It is amazing what can happen in 48 hours. Wednesday morning I was packing up from my trip to Kansas City and penned the now famous blog about John Boehner. The line “Charlie Sheen is now making more sense than John Boehner,” has been picked up and repeated throughout the blogosphere.
USA Today picked up the story and interviewed my friend Amy Kremer of Tea Party Express, who said, “That’s Judson.” She went on to explain her group was trying to work with the GOP in Washington and my comments did not help them.
My friends at Tea Party Express have their strategy. I hope it works I look at things differently. I have a different view of politicians. If you are elected on promises to cut spending, I’m not interested in coming to Washington to drink with you or play golf with you or eat at a chic restaurant with you. I simply want you to do what you said you were going to do.
I was on Jerry Doyle’s radio show yesterday (jerrydoyle.com) and he asked me about the Charlie Sheen quote and if that quote over shadowed the message. Perhaps it did. But it did get the message out. Some people did not like the message or calling Boehner a fool. I have a simple question for those who did not like what I had to say about Boehner.
If not now, when?
If he is not cutting the budget now, when will he?
The GOP came in promising to cut $100 billion from this year’s budget. Remember, this year’s budget was never passed by the last congress. The government has continued to function on continuing resolutions. The GOP quickly waffled on the $100 billion, instead saying they could only cut $32 billion. The Tea Party movement began to complain and that number went up to $61 billion, but Boehner is already hinting that number will not hold when he goes into negotiations with Harry Reid.
The National Debt is now equal to our gross domestic product. Economists tell us that when debt reaches 90% of GDP, it starts to cause serious drag on the economy. We are at 100% and about to shoot past that.
Again, If not now, when?
If Obama’s budget is passed, it will add $1.5 trillion to the debt. That number is assuming tax revenues stay steady and given the very shaky state of the economy that is not a good assumption.
When will Boehner stand strong and stop this insanity?
Some of those who complained about what I said pointed that the GOP only controls the House, not the Senate nor the White House.
This is true, but there is something else that they are not thinking about.
No one can make Boehner and the House appropriate any money. All they have to do is just say no.
If Boehner is not willing to cut the budget now, when will he be?
Cutting $61 billion is only 4% of the projected deficit. The national debt will continue to skyrocket. And in that instance, Charlie Sheen does make more sense than John Boehner.
But when will Boehner decide to stand up and pretend he is a conservative? When will he act? When our debt is 150% of our GDP? Will we be in total economic collapse before he decides something needs to be done?
If Boehner will not act now, as grim as things are now, what will it take?
We are spending hundreds of millions of dollars this year to repair and refurbish mosques around the world. Ignoring the First Amendment issues for a moment, guess what? The Muslims hate us too. Why are we spending hundreds of millions of dollars to repair the religious houses of groups that hate us? Let them hate us in buildings that have leaky roofs and crumbling walls. They can hate us without us paying for it.
When is the GOP leadership going to get it? We are broke. We have to start making major budget cuts now. We cannot wait until next year. Minor cosmetic changes in the budget and symbolic cuts are not going to do.
As of now, the national debt is $14 trillion. If there are no more cuts other than the timid cuts Boehner has said meet his promise to the American people, simply to vote on, the debit will go up by another $1.5 trillion dollars. And that number is based on tax revenue coming in, which with a soft economy is not a good assumption.
Like many in this movement, I am a card carrying Republican. A few days ago, I went to my county GOP convention to vote for the leadership of my county party. But as many people say, “I am a conservative first and a republican second.” The GOP leadership thinks they can get away with business as usual on Capitol Hill. We in the Tea Party movement need to make sure they understand the message. Either cut spending now or we will find people who will.
Sponsored Link:
Permalink Reply by Timothy Taylor on 
Permalink Reply by Marilyn Zenga on Government spending is on cruise control. Big government was initiated in the early 60's and along with it
came the growth of entitlements and social reform. The consequence has been more dependency and less productivity in the social arena. That is not what I want my taxes to continue to do. There really is nothing in place to check on and put the brakes on their spending of our taxes.
They, Big Government, continue to create deficits, print money, sell debt (selling our future, our freedom) to maintain entitlements and programs that are not making sense with the present economic realities.
