Archive for April, 2011
Crazy things the left say about budget cuts
No commentary needed about this video. The loons make it easy to make our point that they are…well….loony.
My favorite part?
Louise Slaughter saying that we want to “kill women“.
Seriously?
Saturday Open Thread: April 9th, 2011
Well….a deal was made.
Was it a good deal?
Was it the right deal for us?
I haven’t had time yet to read through the gory details but I have a feeling Boehner caved on some things where he should have stood strong. I’ll have to investigate.
So….what’s on your minds this Saturday?
What are people talking about in your part of the world?
Shutdown looming
Ok folks….will it shut down or not? I’ve been listening to talk radio this afternoon and I’m hearing conflicting opinions on what this will mean for the Republicans politically. Some say “to hell with them…shut it down. Stand your ground.” and others say that if it shuts down, the Republicans will be blamed and it will hurt them in 2012.
What do you guys think?
It feels like Full Moon Friday
I’m sorry…I know there are some very serious things going on in this world….but sometimes you just need to laugh. Are these guys serious?
The very wise Van Helsing sums it up nicely….If you managed to sit through that, you now understand why moonbattery isn’t something to be reasoned with — it is something to be eradicated, like a horrifically repulsive fungus.
This is just downright creepy.
Animal rights activist harassing and threatening Republican Congressional hopeful Ilario Pantano and family
one of the Pantano sons with a puppy
This is a strange story. It’s the story of the Pantano family, who agreed to foster two rescue puppies from a breeder who couldn’t take care of the very large litter. The Pantano’s decided that they would purchase the puppies for their 2 sons and that’s when the harassment began…
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As America teeters on the brink of a financial meltdown…Obama plans another vacation.
Yep…I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. The Obama’s have a family vacation planned this weekend in Williamsburg, Virginia. I ordinarily wouldn’t complain about a family wanting to spend time together visiting a historic location on a weekend getaway but…..this is the First family and this country is facing a budget crisis that is putting us within hours of a government shutdown.
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Counting error puts Prosser in the lead in Wisconsin.
Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nicholaus says it was a simple case of human error. She entered the votes in the computer but didn’t hit save. This has led to a 7,000 vote gain by incumbent Justice David Prosser. Yesterday’s recount had been moving back and forth between Joanne Kloppenburg and Prosser and was as close as 11 votes at one time.
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Friday Open Thread: April 8th, 2011
What’s on your minds this Friday?
What are people talking about in your part of the world?
Illegal immigrants sucking the life out of our welfare system (and our wallets)
Unfortunately...this isn't really too far from the truth
It’s no surprise that our growing illegal immigrant population uses our welfare benefits for their benefits. It’s sadly just common knowledge. I have no idea why this has been allowed for so many years and why we blindly keep paying for them to receive free medical care, free dental care, free education and many more welfare (and non-welfare) benefits that should only be going to deserving LEGAL citizens. I am appalled that politicians from both sides of the aisle turn their backs on strict border security and anti-illegal immigration laws. I know what everyone will say….” The Republicans don’t want to enforce our anti-illegal immigration laws because they are supported by big businesses that use illegals for cheap labor and the Democrats don’t want to enforce the laws because they need the votes.” Quite frankly….I don’t care what the reasons are….we have too many Americans out of work that need jobs that are being filled by people who shouldn’t be here….and I don’t want to hear the pitiful excuse that the illegals are doing jobs that American citizens won’t do. That’s BS. The bottom line is that our BIG government makes it too easy to continue to collect unemployment so there’s no incentive to go out and get the jobs that the illegals have filled and our BIG government makes it too easy to be illegal in this country so there’s no incentive for them to get their butts back over the border where they belong. I know that there are many Americans that are unemployed who are trying to get their feet back on the ground and need government help…I don’t mean to lump them in with the thousands of freeloaders but… our goverment has grown into an entitlement- dependency-promoting monster that is going to bring this country to it’s economically weakened knees.
A study done in Texas uncovered some interesting statistics about their illegal immigrant population…
61 Percent of TX Immigrant Households with Children Use Welfare
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Census Bureau data show that the share of immigrant-headed households (legal and illegal) with children (under age 18) using at least one welfare program continues to be very high both in Texas and the nation as a whole. This is partly due to the large share of immigrants with low levels of education and their resulting low incomes. The welfare programs examined in this report are SSI (Supplemental Security Income for low-income elderly and disabled), TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), WIC (Women, Infants, and Children food program), free/reduced school lunch, food stamps, Medicaid (health insurance for those with low incomes), public housing, and rent subsidies.
The entire report, “Welfare Use by Immigrant Households with Children: A Look at Cash, Medicaid, Housing, and Food Programs,” is available at the Center for Immigration Studies’ web site: http://cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011.
Among the findings:
- The latest data available from 2009 show that in Texas 61 percent of households with children (under 18) headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) used at least one welfare program, compared to 42 percent for native households with children in the state.
- The overall use rate for welfare by Texas immigrant households with children (61 percent), is one of the highest in the nation.
- In Texas, immigrant households with children tend to use food assistance programs and Medicaid at much higher rates than native households with children. Use of cash and housing programs tends to be similar to natives.
- The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that in Texas, 54 percent of households with children headed by legal immigrants used at least one welfare program, compared to 70 percent for illegal immigrant households with children. Illegal immigrants generally receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children.
