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May 1, 2013
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This page contains news reports prior to May 2013.
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Apr. 30: Fox News: Why are the Benghazi Attackers still free (video):
Confidential Informant is frustrated over the lack of action and leadership.

Apr. 29: Fox News:  Stories on Benghazi:

• Help Could Have Been Provided to the Consulate in Benghazi, Whistle Blower Reports (Video)
• Heavy Pressure Being Applied by Administration to Keep Civil Servants from Coming Forth on Benghazi (Video) 
• Whistle Blowers Seek Legal Counsel prior to Congressional Testimony; Careers Being Threatened by the Administration 
  [See the details on these related stories]
  

Apr. 29: Politico:  Democrats ask “What Debt Crisis?”
The two parties are miles apart on how to cut the deficit and national debt: Republicans want to slash spending even more. Democrats want to raise revenue. And then there are the other Democrats — the ones who reject the entire premise of the current high-stakes fiscal fight. There’s no short-term deficit problem, they say, and there isn’t even an urgent debt crisis that requires immediate attention. This group could make it even harder for President Barack Obama to strike a grand bargain because they increasingly see no immediate need for either new spending cuts or significantly more revenue, both of which they say could further slow the economy.
These Democrats and their intellectual allies once occupied the political fringes, pushed aside by more moderate members who supported both immediate spending cuts and long-term entitlement reforms along with higher taxes. But aided by a pile of recent data suggesting the deficit is already shrinking significantly and current spending cuts are slowing the economy, more Democrats such as Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen are coming around to the point of view that fiscal austerity, in all its forms, is more the problem than the solution.

Apr. 29: Fox News: Obama administration officials threatened whistle-blowers on Benghazi, lawyer says:
At least four career officials at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency have retained lawyers or are in the process of doing so, as they prepare to provide sensitive information about the Benghazi attacks to Congress, Fox News has learned. Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official and Republican counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, is now representing one of the State Department employees. She told Fox News her client and some of the others, who consider themselves whistle-blowers, have been threatened by unnamed Obama administration officials. “I'm not talking generally, I'm talking specifically about Benghazi – that people have been threatened,” Toensing said in an interview Monday. “And not just the State Department. People have been threatened at the CIA.” [See More on this story]

Apr. 29: The Hill: Dept. of State says Our Benghazi Investigation Should be enough for the Congress!
The State Department on Monday defended its decision not to have lower-level employees testify before Congress about last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is pushing ahead with his investigation of the terrorist assault, and has asked for legal protections for lower-level employees who might be called to testify. The State Department pushed back on Monday and said the independent probe into the attack "should be enough" for lawmakers. [See more on this story]

Apr. 29: Fox News: 
Will State Legislators Learn the Lesson that their actions can have negative results to their state’s economic well being?  Gunmakers aim for greener pastures taking some 3,000 jobs and $1.75 billion in tax revenues with them!
Arms manufacturers in at least two states with strict new gun laws are making good on their promise to move their operations -- along with thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenues  -- to locales they deem friendlier to the industry. In Connecticut, where venerable gunmakers like Colt and Sturm, Ruger & Co. have been joined in the last decade or so by upstarts like Stag Arms and PTR, reform of gun laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings has left the industry feeling unwelcome. Bristol-based high-end rifle manufacturer PTR Industries announced this month via Facebook that it would be taking its 40 jobs and $50,000 weekly payroll to an unspecified new state, widely believed to be Texas. [See more on this story]

Apr 29: The Hill: Democrats push for Additional Gun Control in D.C. but not in Battleground States; Wonder Why?
Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics.

The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising efforts? Brad Dayspring, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, took a swipe at Democrats for playing both sides of the gun issue. “Washington Democrats preach gun control, but are recruiting adamantly pro-gun candidates like Schweitzer & Herseth-Sandlin. Can't be both,” he posted on Twitter.

Apr. 29: Fox News: US loans from China at issue in debt-ceiling fight
Despite what you may have heard, China isn't the country's biggest creditor. America is. The bulk of the national debt --  soon to exceed a staggering $17 trillion --  is held by the Federal Reserve, Social Security system, various pension plans for civil service workers and military personnel, U.S. banks, mutual funds, private pension plans, insurance companies and individual domestic investors. China is responsible for just a shade over 7 percent of that total debt.  And while it remains the single largest foreign lender (just ahead of Japan), China's been slowly trimming its holdings, down from nearly 10 percent a few years ago.  Overall, all foreign investors -- including national central banks -- account for roughly one third of the total outstanding federal government debt. Also, China is suddenly having debt problems of its own. Heavy recent lending by its banks comes as the recovery in the world's second-largest economy seems to be stalling. The export giant posted a rare trade deficit in March.

The national debt will soon be front-and-center again as a deeply divided Congress wrestles with an expected new Obama administration request to increase the government's borrowing authority, the legislatively set debt ceiling. The higher limit would not authorize borrowing for new spending but just enables the government to pay all the bills already racked up. The upcoming summer debate could be a repeat of the divisive debt-ceiling crisis in August 2011 when weeks of political irresolution nearly plunged the U.S. into its first-ever financial default -- and did trigger a downgrade in the government's once-sterling credit rating.

Apr. 29: Fox News: Obama Blames GOP for Sequestor Even Though It Was Originally His Idea:
Why is it that everybody seems to be blaming someone else for a problem instead of doing what is right (in this case cutting spending)?  President Obama took another swipe Monday at Congress for allowing billions of dollars worth of spending cuts to the federal government, saying the country -- as a result of “misguided priorities” -- could, as a result, lose years of scientific research. For months now, the president has attempted to blame Congress for the cuts that started in January, particularly the Republican-controlled House, which allowed the reductions instead of agreeing to a second round of 2013 tax increases that the President wanted. “We are on the brink of amazing breakthroughs…" the President said "...which is why we can't afford to gut these investments in science and technology. Unfortunately, that’s what we're facing because of the across-the-board cuts.” he told the National Academy of Science. Later on Monday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made clear the administration holds congressional Republicans largely responsible for the cuts and the negative impact they have had on Americans even though the original idea of having the sequester came from the White House and the Obama Administration.

Apr. 29: Fox News:  Another Missed Deadline for Obamacare is on the Horizon:
Under President Obama’s 2010 health law, the government officials in charge of keeping Medicaid afloat have until Tuesday to report whether costs for the fiscally foundering program will exceed expectations. But the problem is won’t have anywhere to send their report! This is because the Independent Payment Advisory Board – perhaps the most controversial entity created under Obama’s law – still doesn’t exist.

This 15-member board which has yet to be appointed and which critics denounced as a “death panel,” is tasked under the law with determining which patients ought to receive which treatments and whether taxes ought to be raised to finance the program. The board has been the centerpiece of the warnings from the right about a dystopian socialist future in which government actuaries decide which senior citizens qualify for new hips or bypass surgeries, and which do not. If you don’t have a long enough life expectancy, you don’t get expensive surgeries to improve your quality of life. If you don’t have a high-enough quality of life, you don’t get expensive life-saving surgeries. Denying care may be the simplest way to keep Medicare afloat, but it is hugely unpopular.

Apr. 26: The Hill: Experts: Debt-ceiling increase might not be needed until October:
Congress could have until as late as mid-October to haggle over raising the debt limit, according to new expert analysis. The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), which has been closely tracking the flow of the nation's finances as policymakers prepare to spar over its $16.4 trillion borrowing cap, now believes the government could avoid a default on its obligations as late as mid-October once its borrowing cap is reinstated in May. Previously they set the date as in August. Earlier this year the Congress passed the "No Budget No Pay" bill that did away with the debt ceiling for four months allowing the Federal Government to continue to add to the debt without serious restriction until mid-May. This could have had an impact on the date moving back a couple of months.

Apr. 26: Politico: Obamacare Round Two Looks as Shaky as Round One:
Obamacare fires are flaring up all over — in Hill hearings, in scary headlines about big rate hikes and in closed-door meetings of nervous Democrats. The White House response: We’ll get to that. President Barack Obama’s messaging gurus and their allies say they will step on the gas before enrollment begins this fall, but the effort, they concede, is not in full swing.

Obama’s allies know the health care law needs a massive outreach effort, but Obamacare Round 2 is already starting to look a lot like Round 1, when Democrats roundly accused the White House of botching its appeal to the public, giving Republicans the upper hand on defining the law. In the meantime leaders like Senator Baucus (D-MT) has been warning of a major train wreck on the horizon.

Apr. 26: The Hill: Obama Hammers New State Abortion Laws at Speech to Planned Parenthood:
President Obama slammed state abortion restrictions Friday in a speech to Planned Parenthood's national conference. Obama criticized efforts at the state and federal levels to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood and roll back access to abortion. He criticized Republican governors' attempts to limit abortion access — a trend that has gathered steam over the past few years as conservatives shift from requirements like parental notification to laws that set increasingly early limits on when a woman can receive an abortion.

Apr. 26: Politico: House Bill Reverses Controller Furloughs
The House passed a bill to reverse the furlough of 15,000 air traffic controllers Friday, capping a week that saw thousands of disrupted flights and a wave of bitter partisan sniping over the damage from the sequester. The lower chamber approved the bill on a 361-41 vote under suspension of the rules just hours after the Senate struck a deal Thursday evening and passed the measure after a furious day of negotiating. The measure would let the Department of Transportation transfer $253 million in FAA funding into the operations account that pays for air traffic controller salaries. Republicans have argued all along that DOT already had that authority, making the bill unnecessary. Meanwhile many are saying that the furlough was the result of a political statement being made by the White House.

Apr. 26: U-T San Diego: Chairman Issa says Benghazi Hearing Will Expose Failings:
Congressman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) investigation is poised to retake center stage in Washington. Issa said “The American people still don’t have the full truth about what happened, both before and after the murders of four brave Americans.” He plans a new round of hearings in May before the House Oversight Committee. (See additional information)

Apr. 26: Senator’s Web: Inhofe, Lucas Introduce Bill Limiting Federal Agencies From Stockpiling Ammo:
U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Congressman Frank Lucas (R-OK) today introduced in their respective chambers the Ammunition Management for More Obtainability (AMMO) Act of 2013. The legislation would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a report on the purchasing of ammunition by federal agencies, except the Department of Defense, and its effect on the supply of ammunition available to the public. The AMMO Act would restrict agencies from obtaining additional ammunition for a six-month period if current agency stockpiles are higher than its monthly averages prior to the Obama Administration. (See additional information) 

Apr. 26: Fox News: Reps challenge DHS ammo buys, say agency using 1,000 more rounds per person than Army:
Republican Jason Chaffetz said Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security is using roughly 1,000 rounds of ammunition more per person than the U.S. Army, as he and other lawmakers sharply questioned DHS officials on their "massive" bullet buys."It is entirely ... inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition," Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a hearing. (See additional information)

Apr. 25: U.S. News: DHS Denies Ammo Purchases Aimed at Civilians:
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security denied Thursday that its large-scale ammunition purchases were an effort keep bullets out of the hands of private citizens. At a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, top DHS training officer Humberto Medina said he could "say categorically that was not a factor at all" in the purchases. He also noted that ammunition DHS purchased would be used for both operations and training purchases. The AP reported in February that DHS was planning to buy more than 1.6 billion rounds over the next five years, a number that sparked fears of government stockpiling – which DHS previously denied. Officials told lawmakers DHS actually was planning to buy only up to 750 million rounds. But Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, said it still looked like the government was unnecessarily amassing ammunition.

Apr. 25: The Daily Caller: Colorado Town Considers Local Ordinance Requiring an Assault-Style weapon in every home:
The city council of Craig, Colo., a small mountain town that relies on hunting for much of its economic activity, is seriously pondering a citizen’s proposal to mandate that every household have at least one sporting rifle equipped to hold a high-capacity magazine. Town leaders said such a law would be practically impossible to enforce, but resident Craig Rummel, who floated the idea at a recent council meeting, said the point would be to send a message to the state legislature, which he said was “hammering” rural towns with new rules on gun ownership, energy policy and other issues. “Our voices are not being heard, but if we pass an ordinance, it will go viral, and then they’ll be forced to listen to us,” he’s quoted as saying in the Craig Daily Press.

Apr. 25: The Los Angeles Times: Gun Control Vote May Be Considered Again in the U.S. Senate:
Senators Schumer (D-NY) and McCain (R-AZ) predicted Thursday that gun legislation will come up again for a Senate vote – possibly before the end of the year – as public attitudes shift toward stricter controls. Their assessment comes after the defeat last week of a bipartisan background check measure.   “I think we’re going to bring this bill back before the end of the year and I think you may find some changes,” Schumer said.

Apr. 24: The Wall Street Journal: Airlines Seek Clarity on Controllers Shortages:
New hot spots for air-travel delays emerged Wednesday because of a shortage of air-traffic controllers, while some airline executives warned that a lack of consultation was exacerbating the problems. U.S. budget-cut-induced furloughs led to staff shortages Wednesday at facilities in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Tampa, said the Federal Aviation Administration, with more than half of the delays endured by travelers on Tuesday attributed to a lack of controllers forcing planes to fly farther apart. The agency, which has been criticized by airlines and lawmakers for how it implemented the staff cuts, said labor shortages contributed to delays Wednesday being concentrated at Chicago O'Hare, Las Vegas and Tampa.

Mr. Isom, Cheif Operating Officer of U.S. Airways Group, Inc., said in an interview that the airline can't plan pre-emptive cancellations to avoid the worst delays because carriers only learn of problems on morning calls with the agency and aren't privy to the information the FAA has when it announces the slowdowns and ground delays. "We really don't know what information the FAA has."

Apr. 24: Politico: Top Lawmakers work on Exemption from Obamacare for themselves and Congressional staff:
Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.

Apr. 24: The Weekly Standard: Congressman: Five Jihadists Have Reached Their Targets in the U.S. Under Obama:
Congressman Tom Cotton took to the House floor "to express grave doubts about the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism policies and programs. I rise today to express grave doubts about the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism policies and programs," said the freshman congressman from Arkansas. "Counterterrorism is often shrouded in secrecy, as it should be, so let us judge by the results. In barely four years in office, five jihadists have reached their targets in the United States under Barack Obama: the Boston Marathon bomber, the underwear bomber, the Times Square Bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, and in my own state—the Little Rock recruiting office shooter. In the over seven years after 9/11 under George W. Bush, how many terrorists reached their target in the United States? Zero! We need to ask, ‘Why is the Obama Administration failing in its mission to stop terrorism before it reaches its targets in the United States?’”

Apr. 24: Politico: GOP House Leadership Pulls Contentious Obamacare Bill:
House Republican leadership abruptly pulled a health care bill from the floor after concerns from conservatives that it extended President Barack Obama’s health care law. The legislation, which was championed by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, had opposition from all corners of the conservative universe. It’s a blow to the Virginia Republican, who touted the “Helping Sick Americans Now Act” and try to move votes. The legislation attempts to transfer money from what Republicans call a “slush fund” to create high-risk pools for sick Americans. The Obama administration said Tuesday the president would likely veto the bill.

Apr. 23: The Hill:
Senator who pushed through Obamacare and who now warns a train wreck is coming Announces Retirement:
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) said Tuesday he will not seek reelection in 2014.  “Serving the people of Montana has been the greatest honor and privilege of my life," The longtime chairman of the Senate's tax-writing panel faced a difficult reelection contest in Montana, a state easily won by Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. Baucus's retirement throws the 2014 Senate race in Montana wide open and also adds a new challenge for Democrats as they try to maintain control of the Senate. Baucus is the sixth Senate Democrat to announce his retirement this election cycle, and in five of those states, the race for the open seat could be competitive.

Apr. 23: The Daily Caller:
Obama administration accused of inventing “phony and contrived” crisis to cause air delays:
Republican lawmakers on Tuesday accused the Obama administration of a creating a “phony and contrived” crisis as travelers across the country face delays due to the Federal Aviation Administration’s furlough of air traffic controllers.“It smells,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune told reporters in the Capitol on Tuesday. “It smells of politics.”

The FAA implemented furloughs of its air traffic controllers on Sunday, citing the recent automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, which went into effect earlier this year. Republicans accuse the administration of cutting things that would inconvenience average Americans in order to portray the cuts as worse than they really are. “You can only conclude — just like the shutting down of the White House tours during Spring Break — it’s meant to impact the most negative way possible on the air traveling public,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn said. Cornyn called the cuts “phony and contrived.” Likewise, Maine Sen. Susan Collins called it “a manufactured crisis.”

Apr. 23: The Hill: Reid will try to replace sequester with war savings from Afghan draw-down:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced Tuesday that the Senate will begin considering a replacement for most of the $85 billion automatic spending cuts known as the sequester. The cuts went into effect on March 1 after the White House and Congress could not agree on a replacement. The White House insisted on using some tax increases while Republicans refused. Senate Democrats will now move a bill using war savings to pay for the sequester.

In 2013, the Pentagon has said it has saved some $81 billion that it would otherwise have spent on the war in Afghanistan if not for President Obama’s decision to draw-down the U.S. troop presence. Republicans have derided war savings as a budget gimmick in the past. Reid is acting as public concern over the cuts has begun to emerge due to airport delays.
Folks, we don’t have a revenue problem, it’s a spending problem!

Apr. 23: The Hill: GOP Benghazi Report Blames Clinton:
House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a report on last year's Benghazi attack that blames former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for approving lax security measures and accuses her of seeking to cover up her department's failures.   were not edited to protect classified information. Concern for classified information is never mentioned in email traffic among senior Administration officials.

Apr. 23: The Hill: GOP Blocks Reid from creating a Conference Committee on the Budget.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday prevented Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) from setting up a budget conference. Reid sought the Senate's unanimous consent to form a budget conference committee aimed at reconciling the wildly different House and Senate budget resolutions, but Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) objected. Toomey said he was objecting on behalf of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee who had a conflict and could not be present.

Apr. 23: The Daily Caller:
Federal appeals court grants EPA far-reaching authority to revoke pollution permits:
A U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency has the legal authority to retroactively revoke a water pollution permit for one of West Virginia’s largest mountaintop removal coal mines. The decision could have far-reaching impacts on the coal industry, as well as on other projects that rely on water-pollution permits. “Today’s federal appeals court ruling further highlights what Congress is up against in President Obama’s war on coal,” said West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito. “The Environmental Protection Agency has continued to overstep its bounds in its efforts to implement the president’s anti-energy policies.”

Nick Rahall, D-WVA, cautioned that the ruling could “open the floodgates to disrupting coal mining in West Virginia and elsewhere” and “upend the traditional balance that has existed between the states and the federal government in the permitting process.” Rahall vowed to reintroduce a bill to the block the EPA “from using the guise of clean water” to hinder the coal industry.

April  22:  Fox News:  Travelers brace for delays as FAA imposes furloughs, lawmakers decry 'stunt'
The FAA went ahead with the furloughs on Sunday, citing the automatic budget cuts that went into effect last month. Some delays appeared in the late evening in and around New York, and according to the FAA were spreading on Monday. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, said last week that the FAA "has made zero effort" to avoid the furloughs.  "The FAA's decision is a dangerous political stunt that could jeopardize the safety and security of air travelers," he said in a statement.

Coburn claimed the FAA has failed to make "smart cuts" to avoid this outcome. He suggested the agency could reduce spending on "consultants, supplies and travel" by 15 percent, saving $105 million. He also claimed the agency could save much more than that by trimming a grant program for airport improvements. Others suggested that the FAA could reduce the impact on the flying public by cutting other parts of their budget, travel being one of them.   Meanwhile the Associated Press reported flight delays piled up across the country on Monday as thousands of air traffic controllers began taking unpaid days off, providing the most visible impact yet of Congress and the White House's failure to agree on a long-term deficit-reduction plan. At one point, the delays were so bad that passengers on several Washington-New York shuttle flights could have reached their destination faster by taking the train.

Apr. 22: The Weekly Standards: White House Endorses Internet Sales Tax – Impact on Small  Family Businesses:
The White House today endorsed the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would be a tax hike for purchases made over the Internet. The White House claims the tax would "level playing field for local retailers. The problem with this legislation is that it hurts small family owned and operated businesses that sell over the Internet.  There are lots of these companies that help our economy but which will be adversely impacted by the proposed law. If a small company does not have a presence in a neighboring state then they should be exempted from such taxes.  An alternative would be to only authorize these taxes on medium and large size firms that have over 50-100 employees.

Apr. 22: Fox News: Lawmakers Warn Cost of Federal “Free Phone” Program is Spinning Out of Control:
What started out as an effort to help poor people in rural areas have a (land-line) phone in cases of emergency has mushroomed into what critics suspect is a new welfare program. "The cost has gone from $143 million a few years ago to $2.2 billion today," Republican Louisiana Sen. David Vitter said, noting that today's cost is 15 times what it was. The cost of the program increased dramatically after cellphones were added in 2008. Only low-income people on welfare and food stamps legally qualify, but some lawmakers say the program is out of control.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, was incensed when she got an offer of a free phone. "I got solicitation for a free phone at my apartment, which is certainly not a building where you're going to have people who are qualified for free phones. ... There is clearly money being wasted here." And Vitter adds, "The FCC, itself, said in a recent year there were 270,000 beneficiaries that had more than one of these subsidized cellphones. That's completely against the law right there."

Apr. 22: The Daily Caller: GOP accuses DNC or using the Boston attack to build fundraising list:
The Democratic National Committee is being accused by Republicans of using the terrorism attack in Boston to improve its fundraising solicitation lists. “Disgraceful: @TheDemocrats capitalizing on terrorism and Boston’s first responders to boost their fundraising lists,” RNC chairman Reince Priebus wrote on Twitter on Monday. “Very poor taste.” Organizations typically use a tactic like this — having people “sign” their names to cards — to collect email addresses so they can later send them fundraising solicitations.

Apr. 21: Politico: Food Stamps: Do We Want to Kick People Off If There are No Jobs for Them?
“Where are the jobs?” Speaker John Boehner likes to ask. But do his fellow House Republicans really want to kick the unemployed off food stamps if they can’t find the jobs either? That’s the question behind a simmering farm bill battle over reimposing work requirements on millions of able-bodied adults enrolled in the nutrition program. Most have no reported earnings, and without added job training or workfare slots, the change could spell real hardship in today’s economy.

For this reason, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) is resisting the move. But back home, the Oklahoma state Legislature recently took steps to reinstate work requirements. And the office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has repeatedly raised the issue with Lucas as a way to win conservative votes for his farm bill, now slated for markup May 15.

