of carbon. [ The company’s adventure-travel division, REI Adventures, uses green tags to offset carbon emissions.] We offset about 30% of our greenhouse gas footprint by actually buying [renewable] power. That’s better and more direct than buying green tags.

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The Civil War Has Begun

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Photo Credit: BreitbartWhen a person amasses too much power, they often believe they are indestructible.

What Karl Rove and company did last week in the New York Times, claiming that their new “Conservative Victory Project” would cure the ills of a disappointing campaign cycle, is laughable. The so-called “Conservative Victory Project” is nothing more than an attempt by establishment Republicans to cull the conservative movement. Why does Rove think he has a monopoly on wanting to win?

At least Karl Rove and company are finally out front with their disdain for the conservative movement, and I am thankful for it. The battle lines are finally drawn, and conservatives should look at the New York Times article as our Lexington and Concord. This battle will be a long, hard slog against the establishment.

Just this week, a Rove henchman attacked conservative leader Brent Bozell. But we will prevail, because we actually believe in core principles and a cause greater than our egos and money.

Karl Rove and his cabal would sell out on any issue if it means more power in the short-term, for they don’t stand for anything. Let’s just look at Rove’s record of accomplishments for Big Government causes.

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Panetta To Propose Military Pay Cut After Obama Raised Federal Officials Pay

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Photo Credit: US Army AfricaOutgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reportedly believes the military should receive a pay cut in order to respond to the budget cuts facing the Pentagon — a position that might strengthen the Republican push to reverse President Obama’s executive order raising the salary of Vice President Joe Biden and other federal officials.

“Panetta will recommend to Congress that military salaries be limited to a one percent increase in 2014,” CNN reports, explaining that Panetta is “effectively decreasing troop salaries next year . . . The decision comes as the secretary is stepping up the rhetoric about dire cuts at the Pentagon if sequestration goes into effect.”

The debate about sequestration did not stop Obama from ending a pay freeze for some government officials, effectively authorizing a pay raise that costs $11 billion.

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Hagel Endorsed By Communist Party USA

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Photo Credit: WNDAfter reportedly receiving support from Iran, Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s defense secretary nominee, has yet another endorsement to add to his resume, this one coming from the Communist Party USA.

People’s World, the Communist Party USA’s official magazine, touted Hagel as “represent[ing] the more sober elements who have called in our national discourse for rejection of the old cold war tactics, the unilateralism and the continual push for wars all over the world.”

The magazine’s labor editor, John Wojcik, slammed the ”neocon” U.S. Senate for trying to “force Hagel to disavow his opposition to what they call the ‘successful’ surges in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

A People’s World blast email further lamented Hagel “is still the subject of controversy due to some mild criticism he made of the State of Israel.”

Wojcik contended “it was the U.S. Senate, not President Obama’s nominee, Chuck Hagel, that fell down on the job at the hearings.” “It was allowed to become a place for right-wing grandstanding and unacceptable efforts to rewrite history,” he continued.

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Postal Service to Cut Saturday Mail

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Photo Credit: ABC OTUS NewsThe financially struggling U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to disburse packages six days a week, an apparent end-run around an unaccommodating Congress.
The service expects the Saturday mail cutback to begin the week of Aug. 5 and to save about $2 billion annually, said Postmaster General and CEO Patrick R. Donahoe.

“Our financial condition is urgent,” Donahoe told a press conference.

The move accentuates one of the agency’s strong points — package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet services.

Under the new plan, mail would be delivered to homes and businesses only from Monday through Friday, but would still be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays. Post offices now open on Saturdays would remain open on Saturdays.

Over the past several years, the Postal Service has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages — and it repeatedly but unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to approve the move. Though an independent agency, the service gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.

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CBO: Interest On Debt Snowballing

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Photo Credit: PoliticoBehind the fine print of new budget estimates released Tuesday is a growing — some say brutal — competition between discretionary spending by Congress and fixed interest payments owed on the growing government debt.

Indeed, the steady increase in annual interest costs is a surprisingly big reason why the Congressional Budget Office sees deficits rising in the second half of the coming decade.

Accumulated interest payments from 2014 through 2018 are $1.76 trillion under CBO’s new baseline. Interest payments for the second five years are more than double that or about $3.64 trillion.

The growth takes place in a period when CBO is forecasting a steady ratcheting down on annual appropriations in hopes of reducing future deficits. On top of cuts enacted in 2011, the new baseline assumes that a new round of across-the-board cuts scheduled for March 1 will go into effect.

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Study: Opinions on Climate Change Rise and Fall With the Temperature

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Photo Credit: US NewsAmericans’ opinions on climate change blow with the wind—with more concern shown in years that are much warmer or much colder than normal—according to a new study released Tuesday.

Five of the nation’s top newspapers were also more likely to publish opinion pieces that showed “belief” in climate change during years that were colder or warmer than normal. Previous studies have suggested that people are more likely to believe in or “show worry” about global warming when the weather is particularly bad, but the study, published in the journal Climatic Change, is the largest to date and uses data from 1990 to 2010, a much longer time period than previous studies.

“I’m not surprised by the results judging by how pervasive these opinions were in the polls,” says study author Simon Donner, of the University of British Columbia’s department of geography. “I think certainly on a public understanding of science issue it’s a problem. Even if the planet is warming, we’re going to have cold years.”

Donner says that newspapers were more likely to publish opinion pieces about climate change during heat waves in an attempt to make the connection between day-to-day weather and climate. Climate change is not a “breaking story,” according to Donner.

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