by Michael Barone

Many Republican House members and the bloggers and Tea Partiers who cheered their victory in gaining a majority in November 2010 seem to be seething with discontent and eager for confrontation.

They believe, reasonably, that that victory represented a repudiation of the vast expansion of government by the Obama Democrats. They want to see those policies reversed, and pronto. And if the dilatory Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the all-campaign-no-governance President Obama want a confrontation, so much the better.

Such impatience is unbecoming in those who call themselves “constitutional conservatives.” It is James Madison’s Constitution that prevents the winners of one election from directing the course of public policy as unilaterally as, to take one example, the British Labor Party marched Britain into a socialist welfare state on the basis of one election victory in 1945.

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Not only is liberty a system under which all government action is guided by principles, but it is an ideal that will not be preserved unless it is itself accepted as an overriding principle governing all particular acts of legislation.

Where no such fundamental rule is stubbornly adhered to as an ultimate ideal about which there must be no compromise for the sake of material advantages—as an ideal which, even though it may have to be temporarily infringed during a passing emergency, must form the basis of all permanent arrangements—freedom is almost certain to be destroyed by piecemeal encroachments. For in each particular instance it will be possible to promise concrete and tangible advantages as the result of a curtailment of freedom, while the benefits sacrificed will in their nature always be unknown and uncertain.

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OBAMA’S FY2013 BUDGET KEEPS ON SPENDING RIGHT PAST THE FISCAL GRAVEYARD AWAITING AMERICA

Read more: http://www.gop.com/index.php/briefing/comments/obamas_budget_by_the_numbers#ixzz1mIbrrV4W

The Obama administration on Monday released its budget request for the 2013 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2012.  The Wall Street Journal has provided graphics for understanding the Obama 2013 Budget , including revenue and spending, deficit forecasts and department budgets.

The spending deals struck in 2011 mean the government is operating under a discretionary spending cap. All figures in billion unless noted.

A look at how the Obama administration is counting on bringing in revenue and spending it in fiscal 2013.

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We now face a make-or-break moment for the middle class and those trying to reach it. After decades of eroding middle-class security as those at the very top saw their incomes rise as never before and after a historic recession that plunged our economy into a crisis from which we are still fighting to recover, it is time to construct an economy that is built to last. The President’s 2013 Budget is built around the idea that our country does best when everyone gets a fair shot, does their fair share, and plays by the same rules. We must transform our economy from one focused on speculating, spending, and borrowing to one constructed on the solid foundation of educating, innovating, and building. That begins with putting the Nation on a path to live within our means – by cutting wasteful spending, asking all Americans to shoulder their fair share, and making tough choices on some things we cannot afford, while keeping the investments we need to grow the economy and create jobs. The Budget targets scarce federal resources to the areas critical to growing the economy and restoring middle-class security: education and skills for American workers, innovation and manufacturing, clean energy, and infrastructure. The Budget is a blueprint for how we can rebuild an economy where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded.

KEY BUDGET FACTS

• In the Budget Control Act, both parties in Congress and the President agreed to tight spending caps that reduce discretionary spending by $1 trillion over 10 years. This budget reflects that decision. Thus, for all the priority areas we are investing in, difficult trade-offs had to be made to meet these very tight caps.
  • Discretionary spending is reduced from 8.7 percent of GDP in 2011 to 5.0 percent in 2022.
• Including the $1 trillion in discretionary cuts, the Budget includes more than

$4 trillion in balanced, deficit reduction so that, by 2018, we cut the deficit to less than 3 percent of GDP, stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio, and achieve primary balance.

• For every $1 in new revenue from those making more than $250,000 per year and from closing corporate loopholes, the Budget has $2.50 in spending cuts including the deficit reduction enacted over the last year.
• 2012 Projected Deficit: $1.33 trillion, 8.5 percent of GDP; 2013 Projected Deficit: $901 billion, 5.5 percent of GDP; 2018 Projected Deficit: $575 billion, 2.7 percent of GDP; 2022 Projected Deficit: $704 billion, 2.8 percent of GDP.
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Coming from a President whose economic philosophy is a borrowed car company slogan, the Obama budget submitted Monday all too predictably repeats the stale and unsuccessful policies of the past three years.

The Administration has tapped all its resources and can only recycle the President’s shopworn “vision”: bigger government, more spending, higher taxes, and deeper deficits. At a time when runaway spending and swelling deficits must be reversed, he worsens both immediately but, as usual, promises to fix them later. In his first post-debt-ceiling fiscal plan—delayed a week, with no explanation—the President appears to have offered an election-year campaign document, not a credible blueprint for addressing the nation’s fiscal and economic problems.

Spending in the President’s budget rises inexorably from today’s $3.8 trillion to $5.8 trillion in 2022. Throughout the decade, outlays hold stubbornly above 22 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), more than twice the New Deal’s share of the economy in its peak years. In constant dollars, outlays are more than three times the peak of World War II.

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It’s being reported that in his 2013 budget President Obama will propose to increase spending now and reduce the deficit some day.  Isn’t that what every budget promises these days? As I noted last summer during the debt ceiling fight at the Britannica Blog, fiscal conservatives should be very skeptical of plans and proposals that  promise to cut spending some day—not this year, not next year, but swear to God some time in the next ten years:

As the White Queen said to Alice, “Jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.” Cuts tomorrow and cuts in the out-years—but never cuts today.

We’ve become so used to these unfathomable levels of deficits and debt—and to the once-rare concept of trillions of dollars—that we forget how new all this debt is. In 1981, after 190 years of federal spending, the national debt was “only” $1 trillion. Now, just 30 years later, it’s past $15 trillion.

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“The first is that every modern president in the fourth year of his presidency resorts to the cheap political stunts, broken promises and truth-fudging it takes to win reelection in what has been and will be a 50-50 nation. The reason is simple: Politics is not clean-living; it’s survival.

“The second is that Barack Obama, for all his talk of moving beyond conventional political tricks, is doing just that, which wouldn’t be so glaring had it not been for his incessant call for a newer, cleaner and more transparent paradigm for American politics.

“So much for the high road: Victory is more important than purity…

“He’s made a series of calculated, overtly political gestures that are far more transactional than transformational.
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Supervisor Vickie Davis

While this sample exercise in public is required by State Division of Elections, all machines had previously been tested by Martin County staff. Machines counts were calibrated before and after the exercise and all results were recorded, as required by the State Division of Elections. Martin County Commissioner Ed Fielding substituted for official Canvassing Board member Commissioner Sarah Heard, who was engaged in other County Business. The Canvassing Board’s judicial member is County Court Judge Kathleen Roberts.

Supervisor Vickie Davis and Chief Deputy Debbie Dent ran the staff through the paces testing voting machines, absentee ballot counters, ADA (assistance) voting devices, and scanners. Questions from the public were promptly answered with participation from the staff of the Office of the Supervisor of Elections.

MORE PIX BY DON GLEICHMAN  

For three years, the Obama administration has followed what it believes is a strategy of retrenchment—withdrawing from Iraq, setting a deadline for Afghanistan, calling off further expansion of NATO, signing arms-control treaties, asking the Europeans to take the lead in Libya, preferring sanctions to military strikes, and now slicing into the Pentagon’s budget—all on the commendable theory that America must learn once again to pick its spots, match its ambitions to its means, and pursue a “sustainable” foreign policy.

The only problem is, the theory is wrong. What the administration would like to have you believe is a matter of vision is seen by others as a function of weakness.

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