Apr. 21: The Daily Caller:
The Person Accused of Bugging Senate Minority Leader's Conversations was Guest at the White House:
According to White House visitor log records, Obama’s chief fund raiser Matthew Barzun was among those in attendance at the Dec. 5 White House meeting that also included Shawn Reilly, the Kentucky politico who is accused of secretly bugging a campaign meeting held by U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. These facts, along with other emerging details, further undermine the narrative that Reilly and his colleagues were nothing more than quixotic rogues who got out over their skis.

Following the leak of sensitive audio from a private campaign meeting, Sen. Mitch McConnell decried the left’s "Nixonian” tactics — a line that might have been prescient. Just as Nixon’s team tried to dismiss Watergate as a ”third-rate burglary,” liberals sought to cast Reilly’s group, Progress Kentucky, as "the PAC that couldn't shoot straight."

Apr. 21: Effort to appoint Select Committee to Investigate Benghazi Gains Steam

Apr. 21: Editorial Comment on Gun Control | Boston Bombers not authorized to have guns | Reaction from Gun Control Advocates to Dem Senators who voted "the wrong way" | Teachers to be trained and armed at some schools in Missouri [See the Gun Control Page]

Apr. 19: The Hill: Top House Dems offer mixed reaction to new Bowles-Simpson deficit plan:
Top House Democrats on Friday offered a mixed reaction to the new deficit plan presented by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) both offered support for the original 2010 Bowles-Simpson deficit plan. Their support contrasted with quick condemnation from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who was angered by the cuts to Social Security. On Friday, Van Hollen criticized the new Bowles-Simpson plan, while Hoyer offered measured praise.“Once again, Bowles-Simpson shows us that only a big, balanced solution, which combines smart, targeted cuts to spending with new revenues, can achieve the savings we need to restore fiscal discipline, provide certainty to our private sector, and invest in economic competitiveness to create middle-class jobs,” Hoyer said.

Bowles said Friday that his new plan is 76 percent spending cuts and 24 percent revenue increases when changes already adopted by Congress since 2010 are taken into account. That is roughly in line with the 70 percent to 30 percent ratio the 2010 Fiscal Commission report presented.

Apr. 19: The Hill: House Members Ask Supreme Court to Halt EPA Climate Change Rules:
Conservative groups and a dozen House Republicans are petitioning the Supreme Court to review an appellate decision that upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. They’re taking aim at a June 2012 federal court ruling that protected several EPA decisions, including the “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases threaten humans, that underpin the agency's existing and planned carbon regulations. “Although seemingly disjointed in their promulgation, taken together these rules create a comprehensive, integrated program that gives EPA regulatory jurisdiction over a breadth of human activity unparalleled in the history of American governance,” states the petition Friday from the conservative Southeastern Legal Foundation.

Apr. 18: EverydayHealth.Com:  Cost of individual health care insurance may rise 30-80% in 2014 under Obamacare: 
Few aspects of the Affordable Care Act are more critical to its success than affordability, but in recent weeks experts have predicted costs for some health plans could soar next year.
A study published last month by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) predicting that, thanks to sicker patients joining the coverage pool, medical claims per member will rise 32% in the individual plans expected to dominate the ACA exchanges next year. In some states costs will rise as much as 80 percent, the report said.

Apr. 18:  The Hill: Pompeo to Baucus: ObamaCare 'train wreck' is your fault: 
Congressman Pompeo (R-KS) was not impressed with Senator Baucus's (D-MT) criticism of how the Obama administration has implemented its signature healthcare law.
Baucus said Wednesday that he fears the implementation will be a "huge train wreck" because people do not understand what the reform law does.

If it's a train wreck, Pompeo said, Baucus has no one to blame but himself."No one in the country bears more responsibility for the complexity of this law than you," Pompeo wrote in a letter to Baucus who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and which was a key architect of the Affordable Care Act. Most of its major provisions were crafted in his committee, and the Finance draft was consistently treated as the primary bill even as other Senate and House committees worked on their own proposals."You drafted it, you twisted arms to get it passed, and, until now, you have lauded it as a model for all the world," Pompeo wrote to Baucus. Your attempts to pass the buck to President Obama’s team will not work, nor will they absolve you of responsibility for the harm that you have brought via this law."

Baucus has a competitive reelection fight coming up next year — just months after the biggest pieces of ObamaCare are set to take effect. Republicans have already made clear that they plan to target Baucus over his role in getting the healthcare law passed, and problems with the implementation could make the GOP's job easier.

Apr. 18: Politico:  Nice Try but No Cigar, Carl Rove to Sebelius on Obamacare:   
GOP strategist Karl Rove told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “nice try” for trying to blame Republican governors with health care policies in an op-ed first published Wednesday. "In congressional testimony last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius blamed Republican governors for her department’s failure to create a ‘model exchange’ where consumers could shop for health-insurance coverage in states that don’t set up their own exchange,” Rove wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. He continued: “Nice try, but GOP governors aren’t the problem. Team Obama’s tendency to blame someone else for its shortcomings is tiresome. The Affordable Care Act requires HHS to operate exchanges in states that won’t operate their own. Since the act became law in March 2010, it has been abundantly clear that the agency would have to deploy a model exchange.”
The kicker: “It is Ms. Sebelius’s fault there isn’t one.”

Apr. 18: CNSNews.com: Immigration Bill Worse than we expected, says Texas Congressman: 
Congressman Smith (R-TX) said today that the Senate immigration bill is even worse than feared, since it legalizes illegals' relatives and even those previously deported. "It's hard to believe, but the Senate immigration bill is worse than we thought. Despite assurances, the border is not secured before almost everyone in the country illegally is given amnesty.  The bill guarantees there will be a rush across the border to take advantage of massive amnesty."

Smith says the Senate immigration bill shreds current immigration laws "And the Senate proposal offers amnesty to far more illegal immigrants than we thought. The Senate bill is bad news for the American people. The good news is that the House Judiciary Committee will come up with a better plan that improves our immigration system and puts the interests of American workers first," Smith concluded.

Apr. 18: The Hill:  Gang of Eight Vows to Stay United on Immigration Bill:
Members of the Senate’s Gang of Eight say they are open to amending the 844-page immigration reform bill they unveiled this week but will band together to defeat poison-pill amendments.“We expect and welcome suggested improvements to the bill by our colleagues,” said Senator McCain (R-AZ), but “We will oppose only those amendments that are intended to prevent a comprehensive solution from passing.”

Business groups want to increase the number of visas for immigrant workers while labor unions want to speed up the path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said negotiations over a new class of visas for low-skilled immigrant workers, a hot point of contention between business and labor groups, was especially intense. The Senators in the "Gang of Eight" are Graham (R-SC), Durbin (D-IL), Rubio (R-FL), Menendez (D-NJ), Bennet (D-CO) and Flake (R-AZ).

Apr. 17: Politico: GOP House Members Want to Stop the “Stop Gap” Approach to Funding the Federal Government:
More than 80 House Republicans have signed onto a letter aiming to increase the pressure on GOP leadership to follow the regular legislative process regarding the budget. Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA) circulated the letter, which urges Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to pass the individual appropriations bills that fund the federal government instead of moving endless stopgap measures known as continuing resolutions.

“Continually governing by CR wastes money, creates massive inefficiencies, and can weaken our national security,” Graves wrote in the letter, which he also sent to Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY). “This is exactly opposite of the good government initiatives and reforms each of us promised our constituents. Rather than negotiating yet another Continuing Resolution at the last minute, the Appropriations process should work as it was originally designed, with Appropriations bills passing the House and the Senate and being signed into law by the President, after robust debate, with a process for amendments.”

Apr. 17: The Hill: Baucus warns of 'huge train wreck' enacting ObamaCare provisions:
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) said Wednesday he fears a "train wreck" as the Obama administration implements its signature healthcare law. Baucus, the chairman of the chamber's powerful Finance Committee and a key architect of the healthcare reform law, said he fears people do not understand how the law will work. "I just see a huge train wreck coming down," he told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a Wednesday hearing. "You and I have discussed this many times, and I don't see any results yet."

Baucus pressed Sebelius for details about how the Health Department will explain the law and raise awareness of its provisions, which are supposed to take effect in just a matter of months. "I'm very concerned that not enough is being done so far — very concerned," Baucus said. He pressed Sebelius to explain how her department will overcome entrenched misunderstandings about what the healthcare law does. "Small businesses have no idea what to do, what to expect," Baucus said.

Apr. 17: Politico:  It’s About Time, Mark Warner (D-VA) Says the federal Deficit is more of a Danger to the Country than the Boston Bomber:
A day after bombings at the Boston Marathon, Sen. Mark Warner said that fiscal issues are more important than terrorism for the future of the country. “In my mind, with the tragedy of yesterday, the issue of this national debt is a greater threat to our nation and our future than any terrorist action,” Warner said Tuesday evening at an awards dinner in Washington. “We will not be destroyed from the outside.”

Apr. 17: Gun Control Debate: Giffords Angry; Bloomberg forgets his own special interest and all the money he put into trying to get gun control legislation enacted then blames special interests for killing the measure; Obama upset; Biden cries; and Feinstein furious. See the detailed summaries.

Apr. 17: The Hill: House Democrats up pressure on Boehner to start budget conference:House Democrats on Wednesday increased their pressure on Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to convene a formal House-Senate budget conference committee.  All 17 Democrats on the House Budget Committee sent a letter to Boehner calling for the committee to be created. The letter, organized by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (MD), the Budget panel’s ranking member, and David Cicilline (RI) comes a day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) accused Boehner of dragging his feet on the budget conference.  The Senate passed a budget this year for the first time in four years, after Republicans made its failure to do so a pet issue.
Reconciling the Senate budget with the House-passed budget would provide a cap for 2014 spending, easing the passage of 12 annual appropriations bills. It could also resolve uncertainty about the looming debt ceiling. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) told reporters on Tuesday that he is trying to get a “framework” agreement in place before agreeing to convene a conference with Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA).

Apr. 15: The Hill: The good, bad and ugly in President Obama’s new budget:
President Obama has now disclosed his budget approximately two months after the law calls for him to present it. It also comes forward after both the House and the Senate have debated and passed budget resolutions. This means, as practical matter, that his budget is substantively irrelevant since neither house will even consider it. It is therefore a purely political document. As such, it makes some fairly significant political statements.

First, on the good side, the president through his budget has declared his willingness to support serious entitlement reform.  Moving to a chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) calculation is a big step toward putting the social security system on a path to solvency.  
Then there is the bad.  The president’s budget is a spending juggernaut. His budget says,  “Let’s start with what we have, deem it all to be good and add to it.”  The view of this administration as expressed in this budget is that government is good and we just need more of it and that is bad.

Apr. 15: Politico: McConnell Has No Desire to be in the same room with Reid to discuss budget: 
The Senate minority leader has signaled privately that he has no interest in sitting in the same room as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to discuss a possible “grand bargain” on budget and tax issues. McConnell is fine with talking to Obama — just talking at this point — but he doesn’t want Reid there when it happens. Bad blood remains between party leaders and the national partisan realities haven’t changed.

And while the leaders don’t get along, relationships among the other 98 senators will be tested when voting begins on the controversial gun and immigration measures — starting with this week’s expected vote on expanding background checks for firearms purchases. McConnell plans to pull out all the stops to block the bill, and GOP senators are blasting any immigration plan that they say smells of “amnesty.”

Apr. 15: Fox News: Gold prices plummet:
Gold dropped 6 percent on Monday to below $1,400 per ounce, its lowest since March 2011, as investors took fright at a market that is heading for its biggest two-day fall in 30 years.
Gold has capitulated in the last two trading days to pressure from a proposed sale of Cypriot gold holdings and concern that other nations might follow suit. Traders also cited concern that the U.S. Federal Reserve might reduce monetary stimulus towards the end of the year. Weaker than expected Chinese economic data earlier on Monday simply gave investors another excuse to slash holdings as other commodities including oil and copper dived.

Apr. 15: The Hill: Senate hearing on immigration delayed for more review of bill:
The Senate Judiciary Committee has delayed a hearing on immigration reform a day before a bipartisan bill is to be introduced. The hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, but has been shifted to Friday morning. A spokesman for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said the delay was to give senators more time to read a bill Rubio and seven other senators are expected to introduce on Tuesday.

Apr. 15: Washington Times: Background checks amount to ‘new tax on guns,’ Coburn insists:
The deal senators have struck to expand firearm background checks to all Internet and gun show sales will drive up prices for consumers, weapons retailers say. Manufacturers say the deal, which is the crux of the gun bill that senators will begin debating this week, also includes language that gives background checks for sales at gun shows priority over in-store purchases — something their top trade group says is unfair.

Apr. 15: Fox News: Gun bill backers try to ease ‘registry’ concerns as Senate debate begins:
As debate begins this week on sweeping firearms legislation, supporters are running into renewed concern from conservatives that the bill could lead to a gun "registry" despite adamant pledges to prohibit this.  Fear of a national registry has remained even after two influential senators last week proposed a compromise on background checks. The proposal, which will be voted on as an amendment, would expand background checks to gun shows and Internet sales while exempting personal transactions like those among family members. 
The provision, meant to ease concerns about the checks becoming too pervasive, also included language to bar the creation of a federal registry.

Apr. 14: Politico:  On immigration, Marco Rubio is everywhere
Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday began his public campaign to win over conservative support for overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, appearing on a record-setting seven network news programs. Rubio offered a finely calibrated pitch designed to alleviate conservative concerns about reform. He pushed back against claims that a pathway to citizenship is tantamount to amnesty. He rebutted arguments that an agreement would impose dramatic new costs on taxpayers. And he defended the changes as necessary to keep the border secure.
“What we have in place today, the status quo, is horrible for America,” the Florida Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The only people benefiting from the status quo in immigration today are the people trafficking human beings across the border, and the people who are hiring illegal labor for cheap purposes.”

Apr. 14: The Hill: Reid could move to create conference on budget this week:
Moving a motion to conference the budgets would put the onus on Speaker John Boehner to appoint conferees. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) could formally move as early as this week to create a House-Senate conference committee on the budget. Moving a motion to conference the budgets — which a leadership aide said is “possible” — would put the onus on Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) to appoint conferees to the talks.  Senate Democratic aides say they suspect Boehner and GOP leaders want to drag their feet on creating a conference committee, and sense an opportunity to draw attention to that.  Republicans counter that they want a budget agreement that tackles “out-of-control” government spending, but see little point in a conference committee if Senate Democrats continue to demand a trillion dollars in new taxes while refusing to compromise on cuts. 

Apr. 14: The Daily Caller: Left-wing Democrats push Norquist-style no-cuts budget pledge:
Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist has been skewered by the media and the left for his Taxpayer Protection Pledge, but now some Democrats seem to be imitating him with a budget pledge of their own. Left-wing Democratic Reps. Alan Grayson (FL) and Mark Takano (CA) are circulating a letter addressed to President Obama for members of Congress to sign. Signers of the letter pledge to vote against any substantive changes to America’s entitlement programs, including President Barack Obama’s proposal to use a different formula for Social Security cost of living increases.  “We will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits -- including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need,” the letter reads, in part. The letter, which was drafted in February, is backed by liberal groups such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and MoveOn, among others. Thirty Members of Congress have signed onto it as of April 9.

Apr. 14: The Hill:  Toomey: Senate vote ‘going to be close’ on background checks bill:
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) said Sunday that’s “an open question” whether his legislation with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV.) to expand background checks for gun sales will receive enough support to pass.

Apr. 14th: The Daily Caller: Florida 4th Graders told to Write of Desires to Give up Constitutional Rights:
Florida fourth graders allegedly told to write down desire to give up constitutional rights. A father in Duval County, has alleged that his son’s fourth-grade teacher instructed students to express their desire to trade rights guaranteed in the Constitution for a feeling of added security. The concerned father, Aaron Harvey, says his son and other kids in his son’s class had to scribble: “I am willing to give up some of my constitution rights in order to be safer or more secure.” The incident happened at some point during a civics lesson at Cedar Hills Elementary School in Jacksonville, Florida, reports First Coast News.

Apr. 14: The Daily Caller: Common Core abandons classics for ‘reading executive orders from President Obama’
W ill Estrada, the director of federal relations for the Home School Legal Defense Association, says classics are being abandoned in the standards of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.  “We’ve started seeing what is in this Common Core curriculum, and it’s not good,” the 29-year-old told The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas. “I mean, you have the classics being abandoned for instead reading executive orders from President Obama. What is up with this? Why are we leaving ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and, you know, ’1984′to instead read executive orders from the president.”

Apr. 12: Infowars.com: Californians Move to Ban and Seize Guns: 
Media critic and social analyst Mark Dice in a video, posing as a person in California passing around a petition of to get all the guns of law abiding people but allowing criminals to keep their guns.  It shows how unbelievably uninformed lots of the people are as they signed the petition.  

Apr. 12: The Hill: Bloomberg-backed group launches ad pressuring senators on gun control:
Mayors Against Illegal Guns is launching a round of television ads to pressure seven Republican senators and two Democrats to vote for a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks. The new ad invokes the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and subtly chides the Senate for taking up gun control legislation more than 100 days after the tragedy.  

Apr. 10: FoxNews.com: Obama budget proposes more than $1 trillion in taxes, fees:
President Obama's budget proposal includes new tax increases that hit everything from deductions for top earners to packs of cigarettes. Though the president's newly released plan claims to include $580 billion in new revenue over the next decade, when all taxes and fees are counted the real number is slightly higher than $1 trillion. Republicans already have said they will not countenance new tax increases, after they already agreed to raise rates on top earners as part of the fiscal crisis deal. But both sides are sure to engage in an exhaustive debate in the weeks and months ahead, particularly as a looming debt-ceiling deadline forces Congress to try to reach a deal.

Here are a few of the notable tax increases in Obama's 2014 budget blueprint that are likely to prove controversial in that debate:

• The biggest item by far is a plan to reduce the value of itemized deductions for top earners, so that they can only reduce their tax liability to 28 percent of income. This would affect deductions for charity, mortgage interest and other expenses.
  
  
• The plan would implement the so-called "Buffett Rule," that would require "wealthy millionaires" pay at least 30 percent of their income after charitable donations.
  
  
• Though the president's proposal to curb the growth of Social Security was touted as a budget "cut," the change would also bring in more revenue. The proposal would change the inflation formula, which would in turn curb the growth of benefits. In doing so, that same formula would adjust tax brackets and raise about $100 billion over 10 years.
  
  
• Buried deep in the budget is a proposal to raise the federal cigarette tax by 94 cents a pack.
  
  
• The budget includes a slew of other tax changes and fees too numerous to mention, but they include: a "financial crisis responsibility fee" on financial firms; an increase in the aviation passenger security fee; and a limit on the total accrual of certain retirement benefits.
  

Apr. 9: CNSNews.com: Safe from Sequester: $704,198 for Gardening at NATO Ambassador’s Home:
Just over a week after sequestration took effect, the State Department allotted more than $700,000 for gardening at a U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Brussels, Belgium. On March 11, State awarded a contract to provide gardening services at an “official residence” of the U.S. Mission in Belgium. A State Department spokesperson confirmed to CNSNews.com that the contract is for Truman Hall, a historic property that serves at the residence of the Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The current U.S. ambassador to NATO is Ivo H. Daalder, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in May 2009. The total award comes to $704,198.30, including $134,744 for the base year and four one-year option periods thereafter.

A State Department spokesperson said that Truman Hall regularly hosts visitors from the 28 NATO nations and other Alliance partner countries around the world and is a valuable platform for America’s diplomacy. The award provides for grass cutting, edging, trimming, weeding, and other gardening and landscaping services. It will also mandate the planting of 960 violas, tulips, and begonias. In a letter to Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) on Feb. 11, Kerry said sequestration means $2.6 billion less in fiscal year 2013 for State Department programs.

Apr. 9: The Weekly Standard: White House to Furlough Assistant Chef for Sequester”
The White House will furlough the assistant chef because of sequestration. "Even White House chefs could be feeling the pain of government budget cuts," reports the AP. "Assistant chef Sam Kass, who cooks dinner for President Barack Obama several nights a week, said Tuesday that he will be furloughed as part of across-the-board budget cuts that went into effect in March. Kass, who is the president's senior nutrition policy adviser, made the comments in an interview with food reporters at the White House. ..."Kass also plants the White House garden and is the director of first lady Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' campaign to combat childhood obesity. He said that effort won't be affected."

Apr. 9: AirForceTimes.com: Reduced flying hours forces grounding of 17 USAF combat air squadrons:
The Air Force will begin grounding combat air squadrons Tuesday in response to forced spending cuts that have eliminated more than 44,000 flying hours through September, according to internal documents obtained by Air Force Times. The Air Force's budget for flying hours was reduced by $591 million for the remainder of fiscal 2013, making it impossible to keep all squadrons ready for combat, according to an April 5 memo signed by Maj. Gen. Charles Lyon, director of operations for Air Combat Command. The across-the board spending cuts, called sequestration, took effect March 1 when Congress failed to agree on a deficit-reduction plan.

Seventeen combat-coded squadrons will stand down effective Tuesday or upon their return from deployments, according to the documents. The Air Force will distribute 241,496 flying hours that are funded to squadrons that will be kept combat ready or at a reduced readiness level called “basic mission capable” for part or all of the remaining months in fiscal 2013, the documents said. The grounding includes F-22s from Virginia, F-16s from Utah, B-1B Lancers from South Dakota, and A-10s from Arizona in addition to B-52s and F-15Es.

Apr.8: Politico: President’s Budget: Late and DOA for the Senate Republicans:
President Barack Obama might think he’s offering a compromise budget on Wednesday when he formally unveils it. But Senate Republicans — a group Obama will try to woo with a dinner that night — are expected to vigorously push back, casting the 2014 spending plan as another attempt to raise taxes to fuel more deficit spending.

Apr. 8: The Daily Caller: Obama housing agency’s staggering debt won’t stop it from insuring more high-risk loans:
The Obama administration’s current push to encourage banks to grant high-risk housing loans to lower-class borrowers insured by taxpayer-funded programs provided by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) may be complicated by the fact that the FHA is in severe debt and faces a potentially disastrous future, records reveal.

The Obama administration, which reportedly believes that the housing recovery is "leaving too many people behind," hopes to encourage lenders to use “more subjective judgment” in offering loans to people with low credit scores and to people who “owe more than their properties are worth” in order to allow them to refinance at current interest rates.
Though many analysts believe that these kinds of policies were responsible for the 2008 financial collapse, the FHA is reportedly working with the White House to develop “new policies” to encourage lenders to offer high-risk loans that conform to FHA programs, which are designed specifically to provide housing loans to low-income Americans.
[See Related Article published on the Website in November 2012]

Apr. 8: Politico: Liberals Put Democrats on Notice – Vote for Entitlement Cuts and Face Opposition in November:
A trio of liberal groups is warning Democratic lawmakers who back cuts to entitlements programs that they could face a challenge from the left in the next election — but it’s unclear how serious the threat is. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, and MoveOn.org have released sharply worded statements putting Democrats on notice that support for President Barack Obama’s budget – which proposes cuts to Medicare and Social Security – would be tantamount to betrayal.

