Prior to the 2006 midterms, Karl Rove highlighted the plan to maintain control of Congress. The Architect said that 2006 would be about presenting the electorate a choice between the Democrats and congressional Republicans. As they say, the rest is history.

That’s what makes me curious why David Plouffe would want to turn this year’s midterms into a choice election:

Ask David Plouffe how Democrats can recover from their electoral setbacks over the past few months and he has a simple answer: Republicans.

“Politics is a comparative exercise,” Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, told the Fix in his first extended interview since he took on a broadened political role for the White House in advance of the midterm elections. “This isn’t just a referendum on Democrats or our party. It’s a choice.”

That choice was made explicit far too late in last month’s special Senate election in Massachusetts between then-state Sen. Scott Brown (R) and state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D), Plouffe noted. “Everyone would agree that the definition of Brown should have happened a lot sooner and a lot more clearly,” he said.

In my opinion, that’s a foolish strategy, especially in light of this polling:

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on nine out of 10 key issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports.

But the latest national survey finds that the two major political parties are much closer this month on the top issue of the economy. Forty-six percent (46%) of voters trust the GOP more on economic issues, while 42% trust Democrats more. Another 12% are undecided. Last month, Republicans held an 11-point edge on the issue and had a 12-point lead in November.

On health care, Republicans are trusted more than Democrats by 49-37 percent, a 12 point margin. Republicans lead Democrats by a 50-34 percent on the issue of taxes, which will grow in importance as the expiration date of the Bush tax cuts draws near.

This statistic should scare Democrats the most: Likely voters trust Republicans by a 45-35 percent margin ON SOCIAL SECURITY!!!

What is clear, however, is that Plouffe has been assigned to apply his meticulous, detail-oriented approach to competitive races across the country, ensuring that the White House and the DNC do everything they can to sniff out problems and offer solutions, and not be surprised by another Scott Brown.

The DNC better raise alot of money quickly because Mr. Plouffe will need lots of staff this year. There’s gonna be alot of races needing Mr. Plouffe’s attention this summer.

Plouffe, aware of the challenges for Democrats, said that if people know both the “positive” Democratic story and the “comparative” message against Republicans, the predictions of political Armageddon will be far short of the reality this fall.

“The wisest thing to do is prepare for a very tough election,” Plouffe advised members of his party. “But in this kind of turbulent electoral environment, I don’t think any of us should presume an electoral outcome.”

Here’s what Dick Morris said on Hannity Monday night:

This weekend, I’m doing the final revisions on my new book “2010: Take Back America, a Battle Plan” and I finished writing the section on the House races last month. And now they sent me the galleys for me to correct. And I listed 35 possible tight races. I went through it again, looking at the modern polling and we’re up to 60 tight races. Like Kirk in Illinois was 6 points behind and now he’s 6 points ahead. It’s unbelievable the changes.

It’s important that we remember that GOP candidate recruitment is still a work in progress. As more polling shows that the Democrats are in trouble, the easier candidate recruitment gets for Kevin McCarthy and John Cornyn. If things keep improving for Republicans but at a slower pace, Plouffe will have 75 competitive races to deal with on a daily basis.

Recently, Michael Barone, the man who’s forgotten more demographic information in every House district in America than I can imagine accumulating, said this in the aftermath of Scott Brown’s improbable victory in Massachusetts:

Anyway, there’s a pattern here: Coakley carries districts where Obama got 65% or more of the vote and runs essentially even in the district where he got 64%, and Scott Brown runs ahead in districts where Obama got less than 64% of the vote.

Let’s extrapolate those numbers to the nation as a whole and assume that a district that voted 64% or more for Obama is safe for Democrats even under the most dire of circumstances. How many such districts are there? Answer, according to this source: 103.