- Illegal immigrant households with children primarily use food assistance and Medicaid, making little cash or housing assistance. In contrast, legal immigrant households tend to have relatively high use rates for every type of program.
- The states where overall welfare use by immigrant households with children (legal and illegal) have the highest welfare use rates are Arizona (62 percent); Texas, California, and New York (61 percent); Pennsylvania (59 percent); Minnesota and Oregon (56 percent); and Colorado (55 percent).
- For United States as a whole, 57 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children.
- The vast majority (95 percent) of immigrant households with children in the United States had at least one worker in 2009. But the low education levels of a large share of immigrant and their resulting low incomes mean that more than half of these working immigrant households with children still accessed the welfare system during 2009.
- Most new legal immigrants are barred from using some welfare for the first five years. But, this provision has only a modest impact on household use rates because most immigrants have been in the country longer than five years; the ban applies only to some programs; some states provide welfare to new immigrants on their own; by naturalizing, immigrants become eligible for all programs; and most important, the U.S.-born children of immigrants (including those of illegal immigrants) are American citizens, and are eligible for all programs at birth.
This is unbelievable.
When is it going to stop?
Government shutdown 2011…will it happen?
It looks like no progress was made at Obama’s meeting with Harry Reid and John Boehner. I think that not many people got much sleep last night as everyone is scrambling to get some sort of budget passed to keep business going.
(Fox) Congressional aides worked through the night Wednesday after a high-stakes meeting between President Obama and congressional leaders failed to reach a deal on the federal budget.
Obama called the discussion “frank” and “constructive,” but did not articulate how the two sides would forge an agreement to keep the government running past the Friday deadline.
“If we are serious about getting something done we should be able to complete a deal, get it passed and avert a shutdown,” Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room.
A few minutes later outside the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner stood side by side to update reporters on the talks.
“We’re not there yet,” Reid said, but both sides were committed to hammering out a deal and keeping the government running.
- “No one wants a shutdown,” Boehner said, adding there were “honest differences” and their staffs will work to get the budget issue resolved.
“We’ve narrowed the issues significantly,” Reid said.
The government already is operating on a short-term spending measure because Republicans and Democrats haven’t been able to agree on how deeply to cut and what to ax, and as a precaution, House Republicans are preparing to bring yet another stopgap budget bill to the floor Thursday to buy more time for negotiations on a long term bill.
The proposal would be the third short-term budget bill in two months. The prospect of voting on another stopgap has frustrated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, some of whom have vowed to oppose one. But while dozens of GOP members defected the last time around, House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News he has enough GOP support to pass this bill without any Democrats.
“We don’t need one Democratic vote,” he said.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said earlier Wednesday that he would be willing to help Republicans whip up support for a short-term spending plan. However, he also said he opposes the specific package that House Speaker John Boehner has been pushing — a one-week bill that would cut $12 billion, while also funding the military for the rest of the year. And Boehner said Wednesday that’s exactly the plan he wants to put on the floor.
“I think this is the responsible thing to do,” Boehner said. “I would hope the Senate can pass it and the president would sign it into law.”
It’s unclear whether the bill can indeed win enough support to avert a shutdown, or do anything to advance the broader negotiations over a half-year budget. Expectations have been changing by the minute in Washington as lawmakers try to craft a budget bill while at the same time jockeying for political advantage in the media, assigning blame in advance to the other side in case of a shutdown.
Meanwhile, the day-to-day functions of government — from running national parks to sending out tax refunds — were hanging in the balance. The administration and Congress have been preparing for the possibility of a partial shutdown, warning that a number of basic services would go on hiatus and that a shutdown could hurt the economy.
Lawmakers appeared to be caught in a political perfect storm, with several simultaneous budget deals complicating negotiations over the rest of this year’s budget. Conservative lawmakers want to cut as much as possible now, to set the tone for talks over next year’s budget and spending for the rest of the decade. GOP Rep. Paul Ryan just introduced a plan to cut deficits by $4.4 trillion over 10 years. President Obama and Democrats, by contrast, want to use a “scalpel,” rather than an ax, to address the deficit.
An upcoming vote on whether to raise the debt ceiling doesn’t make things any easier.
With all this on the line, 2011 budget negotiations have been continually tested by the political rhetoric flying on both sides of the aisle. A White House aide said Wednesday there are “signs of progress” in the budget talks. But on the sidelines, lawmakers continued to hurl accusations at each other.
House Democrats convened a press conference at which they repeated the claim that the Tea Party is to blame for bringing Congress to the brink of a shutdown. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats have been trying to meet Republicans halfway, but the GOP has “refused to take yes for an answer.”
Republicans earlier passed a bill out of the House to cut $61 billion from last year’s levels, and some lawmakers have continued to press for that level of spending cuts. Democrats have refused.
Obama suggested Tuesday that he had no interest in signing another short-term measure just to keep the debate going.
“We’ve already done that twice,” Obama said. “That is not a way to run a government.”
However, he indicated he could support a very short-term budget bill if the framework for a budget for the rest of the year is in place.
You don’t hear the LSM talking about the fact that the Democrats didn’t pass a budget last year. It should be mandatory to pass a budget every year. Why isn’t it? We need to learn to live within our means.
What do you guys think will happen now?