PCCC, a prominent liberal group, also launched a website called NoBenefitCuts.com. It asks supporters to sign a petition pledging to “support primary challenges to congressional Democrats who support benefit cuts.” “We’re very serious,” Adam Green, PCCC’s co-founder, said in an interview. “Any Democrat who votes to cut Social Security benefits shouldn’t call themselves a Democrat … It’s not in our minds an empty threat.”

Apr. 8: Various Sources: 700 Special Ops Vets call for Benghazi Committee

Apr. 8: Various Sources: Threat of Senate GOP Filibuster of Gun Control Legislation Looms
and Obama Makes Last Ditch Push for Gun Control Legislation

Apr. 5: Politico: Too Little Too Late GOP says about Obama Budget:
As word leaked of President Barack Obama’s plan to include entitlement tweaks when he unveils his budget next week, Congressional Republicans on Friday said it won’t bring Washington any closer to a grand bargain on the deficit. They argue that Obama’s decision to include “chained CPI” — a formula that slows the growth rate of Social Security benefits — doesn’t go far enough to overhaul entitlements and cut spending. They’re especially adamant because they raised taxes without cutting spending in the fiscal cliff deal. As far as they’re concerned, any budget compromise needs to include significant changes to entitlements, and far less than $9 billion in tax hikes supposedly in the president’s plan.

By putting it on the table, however, the White House is including what is sees as a significant concession in the budget battles. Some progressive lawmakers were already venting steam about the move on Friday, and it could cost Obama with his base without the Republicans having given further on taxes. It was the first time the president included the language in a budget document. “It doesn’t address the core structural problems: a dramatic growth in the number of beneficiaries congruent with a shrinking number of payees/taxpayers,” the aide said. “It is very unlikely to elicit dramatic movement on a grand bargain…our members feel like they have acceded to more revenue than they agree with under any scenario, so this kind of chippy small-ball won’t do it for them.”

Apr. 5: The Hill: Right, left pan Obama budget plan:
“The Senate just last month went on record in opposition to the president’s approach,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said in a statement blasting Obama’s proposal to use a less-generous formula to calculate hikes to benefits under Social Security and other programs for inflation.
The criticism from both ends of the political spectrum highlighted the stark divide over how to rein in the nation’s red ink. The White House and Congress are eyeing a summer battle over raising the debt ceiling that could be used as a vehicle for a deficit-reduction package.
Obama’s plans came the same day a new labor report added to doubts about the economic recovery. The Bureau of Labor Statistics report found employers added only 88,000 jobs in March — much fewer than expected.

Apr. 5: The Daily Caller: CBO: Budget deficit $601 billion in first half of fiscal year:
Federal spending also decreased in the first half of fiscal year 2013. By the non-partisan agency’s estimation, federal outlays totaled $1.8 trillion — $46 billion lower than the first half of 2012. The cuts came from the Defense Department which was trimmed by $20 billion, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were cut by $25 billion, as well.

Spending still increased on the entitlement programs Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as on agriculture, disaster assistance and veterans’ benefits. President Obama will announce a new budget next week where he is expected to propose changes to Social Security and Medicare along with tax increases in an effort to find common ground with the GOP.

Apr. 5: The Hill: Obama budget to take aim at wealthy IRAs:
President Obama’s budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts. The proposal would save around $9 billion over a decade, a senior administration official said, while also bringing more fairness to the tax code. The official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.” Under the plan, a taxpayer’s tax-preferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement – or right around $3 million this year.

Apr. 5: Mediate.com: Mother Of Slain Benghazi Officer To Sean Hannity: ‘They Want Me To Shut Up’:

Apr. 5: FloridaToday.com: Letter: Obama has forgotten four Benghazi deaths:

Apr. 5: Politico: Eric Holder slams electoral vote tinkering:
Attorney General Eric Holder is trashing attempts by Republicans to change electoral vote allocation in certain states, suggesting such efforts are part of a broader assault on voting rights. "Recent proposed changes in how electoral votes are apportioned in specific states are blatantly partisan, unfair, divisive, and not worthy of our nation," Holder said in a speech Thursday night to Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.   "Let me be clear again: we will not sit by and allow the slow unraveling of an electoral system that so many sacrificed so much to construct."

Late last year, Republicans in Pennsylvania re-proposed that the state drop its winner-take-all system for electoral votes in presidential elections and move towards one that would parcel out those votes based on the popular vote in the state. That could encourage presidential candidates to pay more attention to the Keystone state at a time when it seems to be drifting more and more firmly into the Democratic column in presidential elections. It was not clear if Holder was criticizing the system Nebraska and Maine have long used to allocate their electoral votes based on the presidential candidate that carries each Congressional district. However, his reference to "specific states" seemed to exclude from his criticism proposals to allocate electoral votes based on the national popular vote.

Apr. 5: The Daily Caller: Obama’s California fundraising trip irks left and right:
President Obama returned to Washington Thursday afternoon from a Democratic fundraising tour in San Francisco that included appearances at four high-dollar private fundraising events and garnered criticism from Washington Republicans and progressive activists alike. Obama’s comments and wasteful hobnobbing with billionaires as the economy is grinding to a halt and labor force participation has plummeted to its lowest rate since 1979.

Apr. 5: Fox News: FAA delays closure of air traffic control towers:
The Federal Aviation Administration, hitting pause on a high-profile sequester cut, announced Friday that it would delay previously planned closures for 149 air traffic control towers at small airports. The FAA announced that it would delay the implementation until June 15, while it tries to resolve "multiple legal challenges" to the decision. Trade groups representing companies that operate the towers under contract for FAA filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Washington. "This has been a complex process and we need to get this right," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. "Safety is our top priority. We will use this additional time to make sure communities and pilots understand the changes at their local airports."

Apr. 4: The Washington Times: Taxes heat up battle against ‘Obamacare’; focus turns to partial repeals:
A tax on everything from X-ray machines to oxygen tanks took effect at the  beginning of this year — one of about 20 taxes and fees included in President Obama’s health care law — and has emerged as the central battleground in the fight by the law’s opponents to repeal parts of the president’s overhaul. In a nonbinding test vote last month, the Senate voted 79-20 to repeal the law’s 2.3 percent tax on medical devices, with 32 Democrats joining Republicans in pushing to  scrap it.

The device tax is one of several that kicked in this year, along with higher taxes on investment income and an increase in the Medicare payroll tax among households making $250,000 per year. The tax penalty imposed on those who refuse to obtain health coverage will kick in next year, with a minimum penalty for low-income individual taxpayers of $95 in 2014, rising to $325 in 2015 and $695 in 2016. Those with higher incomes will end up paying more because their penalty is based on a percentage of their  income — 1 percent in 2014, 2 percent in 2015 and 2.5 percent in 2016 and beyond.

Apr. 4: Politico: Federal Workers Losing Faith in the Leadership:
After almost a decade of increasing confidence, federal employees had less faith in their leaders in 2012 than they did the year before, according to a new report. But the picture varies from agency to agency, with employees in the  intelligence community, at NASA and the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission giving their bosses high scores. Some of the lowest scores came from the  Department of Homeland Security, the National Archives and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. While the report shows employees give their direct supervisors relatively high marks, the employees have less confidence in the top people in their departments. Supervisors get a 62.3, while senior leaders earn a 46.7.

Apr. 3: Sarges.Com: Abbott Threatens Lawsuit if Obama signs UN Arms Sale Treaty:
Letter sent by Texas Attorney General encourages President not to sign the treaty and puts him on notice Texas with sue if he does!

Apr. 3: Politico: Republican View of Sequestration:
To figure out why Republicans are winning the sequester wars, look at two numbers. Federal employees have so far taken no furlough days. And the stock market hit an all-time record earlier this month, with the Dow closing Thursday at 14,578. Amid all that, it’s pretty hard for most of the public to understand what the Democrats were talking about, with all their gloom-and-doom chatter earlier this year.

But so far, even the White House admits there’s little chance of reversing all the cuts. There’s been no sudden shock to the system. In fact, the economy seems on the mend, with housing starts higher than before the Great Recession. In fact, there’s some evidence that the sequester cuts are becoming the new normal — perhaps the surest sign that the GOP is holding the high ground so far.

Apr. 3: Politico: Democrat View of Sequestration:
The public has largely tuned out the Democrats’ repeated warnings about mid-air plane crashes, troop deaths and mass illness from tainted meat if the sequester cuts stay in place. But Democrats aren’t dropping the threat of disaster, seizing now on the line they think can beat the Republicans: law and order.

Spending cuts undermine the ability to “catch the bad guys, whether it’s white-collar crime, like mortgage fraud, or street crime, or despicable things like trafficking women and children,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski said in a recent floor speech. The Maryland Democrat noted that the spending cuts hurt local law enforcement officials who rely on federal grants to help in staffing and equipment purchases. “It’s not the biggest thing in the federal budget but it’s the biggest thing to cops,” she said. “Why? Because it buys bullet-proof vests.”

The whole thing leaves Democrats looking a little like they’re rooting for bad news— though they insist that they’re only saying what is likely to happen if the money isn’t replenished.

Apr. 3: Fox News: White House throwing star-studded concert despite sequester:
Though the White House has been singing the sequester blues, the Obamas still have managed to scrape together enough cash to throw a star-studded concert celebrating "Memphis Soul" later this month. The White House announced Tuesday that the 10th concert in its "In Performance at the White House" series would go on April 16. Set to perform are Al Green, Ben Harper, Queen Latifah, Cyndi Lauper and Justin Timberlake, among many others.

Though the White House last month decided to suspend official tours of the "people's house" citing the sequester, the budget cuts apparently have not impeded the concert schedule. Since their inception in 2009, the White House concerts have featured Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and other stars.

Apr. 3: The Daily Caller: More Political Games! Citing sequester, Dem. senator furloughs staff, returns part of salary:
Democratic Alaska Sen. Mark Begich announced Wednesday that he has begun furloughing staff to reduce his office budget in the wake of the sequester. According to Begich press secretary Heather Handyside, 26 of Begich’s 41 staffers in both Alaska and Washington, D.C. are being furloughed. “They’re taking a temporary pay cut for the remainder of the budget year, and they will reduce their hours accordingly,” Handyside said, telling The Daily Caller that she herself is being furloughed.

We need to be making responsible cuts wherever we can, and there is no reason that members of Congress shouldn’t feel the pinch like everyone else,” Begich said in a statement. “This won’t solve our spending problem on its own, but I hope it is a reminder to Alaskans that I am willing to make the tough cuts, wherever they may be, to get our spending under control.”

Apr. 2: The Daily Caller: White House scolds media for failing to cover pain caused by sequester:
White House spokesman Jay Carney lamented during a press conference Tuesday that the media are not covering the sequester’s “impacts on real people.”“The impacts are real,” Carney insisted during an exchange with Fox News’ Ed Henry, “and they effect real people. And I know that there hasn’t been a lot of coverage of the impacts on real people.”

Henry was pressing Carney on why the Obama administration had originally told reporters that the sequester would pull 5,000 border patrol agents off the border, only to announce Monday that the agency had reconsidered the decision for the short-term.

Apr. 2: Fox News: Brit Hume: ‘The laws of political gravity apply to Barack Obama after all’
On Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” on Tuesday night, network senior political analyst Brit Hume said that the goodwill President Barack Obama enjoyed after the 2012 election is fading, largely because of the implementation of his signature health-care reform law. “The usual pattern with the new government-benefit program is [that] once people by the millions begin to use it, it is set in political concrete, [and becomes] far harder to undo than it was to pass,” Hume said. “But Obamacare may be different. Instead of coming together, the program seems to be coming apart.” Hume went on to specifically describe some of the failures he sees in the sprawling program’s implementation.

Apr. 2: The Hill: Poll: Two-thirds back Keystone pipeline, belief in global warming trends upward:
Two-thirds of U.S. residents support construction of the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, including an apparent majority of Democrats, new Pew Research Center polling shows. The same poll also shows increasing belief in global warming in recent years, but a dip from 2012 in the share of people who consider it a “very serious problem.”

Apr. 1: Fox News: Watchdog: Energy Department skirted rules to pay contractor execs $300G salaries:
How About this as a Target for Sequester?
The top watchdog for the U.S. Energy Department has found repeated examples of the agency overpaying contractors at national labs – with the most recent being a decision to approve exorbitant executive salaries at a cost to taxpayers of up to $3.45 million. The March 22 Office of Inspector General report found the agency awarded the salaries to 10 executives as part of a $2.2 billion environmental cleanup contract in 2011 at the East Tennessee Technology Park, in the city of Oak Ridge.

The investigation found a senior management official at the Oak Ridge Office approved the salaries -- which exceeded the HR-approved market-value rates -- without proper authority. The 25-page report cited two “extreme cases” of overpayment: a $337,581 salary that exceeded the market rate by 82 percent and a $299,800 salary that was 74 percent higher than the market rate of $164,889.

Apr. 1: The Hill: Pentagon Says It Will Not Extend Furloughs into 2014
The Pentagon is putting the breaks on future furloughs of its civilian workforce and will explore other options to curb spending inside the Defense Department. DOD officials last Thursday kept the door open to extending the current round of furloughs beyond September to help pay off the department's $41 billion share of the across-the-board budget cuts under the White House's sequestration plan.

But DOD Comptroller Bob Hale on Monday said the department would not extend the furloughs, but rather seek "long-term options" to pay off the Pentagon's sequestration bill. "We will look for other options. They may not be pleasant, and they may force us into some difficult choices. But we definitely don't want to repeat what we're doing now," Hale said during a web conference sponsored by the Association of Government Accountants.

Apr. 1: Fox News: Customs and Border Protection delays agent furloughs amid 're-examination' of plan :
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said Monday it will delay furloughs and the elimination of planned overtime, after announcing last week it would implement such cuts to deal with sequester -- the roughly $85.4 billion in mandatory federal budget reductions this year across all government agencies. The border agency said the cuts will be delayed “pending re-examination,” following concerns from Congress and at least one border agent union about potential safety and security lapses.

Deputy Commissioner Thomas S. Winkowski told employees in a letter Monday that the temporary spending bill President Obama signed last week that funds the federal government over the next six months allows the agency to “mitigate to some degree” the sequester's impact. However, sources told Fox News a recent surge in illegal border crossings contributed to the re-examination, as the Senate nears a final proposal on immigration reform that hinges on secure borders.

Apr. 1: Reuters: No Medicaid Expansion, Perry Reiterated, and that's no April 1st Joke:
Texas Governor Rick Perry on Monday firmly reiterated that the state will not expand its Medicaid program, saying it is a broken system that needs to be reformed by allowing states more flexibility. Perry, who notified the Obama administration last summer that his state would not expand Medicaid, was joined on Monday by other Texas Republican officials, including U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. "Seems to me April Fool's Day is the perfect day to discuss something as foolish as Medicaid expansion, and to remind everyone that Texas will not be held hostage by the Obama administration's attempt to force us into the fool's errand of adding more than a million Texans to a broken system," Perry told reporters at the state Capitol. In Texas, Medicaid expansion would cover more than 1 million new low-income Texans by 2017, according to the state Health and Human Services Commission.

Apr. 1: The Hill: OMB Gets Sequester Cuts But So Far, not the White House Itself:
The White House announced Monday that 480 staffers who work at the Office of Management and Budget have received furlough notices requiring that they take unpaid days off due to the sequester. White House press secretary Jay Carney made the announcement during a White House briefing on Monday, but he would not get into details about whether other members of the White House staff, including those who work closest to President Obama in the West Wing, received any notices.

Apr. 1: Reuters: Arkansas Legislature Overrides Veto and Enacts Voter Photo ID Bill into Law:
The Arkansas House of Representatives voted on Monday to override a veto by the state's Democratic governor of a bill that would require voters to show photo identification. The vote of 52-45 overrides Governor Mike Beebe's veto which was earlier passed by the state's Senate. In Arkansas, lawmakers can override a veto by a simple majority in each chamber.

Arkansas will join nearly three dozen U.S. states that have voter ID measures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Legal challenges to voter ID laws are pending in several U.S. states, including Texas where Attorney General Greg Abbot has taken the federal government to court. Supporters of the Arkansas proposal say it would prevent voter fraud. State representatives had earlier voted 51-44 to approve the voter identification measure that was sent to Beebe.

Mar. 31: The Hill: GOP seeks to benefit from Sebelius admission on healthcare cost hikes:
Republican campaign officials are claiming new momentum for 2014 after the Obama administration admitted that some consumers could see their health insurance premiums rise under healthcare reform. This week's surprise concession from federal Health secretary Kathleen Sebelius played into the GOP's No. 1 message against the Affordable Care Act — that it will raise healthcare costs.

The remark triggered a rush of campaign messaging against vulnerable Democrats who supported healthcare reform. "ObamaCare is becoming more unpopular by the day as more Americans experience the disastrous consequences of higher insurance premiums," said Tyler Houlton, a spokesman with the National Republican Congressional Committee. "It’s a very big deal that President Obama’s top healthcare official finally admitted that ObamaCare will drastically increase health insurance premiums on middle class families," he said.

The controversy points to the challenge facing the Obama administration as it implements a cumbersome and politically volatile reform whose full impact may not be understood for decades.

Mar. 31: Forbes: The Age Of Unreason: Senate Democrat Budget Mythology:
Paul Ryan’s House Republican budget, and Patty Murray’s Senate Democrat budget, deserve continued scrutiny and debate, because they do definitively display the core beliefs of the two parties on a wide range of issues. That includes crucially taxes, and the foundations of economic growth and prosperity.

But the fallacies in the Senate Democrat budget include not even remotely understanding the House Republican budget. For example, the Senate budget states that the House Republican budget shows that, “They believe that we should make massive cuts to education, health care, and other investments that benefit the middle class, seniors, and the most vulnerable families.” But the House Republican budget makes absolutely no cuts to anything. It continues to grow government spending every year. After 10 years under Ryan’s budget, by 2023, the federal government would be spending $1.4 trillion more in that year than it would in 2014. Ryan’s Republican budget proposes to spend $41.5 trillion over the 10 year budget window. Obviously, any talk of massive cuts in this budget could not be more silly, inexcusable and irresponsible.

Mar. 30: The Hill: Momentum builds to revamp nation’s ‘broken’ budget process:
There is new momentum to revamp Washington’s Groundhog Day-like budget process. The Senate’s recent vote to embrace a biennial budget, coupled with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) endorsement, has significantly boosted the chances it could pass in this Congress. The budget revamp would require the president to propose a budget every other year at the beginning of each Congress. Backers say a biennial budget would give lawmakers more time to focus on oversight and policy areas instead of constantly trying to meet spending deadlines, which are often missed.

Mar. 30: The Hill: GOP presses Obama to approve ‘no-brainer’ Keystone XL pipeline:
Republicans are stepping up pressure on the Obama administration to approve work on the long-delayed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline. Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) called on the White House to help lower the nation's energy costs, create a total of about 140,000 jobs and provide a boost to the economy by moving forward on the pipeline.

“Keystone is primed to give our economy a shot in the arm and make energy more affordable, and it won’t cost the taxpayers a dime," Terry said Saturday in the weekly Republican address. Earlier this week, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made the case that House Republicans pushed the Democratic-controlled Senate to approve a pro-Keystone amendment to a nonbinding budget resolution.

Mar. 28: Fox News: Calls to shed debt-burdened Fannie, Freddie:
More than five years after the housing bubble burst -- sending the U.S. economy into a tailspin from which it has yet to fully recover -- the two government-backed entities at the heart of the bust remain deeply in debt. At a time when the government is struggling just to pay its bills, the sustained troubles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to lead to calls from many to privatize the mortgage giants.

"The biggest problem with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is that they are financial institutions with a social mission," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. That social mission, critics say, is to heavily subsidize mortgages for people who don't meet sound lending qualifications. "Lower income homes have a tougher time paying mortgages and when the housing market started to go under, that was the first to go," Schatz said.

Mar. 28: Politico: Obama's Ranking in the Polls Drops below 50% in Virginia because of the Sequester:
President Barack Obama’s approval rating in Virginia has slipped below 50 percent for the first time since his reelection as $85 billion in budget cuts affect the state’s economy, which is powered by federal and military spending, according to a new poll on Thursday. Forty-five percent of Virginia voters approve of Obama’s job performance, and 49 percent disapprove, the poll found. In Feburary, Obama’s approval rating stood at 51 percent, with 46 percent of voters disapproving.

Mar. 28: The Daily Caller: Big Government Hurts Average Americans - Senator Johnson (R-WI) Explains:
Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson on Tuesday unveiled the first installment of a new project aimed at demonstrating how big government hurts average Americans. “The root cause of our economic and fiscal problems is the size, the scope, and the cost of government – all the rules, all the regulations, and all the government intrusion into our lives,” Johnson said in a statement.

Johnson commenced his new “Victims of Government” project with a short film detailing the plight of Granite City, Ill. resident Steven Lathrop who spent more than 20 years attempting to comply with federal wetlands regulations to alleviate flooding in his neighborhood — only to end up in a mess of red tape, bureaucratic mistakes and eventual financial distress.

Mar. 28: Fox News: Florida Legislature Moves Bill Forward Allowing Concealed Carry at Schools

Mar. 28: Politico: Grassley Writing His Own Gun Control Bill - Could Complicate Democrat Efforts

Mar. 28: Fox News: Free Shotgun Program Draws Positive and Negative Responses in Arizona

Mar. 28: Politico: Obama Budget Anticipated April 10, Two Months Late:
President Obama will release his budget on April 10, principal deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday. The president's budget is formally due on the first Monday in February, but the White House has said that its two-month delay was in part due to the administration's focus on sequestration.

Mar. 27: NewsMax.Com: Marines to put Rapid Response Teams on Navy Ships in Response to Benghazi

Mar. 27: FoxNews: Cutting Nonproductive Federal Workers Might Help Budget but Prove Hard to Do:
Working for the federal government used to mean a trade-off -- lower salaries, in exchange for higher job security. Today, that trade-off is gone as federal workers often make good money with little risk of being fired. Though numbers are hard to come by in the mammoth 2.4 million-employee federal workforce, an analysis by USA Today found the federal government fired only one half of one percent of its workers in fiscal year 2011. That's about five times smaller than in the private sector.