Right now, Democrats have north of 250 House members. Assuming that Barone’s pontifications are accurate, that means there are approximately 150 Democrat seats that are in play. While I’m skeptical of that high of a total, I’mcertain that there are far more seats in play than the Democrats are letting on. I’m partially basing my opinion on this information:

Some troubling news for Sen. Evan Bayh, D-IN? Maybe. A poll conducted for the National Republican Senatorial Committee shows that the two-term senator may be vulnerable to a challenge, presumably from former senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.), largely because of voter dissatisfaction with the Democratic health-care legislation and the flight of independents from the Democratic Party.

The survey, which was conducted by GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway, showed that six in 10 Indiana voters oppose the health-care plan and 32 percent support it. And the opposition to the legislation is passionate, 48 percent said they strongly opposed the measure passed by the Senate.

Independents, who voted heavily for Obama and helped him shock the political world by carrying the Hoosier State in 2008, have swung in the opposite direction in the Conway poll; 40 percent said they would vote for an unnamed Republican candidate for office and 19 percent chose an unnamed Democrat.

Sen. Bayh has always touted himself as a centrist. That isn’t possible anymore because after voting for President Obama’s failed stimulus bill and for Pelosicare. Saying that you’re a fiscal hawk after voting for a pork-filled stimulus bill that was about paying off the Democrats’ political allies and voting for a huge new entitlement program isn’t the way to maintain credibility as the taxpayers’ watchdog.

In normal years, Sen. Bayh’s seat wouldn’t be on the radar. Now, his seat is definitely in play. That’s the bad news. The worst news is that his isn’t the only seat where an established Democrat is in trouble. Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray are in trouble, too, to varying degress.

Whatever happens this fall, Mr. Plouffe will work his behind off trying to stave off a disaster.

Technorati: Elections, David Plouffe, Evan Bayh, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Democrats, Polling, Health Care, Economy, Republicans, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative

According to this AP article, Gov. Palwenty’s administration has until Tuesday to explain why it chose to unallot:

State lawyers representing Pawlenty have a deadline for filing a brief to the high court over his so-called unallotments. Pawlenty is appealing a lower court ruling that said he went too far in balancing the budget on his own.

I quoted Minnesota’s unallotment in this post. Here’s the language of the statute:

If the commissioner [of finance] determines that probable receipts for the general fund will be less than anticipated, and that the amount available for the remainder of the biennium will be less than needed, the commissioner shall, with the approval of the governor, and after consulting the legislative advisory commission, reduce the amount in the budget reserve account as needed to balance expenditures with revenue.

I said then that the legislature was told that, had the DFL’s budget become law, the budget surplus would’ve been a whopping $3,625 at the end of the biennium. In other words, the commissioner of finance’s best estimate couldn’t guarantee that the DFL’s budget would’ve balanced. In other words, there isn’t proof that the DFL legislature met its constitutional responsibility.

Based on the unallotment provision’s language, Gov. Pawlenty was obligated to unallot.

I’ve talked with numerous State Capitol insiders. Without exception, they think that, though the DFL publicly says that Judge Kathleen Gearin’s ruling was a great victory, privately, they’re scared to death that Minnesota’s Supreme Court will uphold Judge Gearin’s ruling. The people I’ve talked with say that the only thing coming out of this trial is additional scrutiny on the DFL’s budget.

Speaker Kelliher certainly doesn’t want this scrutinized because she couldn’t hold her caucus together, with Reps. Poppe and Pelowski abandoning her on overriding Gov. Pawlenty’s veto of the Tax Omnibus Bill.

Vulnerable DFL incumbents certainly don’t want the additional scrutiny. First, their vote for a major income tax increase won’t sit well with small businesses. Second, The fact that the tax increase didn’t even come close to closing the deficit won’t sit well with many voters. Third, this just gives their opponents ammunition to label DFL incumbents as disorganized and pawns of the DFL leadership. That isn’t where they want to be, especially heading into an election cycle with them running into a stiff wind.

