Morning Action: Senate to Vote on Motion to Proceed for Gun Bill

Katherine Rosario | April 11, 2013

GUNS. The Senate will vote today at 11 AM on a motion to proceed for their gun bill:

But the first debate Thursday will be the threatened filibuster led by Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah. Lee said a filibuster would allow “three more days to assess how the bill would impact the rights of law-abiding citizens.”

“This debate is not just about magazine clips and pistol grips,” he said on the Senate floor. “It’s about the purpose of the Second Amendment.” Such far-reaching legislation should be subjected to a 60-vote majority to ensure bipartisan consensus, he said.

Obama’s Liberal Fantasy Dream World

Katherine Rosario | March 13, 2013

Sometimes it seems that life would be less stressful in a liberal fantasy dream world where numbers don’t really mean anything and “truth” is whatever you want to make it. But alas, that’s not the way things are.

Today, President Obama said “we don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt” and that “for the next ten years, it’s gonna be a sustainable place.” His cavalier attitude is not exactly breaking news; he made similar comments last September.

But here’s the thing about our debt: it’s not actually sustainable and creditors will demand you pay it off eventually.

Obama’s Math Doesn’t Work

Dan Holler | November 30, 2012

Last night, Republican aides on Capitol Hill circulated what they said was the White House’s initial offer on the fiscal cliff. It was nothing short of absurd: a $1.6 trillion tax hike, a new stimulus plan and elimination of the debt ceiling. Mark Halperin said President Obama’s “offer is intended in part to say here’s my math. Here’s the level of deficit reduction I can reach.” Perhaps so, but the math just doesn’t work.

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, who characterized the offer as evidence the president “refuses to negotiate with himself,” casually walked his readers through the math:

It calls for $1.6 trillion in taxes and only $400 billion in new entitlement spending cuts (though note that it assumes the roughly trillion dollars in discretionary spending cuts passed in the Budget Control Act and the trillion dollars in savings from ending the wars, such that the total spending cuts, at least in the White House’s view, are nearer to $2.4 trillion). (emphasis added)

Not only is the offer fundamentally unserious, so too are characterizations that the math works. Last year, Heritage’s Patrick Knudsen explained the absurdity of using “war savings” as deficit reduction:

$16,000,000,000,000.00

Dan Holler | September 4, 2012

Before his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama made a dire prediction: “Potentially we’ve got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on.”

Today’s landmark – America’s total debt reaching $16 trillion – makes clear that although the economic recovery never materialized, President Obama’s trillion-dollar deficits certainly did. As any number of online videos can tell you, a trillion is a big and near incomprehensible number. For some perspective, consider the following: total US debt per citizen comes to more than $181,000, which is slightly less than the median home price in America. In the South and Midwest, it is well above the median home price. It is no wonder Americans’ economic confidence is once again on the decline.

ALERT: Obama Has Officially Added $5T to National Debt

Ashe Schow | April 9, 2012

While most Americans were celebrating Easter weekend, President Obama reached another milestone. Last month, President Obama’s contribution to the national debt exceeded that of his predecessor George W. Bush. But now, just 3 years and 2 months into President Obama’s term, $5 trillion (fully one third of the total) has been added to our national debt.

The national debt on the day President Obama was inaugurated stood at $10,626,877,048,913. Today it is $15,636,500,000,000 and climbing every second.

That’s a nearly 50% increase in just 3 years! Even more disturbing, he doesn’t seem to care.