If Congress and the Executive Branch are loath to confront the bloat in government, there may be good reason. Firing federal workers is hard. Referencing Jeff Neely, the organizer of the infamous $800,000 General Services Administration conference in Las Vegas, Schatz said "it's extremely difficult to fire anyone in any agency unless you're sitting in a hot tub with a wine glass and you're in charge of the GSA agency out in the west."

Mar.27: Fox News: Millions spent on Federal AWOL, ‘standby’ workers while others brace for furloughs:
While the federal government prepares to furlough workers in critical agencies starting next month, it's spending millions of dollars on employees who are "absent without leave" or simply showing up to work on "standby." In other words, complains one senator, workers "being paid to do nothing."

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is now urging the government to crack down on this alleged waste, saying targeting these workers could yield billions of dollars in savings -- and even avert some furloughs. "It makes little sense to furlough air traffic controllers and border patrol agents while retaining employees who are AWOL, on standby, not performing official duties, or sitting idle awaiting security clearances," Coburn wrote in a letter Wednesday to John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management.

Mar. 27: Fox News: Hunters threaten to boycott Colorado after passage of recent gun laws:

Mar. 26: Alabama.com: President Signs Continuing Resolution that fully funds Obamacare:
President Barack Obama signed the new continuing resolution on Tuesday to keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year. The new CR doesn't eliminate sequestration but does provide some spending flexibility in various departments.

The measure sets spending at $984 billion and keeps sequestration's $85 billion cuts in place. The previous CR expires today. The new one freezes federal worker civilian pay and Congressional salaries for a third consecutive year but breaks out separate appropriation bills dealing with Agriculture; Commerce; Justice and Science; Defense; Homeland Security; and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs.

Mar. 26: The New York Daily News: GOP Senators vow to block debate on gun-control:

Mar. 25: The Freeman: Common practice needs to change:
Vice President Joe Biden recently became an unpopular million-dollar man when news broke that U.S. taxpayers shelled out more than a million dollars to cover his entourage’s cost for staying two nights each in London and in Paris. Stung a bit by the criticism that followed, the White House was already back-pedaling to void earlier notices that the 135-year-old Easter Egg Roll could be canceled because of deficits. But while the Easter Bunny may have scowled at all this, things were worse elsewhere. It was the week that federal workers were being furloughed and agencies across the government were trimming their sails.

A good part of the cost is for the advance team and the security required whenever the Vice President travels. It requires more than 100 assistants and Secret Service Agents. But there is a vast difference between accommodations and prices at the Paris Intercontinental, where the Biden team chooses to stay, and the likes of the Best Western France where most of us ordinary souls hang out. How long does it take the average American to earn enough to pay for just one of Biden’s trips? For a person with a high school education all the money he earns in his lifetime. When asked about Biden’s expensive trip, State Department officials responded with details about the size of the entourage and indicated that this was “nothing out of the ordinary.” It is common practice now and has been with past administrations. But that is just the point isn't it? Common practice has to change.

Mar. 25: Citizens Against Government Waste: Not all Budget Cuts Need to be Painful:
For example, raising Medicare's eligibility age by two months per year from age 65 in 2017 to age 67 in 2035 would reduce federal spending by $124.8 billion over 10 years.

Mar. 25: The Hill: Murray, Ryan face new mission impossible on the budget:
House and Senate budget leaders face a new mission impossible: reconciling their wildly different blueprints. The Senate’s passage of a budget for the first time in four years sets the stage for leaders to name conferees to negotiate a compromise measure. A reconciled budget resolution would then be put before the full House and Senate for votes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) have made no decisions about when to take these steps, congressional sources said. Experts say the two may wait until President Obama delivers his delayed budget in early April. With a hike to the debt ceiling scheduled for summer, Obama is set to push for another “grand bargain” on deficit reduction this summer.

Mar. 25: The Daily Caller | The Hill: GOP lawmaker wary of voter registration questions in Obama health law forms:
A Republican lawmaker is concerned about voter registration questions buried in a draft application to receive benefits under President Obama's healthcare law. Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), who leads a House subcommittee on oversight, said the questions' placement could lead some to believe that voter registration is tied to eligibility for the law's insurance exchanges.

"While the healthcare law requires that government agencies collect vast information about Americans' personal lives, it does not give your department an interest in whether individual Americans choose to vote," Boustany wrote in a letter Monday to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Mar. 25: The Hill: Wolf to Holder: Bring in Independent Panel to Investigate the Civil Rights Division:
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), who I have known since before he got elected to Congress, on Monday called for an outside independent panel to investigate the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Wolf, in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, said a recent inspector general report raised numerous troubling instances of internal mismanagement that he said indicate the division “has become a rat’s nest of unacceptable and unprofessional actions.”

“One cannot read the report without concluding that the division has suffered systemic mismanagement,” said Wolf in his letter sent Monday. “It has become a rat’s nest of unacceptable and unprofessional actions, and even outright threats against career attorneys and systemic mismanagement.”

Mar. 25: Fox News: How they are spending our money to study a duck's private parts:
The National Science Foundation has been criticized for spending $384,949 on a Yale University study that examined, among other things, the particulars of male duck's private parts. More on the story of What to Cut.

Mar. 25: The Plain Dealer: Cleveland Air Show Canceled - Administration blames sequestration:
The Cleveland National Air Show has become a victim of the "sequester," as federal budget cuts that took effect at the beginning of the month have forced the cancellation of the annual Labor Day event. Organizers of the air show issued a news release announcing its cancellation. It's the first time the air show won't be held in Cleveland since its first event in 1964, said air show spokeswoman Kim Dell. The air show attracts 60,000 to 100,000 visitors to Burke Lakefront Airport. It has an annual economic impact of $7.1 million.

Mar. 25: The Hill: Keystone pipeline foes hint at challenges to Dems in 2014 primaries:
A group at the forefront of opposition to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and a deep-pocketed environmentalist are warning pro-Keystone Democrats that their position could draw them opposition in 2014 primary races. The political arm of 350.org recently made its first-ever endorsement, backing Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) over Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), a pipeline supporter, in the upcoming special election to replace former Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). Hedge fund billionaire and environmentalist Tom Steyer and young activists have also jumped in, going after Lynch over his Keystone backing. Now, 350 Action and an aide to Steyer say involvement in other primaries could be in the offing.

Mar. 22: Fox News: Senate Dems reject push to balance budget in 10 years, prepare to vote on new spending plan:
Senate Democrats moved Friday to pass their first budget in four years, but only after Republicans put them on record opposing a measure aimed at balancing the budget by the end of the decade. Deficit hawk Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-AL, called a vote late Thursday on a motion to send the Democrats' plan back to committee with instructions to figure out how to balance it by 2023. Every Democrat except one -- Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia -- opposed it, while all Republicans voted for it. The measure failed on a 46-53 vote.

Sessions used the vote to needle Democrats into taking more aggressive action to tackle the nation's debt problem. Debt is pulling down our economy now. Not tomorrow -- now," Sessions said. "But tonight, the Senate's majority party denied the American people the growth, jobs, and confidence a balanced budget would create. They denied our children a future free of crushing debt. They denied millions trapped in failed government programs the reforms they need and deserve.

Mar. 22: Fox News: FAA to close 149 air traffic towers, senator calls for using untapped research money to save them:
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday that it will close 149 air traffic control towers in a move one lawmaker said was akin to "removing stop lights and stop signs from our roads." That lawmaker, Republican Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, also claims the FAA could save the towers by tapping into millions of dollars in unspent FAA research money. Yet the FAA moved forward Friday with plans to shut down the air traffic control facilities, describing them as a necessary cutback due to the sequester.

The cuts will affect small airports starting April 7. The closures will not force the shutdown of any of those airports, but pilots will be left to coordinate takeoffs and landings among themselves over a shared radio frequency with no help from ground controllers under procedures that all pilots are trained to carry out. The FAA decided to keep open 24 towers that were on the original list of possible closures.

Mar. 22: The Hill: | The Daily Caller: Senate endorses Keystone XL in budget amendment vote:
The Senate on Friday voted 62-37 to approve the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline in an amendment to Senate budget. Sen. John Hoeven’s (R-ND) amendment was largely symbolic, but served as a clear statement that the Senate backs the pipeline.

"It puts the Senate on record in support of the Keystone pipeline project. And that's just appropriate," Hoeven said. "The Department of State has done four environmental impact statements over the last five years — four — and said there are no significant environmental impacts. And it's time that we in the Senate stepped up with the American people." All Republicans voted in favor. The Senate Democrats’ budget plan is non-binding, and reconciliation with the GOP House version is unlikely.

Mar. 22: The Daily Caller: Stanford University Drops Popular Pro-Capitalism Course:
Stanford University administrators axed a popular course titled “Moral Foundations of Capitalism” that portrayed free markets in a positive light. John McCaskey, a philosophy professor at Stanford, decided to offer the course after the 2008 financial crash, and began teaching it in 2009. Both the course and McCaskey’s teaching style soon earned rave reviews from students of all political stripes. “This is one of the most fantastic courses that I have taken at Stanford,” wrote one student.

Mar. 22: The Hill: Every Notice There Is No Money Unless the Administration Wants to Do Something? (See the Gun Control Debate)

Mar. 21: The Daily Caller: GOP winning sequestration debate, but losing spending fight:
Republicans are missing an important opportunity to capitalize on the fizzling panic over sequestration, a leading GOP congressman told The Daily Caller. Commentators on the left and the right agree that President Barack Obama and legislative Democrats overstated the potential negative effects of the mandatory reduction in spending increases that kicked in at the beginning of this month.

But California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, a member of the House budget committee, says the approval of the continuing resolution on the budget this week deferred Republicans’ ability to make serious spending reductions until at least this fall. “The CR prevents the House from using its appropriations power to effect spending reforms until September 30,” McClintock told TheDC. “Obviously the battle can be fought on appropriations as of October 1. But this effectively postponed the House’s power until then.”

Mar. 21: Fox News: | The Daily Caller: House and Senate Play Ping Pong with their Budget Bills:
The Republican-controlled House passed a tea party-flavored budget plan Thursday that promises sharp cuts in safety-net programs for the poor and a clampdown on domestic agencies, in sharp contrast to less austere plans favored by President Obama and his Democratic allies. The Senate, however, easily defeated the house plan later Thursday night, in a 59-40 vote.

The measure, similar to previous plans offered by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, (R-WI)., demonstrates that it's possible, at least mathematically, to balance the budget within a decade without raising taxes. But its deep cuts to programs for the poor like Medicaid and food stamps and its promise to abolish so-called "Obamacare" are nonstarters with the president, who won re-election while campaigning against Ryan's prior budgets. It passed on a mostly party-line 221-207 vote.

Mar. 21: The Daily Caller: Oil, gas industry fends off Obama’s proposed
‘Energy Security Trust’ with new poll results:
Seventy-four percent of voters believe “now is not the time for politicians in Washington to raise energy taxes,” according to a new Harris Interactive poll the American Petroleum Institute (API) commissioned.

The poll of 1,000 registered voters, 92 percent of whom voted in the last presidential election, took place from March 8 to March 17, weeks after President Barack Obama proposed in his State of the Union Address that “we use some of our oil and gas revenues to fund an Energy Security Trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good.” “We could raise far more revenue to the government in the form of income taxes and royalties and lease bid payments,” Stephen Comstock, API’s director for tax and accounting policy, said in a conference call accompanying the poll’s release Thursday.

Mar. 21: Fox News: | The Hill:
Defense to Delay Furloughs for Civilian Workers While Working on Who Will be Affected:
The Defense Department will delay furlough notices for its civilian employees for about two weeks while officials analyze the impact of a new spending bill on planned budget cuts, the Pentagon said Thursday. The delay comes as defense officials continue to wrangle over how many civilians should be exempt from the unpaid leave requirement, including how much of the U.S. intelligence community should be excluded. A senior defense official said Thursday that as much as 10 percent of the department's 800,000 civilian workers overall could be exempt from the furloughs. The official said the exact numbers were still being worked out.

Mar. 20: YouTube Video: Dowdy Presses ICE Director on Release of Illegal Alien Felony Offenders:
It appears to me that the release of aggravated felons was not based on fiscal reasons but instead on a policy to make a political statement about the sequester, Congressman Dowdy (R-SC) said to a witness from ICE. "It costs $600 a day to house aggravated felons," he continued "certainly you could find funds somewhere else in your budget without releasing these people." In a related video Dowdy presses the a Department of Homeland Security witness on the issue of releasing level one aggravated felons.

Mar. 20: The Hill: Senate Avoids Government Shut Down; Fully Funds ObamaCare, Works on Budget:
The Senate on Wednesday approved legislation to prevent a government shutdown and set up a series of votes on what would be the first Senate Democratic budget in four years. In a 73-26 vote, the Senate approved a $984 billion continuing resolution that will keep the government funded through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30. Twenty-five Republicans voted against the measure, along with Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT). 

The bill is similar enough to a House version that it is expected to swiftly pass the House Thursday and reach President Obama’s desk before federal agencies are set to close on March 28, when the current stopgap funding bill runs out. The measure includes the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.

Mar. 20: The Daily Caller: Senate keeps White House closed, gov’t promoted winery music, cook books, iPhone apps, winter festivals continue: The Senate on Wednesday voted to leave the White House closed to public tours, instead leaving funding in place for government-promoted winery music, cookbooks, iPhone apps and winter festivals, according to Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn’s office.

The amendment to reopen the White House for tours, which was introduced by the Oklahoma Republican, would have reduced National Heritage Area funding by $8.1 million and directed $6 million of the savings toward keeping the White House and other National Parks open. It failed by a 54-45 vote. “In effect, with this vote, the Senate decided the following activities which are promoted by the government-funded NHA’s were more important than redirecting the funds to ensure the public has access to the White House,” a Coburn spokesman explained

Mar. 20: The Hill: House Democrats Force GOP Hand on Study Committee Budget:
The House rejected a conservative budget Wednesday in a 104-132 vote, with 171 Democrats voting present. Democrats voted present to force more Republicans to vote against the Republican Study Committee's (RSC) budget. Democrats hoped that by getting their members to vote present instead of against the budget, it might be approved by the House.
[See how your Congressman voted on this legislation]

That would have allowed Democrats to train their campaign ads on the RSC budget, which would boost the Social Security age to 70 and cut Medicare benefits, including for people now 59 years old. The RSC blueprint would balance the budget in four years. Democrats urged their members in an email just before the ballot to vote present.

The budget plan would cut discretionary spending to 2008 levels, and then freeze them there until the budget balances in 2017. It also seeks to simplify the tax code and would move Medicare to a premium-support system. Supporters of the bill said Congress needs to balance the budget as soon as possible in order to start paying down the government's $16.5-trillion debt. "If a budget is nothing else, it is a statement of our values and our priorities," Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) said. "And the Republican Study Committee's value and priority is to end the passing of responsibilities from this generation to the next, to be responsible for the bills that we create today and paying for those priorities today."

Mar. 18: Politico: Senate Greatly Expands House Continuing Resolution - Sending Us Down the River?
A stopgap bill to avert a government shutdown next week and keep agencies operating through September advanced in the Senate Monday night — powered by a renewed bipartisan partnership in the Appropriations Committee leadership. On a 63-35 roll call, 10 Republicans joined Democrats to limit further debate on the 587-page package, which seeks to greatly expand on the House-passed version of the same continuing resolution or CR.

The strength of the vote all but assures passage, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it was his “sincere hope” that this will occur Tuesday. All indications are once the Senate acts, the House Appropriations Committee leadership is prepared to take the modified Senate CR directly to the House floor, possibly as early as Thursday.
[See earlier coverage on House Action]

Mar. 18: The Hill: House conservatives’ budget balances in 4 years, raises retirement age to 70:
The conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) released its budget proposal on Monday, a document that calls for eliminating the federal deficit in four years and raising the retirement age to 70. The fiscal plan by the large conservative bloc in the House is significantly more far-reaching than the official House Republican budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), which balances the budget in a decade. “What we do in this RSC budget is say, you don’t have to wait,” said Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA), who wrote the conservative alternative. “We can make tougher decisions today, and we can end our economic crisis even earlier.”

The RSC budget, which Chairman Steve Scalise (R-LA) previewed on Friday, would begin Ryan’s “premium support” for Medicare five years earlier, impacting people age 59 and younger. It was gradually increase the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare to 70, with the phase-up beginning in 2024.

Similarly, in the House, only Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA.) had as of Monday promised to vote against Ryan’s plan, indicating that GOP leaders will stay well below the 15-defections limit to approve the budget over unified Democratic opposition. Neither budget resolution has a shot at being reconciled with the other, but both sides believe the votes — which could happen later this week — will give them leverage as they head into another high-stakes battle over the debt ceiling.

Mar. 18: Senator Graham Pushes the Envelope on Benghazi Survivors

Mar. 17: The Hill: Awkward choice: Vote your conscience or for your paycheck
Senate Republicans and House Democrats will face an awkward choice as they consider budget votes next week: They can either vote for a set of policies they abhor, or they can cast a vote that could result in them missing their paychecks. Such is the conundrum created by the so-called “No Budget, No Pay” law that Congress enacted last month, which stipulates that if the House and Senate do not pass budget resolutions by April 15, members in the chamber that fails will have their pay suspended.

House Republican leaders came up with the idea as a way to win conservative support for a debt-ceiling extension while forcing Senate Democrats to vote on a budget for the first time in four years. But it is their GOP colleagues in the Senate who could find themselves in an unintended financial bind if Democrats fail to win 50 votes for the budget that Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) unveiled this week. But as reported earlier, the Senate Budget is likely to be dead on arrival in the House, so even if it passed the Senate, there is not a big probability that it will go anywhere. The big issue related to the "No Budget, No Pay" bill is that it essentially did away with the debt ceiling until May 18th. Many of the Republican House members either did not understand this, or chose to ignore it, when they pushed this legislation through the House.

Mar. 17: Fox News: Judge Jeanine: Is the White House being honest with us?
In this video the Judge lists a series of instances where the Obama Administration has not been completely truthful:
- ICE releasing two thousand more than criminal illegal aliens not a hundred.
- Conflicting stories on whether it was the White House or the Secret Service who made the decision to stop the White House tours?
- Holder's letter to Congress denying assault weapons were being sent to members of the Mexican cartels (as part of Operation Fast and Furious) then withdrawing the letter when the truth came out.
- The Administration saying the attack our consulate in Benghazi was a reaction to a video and not a terrorist attack and later changing their story.
So, do we want to trust what they tell us when their history is not to tell us the truth? You be the Judge!

Mar. 17: The Hill: Ryan: House budget only a ‘down payment’ on looming debt crisis
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), architect of the House GOP budget plan unveiled last week, defended his proposal Sunday, saying it was Washington’s best chance to make a “down payment” and avoid a looming debt crisis. “My goal and hope with this budget is that now that the Senate is actually doing a budget, is that we now have this vehicle, this legislative process, which was always intended to work this way,” said Ryan on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “The House passes a budget, the Senate passes a budget, talk with the president and let’s get a down payment on the problem.”

Ryan acknowledged that it was unlikely Obama would sign the House GOP budget into law. “But let’s get a down payment, let’s get a good start on the problem. That, to me, is something that a constructive, bipartisan engagement can accomplish” he said.

Mar. 17: The Hill: Democrats’ fiscal ‘Jenga’ could topple entire economy, says senior Republican
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Sunday accused President Obama and Congressional Democrats of neglecting to address the nation’s deficit, instead playing a game of fiscal “Jenga.”“It's the old Washington fiscal game of Jenga. You try to build as much debt as you can take, as much tax as you can take, until you topple the entire economy,” said McCarthy on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

McCarthy said that Democrats were delaying the tough spending cuts and entitlement reforms the nation needed to restore its fiscal health. “This week, Republicans will have a budget that balances in ten years; the Democrats' budget never balances. No household can run that way,” he said, neither can the government!

Mar. 16th: Fox News: Feds fund ecoATM, Robo-squirrel despite warnings about chronic disease research cuts:
The federal government is ready to pay people $45,900 to attend an annual snowmobile competition in Michigan for the next two years. They're also ready to shell out $516,000 for scientists to develop an ecoATM that will give out cash in exchange for old cell phones and other electronics. And why not drop another $349,862 for a study that looks at the effects of meditation and self-reflection for math, science and engineering majors?

These are just a few of the 164 grants the National Science Foundation approved two weeks ago. Yet around the same time, the administration was warning that the sequester would cut into critical research on chronic diseases. While some of the less critical grant ideas were scrapped as the NSF looked for ways to scale back and prioritize, the number of allegedly frivolous grants still in play is not sitting well with Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

Mar. 15: Fox News: Senator Graham speaks out about Benghazi survivors on Special Report.

Mar. 15: Fox News: Interview with Senator Ted Cruz about his fiery hearing on Gun Control

Mar. 14: The Daily Caller: Another Obama Appointee Caught Stretching the Truth - ICE released over 2,000 illegals:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton told House lawmakers Thursday that ICE had released more than 2,000 illegal immigrants from detention centers in February  in anticipation of the sequester. Morton’s testimony at a hearing on immigration enforcement before a House  appropriations subcommittee contradicted the administration’s earlier assertion that only "a few hundred" illegal immigrants had been released due to the mandatory budget cuts. According to a report from the Associated Press, Morton  testified that ICE released 2,228 illegal immigrants for “solely budgetary reasons.” Morton said that no political appointees played a role in the  decision, and that it was the looming sequester that lead to the release.

Mar. 14: Politico: Sparks Fly at Senate Budget Hearing:
Sparks flew at the Senate Budget Committee hearing Thursday morning, offering  a preview of the fireworks that are likely to come as the Democrats’ budget  proposal moves to the floor. But despite the loud push back from Republicans, Democrats are likely to keep  intact and approve the proposal by Chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA). The Budget Committee is expected to vote on a series of  amendments. The resolution then will  head to the full Senate, where it’s expected to be subjected to a long list of  floor amendments. Votes on the budget are expected next week. Murray’s proposal is a direct counterpoint to Rep. Paul Ryan’s House budget,  which was also introduced this week. Murray's bill doesn’t bring the budget into balance in 10 years. It includes about $1 trillion in new revenues, recommending the  closing of loopholes and incentives in the Tax Code to match about $ 1 trillion in spending cuts.

During Thursday's hearing, Republican members came out swinging, using time that was allocated to ask technical questions of the staff to make  the case that the budget lacks any deficit reductions and instead grows the size  of government. “I would really appreciate it if you would stop claiming $1.85 trillion in  deficit reduction. It’s false. It’s false,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said after  a series of tense exchanges with a budget staffer.