This is a test of Minnesota’s Supreme Court, too. The unallotment provision’s language is unambiguous. If the Finance Commissioner determines that Minnesota’s biennial budget spends more than they’ll take in, the statute says he will, “the approval of the governor, and after consulting the legislative advisory commission,” reduce state’s rainy day fund first, then, if necessary, start unalloting until the budget balances.

There was no money in Minnesota’s rainy day fund after the 2008 budget agreement.

If Minnesota’s Supreme Court rules according to the letter of the law, then Judge Gearin’s ruling will be overturned. That’s because, in past rulings, the Supreme Court has held that unallotment is constitutional because the legislature was ruled to have given the executive branch the authority to unallot.

Here’s the bottom line: Whether Minnesota’s Supreme Court rules in Judge Gearin’s favor or not, Gov. Pawlenty will unallot. Judge Gearin admitted in her TRO that current conditions would allow Gov. Pawlenty to unallot.

Finally, this puts a gun to the DFL leadership’s head. Either they pass legislation that meets with Gov. Pawlenty’s approval or he vetoes the bill, then unallots. If the DFL proposes anything remotely similar to the budget that they proposed last year, they’ll suffer more defections than they experienced last year. If that happened, Speaker Kelliher’s gubernatorial hopes would be essentially be extinguished.

Technorati: Deficits, Unallotment, Rainy Day Fund, Kathleen Gearin, Supreme Court, Speaker Kelliher, Gene Pelowski, Jeanne Poppe, DFL, Tim Pawlenty, Constitution, MNGOP, Election 2010

Anyone that thinks Minnesota’s economic model makes sense needs to get in touch with reality ASAP. What’s worse is that the DFL’s tax proposals, especially their targeted tax credits, would make Minnesota’s economy worse, not better. Small business tax credits are nothing more than picking winners and losers.

Let’s be candid about Minnesotans. We’re natural-born innovators. It’s part of our genetics. When the DFL proposes tax credits for green jobs, etc., what they’re really doing is they’re telling Minnesota’s innovators that they’ll benefit if Minnesota’s innovators do things that the DFL wants you to do.

The other side to the DFL’s tax credits is that Minnesota’s innovators will get hit by the same high taxes that we currently have. In other words, if Minnesota’s innovators have an idea that doesn’t fit into one of the DFL’s tax credits, they’ll actually get punished by Minnesota’s high individual income tax rates.

That isn’t the way to prove that Minnesota is business friendly.

To illustrate just how out of touch the DFL is on economic issues, I’ll simply point to Speaker Margaret Anderson-Kelliher’s quote from her debate with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak on Almanac. Here’s what Speaker Kelliher said:

This is about the future. This is about jobs and I’m proud to have passed with bipartisan support the largest job-creating bill the state has seen, the comprehensive transportation bill.

I’ve said before and I’ll repeat it again that the DFL is the party that tries to fund a twentieth century government and that the GOP is the party that wants to create a twenty-first century economy. When construction is the heart of anyone’s economic plan, that isn’t about the future. That’s about doing the same thing year after year after year.

David Strom was right when he told KSTP’s Tom Hauser that tax credits was a new way for government to pick winners and losers. I’ve said before that government’s record at identifying the next Microsoft, the next Fedex or the next Dell has been terrible. Still, the DFL insists that it knows best. Follow this link to read the DFL’s plan. Naturally, the DFL’s plan includes the state paying for remodelling the MOA. That’s Twentieth Century thinking, especially compared with North Dakota.

The 3 biggest employers in Minnesota are the state government, the U of M and the federal government. Meanwhile, 13 of North Dakota’s 15 biggest employers are in health care-related industries:

NDSU employs 4,500 people, followed by Altru Clinics and Altru Health Systems, with 3,500 employees each, Children’s Hospital Mericare and Medcenter One Hearing Ctr. with 3,000 employees each, followed by the University of North Dakota with 2,600 employees, then Medcenter Health Systems and Medcenter One each employing 2,200 people. You get the picture.

