A sustainable economic plan

While driving home from Washington D.C. yesterday, I had the opportunity to listen to lots of talk radio and got some wonderful ideas for some blog posts.  I'll share more about my trip at another time, but one thing I find it important to write about is the looming default of American credit and talks to corral our spending.

Mark Levin outlined, on my drive home, an important message to Republicans in the deal-making process.  While Republicans are attempting to make strides to ensure a brighter American future in negotiations with the President, Levin offers this:

"We all know where the country is headed, we all know what the problem is.  We all know that the Tea Party movement is not only right, but it's the only thing saving this nation.  So the paradox is, that it's treated as some small, insignificant force, when in fact they are urging the only way out.  Another paradox; in order to change Washington, George [Will], you gotta change Washington.  Right?  And so what the Tea Party movement is trying to do, what the Reagan Revolution is trying to do and what the conservatives in the conservative movement have been hoping and trying to do is to reverse course. You can't reverse course without reversing course.  You can't slash spending without slashing spending.  In other words, talk is cheap and now it's time to act."

The American people should not be satisfied with a clandestine deal involving a minimal reduction in spending in exchange for an expansion in our already-crippling debt.  We need a balanced budget, lower taxes, and a stable economy.   We the people are engaged with the political process and will not settle for the selling of our future and a mortgage of our children's future.  We want the Republican party to be the people's advocate in Washington, D.C., and we sent that message loud and clear in November of 2010 and we will do so again in November of 2012.  But if those for fiscal responsibility haven't found an advocate in D.C. by this upcoming election cycle, we'll send in a new round of even-more-conservative men and women to Capitol Hill.

Obama, who was a Constitutional Law professor at the University of Chicago, has said he will veto the Tea Party-backed plan and balanced budget amendment.  For those that aren't familiar with the process, a Constitutional amendment must pass both the House and the Senate by a 2/3 majority and would then need to be ratified by 3/4 of the states.  Missing from this process, as a Constitutional Law professor should probably be able to see, is the Office of the President.  Even more embarrassing is the fact that there is even a Con Law case that re-states the President's absence from the process, Hollingsworth v. Virginia.

A balanced budget amendment is not out of reach.   49 states, Vermont being the lone hold-out, have a balanced budget policy, and as recently as March of 1995, an amendment to balance the budget passed the House and was just one vote short of passing the Senate.   Now is the time for the citizens that believe in saving the economy to contact Congress and urge them to save America's future with this sustainable economic plan.

OP-ED: Debt Isn't Compassionate

From the Co-Chairman of the Ohio College Republican Federation (OCRF), Sam Bain - an OP-ED published @ FOX Nation!


Debt Isn't Compassionate
A few weeks ago the College Republican National Committee released a television ad in Iowa titled "What's Your Plan?" detailing the staggering national debt and prompting candidates to tell us their plan to balance the budget. Though, the line which stood out most during the ad was the phase, "Debt Isn't Compassionate."

When I heard this I was (sarcastically) at war with myself. The Democratic Party has been in power and has spent more than all previous administrations combined. Yet at the same time, this is the party that claims to stick up for the little guy, promote the middle class and defend any other category one could call a victim. They have used the public education system and strong armed the media into having Americans believe that they are entitled to everything under the sun. You can't even touch Medicare and Social Security without Democratic telling grandmas the GOP will push them off a cliff.

You can't cut Planned Parenthood without being a misogynist who loathes women and if you cut National Public Radio, you, of course, hate free speech. And if you even think about balancing a state budget by paying public workers more responsibly, be careful as you will be deemed an anti-cop, anti-teacher lunatic who wants to destroy the middle class.

The Democratic Party exerts all these claims in the name of compassion for the American people, but can they hold truth to these? Do parents rack up thousands of dollars in credit card debt to buy their children everything, only to sacrifice the security of their future prosperity? The answer is no because that's bad parenting and for the government to do the same is simply bad government.

You would think that reaching the debt ceiling would cause some to wake up...

===> Read the rest: http://nation.foxnews.com/campus/2011/05/23/op-ed-debt-isnt-compassionate#ixzz1NJTbu1EA

Congress doesn't need to raise debt ceiling.

There is no doubt that America is amid a great financial crisis, but while those of us in the real world are tightening our belts to adapt to the current economic environment, Democrats in Washington want permission to spend even more and add to our crippling national debt.

The conversation in Washington D.C. for weeks had centered, for the most part, on how much our leaders are willing to listen to the American people and head down the path to financial responsibility by taking steps to curtail the burden on our sons and daughters. The budget produced by the House of Representatives that passed Friday was more of a flinch than a step in the right direction. The final amount cut from spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office, was a less-than-whopping $352 million. This rate is much lower than the $38 billion advertised and the $100 billion promised earlier, to be exact the actual cuts made are just under one percent of the promise and they are just minutia compared to the $3.8 trillion national budget. To put this in comparison, the average income in Southwest Missouri is about $33,000, so the cut that Congress man is equivalent to you cutting your annual budget by about $3.05.

Now with these modest budget cuts, that were nearly to blame for shutting down the government, behind us, the discussion will soon turn to raising the debt ceiling. In February of last year, the debt ceiling was raised to $14.294 TRILLION with an unprecedented increase of $1.9 trillion dollars (over double what it had been raised before.) Currently, our national debt is approaching 96% of our Gross Domestic Product, around a 35% increase of what it was only four years ago.

Increasing the debt ceiling has been characterized by those on the left as necessary, Obama has claimed that defaulting on the debt could "plunge the world economy back into a recession" and Treasury Secretary Geithner claimed that the discussion regarding NOT raising the debt ceiling could be "catastrophic." Geithner told news sources this weekend that "Congress will raise the debt ceiling" and seemed unperturbed by anything to contrary. Now, it seems that Republican leadership may continue to pander to the left instead of fixing government spending. But what would be the implications if they refused?

Some experts suggest that the danger implied by the left is overstated and that a failure to raise the debt ceiling would simply require the federal government to use its revenue to pay the interest in lieu of contributing to our bloated budget. Options are not limited to blindly raising the ceiling, and must include either putting a hold on the ceiling or pairing the raise with large, meaningful cuts. No family could be sustained by increasing their credit limit amidst encumbering debt, especially without making a serious budget overhaul to ensure that debt is corralled. The government shouldn't be afforded the option, either.

If Republicans are serious about restoring fiscal sanity, they need to say no to increasing the United States' already-maxed-out credit. Conservatives in Washington must show leadership on this issue to regain the people's confidence that was lost in them after failing to make legitimate budget cuts.