Mar. 14: The Hill: Speaker Boehner: 'So far, so good' on Senate's continuing resolution bill:
Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) gave a tentative blessing to the spending bill moving through the Senate and defended the decision not to try to defund the 2010 healthcare law in that measure. [So was it the Speaker who set up the vote in the House where Members who wanted to support the military also had to vote for fully funding Obamacare?. See Discussion Below] The House last week passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded for the remaining six months of the fiscal year while fully funding Obamacare, and the Speaker had warned the Senate not to “get  greedy” and add extraneous measures to the legislation.

Senate Democrats added several full-year appropriations bills to the measure,  which already included separate bills for the departments of Defense and  Veterans Affairs. But Boehner indicated he did not object to those additions. “I think I’ll wait to see what the Senate produces once it  comes off the floor. So far, so good,” he told reporters at his weekly Capitol  press conference. Final passage in the Senate is expected before the end of the week.

Conservative Republicans, led by freshman Sen. Ted Cruz  (R-TX), had tried unsuccessfully to attach an amendment defunding President  Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul. Boehner said doing so would risk “shutting down the government. Our goal here is to cut spending. It’s not to shut down the government. I believe that trying to put ObamaCare on this vehicle risked  shutting down the government. That’s not what our goal is. Our goal is to reduce  spending.”

Mar. 14: The Hill: Obama asks House Dems to Make concessions for a big deficit deal:
President Obama asked House Democrats on Thursday to give him the political  room to make concessions to Republicans on entitlements as part of a  deficit-reduction deal. In a meeting with the House Democratic Caucus in the Capitol Visitor Center,  Obama said he won't accept anything less than a balanced approach to deficit reduction that includes new tax revenues, according to numerous lawmakers in the  room. But he also reminded his troops that, with Republicans in control of the lower  chamber, no deal is possible unless Democrats are willing to sacrifice some of  their sacred cows.

He openly discussed his proposal to adopt a less generous formula for  calculating inflation growth for entitlements, known as chained CPI, in exchange  for more tax revenue from Republicans. The offer is controversial with liberal Democrats, as it would reduce the  size of Social Security payments over time. Leaving Thursday's meeting, some  House members said they weren't ready to concede that change.

Mar. 14: Politico: Obama to Democrats: "I've Got Your Back"
President Barack Obama on Thursday wrapped up his Capitol Hill goodwill tour,  telling House Democrats he’s got their backs on entitlements. The president has been open to a number of reforms that irk liberals, such as  raising the retirement age of Medicare, means-testing and adopting a more modest  inflation calculation, known as chained CPI, for Social Security.  Obama told the Democrats he won’t chase a bad deal and let Republicans entice  him into trying for the field goal only to pull the ball away at the last minute  time and again.

Mar. 14: The Hill: Pelosi questions Keystone Pipeline Changes:
A day after President Obama indicated that there will soon be a decision on the  Keystone XL pipeline, the top House Democrat questioned the value of the  controversial project.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA) said  the pipeline would do nothing to make the country more energy independent, while  creating far fewer jobs than supporters claim.
Although she stopped short of opposing the project outright — "I want to see what the report is from the State Department" — she hinted that it would do more harm than good.

Proposed by TransCanada Corp., the Keystone XL pipeline has  been the center of a stormy debate for many months, particularly since Obama  last year delayed his decision on whether to authorize construction, citing the  need for an environmental impact study. If approved, the poject would deliver  oil from the sands of Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries.

Mar. 10: Wall Street Journal: [print edition] Peggy Noonan, writing for the Editorial Page of the WSJ Weekend Edition, says we are not facing a debt or a deficit crisis, it is a job crisis. The debt and deficit crisis is just part of the job crisis. The federal tax code is part of it -- it's a drag on everything. The administration's inability to see the stunning and historic gift of the energy revolution is part of it. But it's a jobs crisis that is the central thing. Noonan goes on to say Mr. Obama is making the same mistake he made four years ago. We are in a jobs crisis and he does not see it. He thinks he is in a wrestling match about taxing and spending, he thinks he is in a game with those "dread Republicans". But the real question is whether the American people will be able to have jobs.

Mar. 8: The Daily Caller: Republicans aim to take Keystone decision out of Obama’s hands:
House Republicans have released a plan to fast-track the long delayed Keystone XL pipeline that would take the final decision out of the president’s hands. “It’s been over four years and thousands of pages of environmental reviews. The experts have weighed in. Now is the time to build the Keystone Pipeline,” said Nebraska Republican Rep. Lee Terry, author of the draft legislation.

The draft bill would mean that the pipeline would not need a presidential permit and that the final environmental review done by the State Department in 2011 would satisfy all the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. The bill would also limit the legal challenges that could be brought against the pipeline.

Mar. 8: Guns and Gun Control Debate:
Republicans plan ‘historical, monumental’ effort to defeat gun bills;
Outdoor Channel will not film shows in Colorado if gun bills pass; and
South Dakota passes law allowing teachers to carry guns in class
[Follow the link Chronology on the Gun Control Debate]

Mar. 8: The Hill: Obama budget delayed until April:
The Obama administration will release its 2014 budget more than two months late on April 8, according to congressional sources. Pentagon officials have informed the House Armed Services Committee that the budget is coming on April 8, said Claude Chafin, a committee spokesman. A Democratic congressional source confirmed that is the planned release date. The April release means President Obama's budget will be nine weeks late, as it was due by law on Feb. 4, the first Monday in February.

Republicans have slammed Obama for delaying the budget so far past the deadline. "This indicates a troubling unwillingness to lead," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said of the new delay. "It is odd to me that the president would not have a plan and want the Congress to consider it."

Mar. 8: Fox News: Park ranger: Supervisors pushed sequester cuts that visitors would see:
Another federal employee has come forward to claim the Obama administration resisted efforts to ease the impact of sequester. A U.S. park ranger, who did not wish to be identified, told FoxNews.com that supervisors within the National Park Service overruled plans to deal with the budget cuts in a way that would have had minimal impact on the public. Instead, the source said, park staff were told to cancel special events and cut "interpretation services" -- the talks, tours and other education services provided by local park rangers. "Apparently, they want the public to feel the pain," the ranger said.

The National Park Service is among many federal agencies warning of a major impact from the sequester cuts, which took effect last Friday. The agency has warned of delayed access to portions of Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks, closed campgrounds at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, reduced hours at the Grand Canyon visitor center and other ramifications.

Mar. 8: The Daily Caller: Boehner: Obama ‘silly’ to close White House to visitors:
House Speaker John Boehner criticized the Obama administration for “locking down the White House” from the American people by stopping tours of the presidential residence, calling the decision “silly.” But Boehner would not say if he agrees with an effort by Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert to prohibit federal funds from being used for President Barack Obama’s golf trips until the tours resume.

“We’d love to have the American people come and visit their Capitol. You know, even though our budget’s been cut, like everyone else’s, thanks to proper planning, we’re able to avoid furloughs amongst Capitol workers, and tours are going to remain available for all Americans,” Boehner told reporters on Thursday at the Capitol.

Mar. 8: Fox News: White House suspends public tours, but first family trips in full swing:
Visitors to the nation's capital looking for a White House public tour are out of luck starting this weekend, courtesy of what the Secret Service says is its own decision to deal with the sequester cuts. But while the agency said it needed to pull officers off the tours for more pressing assignments, the budget ax didn't swing early or deep enough to curtail a host of recent Secret Service-chaperoned trips like President Obama's much-discussed Florida golf outing with Tiger Woods and first lady Michelle Obama's high-profile multi-city media appearances.

Obama's pricey golf outings have been a target for those who see them as examples the administration's selective concerns with running up the tab of Secret Service resources. March 5, Louis Gohmert (R-TX) filed an amendment to a House resolution that would prohibit federal funds from being spent on Obama's golf trips until public tours of the White House resumed. Gohmert referenced reports putting the cost of a recent Obama golf outing with Tiger Woods at $1 million. He also cited press reports saying 341 federal workers could have been spared furloughs if Obama had stayed home. 

Mar. 8: The Daily Caller: White House: Probably not possible for Fox News hosts to privately fund White House tours:
During Friday’s White House press conference, deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that attempts to privately fund White House tours may not be “technically possible.”“As you know, there’s a move afoot by some of the president’s critics to collect private donations keep the White House tours form being canceled because of the sequester,” Fox News Channel’s Wendell Goler said to Earnest. “Is that technically possible?”
“I don’t know if it’s technically possible,” Earnest said. “My guess is that it’s not.”

Mar. 8: The Hill: Lawmakers: Spare our flight towers:
A group of Connecticut lawmakers is pushing back on the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) plans to close air traffic control towers in their state as part of the agency's sequester budget cuts. The FAA has revealed a list of 173 air traffic control towers, including five in Connecticut, it says it needs to close next month to meet its obligation to reduce its 2013 spending by about nine percent.

But Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, all Democrats, said in a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta that the Connecticut airports should be spared from being closed. "While we understand the extraordinary funding situation the FAA is in as a result of the sequester, we strongly believe that these closures will put at risk public safety in and around the airspace of Connecticut and the local economies that rely on these facilitates for tax revenue and jobs," they continued.

Mar. 8: The Hill: McCain presses Napolitano for answers on detainee release:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is pressing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for details on the recent supervised release of hundreds of illegal immigrants from detention centers. Many of the illegal immigrants released by the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) last week were placed on monitoring systems in McCain’s home state. As a senior member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, McCain asked Napolitano to provide him with more information about the mass release.

“Who within the ICE chain of command has the authority to decide to release a particular criminal alien and what is the written policy limiting the officer’s discretion?” McCain asked in his letter to Napolitano released on Friday. “What plans are in place to ensure illegal aliens are being detained and we do not return to the days of Border Patrol ‘catch and release'? ”

Mar. 8: The Hill: Economy adds 236,000 jobs, unemployment falls to 7.7 percent:
The economy added 236,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7 percent, the first time in the past four years of the Obama Presidency that it has dropped to level below what it was when he came into office. The report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests job growth is picking up in the private sector as Washington braces for $85 billion in automatic spending cuts and the furloughing of thousands of workers. The White House has warned those cuts will harm the economy, though Obama has scaled back his rhetoric over the last week and now says they will not be the apocalypse.

Mar. 7: The Daily Caller: Fox News personalities offer to pay for two weeks of White House Tours:
As critics pounce on the White House for closing their doors to tourists because of the automatic spending cuts that went into effect this month, a Fox News anchor is offering his own solution that will certainly create some buzz. In a Facebook post on Thursday anchor Eric Bolling announced that he will offer to personally pay the costs to keep the tours at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue open for a week. Shortly thereafter Fox News personality Shon Hannity offered to pick up the cost of an additional week. The weekly cost is estimated to be as much as $74,000.

Mar. 7: The Hill: President Wants Debt Ceiling Deal by July to Avoid Midterm Election Concerns:
President Obama wants to complete a grand bargain to reduce the deficit by the end of July, an aggressive timeline coinciding with the expiration of the nation’s debt limit. Obama told a small group of Republican senators who had dinner with him Wednesday evening that a deficit-reduction deal needs to happen in the next four to five months, according to three sources familiar with the meeting.

A GOP lawmaker who met with Obama said the accelerated timeline has two advantages. Reaching a broad deficit deal by August would allow the president to avoid another messy standoff over raising the debt limit. The president, who has said he will not negotiate on the debt limit, believes it will be harder to forge a major deal in September and beyond, as both parties begin to position themselves for the 2014 mid-term election.

Mar. 7: The Daily Caller: Coburn offers FAA easy alternatives to closing towers, cutting air traffic controllers:
In the latest installment of Okla. Sen. Tom Coburn’s letter-writing campaign for administration sanity in implementing the sequester, the Republican is taking on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) spending cut priorities. In a letter to Department of Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood, Coburn called on the FAA to cancel upcoming conferences, stop nonessential hiring or reform low-priority programs before cutting elements that could harm flight safety.

“The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced today that it will close 173 air traffic control towers, effective April 7, and could furlough nearly 47,000 employees, ‘including all management and non-management employees working within the Air Traffic Organization,’” Coburn wrote in the letter, dispatched Wednesday. “All of the 173 towers closing April 7 are privately run under contracts. The department’s inspector general, however, reported that these same contract towers are both cheaper and safer than towers operated by the FAA.”

Mar. 7: Gun Control Debate: Billionaire Donor Stops Obama Supporter Purchase of the Pro-Gun Outdoor Channel: [Daily Caller Story]

Mar. 7: Gun Control Debate: Senate Judiciary Moves Gun Control Legislation: Vote was along party lines: [Reuters Story]

Mar. 6: The Congressional Record: How The Texas Delegation Voted on HR 933.
Bill Title: Department of Defense, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 -- This measure passed the House by a vote of 212 to 197
Discussion: The House Rules Committee rejected an "open rule" (4-9) on this bill. That action prohibited efforts to amend the measure so that ObamaCare could be defunded. That action meant that Members of Congress needed to make a very tough decision in deciding how to cast their vote.

• Do they vote for legislation that helps protect our military in the midst of sequestration and provides funding through the end of this fiscal year at the current level of funding less the $85 billion in sequestration?
  
  
• Do they vote for it knowing that it means that this legislation offers a reasonable chance of passage and approval in the U.S. Senate?
  
  
• Do they do this with the full understanding that by doing so ObamaCare will be fully funded?
  
  
• OR, do you vote against the legislation because it it does fully fund ObamaCare, a piece of legislation that conservatives oppose?

This is not an easy decision to make because the leadership of the House (the House Rules Committee) did not allow amendments that would defunded ObamaCare. That meant our Congressmen were stuck with an up or down vote. Below is how the Texas Delegation voted. Only two of the Texas Republicans voted against the measure (Louis Gohmert and Steve Stockman).
[See News Coverage below]

Mar. 6: The New York Post: Benghazi e-mails reveal who initiated changes to talking points:
The Obama camp has finally revealed who removed references to al Qaeda from talking points on the Sept. 11 attack of the US consulate in Benghazi, according to a new report. The newly-released e-mails show the removal of “al Qaeda” was initiated, at least in part, by one of the “press shops” for agencies involved in reviewing the talking points, a source who saw the documents told CBS News. The voluminous documents, requested by the Senate Intelligence Committee, were made available to senators on the committee ahead of its confirmation vote on CIA director John Brennan.

Press officers from the Defense Intelligence agency, the White House and the FBI all reviewed the talking points and some of them were concerned that the media would ask follow-up questions if certain words or phrases were used, according to the report. But the documents show that once the attacks began, “most if not all contact” between officials in Libya and DC reference al Qaeda as being the suspected instigator. The few references to demonstrations were by people who had not observed any, the report states. "It's amazing that anyone would question who was behind the attack and keep the idea of the demonstration going for weeks," the source said.
[For more information on Benghazi visit our News Coverage Chronology on this issue]

Mar. 6: CBS News: Obama administration struggles to illustrate pain from sequester:
The Obama administration has overreached three times in the past 10 days in attempting to illustrate the negative impact of the sequester spending cuts in the short term, giving fodder to those seeking to play down the impact of the cuts.

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters that major airports had seen lines ballooning to 150-200 percent their normal size. The Transportation Security Administration later clarified that it was not yet seeing longer-than-normal checkpoint lines, though Customs and Border Protection told CBS News there had been increased wait times at two airports due to reduced staffing. The Wall Street Journal reported however, that "officials representing a dozen major airports said there were few if any unusual flight delays or lines at security or customs checkpoints." That included an official at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, which is one of the two airports that had been specifically cited by Customs and Border Protection. 

Mar. 6: ABC News: The Most Convoluted Sequester Controversy Known to Man?
In perhaps the most convoluted back-and-forth yet regarding whether the Obama administration has overstated the effects of automatic spending cuts, the Department of Agriculture says an employee’s email has been misinterpreted and taken out of context by congressional Republicans and news reporters. The story began with a leaked email which seemed to indicate USDA had told one of its workers to make the sequester cuts as painful as promised, dismissing his request for leeway to spread the cuts out and avoid furloughing his employees.

Republican Tim Griffith and Kristi Noem reportedly circulated the email, which came from a USDA field worker who works for the Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in Raleigh, N.C.  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was asked about it Monday before the House Agriculture Committee. The email seemed to indicate that USDA shut down an appeal for budgetary leeway, telling him that USDA had already told Congress the sequester would mean cuts to services, and “you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be.”

Mar. 5: CNS News: Rep. Huelskamp: 'Defund the Implementation of Obamacare'
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) says Congress should work to repeal Obamacare -- and in the meantime, it should use its power of the purse to defund the law when it considers another stop-gap measure (continuing resolution) at the end of March.

"[T]he biggest threat to the future of our country fiscally and otherwise is Obamacare -- $1.4 trillion in new spending coming up because of this program," Huelskamp told Fox News's Sean Hannity Monday evening. Defunding Obamacare would save the government "a few billion dollars," Huelskamp said, but beyond that, "it will help millions of Americans keep their current employer-sponsored health insurance, it will stop HHS (Health and Human Services Department) from continuing to implement a very unpopular law that's driving up premiums."

Asked if Republican leaders in the House are supporting such a move, Huelskamp said, "Right now, it doesn't look like they'll let us vote on defunding Obamacare, and I'm disappointed in that. Hopefully there will be some minds changed in the next 24 to 48 hours."

Mar. 5: The Washington Times: Email tells feds to make sequester as painful as promised:
The White House announced Tuesday that it is canceling tours of the president’s home for the foreseeable future as the sequester spending cuts begin to bite and the administration makes good on its warnings of painful decisions. Announcement of the decision — made in an email from the White House Visitors Office — came hours after The Washington Times reported on another administration email that seemed to show at least one agency has been instructed to make sure the cuts are as painful as President Obama promised they would be.

In the internal email, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown said he asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to minimize the impact, and he said he was told not to do anything that would lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of. “We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that 'APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be,” the internal email says Brown's superiors told him.

Mar. 4: The Hill: Members on Congress Had a Tough Decision to Make!
A bill to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year would not defund President Obama's healthcare law, to the chagrin of some conservatives. The House Appropriations Committee unveiled legislation Monday that assumes sequestration will take effect. The bill aims to protect the Pentagon and some other agencies from cuts, but does not include controversial riders that have hampered bipartisan consensus in the past, including provisions to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. A temporary spending bill runs out after March 27, meaning the clock is ticking for lawmakers that want to avoid a government shutdown.

The conservative Club for Growth is pushing lawmakers to oppose the bill, given that it would not defund the healthcare law. The group has threatened to score against this week's vote, and circulated a "Dear Colleague" letter from Reps. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) on Friday urging members to remember their opposition to the law. "Please commit to not bring to the House floor any legislation that provides or allows funds to implement ObamaCare through the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of the Treasury, or any other federal entity," the lawmakers wrote."
[See the Vote]

Mar. 4: The Hill: House Appropriations funding bill seeks to soften sequester's blow:
House Appropriations introduced a spending bill that  assumes the $85 billion sequester goes forward but takes several steps to  cushion the Pentagon and other agencies from the blow. The $982 billion legislation would  fund the government through the end of fiscal year 2013 and prevent a government shutdown after March 27, when a current temporary  spending bill runs out. It assumes that the sequester cuts that began going into effect on March 1 stay in place, but shifts $10.4 billion into the Pentagon's operations and maintenance account to give the Defense Department more flexibility to prioritize readiness and training programs that were threatened by a full-year continuing resolution.

It also takes several steps to help other agencies from the cuts. These include provisions aimed at making sure border and nuclear security are maintained, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation maintains staffing levels, that security at embassies is increased in the wake of the Benghazi attacks, that the Forest Service has more money to fight wildfires and that federal  prisons have enough staff. The bill also includes detailed appropriations for the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments and to fund military construction. In total, the bill includes $518 billion for defense, $2 billion more than President Obama requested for this year.

The bill also extends the current two-year pay freeze for federal workers.  Obama has ordered a 0.5 percent increase in federal worker pay after March  27. The House Rules Committee will take up the bill tomorrow (March 5th) with House floor action slated for March 7th.
[See the Vote]

Mar. 4: The Washington Post: With the sequester, Obama gets his ‘balanced’ approach:
Congressional Republicans have had quite a comeback. In January, the GOP was forced to vote for a major tax hike with zero spending cuts. Now it's President Obama who has been forced to accept spending cuts with no tax hike. Who says divided government doesn’t work? Obama continues to complain the sequester does not represent a balanced approach to deficit reduction, and wants to replace some of the spending cuts with tax increases. But the Simpson-Bowles Commission laid out what a “balanced” approach should entail: $3 of spending cuts for every $1 dollar in tax increases. Well according to Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), by that standard Congress and the president have nearly met that mark.

Just a few weeks ago, as part of the fiscal-cliff deal, Congress approved $620 billion in tax hikes over ten years with no spending cuts. That means that to meet the 3-to-1 ratio, we should have a corresponding $1.86 trillion in spending cuts. But the sequester cuts just $1.72 trillion in spending over 10 years. That is a ratio of just 2.78-to-1. We would need to cut an additional $138 billion, Portman calculates, in order to meet the 3-to-1 ratio recommended by Simpson-Bowles.

Mar. 4: Fox News: Officials appear resigned to Sequester Cuts:
The boiling hysteria of the last few weeks over automatic spending cuts has reduced to a simmer now that they've technically taken effect, and one thing is  clear -- the cuts, in some form or another, are likely here to stay. The White House has eased off its dire predictions, and Republican leaders sounded mildly satisfied that, while the nature of the  cuts is not ideal, they were able to ensure Washington did not pass another stopgap measure.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., suggested the cuts would be  manageable.
"This modest reduction of 2.4 percent in spending over the next six months is  a little more than the average American experienced just two months ago, when their own pay went down when the payroll tax holiday expired," McConnell  said.

While the cuts represent just more than 2 percent of the federal budget, they  only target a relatively narrow portion of that budget. When that is taken into  account, the administration says the cuts really represent 9 percent of the non-defense budget and 13 percent of defense spending.

Mar. 4: The Hill: Secretary Duncan says he misspoke about ‘pink slips’ for teachers ahead of the sequester:
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday he misspoke when he claimed schools were already firing teachers in anticipation of sequester cuts  taking effect."When I said 'pink slips' that was probably the wrong word," Duncan said to  reporters. "Language matters, and I need to be  very, very clear."

Duncan said last week that a number of school districts around the country  had already begun laying off teachers in anticipation to the cuts. He was one of a number of Cabinet officials, who joined President Obama, in  warning of the dire consequences of the cuts taking effect. Republicans, though, countered that the administration was attempting to scare the public in an  effort to tilt negotiations over a replacement bill.