Unfortunately, the DFL leadership doesn’t get it. It’s apparently stuck in the mindset that shovel-ready construction jobs remodelling megamalls is the pathway to creating high-paying jobs that will be around a generation or more.

The DFL’s plan last year was to rely on tons of stimulus dollars to save their bacon. Now that President Obama’s stimulus plan has failed, the DFL is looking for a new plan to trick Minnesota voters. They can’t afford to be painted as the party that couldn’t create jobs just like they can’t afford to be proven that they’re the part of annual tax increase attempts.

Unfortunately for the DFL, that image fits them as perfectly as the glass slipper fit on Cinderella’s foot.

This is just the DFL’s latest desperate attempt to not look the party of big government.

Technorati: Taxes, Tax Credits, Transportation Bill, R.T. Rybak, Speaker Kelliher, Tax Increases, Green Jobs, Construction, MOA, DFL, David Strom, Free Markets, Innovation, Conservatism, Economics

There are few political consultants that have a bigger tin ear than Bob Shrum. That’s why I’m beseeching Democrats to follow Shrum’s advice in his latest column:

The President may speak and even seek bipartisanship, but he’ll be met with a closed fist. So Democrats in Congress need a strategy of their own that goes beyond “every man for himself”, or every woman, in the case of Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. They can’t be on the defensive; they can’t save themselves by fleeing their president or their principles. They have to draw clear dividing lines on their own terms with the Republican opposition. Put a series of big issues to a vote, giving the other side its chances to cooperate, or manifest its true character.

On the day when the Democrats lost their supposedly filibuster-proof Senate, and official figures showed an unexpectedly high number of new unemployment claimants, the still-majority party actually fought back. They issued a series of jobs proposals and announced that they intend to vote on them in the Senate next week. If the Republicans filibuster in lock-step, Democrats should attack that as a “no” vote on jobs, pure and simple. And maybe the newly minted lawmaker from Massachusetts, who claims that he’s a “Scott Brown Republican,” will realize that if he becomes a party-line vote for Mitch McConnell, he won’t be reelected in 2012. He just might decide not to filibuster jobs.

First, let’s note that President Obama can talk about bipartisanship (or any other subject) all he wants but the American people want positive results. Second, let’s understand that President Obama’s and Speaker Pelosi’s whining about “the failed policies of the last eight years” has lost its potency. The reality is that people haven’t seen positive results, except if they’re members of a public employees’ union, from the stimulus bill or from President Obama’s budget.

Most importantly, people are transitioning to a belief that today’s economic woes aren’t the result of “the failed policies of the last eight years” but of the “the failed policies” of the past year. The people understand that President Obama didn’t get us into this recession but they know that they hired him to direct us out of it.

Mr. Shrum’s advice runs contrary to Scott Rasmussen’s polling on what’s getting people upset:

Eighty-three percent (83%) of Americans say the size of the federal budget deficit is due more to the unwillingness of politicians to cut government spending than to the reluctance of taxpayers to pay more in taxes.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just nine percent (9%) of adults put more blame on the unwillingness of taxpayers to pay more in taxes.

Ninety-four percent (94%) of Republicans and 91% of voters not affiliated with either major party place the blame on politicians, and two-thirds (66%) of Democrats agree.

Polls vary about which issue is the most important issue but the deficit, the economy and jobs consistently poll as the most important issues. Shrum’s advice of telling Democrats to run on another pork-filled stimulus bill is telling Democrats to run contrary to the will of the people.

That’s certainly their right but it’s a foolish strategy, one that isn’t in touch with today’s reality:

Eighty-six percent (86%) of Americans are at least somewhat concerned about the size of the federal budget deficit, including 65% who are very concerned. Only 12% are not very or not at all concerned about the size of the deficit.

