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Obama Wars Title: Calling O's deficit bluff Calling O's deficit bluff First steps for cutting spending By ERIC CANTOR Last Updated: 1:16 AM, July 6, 2010 Posted: 12:58 AM, July 6, 2010 Catching flak from our European allies at last month's G-20 Summit over our failure to rein in spending, President Obama once again pointed his now-familiar finger elsewhere. "Next year, when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country," he asserted, "I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up -- because I'm calling their bluff." Coming from a president who two years ago captured the minds and imaginations of millions by promising to unite the country, this divisive rhetoric is self-defeating. It's also profoundly ironic. Getty Bam & Nancy: Setting us up for tax hikes. Since the president was sworn into office, America has run up red ink at an astounding rate of $4.9 billion a day. Yet the president continues to kick the can down the road -- and there's not much road left. The president could have come clean to the American people about the serious nature of Washington's spending problem, could have discussed the need to build consensus around some tough but reasonable spending cuts. Instead, he ducked any debate on spending by promising to "call the bluff" of a straw man of his own creation. The president's bravado suggests that he is laying the groundwork to justify sweeping new tax hikes hitting small businesses and the middle class. If the past is prologue, the administration will brand those who oppose these tax increases as opponents of deficit reduction. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we need private industry to grow and the American people to invest and spend, it's far more reasonable to close the deficit with sensible spending reductions than with tax hikes. Republicans were fired from the majority years ago largely because we failed to live up to our own standard of being wise guardians of taxpayer dollars. That was then. Today, a new generation of conservative leaders is ready to make the genu inely tough choices necessary to pull our country back from the fiscal cliff. To set the wheels in motion for effective deficit reduction, Republicans over the last five weeks have brought over $115 billion in spending cuts to the House floor. But the Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, rejected them. We're not going to give up. In fact, I challenge the president, Pelosi and Hoyer to work together with us to cut spending now: * Start by scheduling a clean up-or-down vote on each of the program terminations that Obama recommended in his budget this year. Not every member will agree with each proposal, but they each deserve a fair debate and a fair vote. Can't a Democratic Congress even give fair consideration to spending cuts proposed by a Democratic president? * Second, announce a bipartisan agreement that we will not proceed with any new "stimulus" spending that is not paid for with spending cuts somewhere else. For example, rather than just spending another $34 billion on unemployment benefits, let's pay for it by cutting other, less important, spending. (It's the refusal of congressional Democrats to find offsetting cuts that is now preventing the extension of jobless benefits.) * Third, freeze the pay of federal civilian employees for one year. Millions of private-sector workers have taken pay cuts; there's no reason why the government can't impose its own measure of austerity. This proposal already has bipartisan support: 18 House Democrats recently supported a similar measure offered by Republicans. I can already hear the critics saying that all this would have only a small impact on our deficit. But that's just the thinking that got us into this mess. Yes, these are small steps toward getting our fiscal house in order -- but each is long overdue, and it's a start. Perhaps if both parties demonstrate the courage to take a few small steps to restrain spending today, we can take a few bigger steps tomorrow. Our nation is at a crossroads. We have to do everything we can to leave our children and grandchildren a better America than the one left to us. Our way of life is being threatened by an economy with too much debt because of a government that spends too much and taxes too much. We can turn things around. But we have to start taking action today. Mr. President, we aren't bluffing; we're sincere about cutting the deficit immediately. We hope you are, too. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is the House Republican whip. Read more: www.nypost.com/p/news/opi...PL0k1gXz4IJ#ixzz0suSSYmC5
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#1. To: Skip Intro (#0)
It's hilarious to read the words of those who drove 98 mile of the 100 mile road to ruin and which state nothing more than, "Ha ha...what we broke you can't fix...ha ha..."
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