Mar. 4: FEE: Private Sector Steps Up to the Plate when the Government Fails/The Free Market at its best:
Markets have a long history of generating rules and enforcement mechanisms from within themselves rather than waiting on the government to help. Instead of attributing the success of the markets to government bureaucrats and elected officials, we should instead be thanking those in business who take the risk and who enforce protocols to protect their customers. I know from my friendship with the former General Counsel of eBay some of the things they did. The article linked to above focuses on another company and what they did to protect their users while making a profit in the process. The story of PayPal.

Mar. 3: The Hill: Carrier Cancellation Heats Up Sequester Fight:
The Pentagon’s decision to cancel a carrier group’s deployment to the Middle East has become a political flash point in the growing fight over how and what the Obama administration is cutting under sequestration. The move has been criticized by some Republicans and The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward added fuel to the fire by describing the cancellation as “madness.”

“We now have the president going out — because of this piece of paper and this agreement, I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country,” Woodward said on MSNBC. “That’s a kind of madness that I haven’t seen in a long time.”

Mar. 3: The Hill: Sperling Predicts GOP will Cave on Tax Increases when they see the Pain from Sequester:
Gen Sperling, the senior White House official who engaged in a shouting match with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward this past week is saying that Congressional Republicans will eventually agree to raise taxes after seeing the "damage caused by billions in automatic spending cuts" [which in reality are a reduction in the amount of increased spending and not real cuts in spending at all].

Sperling, the Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the president for Economic Policy, said that Republicans will eventually "choose bipartisan compromise over an ideological position," on Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Mar. 3: The Hill: Boehner: No one tried harder than me to avoid the sequester:
“There’s no one in this town who’s tried harder to come to an agreement with the president to deal with our long-term spending problem,” said Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on NBC”s Meet the Press.” “No one." He said it was time for "President Obama and Senate Democrats to get serious about the long-term spending problem that we have.”

Boehner pushed back against criticism that his party is unwilling to compromise to avoid the $85 billion sequester because they won't accept new revenue. "The president got his tax hikes on Jan. 1," Boehner said. "How much more does he want? When is the president going to address the spending side of this?

Mar. 2: Fox News: Obama Still Dealing with Accuracy Issues Re: Sequester Impact
President Obama and top administration officials are struggling with accuracy in explaining the impact of billions in federal budget cuts known as sequester that kicked in Saturday morning -- even getting called out by a Capitol Hill superintendent about furloughs for support staffers.

Carlos Elias, the Capitol Building superintendent, sent out a memo Friday reminding staffers that the current sequestration plan does not include “reductions in force or furloughs” and that “pay and benefit of each of our employees will not be impacted.”

The president, in what appeared to be the administration’s attempt to maximize the potential impact of the cuts, said at a press conference earlier that the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol, the security guards and the janitors "... just got a pay cut, and they’ve got to figure out how to manage that.”

Mar. 1: Fox News: Bob Woodward -- Was he threatened?
"His (Gene Sperling's) email followed a conversation where he was shouting at me," Bob Woodward of the Washington Post said. Then Sperling, one of President Obama's senior economic advisors, apologized to the columnist. Woodward said this is just not the way to operate. He (Sperling) is like one of the President's czars and saying things like that are just not appropriate.

Woodward reported in an OpEd piece in Washington Post that the President was the author of the sequester idea. He also talked about Obama "moving the goal posts" asking for more tax increases instead of dealing with cutting spending as part of the sequester.

Woodward also said, "The problem is that members of the press who are not as experienced and have not been doing this as long as I have are giving in to the pressure being brought by the White House. Woodward has gotten email messages from a lot of his colleagues saying that they got similar treatment from the White House.

Lanny Davis, a syndicated columnist reported on WMAL that his editor got a call from a senior White House official saying that if he didn't moderate his columns the editor's reporters would lose their White House press credentials.

Feb. 28: Fox Business News: Republican Sequester Alternative Fails in Senate Vote:
A Republican bill that would replace the onset on Friday of automatic spending cuts under the sequester failed a test vote in the Senate on Thursday. Without a replacement, $85 billion in across-the-board cuts are due to take effect beginning Friday. Congressional leaders are scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama on Friday to discuss replacing the cuts, which go into effect gradually through September. The Republican bill would have given Obama flexibility to determine what cuts to make, but would not have raised any taxes.

Feb. 28: Fox News Special Report: Multiple Reports on the Sequester:
The White House is suddenly on the defense for overplaying their hand about the sequester. The President now tells us this is not a "cliff" and says that it will take some time before the sequester is felt. With the claims from various cabinet members of the dire results if the sequester is allowed to happen, a recent survey showed that 57% believe the only way to make serious cuts if to allow the sequester to happen.

Meanwhile, the Senate considered two alternative plans to the sequester which would allow flexibility on how to cuts would be applied. Both plans failed. Republican leader McConnell questioned why actions were not taken long before we got to this point and said there would be no last minute deals while Majority Leader Harry Reid continued to push for closing "tax loopholes" instead of cutting spending.

In a related story, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward made public emails from the White House telling him he should reconsider his reporting and that he should recheck his facts, something that seemed as a veiled threat. Subsequently other reporters are coming forward saying they have received similar email messages from the White House and some reporters have privately admitted they have changed their reporting.

Feb. 27: Fox News Special Report On-Line:
The sequester is not a reduction in spending. Instead of increasing spending by $150 billion, the increase will only be about $70 billion. So the sequester is really only reducing the amount of the increase. Secondly, the White House is saying the "cuts" will be immediate and painful, but then they are telling us that most of the impact will not be felt until April or May. Thirdly, if the impact of the cuts are not as drastic as the White House is saying then it puts the Administration in a tough situation in future negotiations with the Hill. For that reason alone, Charles Krauthammer said, it would be in the best interest of the President to make the sequester cuts as painful as possible.

Feb. 27: Fox News: Voting Rights Act Goes Before the Supreme Court:
The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative justices voiced deep skepticism Wednesday about a section of a landmark civil rights law that has helped millions of Americans exercise their right to vote. In an ominous note for supporters of the key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Anthony Kennedy both acknowledged the measure's vital role in fighting discrimination and suggested that other important laws in U.S. history had run their course. "Times change," Kennedy said during the fast-paced, 70-minute argument.

Kennedy's views are likely to prevail on the closely divided court, and he tends to side with his more conservative colleagues on matters of race. In the past Attorney General Greg Abbott has been one of the voices calling into question the constitutionality of requiring some states to get "preclearance" over changes like the Texas "Photo ID" bill while other states are exempted.

Feb. 27: Fox News: Administration Releases Illegal Aliens Claiming the Sequester is Forcing it:
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee pressed immigration enforcement chief John Morton for more details about the release of illegal immigrants in the Southwest, claiming the move reflects a "weak stance on national security." Michael McCaul, R-TX, fired off a letter to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement director after ICE disclosed that it had started to release hundreds of illegal immigrants. ICE blamed looming budget cuts for the decision.

McCaul, though, said "this decision reflects the lack of resource prioritization within the Department of Homeland Security" and ICE. He gave Morton until March 6 to provide a breakdown of how many people have been identified for release, where they will be released from and other details. He also said he was "concerned" that the move was taken without notifying "the appropriate congressional oversight committees."

Feb. 25: Fox News: Cuts? There Will be No Cuts!
The problem is that all that is happening is that we are cutting the amount of the increase. We will still be increasing the amount we spend. According to "The Five" on Fox News "President Spending" doesn't want any cuts so he is trying to get everybody energized but what he really wants is another increase in taxes. The problem is that the cuts, if it happens, will be across the board and will not be targeted. But the House has introduced legislation to allow each Department to target the cuts within their own agencies. The sequester will not be the end of it, in less than a month we will be seeing this debate allover again with the Continuing Resolution.

Feb. 25: Fox News: The Economy May Be Stalling, Some Economists Say:
The economic forecast is not good. In 2012 the economic growth in our country dropped from 2.2 % to 2.0% and with higher gas prices and increased taxes we are in jeopardy of stalling the economy altogether. What the Obama Administration has not learned yet is that you don't raise taxes in slow economy. To do so, takes money away from those who would otherwise spend it and thereby buildup the economy.

Feb. 22: Fox News: In the October 2012 Presidential Debates Obama said the sequester was not his idea and it will never happen. It looks like he may be wrong on both fronts. The first is that the sequester was, in fact, the President's idea. The second is that it looks like the sequester may, indeed, happen. According to Fox contributor Rich Lowry, over ten years, these cuts are a drop in the bucket equaling about three percent of the total U.S. spending. It is about the amount that the Federal Government spends in nine days. The Administration is painting a picture of the worst possible case inorder to instill fear so they get what they want. Lowry says these cuts should happen. If we cannot cut the budget by three percent, he said, we might as well declare bankruptcy right now!

Feb. 22: Fox News: Administration ramps up budget cut warnings, Republicans say drama 'won't solve the problem' The Obama administration on Friday ramped up its campaign to paint an ominous portrait of what would happen if automatic spending cuts take effect March 1, with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood warning that air traffic control towers would be shut down as part of a host of travel-disrupting FAA cuts.

After a week marked by intense partisan bickering, LaHood again put the pressure on Republicans to find a way out of the impasse. "Trying to drive up Republicans' negative poll numbers by posing with first responders and the men and women of America's Armed Forces while making vague calls for higher taxes won't solve the problem," Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

Political groups on both sides are also weighing in. The conservative Crossroads GPS put out a web video Friday airing Obama's dire warnings alongside news broadcasts reminding viewers that the idea for the so-called sequester came from the White House. "The sequester is Obama's mess. Let him clean it up," the video says.

Feb. 21: Fox News: Because You Asked -- What is the Truth About the Sequester?
The sequester is not a reduction in spending, it is a reduction of the increase in spending. It would reduce the increase of our spending from 13.5% to 5.2% which is still an increase in spending. Also, Bryan York of the Washington Examiner says, nothing will happen immediately if the sequester takes affect. Part of that is because notice is required if the federal government is going to furlough anyone and also because if there is a sequester there will be efforts to lessen the impact of them, perhaps as part of the Continuing Resolution that will be facing us later in March. And statements that the Obama Administration has "no choice" but to make cuts to programs that support first responders is not true at all. The Administration can adjust the cuts within each department.

Feb. 21: Fox News: VA Town Braces for Sequester Cuts:
Hampton Roads, like so many communities in Virginia, has an economy that centers around the military -- in their case, the Navy. And with eight days left for Congress to act to halt looming budget cuts known as the sequester, residents are increasingly worried that Naval Station Norfolk -- the lifeblood of the community -- will be hard hit.

Tom Taylor, who runs MF&B Marine Warehouse in Hampton Roads, is already watching contracts with the Navy dry up at his small ship-repair business. "It's not like turning on a spigot. You don't turn it on and turn it off," Taylor said in an interview with Fox News. "These (contracts) are months or years in the planning stage, so if they are canceled, you know, they don't come right back. ... So that's pretty alarming."

Feb. 21: The Daily Caller: White House Sequester Scare Campaign Continues:
The President phoned top GOP Hill leaders Thursday, marking another stage in the White House public relations campaign to spur a media storm over the pending budget sequester that will trim federal spending by roughly two percent in 2013. White House spokesman Jay Carney announced Obama’s phone calls, but declined to describe the conversation.

“The president spoke with Sen. [Mitch] McConnell and the Speaker” John Boehner, Carney said during the midday press conference. “I have no content to read out to you from those conversations,” he said.

Feb. 21: The Hill: President Offering False Choices, Wants Us to Raise Taxes Twice in Eight Weeks!
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said Thursday that President Obama was offering “false choices” on the looming sequester. Cantor said in a statement that the cuts set to go into effect on March 1 – which he agreed were neither smart nor fair – would only be implemented because Democrats refuse to restrain federal spending. The majority leader added that, after the recent “fiscal cliff” deal raised some $600 billion in revenue, it was time for Washington to move to the spending side of the ledger.

“President Obama has said that unless he gets a second tax hike in eight weeks, he will be forced to let criminals loose on the streets, the meat at your grocery store won’t be inspected and emergency responders will be unable to do their jobs,” Cantor said in his statement. I would contend that if he makes these choices, he is making the wrong ones!

Feb. 20: Fox News: Boehner says to Obama - You Created Spending Cut Crises, You Fix it!
House Speaker John Boehner had a simple message Wednesday for President Obama after he used the bully pulpit to blame Republicans for the "meat cleaver" of looming spending cuts: You created it, you fix it. "Having first proposed and demanded the sequester, it would make sense that the president lead the effort to replace it,"

Feb. 20: The Hill: Administration Threatens Deep Civilian Defense Cuts:
Defense officials have warned lawmakers that sequestration will devastate the military and lead to a hollow force, but the civilian furloughs will be one of the first major impacts felt by the across-the-board cuts. The Pentagon furloughs will affect civilians across the country. Pentagon officials have said that civilians could face up to 22 days of furloughs, one per week, through the end of the fiscal year in September. The employees would receive 30 days' notice before being

Feb. 20: The Daily Caller: Obama Spokesman Admits the Sequester Would Not Cause the Loss of Jobs Claimed:
White House spokesman Jay Carney backed away Wednesday from his boss’ apocalyptic claims of imminent mass-layoffs if Congress does not stop the scheduled budget sequester by raising taxes. But when pressed today by reporters whether the sequester would for immediately force of “hundreds of thousands” of Americans, Carney demurred on Obama’s dire claims. He answered “No, but there will be job losses.”

Feb. 20: The Hill: Obama Takes the Attack on Sequester to Local TV Markets:
President Obama is using some of the eight interviews he conducted Wednesday with local television stations to blast Republicans over the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to hit the government on March 1. “What I want to say is that it's not necessary,” Obama told Boston's WCVB, when asked about looming job losses because of the automatic government spending cuts. He said the sequester, which was part of a bill he signed into law in 2011 was something “designed to be avoided.”

The interview with WCVB is part of a public relations effort Obama designed to win over the public to his side in the fight over the sequester, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will reduce hiring by 750,000 and take 0.7 percent from economic growth.

Feb. 19: The Hill: Who is Going to be Blamed for the Sequester?
House GOP lawmakers say they do not fear political blowback if Congress fails to prevent $85 billion in automatic spending cuts from triggering in two weeks. The cuts known as the sequester are almost certain to hit the Pentagon and non-defense discretionary spending on March 1, and congressional Republicans and the White House are focused on avoiding blame for the cuts.

Feb. 19: Fox News: President Grandstanding Again?
Obama's appearance with firefighters and other first responders was another photo op to renew his call for tax hikes on top earners to offset part of automatic spending cuts set to kick in two weeks hence. Obama’s argument is that Janet Napolitano and her team at the Department of Homeland Security will have no choice but to cut off subsidies for local fire departments once the cuts take effect, forcing layoffs at firehouses.

But this is not entirely truthful. Napolitano can make other cuts instead of the ones Obama is using to publicize his position. So it's not true that she will have "no choice" but to make those cuts. For example, she could presumably cut other parts of her agency's budget, the high volume of ammunition orders for instance. But doing that wouldn’t be so dramatic. What is a better photo op? Having Obama pose with a case of shotgun shells or with people who run into burning buildings for a living. It is important to remember that what sells well on TV might not really be the truth!

Feb. 17: FoxNews: In an effort to avoid costs, three states join others in rejecting to set upstate health insurance agencies: As the final deadline for creating state health insurance exchanges passed Friday, New Jersey, Tennessee and Florida said they would not work with the federal government on operating insurance markets required under ObamaCare. Exchanges are online markets required under the federal health care law where consumers will be able to buy individual private policies and apply for government subsidies to help pay their premiums.

Meanwhile FoxNews reports other governors are making forays into states like California urging businesses and residents to consider moving to states with low taxes and less regulation.
Cowboy boot-wearing Rick Perry attracted national attention this month when he traveled to California dangling the twin carrots of lower taxes and fewer regulations to try to poach residents and businesses. Yet the Texas governor is not alone in such efforts, with Republican lawmakers from such states as Florida, Virginia and Wisconsin making similar moves. As part of a broader ideological battle among the states, officials are trying to lure business and grow their own economies by extolling the virtues of a small-government climate.

Perry’s foray started with a radio campaign in which he urged California businesses frustrated by myriad regulations and new tax increases to “come check out Texas.”“Our low tax taxes, sensible regulations and fair legal system are just the thing to get your business moving to Texas,” Perry said in the 30-second spots.

Feb. 16: FoxNews: Rep. Roby leads Republicans in asking Obama to take lead to avert drastic cuts:
Republicans on Saturday stepped up their call for President Obama to take the lead in negotiations to avert roughly $85 billion in automatic cuts to the military and other government spending next month by replacing the cuts with less drastic reductions.

Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) said the president is responsible for the cuts because his administration proposed the plan, known as sequester, during the 2011 debt-limit negotiations. “In his State of the Union address, President Obama himself admitted that these cuts are a really bad idea,” Roby said Saturday in the weekly Republican address. “What the president failed to mention was sequester was his idea.”

Roby, chairwoman of a House Armed Services subcommittee, is among several lawmakers, including Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who after Obama's speech Tuesday, is saying how the across-the-board cuts to the military would impact bases, including those in their home districts.

Feb. 16: The Hill: Experts debate the benefits of a proposed minimum wage hike:
An Obama administration proposal to raise the minimum wage may not help as many low-wage earners as estimated. Keith Hall, a Mercatus Center scholar at George Mason University and former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), said the only real avenue to increasing wages and assisting those with incomes below the poverty level is to create jobs.

"It's probably not going to affect that many people," Hall said. Looking at the 2011 statistics 1.7 million workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour while BLS reports that there are 73.9 million workers who are 16 years or older. That would mean that about 2.5% of the total workforce would be affected by the proposed increase.

Feb. 16: The Daily Caller: Legislation repealing Obamacare tax paid by small businesses reintroduced:
A bipartisan coalition of congressmen introduced legislation Friday calling for the repeal of the Health Insurance Tax (HIT) on fully-insured premium markets imposed by Obamacare. HIT will kick in in 2014 and is expected to primarily fall on small businesses and the self-employed, who are the main purchasers of fully-insured premiums. According to an earlier study, not repealing the tax could cost also cost between 125,000 and 249,000 jobs by 2021 and raise the cost of employer-sponsored insurance by 2-3 percent, a cumulative cost of nearly $5,000 per family.
However, just because legislation has been introduced does not mean it will see the light of day. The current Administration is not likely to accept this repeal.

Feb. 15: The Wall Street Journal: Millions Defraud Federal Phone Subsidy Program:
The Lifeline program provides phones to low-income Americans and ensures that the poor aren't cut off from jobs, families and emergency services. The program is funded by charges that appear on the monthly bills of every landline and wireless phone customer, amounting to a roughly $2.50 a month per household fee to fund subsidized communication programs. The program is plagued with fraud and is poorly regulated, says the Wall Street Journal.

According to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) payments are shooting up from $819 million in 2008 to $2.2 billion last year. Recent FCC rules required that carriers verify recipient's eligibility under the program. As a result the five top Lifeline carriers revealed that 41 percent of its 6 million subscribers could not demonstrate eligibility or did not respond.

Feb. 13: The Hill: House GOP prepares stopgap spending bill to avoid shutdown:
House appropriators are finalizing a stopgap spending bill to prevent a government shutdown after March 27, and the bill could see a vote before the end of February. House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) said Thursday that he is crafting a continuing resolution at the current level of spending, thereby separating the issue of a government shutdown from the question of how to deal with automatic sequestration cuts.

The stopgap spending bill would be set at the current level of $1.043 trillion for the entire fiscal year that began Oct. 1. It would specify that the $85 billion sequestration is allowed to take place unless it is separately turned off.

Feb. 13: The Hill: Obama is Delusional on Debt:
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) lambasted President Obama on Wednesday for taking the deficit too lightly in his State of the Union address. Ryan, holding his first hearing of the budget panel since running for vice president last year, said the latest deficit projections from the Congressional Budget Office show Obama is “deluding” himself on the debt.

“It seems as if they think the heavy lifting on debt reduction, deficit reduction is behind us, we have just a little bit left and then we’re done,” Ryan said. “I really worry that our partners in government, here — two-thirds of it, the Senate and the White House — are deluding themselves in thinking this thing is taken care of.”

Feb. 13: The Wall Street Journal: In his State of the Union address, Obama, addressing a Congress driven by disputes over how to rein in budget deficits, rejected broad changes to Medicare, the federal health program, as some Republicans have proposed. The president, who won an increase in tax rates on high wage-earners earlier this year, said he would press for deficit reduction by ending tax breaks and deductions for wealthier Americans, as well as for spending cuts. [Editorial Comment: Deficit reduction? Really? From the person who helped lead us into a $16+ trillion debt? The way he plans on reducing the deficit is by spending more and then raising taxes even higher in order to cover the cost. The problem with this approach is that it will doom our economy and drive businesses overseas.]

In the Republican Party's formal response, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said the president was wrongly relying on government, rather than the free market, to boost the middle class. "Presidents in both parties—from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan—have known that our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity," Mr. Rubio said. "But President Obama? He believes it's the cause of our problems."

Obama also encouraged the Congress to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9. What he doesn't understand is that if this happened it would mean an increase in unemployment as companies hire fewer people and try to maximize the productivity of those employees who are left.

Feb. 13: The Hill: Republicans: Obama State of the Union dims hopes for deficit-reduction deal:
Republican lawmakers say a deal to reduce the deficit and replace $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to take effect on March 1 is even less likely after President Obama's State of the Union address. While Obama tackled the deficit head-on in his speech, mentioning the word "deficit" 10 times at the top of his address, Republicans accused him of paying lip service to the debt in a speech that called for a higher minimum wage and new spending on programs Obama said were designed to lift people out of poverty.

Feb. 11: The Hill: Senate Dems aim to have sequester bill ready by Thursday:
Senate Democrats are aiming to produce a bill to replace the sequester by Thursday, according to Democratic aides. The bill would include tax increases and spending cuts, and it would replace the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts known as the sequester. The sequester, which most members in both parties say will damage national security with its cuts to the Pentagon and other programs, is set to take effect on March 1, leaving Congress little time to act before the Presidents Day recess next week.

Feb. 11: Fox Business News: Democrats Getting Worried that the Sequester Might Actually Happen/Increase Rhetoric: A memo from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee delivers the emotional impact of the $85 billion in mandated sequestration cuts coming March 1. The memo warns of furloughs of two weeks or longer for roughly 4,000 employees at the Federal Aviation Administration, and an unspecified number of layoffs of USDA food safety inspectors -- which could force meat plant shutdowns, it says.

Also, 5,000 border patrol officers could be furloughed, which “could jeopardize security at points of entry,” the memo says. Another 1,300 correctional officers could be laid off, as well as 1,000 federal law enforcement officers at places like the FBI. “The Justice Department would have to furlough hundreds of federal prosecutors,” says a White House official.