INVEST??? as our president is promoting?!? Green Energy investment?? Not now!!! Save bloated, dysfunctional programs and pour money into new ones like the current proposed Healthcare??!!! Not now!!! Anyone of us knows that just because you have checks left in your check book doesn't mean there is money in the account. Big Government, your ratings are in the toilet!! SHUT DOWN!! Clean up your waste and allow those that we voted in in November to speak for us so what we want, as far as cutting government spending and avoiding more taxation of the working middleclass goes, can happen.
I want to keep my hard earned money in my pocket so I can clear my debt and invest and create wealth locally for and with those around me.
Permalink Reply by Chris Jurrians on Judson, I am with you on this one. Regardless of people telling me, give Boehner a chance, let him get his feet wet, yadda, yadda, yadda...Well people, the time is now!!!! The Boehner's of this world need to stand up and say enough is enough.
Note to John Boehner....Grow a set of stones, do what you SAID you were going to do when you were elected, and don't negotiate. Remember...
You can't negotiate with terrorists, and that is exactly what Harry Reid is, a terrorist.
Permalink Reply by cgtexas on 
Permalink Reply by Ron Boyer on Permalink Reply by David V. Ulm on 
Permalink Reply by bremmermandrake on 365 billion going into our economy in stead of going out doing Washington math this would cut the budget by 730 billion per year. how you ask One simple word DRILL.
Hear is my story you will see it around so get use to it.
People need to wake up to what the real problem is with our economy, and that problem is oil. Many people have fallen under the spell of the oil speculators and the peak oil lie.
Yes, at one time in history it looked as though oil would peak in the 70’s but as technology progress this peak oil theory is only a speculators wet dream that he needs to go telling everyone about in order to keep reliving the experience.
As I peck this out, we use 20, million barrels of oil a day, the price just hit $104 a barrel so at the present price of oil and our consumption rate we are spending one billion eight hundred million per day on oil.
Last checked the price of oil at the pump was over four dollars per gallon. When you fill up your autos gas tank with a 20-gallon tank it will cost you 83.40.
If you earn minimum wage of $7.25 an hour for a 40-hour week you earn $290 now you remove social security, and Medicare payments. 7.65%.
In an area where they have fed, state, local, and county tax, we will low ball that to 10 % so we take the $290 you earned remove the FICA, and other taxes of 17.25% that will be 50.03.
You use a tank of gas a week because you live in an area where there is no public transit; the wear and tear on your vehicle comes to around one hundred eighty-five dollars a week using the government standard deduction.
Your Auto insurance is roughly around $12. Per week if you are a good driver with a car older than ten years.
So let us do a little math
You earn $290.00
Subtotal 239.97
Subtotal 227.97
Subtotal 42.97
Minus Gas 83.40
________________________________
Now you finish your first job at minimum wage and you owe $40.43 just for transportation to and from work now you need to start your second minimum wage job, of which you will work the first 5.5 hours just to pay for transportation to and from work for the first job.
Between the price of oil, and the taxes, you are working one job just to give the money to the governments.
Our federal government and the governments they buy oil from with billions of dollars of our tax money.
If we start drilling, it will still take time before we become nondependent, but as we drill, we become less dependent.
Lower fuel equals lower prices on everything, taxes would be lowered we will save over a billion dollars a day that will go into the our economy and China yes they are buying up US oil and natural gas land buy the thousands of ache at a clip.
This is the main reason we need to start drilling, before those fatherless sons of Satan in Washington allowing all our natural resources sold at garage sale prices keeping us dependent.
We the people own the resource we are the government, screw the EPA, and all the other plots to destroy the United States economy.
For our economic freedom and our liberty we need to drill deep vast and repeatedly otherwise all of us who are working two jobs could just quit working live off the government and redistribute the wealth until the whole world implodes.
1 billion dollars a day in the economy 365 days a year = $365000000000.in our economy not our enemies and we will not be held hostage to the despots of the world.
