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Obama’s Money Plans Backed by Communists

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The Communist Party USA is backing Barack Obama’s position on the coming fiscal cliff, and claims its economic program “will unfold in the coming year” with the reelection of Obama and continued Democrat control of the U.S. Senate.

The statement came from Joelle Fishman, chairwoman of the Connecticut Communist Party, during a recent conference call on the upcoming fiscal cliff.

The conference call titled, “Don’t Bargain with People’s Lives” featured an economic report by CPUSA national vice-chair Jarvis Tanner, who said Obama’s demands in the fiscal cliff debate are exactly what the country needs.

Republicans have said any revenue increases must be accompanied by spending cuts. However, Obama has countered by saying he wants Congress to raise taxes more, extend unemployment benefits beyond the current 99 week limit, pass an additional $50 billion in stimulus spending, and grant him authority to raise the debt limit whenever he wants.

Tanner says the president’s position shows that unlike the Republicans, he is making a “serious proposal” and he is backing Obama’s proposals.

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Liberals Suggest that Obama Mint Two Trillion Dollar Coins to End Fiscal Crisis

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If President Obama wants to avoid an economic calamity next year, he could always show up at a press conference bearing two shiny platinum coins, worth… $1 trillion apiece.

Okay, that sounds utterly insane. But ever since last year, some economists and legal scholars have suggested that the “platinum coin option” is one way to defuse a crisis if Congress can’t or won’t lift the debt ceiling soon. At least in theory.

The U.S. government is, after all, facing a real problem. The Treasury Department will hit its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit by next February at the latest. Unless Congress reaches an agreement to raise that borrowing limit, the government will no longer be able to borrow enough money to pay all its bills.

Last year, Republicans in Congress resisted lifting the debt ceiling until the last minute — and then only in exchange for spending cuts. Panic ensued. So what happens if there’s another showdown this year?

Enter the platinum coins. Thanks to an odd loophole in current law, the U.S. Treasury is technically allowed to mint as many coins made of platinum as it wants and can assign them whatever value it pleases.

Under this scenario, the U.S. Mint would produce (say) a pair of trillion-dollar platinum coins. The president orders the coins to be deposited at the Federal Reserve. The Fed then moves this money into Treasury’s accounts. And just like that, Treasury suddenly has an extra $2 trillion to pay off its obligations for the next two years — without needing to issue new debt. The ceiling is no longer an issue.

Read more from this story HERE.

Deposed GOP Lawmaker Suggests He Could Vote Against Boehner As Speaker (+video)

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photo credit: gage skidmore

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) suggested Friday he might not support Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) for Speaker.

“Well, right now I’m not very happy with the Speaker so let’s see what happens over the next several weeks, let’s put it that way,” Amash said.

Amash is one of four House Republicans removed from their plum committee posts this week by Boehner.

The move has triggered opposition from outside conservative groups, some of whom have launched efforts to replace Boehner as Speaker. Within the GOP conference, the response has been more muted.

In an interview with CNN, Amash refused to say whether he would support Boehner for another term as Speaker.

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Boehner Orchestrating the GOP’s Demise

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photo credit: donkeyhotey

It’s a contest of wills and guess who is winning? President Obama, of course. And that’s because the president is up against the GOP’s equivalent of Churchill’s “Boneless Wonder,” Speaker John Boehner. Matched against the president, Boehner is making Ned Beatty’s hapless character from the classic movie Deliverance look downright gritty.

Boehner the Boneless Wonder’s beta dog routine is doing much to deep-six the Party of Lincoln. Hyperbole? Don’t grumpy grassroots conservatives grouse incessantly that establishment Republicans are screwing the — well, putting it more politely, screwing it up and that the Grand Old Party will go the way of the pterodactyl?

For the insulated tin-eared prowlers of the halls of Congress (Boehner being chief), hear this: The times, they have a-changed — radically so. The context is dramatically different today than America before the Hugo Chavez-in-chief wanna-be in the White House, the august and empurpled Barack Hussein Obama, took the nation’s reins (“On Dancer, on Comet, on Boehner!)

As of this writing, there’s been no stout opposition — no bold proclamation of principles, no declaration of a fight for limited government and liberty — from the speaker in the teeth of the president’s insistence to tax the lights out of “rich” Americans (and, shhh!, every other working American, too, eventually). Boehner and his lackey GOP colleagues remind the history-minded of the French in the face of the Nazi blitzkrieg: throw up those white flags before the speaker’s perfect hair is mussed.