Feb. 10: The Hill: Defense, domestic groups ally for last-minute drive to halt sequester:
The defense industry is joining forces with health, education and other domestic sectors to wage a last-minute push to stop the across-the-board sequestration cuts from taking effect.

Feb. 9: FoxNews: Obama to refocus on economy in State of the Union
President Barack Obama will focus his State of the Union address on boosting job creation and economic growth at a time of high unemployment, underscoring the degree to which the economy could threaten his ability to pursue second-term priorities such as gun control, immigration policy and climate change.

Feb. 9: From the Editor: My family and I attended the Brazoria County Lincoln Day Dinner this evening. Senator John Cornyn was one of the speakers. He talked about the "generational theft" taking place in Washington as we continue to spend more than we take in. He noted that the only "real" debt reduction seems to be the mandatory sequester cuts and those the President wants to take off the table.

For more on the mandatory sequester visit FoxNews: White House outlines deep cuts that could be coming soon: Trying to ratchet up pressure on Congress, the White House on Friday detailed what it said would be the painful impact on the federal work force and certain government assistance programs if "large and arbitrary" scheduled government spending cuts are allowed to take place beginning March 1. At a White House briefing Obama budget officials said the cuts would include layoffs or furloughs of "hundreds of thousands" of federal workers, including FBI agents, U.S. prosecutors, food safety inspectors and air traffic controllers. I guess my question is why do they always run up the flag pole examples of things that are important jobs and never seriously address those that are not? Congress, hold the line. Yes, it may mean some serious cuts to our defense budget, but finally we have something that is going to force the White House to get serious about real budget cuts.
[Also see an additional strategy I suggested earlier on how to reduce spending -- Obamacare]

Feb. 8: The Daily Caller: Despite optimism-mongering in the media and in certain quarters of Washington and elsewhere, we’ve had indication after indication in the economic data that whatever lousy progress has been made in nudging up GDP, American workers have not benefited from it. But now we know from the horse’s mouth, so to speak: they’re mired in a tough new reality that is in many ways getting worse.

“Deeply pessimistic” is the term used in the sobering survey, “Diminished Lives and Futures: A Portrait of America in the Great-Recession Era.” A confirmation of bits and pieces of economic data that has been trickling in over the years on this topic.

Feb. 7: The Daily Caller: The nation’s economy will grow by only 1.4 percent in 2013, and unemployment will remain above 7.5 percent through 2014, according to a Feb. 7 forecast by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

“If that occurs, 2014 will be the sixth consecutive year with unemployment exceeding 7½ percent of the labor force, the longest period of such high unemployment in the past 70 years,” said the CBO’s statement, titled “Economic Growth Is Likely to Be Slow in 2013 and Pick Up in Later Years.”

Feb. 6: The Hill: Here is your chance Congress to shut down Obamacare: The Appropriators are preparing stopgap bill to avoid government shutdown in March. The move is a strong signal that House and Senate deals on more detailed appropriations bills — deals that were close to being finished last December — are unlikely. Work on the stopgap bill is technical at this point, and it’s unclear how long the stopgap bill would fund the government. The most likely scenario is a six-month bill to finish out the fiscal year.

Now, here is how to shut down Obamacare:

Do you remember the "Hyde Amendment" from back in 1976? It was a provision placed on appropriation bills that prohibited the use of Federal funds for abortions. The same process can be used today. All appropriation bills must originate in the House of Representatives. This includes Continuing Resolutions (CR) such as the stopgap measure discussed in The Hill article (above). All that is needed is to have the House include language that stipulates none of the funds authorized in the CR may be used to initiate, administer, enforce or fund any of the programs and provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Then, and this is the hardest part, the House needs to stand firm. They need to stop worrying about whether they will be reelected next year. They need to do what is right and be statesmen.

If the Senate doesn't agree with the CR amendment language (and it probably won't), the House needs to make it clear that the House is not shutting down the Federal government. They are only prohibiting the use of funds to implement, administer, and enforce Obamacare. De-funding Obamacare will also have the side benefit of reducing federal spending which is what we need to also do. [See More]

Feb. 6: The Daily Caller: Over-regulation, not phantom spending cuts, caused economy to shrink in fourth quarter: Last Tuesday, The Conference Board — a private group that measures consumer confidence —announced that consumer confidence had plummeted in January. One day later, the Commerce Department reported the U.S. economy had contracted by 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. Then on Friday, the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate had moved back up to 7.9%. The mainstream media and President Obama downplayed the news or blamed phantom “spending cuts.” Hardly anyone brought up the dramatic increase in regulation over the last few years and the fear that President Obama’s re-election opens the door to a massive onslaught of intrusion into every aspect of our lives.

Feb. 6: The Wall Street Journal: A slowly improving economy and recently enacted tax increases will help bring down the federal deficit for the next few years, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, but it will take another $2 trillion in belt-tightening over the next decade to begin to move the federal debt closer to historic levels. CBO projects that if current laws are left unchanged, the debt will be 77% by 2023, and it will be higher if across-the-board spending cuts are diluted or various expiring tax breaks are extended. (The deficit is the difference between spending and revenues in a given year; the debt is the government's total borrowing, or the sum of past deficits.)

Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan agency that advises Congress on budget and economic matters, emphasized the risks of failing to stabilize the debt. "At this level of debt relative to GDP, our country would be incurring costs and bearing risks of a sort that we have not [had] in our history except for a few years around the end of the second World War," he said. "At the same time, bringing debt down relative to GDP requires reductions in services that we are getting from the government, or higher taxes paid to the government."

Feb. 4: Daily Caller: Former Reagan budget director warns of new housing bubble:
The market may be rising, but according to one expert, all is not well on the home front.
David Stockman, former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan administration, insists that the housing market outlook is not as cheery as some say.
“I would say we have a housing bubble … again,” Stockman contended. “We don’t have a real organic sustainable recovery, because in a world of 'medicated money' by the central bank, things aren’t what they appear to be.” Stockman pointed to artificially low interest rates and speculation in the real-estate market as culprits.

“It’s happening in the most speculative subprime markets, where massive amounts of ‘fast money’ is rolling in to buy, to rent, on a speculative basis for a quick trade,” he said. “And as soon as they conclude prices have moved enough, they’ll be gone as fast as they came.” Any kind of interest-rate increase will lead to a bust, Stockman said.

“As soon as the Fed has to normalize interest rates, housing prices will stop appreciating and they’ll probably head down,” he explains. “The fast money will sell as quickly as they can and the bubble will pop almost as rapidly as it’s appeared.” Two major buyers are missing from the current real estate market, according to Stockman:  first-time buyers and trade-up buyers. High unemployment and burdensome student loan debt, he said, will restrict the younger generation from entering the market.

Feb. 4: Daily Caller: Obama criticized for not submitting budget on time, again:
Republicans on Capitol Hill are criticizing President Obama for failing to submit by Monday a budget for how to spend taxpayer money to Congress. Doing so is mandated under the law.
“By law, the President was supposed to submit his budget to Congress today,” House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy wrote on Twitter. “However, it will be late – making this the 4th of 5 late budgets.”

Said Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the House budget chairman, in a Monday press release said “I’m disappointed the President has missed his deadline. But I’m not surprised.” Obama is required under the Budget Act to submit a budget to Congress by the first Monday in February. White House budget director Jeffrey Zients has blamed the lateness of Obama’s budget on the American Taxpayer Relief Act — the legislation pushed by Obama that raised taxes on wealthy Americans.

No budget has passed the Senate since 2009. “We spend $1 trillion more than we take in each year,” Ryan said. “In fact, we spend $3 for every $2 we take in. And we can’t keep that up. If we stay on this path, our finances will collapse.”

Feb. 4: The Hill: GOP seizes on Obama's blown budget deadline:
Congressional Republicans are seizing on the White House’s failure to meet the Feb. 4 legal deadline to produce an annual budget as a gift that will help them recover from months of political beatings. The White House on Monday declined to say when President Obama’s delayed 2014 budget will come out.

“President Obama missed a great opportunity today to help our economy.  This was supposed to be the day he submitted his budget to the Congress.  But it’s not coming.  It’s going to be late.  Some reports say it could be a month late,” Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said on the House floor.

On Wednesday, the House will vote on a bill to require the president to submit a budget that eventually balances — something Obama’s 2013 budget never did. The GOP’s political offensive began when it forced the Senate and White House to accept No Budget, No Pay legislation that will require senators to go without pay if they fail for the fourth time in a row to do a budget resolution this year. [See analysis of what this legislation really does.]

Feb. 1: Politico: Jobs Growth Continues Slow Grind
The U.S. economy added 157,000 jobs in January as the unemployment rate rose slightly to 7.9 percent, federal economists reported Friday. “This is the wrong time for President Obama to scrap his jobs council and delay his budget," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. "Month after month we see the same thing," he said. "High unemployment and even more debt" continue to rise Boehner said referencing the president’s decision Thursday to allow his job council to disband.

Jan. 30: The Wall Street Journal: Recovery shows a Soft Spot:
The U.S. economy shrank for the first time in more than three years in the fourth quarter, underscoring the halting nature of the recovery. But the strength of consumer spending and business investment suggested that the economy will grow, albeit slowly, this year.

Jan. 30: FoxNews: Economic Growth in the U.S. Goes Negative:
The new normal for the U.S. economy – sluggish growth – gave way to something more dire in the final three months of 2012. Economic output actually shrank in the fourth quarter of the year. And while economists say that there are hopeful signs, especially higher consumer spending, and logical reasons for the contraction, pared down defense spending and Hurricane Sandy, having the first recessionary quarter since 2009 is still dire news.

With the new Obama taxes in place, including an across-the-board hike on workers with the expiration of Obama’s payroll tax holiday and a sharp increase on income taxes on top earners, some in the financial world worry that the economy is just not strong enough to bear the burden of the Obama tax hikes. Deepening their concerns is the fact that reduced spending by Defense contractors ahead of looming cuts was such a big part of the plan. The deal reached on taxes between Obama and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t address the pending cuts, nor does a stopgap plan from House Republicans to temporarily extend the government’s credit limit.

Jan. 30: The Fiscal Times:Why the GOP retreated on the debt ceiling debate: GOP Hill staffers heard an explanation that gives a sense of how more conservative thinkers view the debt limit. As it was explained, the U.S. needs to pay the obligations it already has regardless of the government’s legal borrowing authority. The problem is not so much with the debt limit, although that is certainly a major issue. The problem is with the hunger to spend more and not reduce the current level of spending. It is going to take a livestyle change to get the country back on track.

Jan. 29: Business Insider:  How The House's Unprecedented Debt Ceiling Bill Could Make The Next Round Much Easier: The bill, championed by Republican House Speaker John Boehner and House Budget Chair Paul Ryan, is an unusual one with a format that is unprecedented in recent debt ceiling history. But analysts think that in some ways, the setup could actually be beneficial for future fiscal talks because it takes out much of the uncertainty leading up to the next potential fight.

The big difference between this debt-ceiling bill is that it is not technically a clean hike in the nation's debt limit. It's a suspension of the debt ceiling for a certain time period. On May 19, the debt limit will be raised by an amount "necessary to fund commitment incurred by the Federal Government that required payment." The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates that number will be around $450 billion.

Jan. 29: FoxNews Business:  Analysis: U.S. rating still at risk despite reduced threats from DC:
The retreat by Republicans from threats to push the United States into a debt crisis has stayed the hand of at least one credit ratings agency, but that does not mean the United States is suddenly safe.  The country has retained its top triple-A rating from Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, despite rising debt levels. It was downgraded by one notch in 2011 by Standard & Poor's after a chaotic debt ceiling battle. On Monday, Fitch said the recent debt ceiling extension eliminates the immediate risk to the rating.

Jan. 27: Editorial Comment on the "No Budget No Pay" Bill: The House passed the "No Budget, No Pay" bill. But is the bill a good thing? Let's take a look at it for a moment. Yes, it is a good thing to require both the House and the Senate to pass a budget. The House has done so every year while the Senate has not done so in over three years. And tying the pay of the House and Senate members to the passage of a budget is also a good thing. But does it really stop the Members of the House and Senate from getting paid? Not really! Take a look at the language and you will see that it only postpones the payment until either a Continuing Budget Resolution for FY 2014 is passed by the affected house of Congress or the end of the 113th Congress. So the members will get paid but maybe a year and a half from now! That is not to say that doing this is not an incentive to get to the business at hand, but it is not a complete prohibition on their getting paid as the short hand name of the bill would suggest.

But let's look a little deeper at what the bill does! First, it eliminates (removes) the debt ceiling for three months. The Secretary of the Treasury may increase the debt, subject to a resolution of disapproval from the Congress. That means that the Secretary has a free hand to increase the debt because it is highly unlikely that the Senate will pass any resolution of disapproval, thereby nullifying the ability of the House to stop him. Second, it only requires that each house of Congress pass a budget bill. So what does that really mean? It means that all they need to do is to pass a bill. The bill can be dead on arrival at the other house -- which is likely what the Senate will do. It does not require that a budget resolution be adopted by both houses of Congress and sent to the President for signature. So in short, the bill has no teeth in it and it has no real impact other than to eliminate the debt ceiling for three months -- which is not a good thing! Is there any wonder why 86 Democrats voted for this measure, seven of them from the Texas delegation? Five Texas Republicans stood their ground and opposed the bill. See how each member of the Texas Delegation voted (below).

What does the bill not do? It does not require a reduction in spending. It does not require any spending cuts on the part of the Administration or the Congress. Folks, we have a spending problem which, in turn, is causing our debt problem. The credit rating agencies are down grading the credit of the United States because of the inability of the Congress and the President to cut spending [See Source]. Unless we start dealing with our spending problem we can expect to see a further downgrading of our credit rating, regardless of the amount of the debt ceiling.

Jan. 23: CSPAN: The House, by a vote of 285-144 passed the "No Budget, No Pay" measure that ties a temporary suspension of the federal debt limit with the Senate passing a budget. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) called the measure "a plan to balance the budget over the next ten years." The deal would raise the government's current $16.4 trillion debt limit until May 19. In exchange, the House and Senate must pass a budget resolution by April 15 or place members' salaries in an escrow account until the chamber acts.

Jan. 23: CNN: The House on Wednesday passed the "No Budget, No Pay Act," a Republican bill that would effectively defuse the debt ceiling threat for several months. The bill would let the Treasury Department borrow new money until mid-May. In exchange, the legislation would require lawmakers in both chambers of Congress to pass a budget resolution or have their pay withheld until they do.

Jan. 23: Business Insider: The House overwhelmingly voted in favor of a bill to suspend the debt ceiling through May 18. The bill won bipartisan support, and passed with a final vote of 285-144. The bill now heads to the Senate, where Democrats have indicated it will pass. The White House has also indicated that President Barack Obama would sign the bill.
The legislation also attaches a provision aimed at forcing Senate Democrats to take up a budget for the first time in four years. If they do not, a "no budget, no pay" provision would withhold pay for members.

The GOP plan is something of a retreat from previous positions, as Republicans found themselves in a virtual no-win situation by attempting to use the debt ceiling as leverage to force spending cuts from President Barack Obama and other Democrats. During the 2011 debt-ceiling debate, Boehner established the rule in his namesake that said every dollar increase in the debt ceiling had to be accompanied by a corresponding amount of spending cuts.

Jan. 22: The Wall Street Journal: The Ceiling is scarier than the Cliff: Alan Blinder's "The Debt Ceiling is Scarier Than the Fiscal Cliff" (op-ed, Jan. 15) misses the mark and perpetuates a few myths. First, in the fall of 2011 S&P lowered the U.S. credit rating due to the failure of the Congress to reduce deficits and reduce the upward trajectory of spending. This, along with the unwillingness of the president to consider spending cuts and deal with entitlement reform and the failure of the Senate to pass a budget in over three years are the real reasons for credit-rating agencies to consider additional reductions in our rating. If investors were concerned about federal government defaults, interest rates on Treasury bonds would be rising, not falling.

Mr. Blinder asserts that the hyperpartisan Congress has failed to pass a budget, resulting in the use of continuing resolutions to fund federal activities. In fact, the House has passed budgets that begin to address the spending and deficit problems. The roadblocks to progress on debt/deficit reduction are clearly the Senate Democrats and the president, neither of whom are willing to address out-of-control spending.

Jan. 22: CBS News: President Obama and congressional Republicans have both drawn a line in the sand over the upcoming series of budget battles, the first of which is whether Congress will raise the country's debt limit - which is expected to hit as early as Feb. 15. The president is refusing to negotiate, imploring Congress to "do its job."

"They will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy," he recently said of Republicans. "The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip." House Republicans, meanwhile, will hold a vote Wednesday that, if it eventually passes both the House and Senate, would raise the debt ceiling for about three months, giving lawmakers some time to figure out how to avoid default. However, while kicking the can down the road offers a brief respite from one fiscal hurdle, there are still two others that Congress is facing.

In addition to the debt ceiling, lawmakers also have to deal with averting $1.2 trillion in self-imposed automatic spending cuts, or sequester, that takes effect on March 1, and they'll also have to pass a bill to extend government funding, which currently expires at the end of March. As both sides are worlds apart on all three issues, any failure to reach an agreement over three budget-related emergencies in the next few months will have consequences for taxpayer's pocketbooks.

Jan. 22: Fox Business News: President Barack Obama "will not stand in the way" of a three-month debt-limit measure if it passes Congress. While the president believes the extension should be longer, he welcomes the fact that Republicans appear to be giving up on using an increase in the debt ceiling as political leverage, according to Carney. House Republicans will take up a bill on Wednesday to raise the U.S. debt ceiling for three months, in an attempt to push the deadline to mid-April and force the Senate to pass a budget. Carney said the White House will work on a budget deal. "We will work with Congress on moving forward with balanced deficit reduction, because it is important," he remarked at a briefing.

Jan. 22: The Wall Street Journal: Two prominent conservative advocacy organizations, the Club for Growth and Americans for Tax Reform, said Tuesday that they won’t oppose House legislation suspending the debt ceiling until mid-May, providing political cover for conservative Republicans inclined to vote for the measure.

Jan. 22: FoxNews: House Republicans are teeing up a vote this week on a new debt ceiling bill, marking the first legislative battle of President Obama's second term and one that could determine whether the country once again risks default over a political fight. While the short-term increase is getting mixed reviews, the second plank of the legislation -- meant to pressure Senate Democrats to pass a budget -- has also raised questions. Under the proposal, Congress would withhold the pay of lawmakers in either the House or the Senate if their chamber fails to pass a budget by April 15. House Republicans have passed budgets for two consecutive years, but the Senate hasn't passed one since Obama's first year in office.

But the so-called "no budget, no pay" provision has run into complaints that it's not constitutional. Critics point to the 27th Amendment, which states: "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened." Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Monday "it appears that the 27th Amendment does not permit Congress to alter its pay in the midst of a current session."

Jan. 21: Politico: Republicans Confident in Debt Ceiling Bill: Shortly after returning from their retreat, House Republicans will vote on Wednesday to raise the debt ceiling without matching spending cuts — a proposal that represents both a concession and a new legislative strategy for them. The fact that House GOP leaders have scheduled a vote on the controversial bill in less than a week since the idea surfaced signifies that they have an unusual amount of confidence in their 233 members. That’s despite the fact that Republicans have hardly been able to pass a single piece of important legislation without Democratic support.

Jan. 21: FoxNews: House Republicans are touting a new plan that calls for temporarily resolving the debt-ceiling standoff and passing a bona-fide budget for the first time in years. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are claiming there’s a problem – they say it’s unconstitutional.

In an effort to break the partisan deadlock, GOP leaders on Friday pitched an ultimatum aimed at the Democrat-controlled Senate. The plan, dubbed “no budget, no pay,” allows the government to get three more months of borrowing authority, with no immediate spending cuts required, in exchange for having to pass a budget within that time. If senators fail to do so, they will be denied their federal paychecks. “We will authorize a three-month temporary debt limit increase to give the Senate and House time to pass a budget,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said. “Furthermore, if the Senate or House fails to pass a budget in that time, members of Congress will not be paid by the American people for failing to do their job.”

Jan. 21: Politico: The House Rules Committee has announced a 2 p.m. Tuesday meeting to mark up the bill that would raise the debt ceiling to continue funding the government through May 18.

House Republicans released the text of their short-term debt ceiling legislation that would suspend the U.S. borrowing limit through May 18 and put members pay at risk if a budget is not adopted. Backing off their earlier plan to demand dollar-for-dollar spending cuts in return for a debt ceiling increase, Republicans are not including any spending reductions in the measure. They'll consider the bill on the House floor Wednesday. House GOP leaders will now have to ensure they have the votes to pass the plan.The House GOP proposal is an attempt to change the dynamics of the fiscal debate and shift the political onus to Senate Democrats, who haven't adopted a budget plan in more than three years.

Jan. 21: Politico: The GOP’s attempts to be nice to the President couldn’t conceal its real feelings about the content of Obama’s inaugural address, delivered before lawmakers from both parties on the Capitol’s West Front. Republicans really didn’t like the liberal policy agenda that Obama outlined, including just about every progressive priority and only some of their own, including hugely controversial topics like gay rights, income inequality, climate change, gun control and immigration.

In fact, Republicans complained that the 18-minute speech sounded much more like a sharply edged partisan campaign speech meant to set up a fight than an inaugural address intended to inspire togetherness and unity with soaring rhetoric. “The words were code for a progressive agenda. I’m hoping that the president will recognize that compromise should have been the words for today, and they clearly weren’t,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a frequent Obama critic who has zealously pursued a contempt case against Attorney General Eric Holder.

Jan. 19: The Hill: Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.) hammered Senate Democrats on Saturday for not approving a budget resolution in nearly four years. Lankford also criticized President Obama for falling behind on finalizing a budget proposal in time for next month's deadline, saying he has "already missed more budget deadlines than any of his predecessors."

"Every family and every business has a budget, our nation should have a budget as well," Lankford, the new chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, said during the GOP's weekly address. Unlike the Senate, he said the House will pass its budget on time and vowed that "it will be a plan to slowly but surely walk our nation out of debt, deficit and decline."

Jan. 18: MySanAntonio.com:At least the President didn't call Republicans terrorists at Monday's press conference. But the "divider in chief," who only two years ago urged Americans to usher in a new era of civility, who said then “only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation,” employed plenty of ugly rhetoric.

Having conceded to the president some of his beloved tax increases in the fiscal cliff negotiations, and having received from the president pledges to cut spending and “shrink our deficits in a balanced way,” Republicans reasonably want to see a proposal from the White House that fulfills those pledges before raising the debt ceiling. For that act of treachery, Obama blasted them for negotiating “with a gun at the head of the American people,” wanting to “gut Medicare or Medicaid” and threatening to “wreck the entire economy.”