Permalink Reply by Robert L. Voelsing Sr. on Whether I agree or disagree,,,,,,the one thing that upsets me the most is that we as taxpayers are re-building mosques all over the world,,,,,but are any muslim nations rebuilding OUR roads or bridges that are falling apart,,,,,let alone OUR churches & temples ,??? Gee Whiz boys & girls ,,,I wonder WHY NOT??? It is simple,,,,in my opinion,,Barack HUSSEIN Obama is now & always has been a MUSLIM. The ONLY reason he ever attended Wright's racist church is the the First Spender told him that if BHO ever wanted to run for so much as 'Dog Catcher',,,he had better prove to the media that he's Christian,,because no one in this country will elect a muslim for anything after the muslims attacked us on 9 - 11.
NOT RACIST,,,NOT VIOLENT,,,just NOT SILENT!!!
Permalink Reply by Deanna Zohar on I went into the gas station today and
asked for five dollars worth of gas.....
The clerk farted and gave me a receipt.
Permalink Reply by Royce Latham on This was sent to me by Walter E Williams:
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/10/HowToControlCongress
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2010
How To Control Congress
Let's assume that each of our 535 congressmen cares about the destructive impact of deficits and debt on the future of our country. Regardless of party, congressmen face enormous lobbying pressures and awards to spend more and little or no pressure and awards to spend less. The nation's founders would be horrified by today's congressional spending that consumes 25 percent of our GDP. Contrast that to the years 1787 to the 1920s when federal government spending never exceeded 4 percent of our GDP except in wartime. Today, federal, state and local government consumes 43 percent of what Americans produce each year. The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation computes that the average taxpayer is forced to work from Jan. 1 to mid-April to pay federal, state and local taxes. If he were taxed enough to pay the $1.5 trillion federal deficit, he'd be forced to work until mid-May.
Tax revenue is not the problem. The federal government has collected just about 20 percent of the nation's GDP almost every year since 1960. Federal spending has exceeded revenue for most of that period and has taken an unprecedented leap since 2008 to produce today's massive deficit. Since federal spending is the problem, that's where our focus should be.
Cutting spending is politically challenging. Every spending constituency sees its handout as vital, whether it's Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid recipients or farmers, poor people, educators or the military. It's easy for congressmen to say yes to these spending constituencies because whether it's Democrats or Republicans in control, they face no hard and fast bottom line.
The bottom line that Americans need is a constitutional amendment limiting congressional spending to some fraction, say 20 percent, of the GDP. That limit could be exceeded only if the president declared a state of emergency along with a two-thirds vote of approval in both houses of Congress. Each year of a declared state of emergency would require another two-thirds vote in each house.
During the early ‘80s, I was a member of the National Tax Limitation Committee's distinguished blue-ribbon drafting committee that included notables such as Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Paul McCracken, Bill Niskanen, Craig Stubblebine, Robert Bork, Aaron Wildavsky, Robert Nisbet, Robert Carleson and others. We drafted a Balanced Budget/Spending Limitation amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Senate passed that amendment on Aug. 4, 1982, by a vote of 69 to 31, two more than the two-thirds vote required for approval of a constitutional amendment. The vote was bipartisan: 47 Republicans, 21 Democrats and 1 Independent voted for the amendment.
It was a different story in the House of Representatives. Its leadership, under Tip O'Neill tried to prevent a vote on the amendment; however, a discharge petition forced a vote on it. While the amendment was approved by a majority (236 to 187), it did not meet the two-thirds required by Article V of the Constitution. The vote was again bipartisan: 167 Republicans, 69 Democrats. The amendment can be found in Milton and Rose Friedman's "Tyranny of the Status Quo."
The benefit of a balanced budget/spending limitation amendment is that it would give Congress a bottom line just as we in the private sector have a bottom line. Congress would be forced to play one spending constituency off against another, rather than, as it does today, satisfy most spending constituents and pass the buck to the rest of us and future generations in the forms of federal deficits and debt.
The 1980s discussions settled on giving Congress a spending limit of 18 or 20 percent of our GDP. I thought a 10 percent limit was better. When queried by a reporter as to why 10 percent, I told him that if 10 percent is good enough for the Baptist Church, it ought to be good enough for Congress.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
Permalink Reply by Jessica Hughes on © 2013 Created by Judson Phillips.