As Dana Milbank opines in The Washington Post: “One of Boehner’s lieutenants, Pete Roskam of Illinois, stepped to the microphones, essentially pleading for the president to show mercy. ‘President Obama has an unbelievable opportunity to be a transformational president — that is, to bring the country together,’ he said. ‘Or he can devolve into zero-sum-game politics, where he wins and other people lose.'”

Read more from this article HERE.

DeMint Takes Parting Shot at Boehner (+video)

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Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who shocked Washington on Thursday with the announcement that he would resign his Senate seat in January to become president of the the Heritage Foundation, sent a parting shot at Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) over the “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

“I’m not with Boehner,” DeMint said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” “This government doesn’t need any more money, this country needs less government.”

House Republican leaders on Monday proposed a counteroffer to President Obama in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations. The proposal would reduce spending by $2.2 trillion through a combination of spending cuts and entitlement reforms, and would produce $800 billion in new revenue without raising tax rates, although the plan doesn’t specify how.

Two high-profile conservative groups lashed out at the GOP offer, one of which was the Heritage Action for America, a sister organization to the Heritage Foundation.

“Republicans were reelected in the House to stop Pres. Obama’s agenda, not figure out creative ways to fund it,” Heritage Action for America communications director Dan Holler told The Hill in an email.

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Limbaugh Rips GOP Leadership: They Gave ‘A Seminar On How To Surrender’

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Rush Limbaugh took a moment on Wednesday to speak about the joint press conference held by the “so-called Republican leadership” — comprised of House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and several others. Criticizing the party’s acquiescing on the issue of tax increases on the wealthy, Limbaugh said the Republicans have “conceded.”

“I don’t know why, but they were smiling,” Limbaugh said. “What we got today was a seminar on how to surrender. It was weak. The Republicans have conceded the language, they have conceded the silly notion of baseline budgeting.”

To his point about the language, Limbaugh said that now “deductions are loopholes,” which sets up the premise that 100 percent of income is subject to taxation. The bottom line: “All money is Washington’s.”

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Video: Sarah Palin Hammers Susan Rice, Jay Carney, Obama

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Sarah Palin appeared on the last “On the Record” to break down simply and aggressively the Obama administration’s missteps, especially its lack of transparency.

Palin also discusses the impending “fiscal cliff” and Newt Gingrich’s recent criticism of Obama’s approach to the impending deadline.

She also criticizes the use of the term “fiscal cliff,” stating that the United States has already gone over the cliff, long ago. The only question is “how hard are we going to thump” at the bottom of the cliff:

Brain-Lock Inside the Beltway: the GOP agonizes about the anti-tax pledge and Democrats do nothing.

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photo credit: gage skidmore

It’s at times like this I’m ashamed to admit I live inside the Beltway.

Well, that’s probably not specific enough, since I’m usually ashamed to admit I live inside the Beltway.

Still, the second you try to explain the stupidity of this “fiscal cliff” fiasco to a normal person, it makes William F. Buckley’s famous declaration that he’d rather be governed by the first few hundred people listed in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard seem all the more reasonable.

While there are some responsible politicians and policymakers in Washington, if you look at the whole place collectively, Uncle Sam starts to look like a junkie. The logic of addiction dictates that you make a deal that allows you to avoid all of your problems now and enjoy a quick high in exchange for a painful confrontation with reality down the road.

Almost exactly a year ago, during the famed debt-ceiling negotiations, Speaker of the House John Boehner boasted that he’d forced tough concessions from the Democrats, achieving the first real cut in government spending in ages. He claimed his “real, enforceable cut” amounted to $7 billion for fiscal year 2012. The Congressional Budget Office objected, saying the real savings were closer to $1 billion.

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Debt Talks Could Redefine US Senate Races

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photo credit: donkeyhotey

Republican senators could find themselves with primary challenges in 2014 depending on how they handle the debt talks, a conservative group is threatening.

“The fiscal cliff negotiations and debt ceiling negotiations are going to define the primaries a lot better afterwards,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola told The Hill.

The deep-pocketed, fiscally conservative group has been the biggest outside player in GOP primaries in recent years. They were a major factor in helping Sen.-elect Ted Cruz (R-Texas) win his primary, and gave Indiana Secretary of State Richard Mourdock (R) a big boost in his victory over Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).

Chocola emphasized that he has “no idea” who the Club will target next year, and said much depends “on what happens with the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling” as well as previous votes.

“If Republicans vote for something that raises taxes, doesn’t do any entitlement reform or spending cuts, does nothing to actually address our fiscal challenges every one of them is going to have a problem and we’re the least of their problems, they’ll have primaries everywhere,” he warned. “This is an important test for all Republicans: Whether they go along and accomplish nothing or stand up and try to solve our problems.”

Read more from this story HERE.