Jan. 17: The Hill: House Republicans are discussing a short-term debt ceiling increase to buy time for broader deficit reduction negotiations with Democrats, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters Thursday. “We’re discussing the possible virtue of a short-term debt limit extension so that we have a better chance of getting the Senate and the White House involved in discussions in March,” Ryan told reporters gathered at the Kingsmill resort in Williamsburg, where the House GOP is holding its annual retreat. . A GOP leadership aide said there was no consensus on the size of a debt limit hike, and that it would have to be coupled with entitlement reforms or spending cuts. 

Jan. 17: FoxNews: Brit Hume: The Republicans should not expect a fair fight over the debt ceiling. The GOP needs to learn that its not enough to be right, you need to be effective, Hume said. He pointed to the Speaker's efforts to block tax increases for everyone but millionaires and he could not get support amoung his own party. The result was that they got a tax increase they liked even less -- increases for those earning above $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples.

The Republicans need to pick a pressure point that sounds reasonable to the public, stake out their position, and not budge from it and, Hume continues, they need to all be saying the same thing. It may be that the automatic cuts would be the most effective. If the Republicans can live with the defense cuts, it is not at all clear that the President and the Democrats in Congress can live with the domestic cuts, Hume concluded.

Jan. 17: The Hill: Rank and File Republicans tell GOP leaders to keep sequester, shutdown 'on the table': Meeting in Williamsburg GOP leaders on Thursday heard from rank-and-file members in a closed-door session, with many urging sequester cuts or a government shutdown to take effect in hopes of forcing the White House into accepting spending cuts.

Jan. 15: FoxNews: Brit Hume: Can we really blame the Repubicans for endangering U.S. credit? The Fitch credit rating service has said that even if the U.S. debt ceiling is dealt with quickly they would still probably down grade the U.S. credit rating "if there is no creditable medium term deficit reduction plan." Last year, Hume notes, S&P down graded the U.S. credit rating because the debt ceiling deal in their opinion "falls short of what would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium term debt dynamic." Translation? The debt ceiling deal did not do enough about the debt itself. So, Hume sugests, keep this in mind when the Republicans are blamed for the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating!

What the Republicans are saying that we have maxed out the credit card. We need to pay what we owe while stopping to add to the debt we already have. The President and the Democrats are trying, successfully, to frame the debate around the theme that Republicans are trying to stop the government from paying what it has already contracted for. This, of course, is not the case.

Jan. 14: The Daily Caller: VA Congressman Introduces Bill to link Congressional Salaries to Passage of a Budget: A Republican congressman is pushing a bill in the House that would automatically cut the salaries of lawmakers if federal spending increases. Speaking by phone with The Daily Caller, Rep. Randy Forbes said on Tuesday that the proposed Congressional Accountability Pay Act is intended to incentivize members of Congress to figure out how to pay down the country’s $16 trillion debt. “So if spending goes up by 10 percent, we’re reducing your salary by 10 percent,” Forbes explained in the interview. “If it goes up by 5 percent, we’re going to reduce it by 5 percent.”

Jan. 14: FoxNews: Can President Obama use the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit and circumvent Congress? A legal opinion.

Jan. 14: The Washington Times: Obama and Biden Oppose Raising the Debt Ceiling as Senators: President Obama’s vow not to negotiate on the debt limit this year is a stark reversal for an administration whose two top officials both have a history of balking at debt hikes. Mr. Obama himself voted against a debt-limit increase in 2006, saying the government’s leaders had deepened the deficit so badly that they didn’t deserve a debt hike. And Vice President Joseph R. Biden in the 1980s led the exact same kind of rebellion that Mr. Obama now says he won’t tolerate from the GOP.

Indeed, that October 1984 fight was only solved after the government dispatched two Air Force planes to pick up senators back in their home states and bring them to Washington so they could help defeat Mr. Biden — exactly the kind of last-minute standoff Mr. Obama now says he wants to avoid.

Jan. 14: The Daily Caller: On his Monday radio show, conservative talker Mark Levin said that if President Barack Obama sidesteps Congress on the debt ceiling fight and attacks the Congress’ constitutionally enumerated “core power” – that is control over spending and taxing — through executive action, Congress will have “no choice” but impeachment.

“In the event that Republicans make good on their threat by failing to act, or by moving unilaterally to pass a debt limit extension only as part of unbalanced or unreasonable legislation, we believe you must be willing to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promises and trigger a global economic crisis — without Congressional approval, if necessary,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other Democratic leaders wrote in a letter dated Jan. 11.
[See the Initial Story from January 8th below along with Section 4 of the 14th Amendment]

Jan. 11: FoxNews: More on Senate Democrats suggesting Obama circumvent Congress: If President Obama were to break the impasse with Republicans over raising the debt limit by taking unilateral action, such a move would have the potential to set off a firestorm of controversy and spark a protracted legal battle.

Meanwhile the White House has dismissed talk that Obama would rely on unusual measures to raise the nation's debt limit without Congress' approval, but administration officials also have warned that the country could default on its debt and trigger a new economic crisis if lawmakers don't increase the limit on borrowing. Even so, with this President the past has shown that anything can happen!

Jan. 10: The Hill: Panetta orders DOD to 'prekpare for the worst' on sequester, including furloughs: The beginning of budget cuts from sequestration, the looming debate on Capitol Hill over the debt ceiling and a critical vote on the defense appropriations bill for fiscal 2013 are all set to come crashing down on DOD next month, Panetta warned. "We have no idea what the hell is going to happen," he said. The secretary and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said they have ordered service leaders and combat commanders to begin taking "precautionary" cost-cutting measures in anticipation of sequestration.

Jan. 10: The Daily Caller: Obama wins America Loses According to a recent Pew Poll:A new Pew Research Center poll says most Americans — including 74 percent of Republicans — believe President Barack Obama won the "Fiscal Cliff" face-off, but most also believe the deal is bad for them and the economy. Fifty-two percent of independents believe the deal will mostly hurt the economy, and 55 percent believe the deal will mostly “hurt people like you!”

Jan. 8: The Daily Caller reports that a group of Democratic senators has sent President Barack Obama a letter urging him to invoke the 14th Amendment (see text below) and bypass Congress to address the debt ceiling. That unlikely political power play would almost certainly result in a lawsuit from House Republicans, according to the Daily Caller report.

Jan. 8: The Daily Caller: The debt ceiling fight may come sooner than anticipated: The political battle over raising the national debt ceiling may come sooner than expected. “Based on financial data from Treasury, we estimate that the government will be unable to pay all of its bills as early as February 15, also known as the X Date,” said Steve Bell, senior director of the Economic Policy Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. After Feb. 15, $452 billion in scheduled payments — including IRS tax refunds and debt interest payments — are scheduled to go out. The government is only projected to receive $277 billion during that period. If we reach that point Treasury will be forced to prioritize payments, handling payments for many important and popular programs will quickly become impossible, and this will cause disruption to an already fragile economic recovery.

Jan. 6: Washington Post: Debt Ceiling Controversy is Looming! There are early signs of division within the Republican Party over how to approach the upcoming debate over raising the federal debt ceiling. On Friday, a top Senate Republican signaled that members of his party should be prepared to play hardball and be willing to accept the kind of consequences in each previous fight they’ve threatened but managed to avoid. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) likewise insisted that Republicans hold the line, telling his members they must demand that every dollar they raise the debt limit be paired with commensurate spending cuts. But other Republicans counseled caution, warning that pressure from the business community and the public to raise the $16.4 trillion federal borrowing limit renders untenable any threats not to do so and will weaken the GOP’s hand if their stance is perceived to be a bluff.
Editor's Note: If you raise the debt limit, are you not encouraging the government to spend more? And if you have an equal amount of spending cuts equal to the increase in the debt ceiling are you really making headway in reducing the overall debt? Why not start now using a targeted strategy with the appropriation bills?

Jan. 5: USA Today: "Fiscal Cliff" deal fact checker: Obama boasts that "middle-class families" will not have to "pay upwards of $2,000 more in taxes this year." That's accurate for income taxes, but Obama doesn't mention that the deal allowed a payroll tax cut to expire. About 77% of taxpayers will pay more in taxes this year — nearly $1,200 more for those earning between $75,000 and $100,000, a group that fits squarely in Obama's broad definition of middle class.

Obama says the agreement "will reduce the deficit." In fact, the deficit will increase by about $4 trillion over the next 10 years because of the extension of the Bush tax cuts for all but those in the top 1% of taxpayers. The deal will "reduce the deficit" only compared with what it would have been if the Bush tax cuts had been extended for everyone.

Jan. 4: Politico: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday that the upcoming showdown over the debt ceiling isn’t a political winner for House Republicans, but dubbed it a “dead loser.” “They’ve got to find, in the House, a totally new strategy,” Gingrich said on MSNBC. “Everybody’s now talking about, ‘Oh, here comes the debt ceiling.’ I think that’s, frankly, a dead loser. Because in the end, you know, it’s gonna happen. The whole national financial system is going to come in to Washington and on television and say: ‘Oh my God, this will be a gigantic heart attack, the entire economy of the world will collapse. You guys will be held responsible.’ And they’ll cave.”
Editor's Note: The question I have is what is the right thing to do? It is about time that we do what is right and live with the consequences! In addition, rather than use a "shotgun approach" why not use a targeted rifle shot strategy with the appropriation bills?

Jan. 4: FactCheck.org: The President is not telling the whole truth about the "fiscal cliff" deal. Over three fourths of taxpayers will see an increase in taxes in 2013 and a reduction in their spendable income. The deficit will increase, not decrease, by about $4 Trillion over the next ten years.

Jan. 3: The Hill: Tea Party Activist Amy Kremer added her her voice to the growing chorus of conservatives warning that Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) could have a primary challenger because of his vote in favor of the "Fiscal Cliff" deal. The Tea Party Express hasn't decided anything at this point, she said, "...but I can tell you I live in the state of Georgia and Saxby Chambliss is going to be 'primaried.' Our own senator. It's unacceptable to have somebody who votes with the Democrats more than they do with the conservatives, and he has proven time and time again he's all about the spending," she said.

Jan. 2: Congressional Record: Here are the results of the recorded vote and how each of the Members of the Texas Delegation voted on H Res. 488, the measure to avoid so called the "Fiscal Cliff." The vote, which was along party lines,was 10 in favor and 22 against passage.

Jan. 1 (10:05 p.m. CST) House Preceedings: At 10:05 the House of Representatives adopted H.Res. 488 to agree to the Senate amendments to HR. 8. The vote was 257 in favor, 167 opposed, with 85 Republicans voting with the majority and 16 Democrats opposing the measure. The passage of the measure clears the bill for the President's signature and, according to the Congressional Budget Office will add approximately $4 trillion to the federal deficit over a ten year period while averting the country from going over the Fiscal Cliff.
What the Bill Does | Fact Checking on this Bill | How the Texas Delegation Voted

Washington Post: To a tea-party-influenced crop of House Republicans, the deal  was everything they had wanted to change about the way Washington worked. The bill was 153 pages long. It was written only the day before, by Washington insiders working in the dark of night. It was crammed with giveaways and legislative spare parts: tax breaks for wind farms and racetracks. A change to nuclear-weapons policy. Government payments for cheese. “There’s lots and lots of pork in this bill,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), one of its most outspoken opponents.

FoxNews: The bill would nix the tax increases for families making under $450,000, while letting rates rise for those making above that threshold. It would also extend unemployment insurance for another year, while patching up a host of other expiring provisions and delaying automatic spending cuts for two months. Those cuts, which would hit defense heavily, will instead be offset with a blend of tax increases and other spending cuts.

Jan. 1 (4:55 p.m. CST) Yahoo News reports that the Congressional Budget Office "Score" of the Biden-McConnell compromise will likely add nearly $4 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years, hardening opposition among many Republicans seeking further spending cuts.

Jan. 1 (3:50 p.m. CST): Washington Post: The “fiscal cliff” was designed by Washington for Washington — it was intended to set up a scenario so severe that the president and Congress would, at last, have to take on the nation’s major tax and spending problems. Instead, lawmakers again found a way to sidestep many of the prickliest issues and in the process set up other, potentially more severe, showdowns in the new year.

Assuming the deal is approved by the House, it will nevertheless give way to a nearly continuous series of fights that will consume the first part of the year. “It’s become less like a fiscal cliffhanger and more like a journey over the fiscal mountains,” said Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE). The next big deadline is likely to come around the end of February, when the Treasury Department will exhaust the measures now in place to extend the nation’s $16.4 trillion debt ceiling. At that point, the government will not be able to pay its bills unless Congress votes to raise the nation’s legal borrowing limit.

Jan. 1 (3:20 p.m. CST): CNN News: Everything is all a "Twitter!" CNN has posted a minute by minute time-line that you may find interesting about what has happened in the last hour or so. Pelosi wants a straight up or down vote. Cantor (R-VA) will not vote for the bill. Derrell Issa (R-CA) says he is with Cantor. "If we get it right on January 2, 3, 4, 5, we will not see the Fiscal Cliff kick in" he contended.

Jan. 1 (3:10 p.m. CST): Washington Post: Emergency legislation to avoid the economy-threatening fiscal cliff ran into vehement New Year’s Day opposition from House Republicans, casting doubt on the divided government’s ability to prevent widespread tax increases and painful, across-the-board federal spending cuts. While Speaker John Boehner took no public position, an attempt to add spending cuts was all but certain before the leadership called for a final House vote on the measure.

Jan. 1 (2 p.m. CST): New York Times: Passage of the Senate's solution to going over the fiscal cliff is very much in doubt as House Republicans see the measure as raising taxes without dealing with reductions in spending. Lawmakers said that Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican, indicated to his colleagues in a closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol that he could not support the legislation in its current form. Many other Republicans were voicing stiff objections to a plan that they saw as raising taxes while doing little to rein in spending. Several conservatives assailed it on the House floor as the chamber convened at noon for an unusual New Year’s Day session. Some sources on Capitol Hill are saying that if the House takes up the Senate bill it will be amended and sent back to the Senate. “I would be shocked if this bill doesn’t go back to the Senate,” Spencer Bachus (R-AL) said.

Jan. 1 (2 p.m. CST) FOXNews reports that House Republican leaders voiced serious concern Tuesday afternoon about the Senate's just-passed fiscal crisis bill during a closed door meeting with rank-and-file lawmakers. The response raised questions about how the House would handle the deal, which was highly touted by bipartisan officials in the Senate just hours earlier. Doubts that the GOP-controlled House would pass the plan intensified Tuesday afternoon. Lawmakers have just two days to go before a new Congress convenes which limits the House’s options. The House can reject the plan, pass it as written by the Senate – which is unlikely given strong GOP opposition – or amend it. If the House amends it, the legislation goes back to the Senate where time constraints would likely kill it for the current Congressional session.

Jan. 1: CBS News: Two hours after midnight a stop-gap measure to deal with the "Fiscal Cliff" cleared the Senate on an 89-8 vote, hours after Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sealed a deal. If it becomes law it would make the Bush era tax cuts permanent for those earning $400,000 or under, or $450,000 and under for married couples. It would also block automatic spending cuts for two months, extend unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless for a year, prevent a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients and continue agriculture subsidies to prevent a spike in milk prices. The measure ensures that lawmakers will have to revisit difficult budget questions in just a few weeks, as relief from painful spending cuts expires and the government requires an increase in its borrowing cap. Now it is up to the Republican controlled House to decide what to do. They could meet as early as 1 p.m. today. [Additional Coverage on CNN]

Jan. 1: FoxNews: Additional coverage: Those voting against the Fiscal Cliff deal were both liberal Democrats and conservative and Tea Party Republicans. Earlier in the day Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa said, "Looks like a very bad deal the way this is shaping up," Harkin voted against the bill, as did Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del.; Mike Lee, R-Utah; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Richard Shelby, R-Ala.; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from Bill Sargent Speaks Out!
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Dec. 31: Bill Sargent Speaks Out: "Look out for the cli... !" Well we are not going to avoid the "Fiscal Cliff" at least not before midnight tonight! Even if the Senate could come up with a solution the House will not take it up for a vote until next year [Tuesday, January 1st has been mentioned as a possible date for House consideration].

As darkness descended upon Washington, DC tonight, law makers continued to work. Even so there were complaints from both sides of the aisle. The Chicago Tribune reported that Democrats were saying the President is giving away too much by agreeing to limit tax increases to those earning more than $450,000, while Republicans are recoiling to the prospect of raising taxes at all. Meanwhile the important part of the debate, dealing with spending issues, somehow seems to be alluding the discussion.

Dec. 31: CNN: As the Senators continued to try to work out their differences. The President remarked "And one thing we can count on with respect to this Congress is that if there is even one second left before you have to do what you're supposed to do, they will use that last second." This remark didn't help engender Capitol Hill support and irked Republican senators who have been grappling for a deal with the Democratic majority in that chamber. Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, called the president's comments "very unbecoming of where we are at this moment" and added, "My heart's still pounding. I know the president has fun heckling Congress," Corker said. "I think he lost probably numbers of votes with what he did."

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) went further saying President Obama "sent a message of confrontation to Republicans" with his remarks. "People have to wonder whether the president really wants the issue resolved, or is it in his short-term political benefit for us to go over the cliff," he said.

Dec. 31: Meanwhile FoxNews reports it may not yet be all over. Sources have told Fox News that White House and Senate Republican negotiators have reached a tentative deal on the fiscal crisis -- but Vice President Biden was making a late-night visit to Capitol Hill to try to get rank-and-file Senate Democrats on board. A senior official told Fox News that President Obama has gotten the sign-off from Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. But the official said they are “not spiking the ball” yet. Both chambers of Congress still must pass whatever is introduced, and negotiators could face some heavy lifting in selling the plan – to skeptical House conservatives as well as liberal Democratic senators.

Dec. 29: CBS News: With just two days left, Senate leaders are still struggling to put together a last-minute bipartisan deal ahead of Monday's midnight deadline for the fiscal cliff. Failure could kick the country back into a recession. CBS News reports that some Congressional leaders want to deal with taxes now and the spending cuts later. From my perspective the problem is not a revenue problem its a spending problem and dealing with taxes now means there is a very real chance that they will never deal with getting a handle on the real problem -- spending. The House, however, holds the key to dealing with spending, if they will only use it and stick to their guns. See How!

Dec. 29: CNN: Senators Reid and McConnell continue to work on crafting a bill to avert the "fiscal cliff." They are working over the weekend and there have been no leaks, unheard of in Washington! By mid-day Saturday, Senate aides from both parties reported no major developments in the talks. That may not be a bad sign, as a Democratic aide earlier said his side would probably leak a Republican offer it considers "laughable" but would keep it private if the proposals were reasonable.

Dec. 28: Fox News: Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell vow to scramble over the weekend to produce a new bill aimed at averting the fiscal crisis, following a high-stakes White House meeting.
[Editorial Comment: Why is it that everything is such a rush? The White House and Capitol Hill have had months to deal with this issue. See a strategy that will allow the government to reduce spending.]

Dec. 28: The Washington Times: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says the Republicans have bent over backwards and stepped out of their comfort zone in an effort to reach a deal and to avoid the fiscal cliff. But there were no calls from the White House or the Democrat majority in the Senate and now we have only five days to get something done. Meanwhile Harry Reid and McConnell indicated they would try to work together to get a solution in the short time that is left.

Dec. 27: Fox News: The President wants to go over the fiscal cliff. He gets more taxes from everybody, he gets major defense cuts, and he get the ability to blame the Republicans for the tax increases. In August the House has passed a measure to avert the fiscal cliff but the Senate is not willing to consider it. The House has passed budgets but the Senate has not passed a budget in over three years.

Dec. 27: CBS News: (MoneyWatch) The U.S. House of Representatives is set to meet Sunday in a last-ditch effort to steer the country away from the "fiscal cliff." Barring a deal with Senate lawmakers and President Barack Obama, a combination of tax increases and spending will take effect in January that experts warn will harm the economy. According to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group, going off the cliff would affect 88 percent of U.S. taxpayers, with their taxes rising by an average of $3,500 a year. The reason is that Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire, which will bring the tax system back to 2001 levels. [But some are saying the President wants to have the county fall off the cliff.]

Dec. 27: The Foundry: "Morning Bell: 10 Facts on the Fiscal Cliff, Debt, and Spending." With just days left for President Obama and lawmakers in Congress to avert a major tax hike, sequestration, and other major policy changes, today we bring you a list of the top 10 facts on federal spending in 2012

Dec. 27: Pat Shinn, the host of "Money Matters" on Radio Station KTRH in Houston, said if we go over the fiscal cliff there will be a compromise reached that will ensure that married couples earning $250,000 or less pay no more than they are currently paying in taxes.

Dec. 27: The San Francisco Chronicle reports that for decades, the monies that have been contributed to 401(k) and other employer-sponsored qualified plans have been regulated by the government but not taxed until withdrawal. Nevertheless, the current tax rules that permit contributions of up to $17,000 per participant in 2012 may change drastically as lawmakers seek a source of revenue that can keep America from falling off the ledge. Congress may decide to curtail the amount of money that can be contributed to these plans, perhaps by lowering these limits to the same level as for IRAs. Congress could also eliminate some or all of the tax deductions that participants now get for their contributions into traditional plans. They could, in fact, even revoke the tax-deferred status of all of these accounts, and this possibility is sending cold chills through the pension community.

Dec. 26: Fox Business: Ninety percent of the trillion dollars in ObamaCare taxes that are to going to pay for "free" healthcare were postponed until after the election says Grover Norquist of the Americans for Tax Reform. In addition, Democrats have been opposing the Bush tax cuts for the past twelve years. Now that they are about to go away the Democrats are for keeping them because they realize that most of the people who will be impacted will be middle class America. For example, a married couple earning $50,000 a year will see $2,008 in increased taxes. Those earning $100,000 will see an increase of $4,603 and these are just from the Bush tax cuts going away. They don't take into account the ObamaCare taxes that will make things even worse.

Dec. 25: CBS News: There are still have been no conversations between Democrats and Republicans on how to avert the "fiscal cliff." It is believed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is working on crafting legislation on his own. That bill would likely extend the Bush-era tax cuts for households making less than $250,000 a year. It might also include enough short-term spending cuts to temporarily offset, for about six to eight months, the indiscriminate, across-the-board spending cuts set to go into effect on January 1, 2013. Reid's bill would also try to tie up some year-end loose ends by extending long-term unemployment benefits, patching the alternative minimum tax that hits so many middle class families, and preventing a big scheduled drop-off in Medicare reimbursement rates to doctors at the start of the year.