The bad news for Democrats is that running with a strategy that’s centered on the belief that we aren’t spending enough in this environment is stupid. The worst news is that changing courses now will be exposed as an election year attempt to get re-elected. I’ve said before that credibility matters.

In fact, I’m willing to say that credibility and consistency on fiscal discipline will matter more to voters this fall than all other issues combined. Election year epiphanies won’t play well with people seeking consistency with regards to fiscal discipline. They aren’t in the mood for gimmicks. They’re demanding the real thing.

Eighty-one percent (81%) of voters also think the unwillingness of politicians’ to cut government spending is a bigger problem than taxpayers’ unwillingness to pay more in taxes.

Families and small businesses are in the habit of setting sensible priorities. The Obama/Pelosi/Reid leadership team hasn’t bothered with setting sensible priorities because they’re mostly interested in passing everything on their special interest allies’ wish lists. That’s a shortcut to electoral disaster.

That’s why I’m encouraging Democrats to take Mr. Shrum’s advice. The more kool-aid that they drink, the bigger the disaster will be this November.

Technorati: Bob Shrum, Spending, Stimulus, Stim II, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Harry Reid, Wedge Issues, Democrats, Polling, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative

I just finished a BCC on President Obama’s budget. Assistant Minority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio’s 4th District took questions after making brief opening statements.

Congressman Jordan started by saying that there’s a very real need to reform the budgeting process by dropping the current baseline budgeting and switching to zero-based budgeting or ZBB. Congressman Jordan said that it was imperative to do this because spending has increased by 84 percent since President Obama was inaugurated.

I asked the first question, which was about what I’m dubbing the AIG Tax. Specifically, I asked whether either gentleman thought it was constitutional, citing the Equal Protection Clause as one constitutional protection. Both Congressman Jordan and Congressman McCarthy said that the AIG Tax likely would be struck down if it ever passed and was signed into law.

Rep. McCarthy then added that “this administration hasn’t worried about the constitutionality” of legislation they were working on. Rep. McCarthy then cited several provisions in the health care legislation. Specifically, he cited the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback and the individual mandates as not meeting constitutional muster.

Later, I asked about President Obama’s spending freeze NEXT YEAR. I asked why people shouldn’t demand that (a) the budget be cut, not just frozen and (b) the cuts come from the entire budget. Rep. Jordan said that we should definitely scrutinize President Obama’s entire budget, not just 17 percent of it.

I said that it’s important that we scrutinize the entire budget because it’s insane to think that all the government overspending is contained in 17 percent of the budget. I said that it’s important that we show Wall Street and the world that we’re serious about getting our economic house in order.

On another note, the evidence I’ve seen since the budget was released suggests that Democrats are running away from this budget.

Technorati: Budget, Jim jordan, Kevin McCarthy, Zero-Based Budgeting, GOP, President Obama, Health Care, Mandates, Louisiana Purchase, AIG, Cornhusker Kickback, Spending, Spending Freeze, Democrats

Cross-posted at California Conservative

It’s impossible to argue that the Democrats, including the Obama administration, play the ‘everything is President Bush’s fault’ card. In fact, it’s become a daily drumbeat message. The bad news for Democrats is that the law of diminishing returns is affecting that message’s effectiveness.

Karl Rove uses his latest WSJ column to discredit the Obama administration’s latest whining storyline:

In Baltimore, Mr. Obama criticized the GOP’s response to last year’s $787 billion stimulus package saying, “I don’t understand…why we got opposition…before we had a chance to actually meet and exchange ideas.”

In truth, the president met with congressional Republicans to talk about the stimulus package the day before the press said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey completed drafting the 1,073-page bill. What occurred was a photo-op, not an exchange of ideas. Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were scornful of Republican input.

People are noticing that Republicans put substantive alternatives together on the stimulus bill, health care and energy policy. They’re noticing that the Republicans’ plans are appealing. They’re noticing that Republican candidates like Scott Brown and Bob McDonnell ran on a solutions-laden agenda.

The myth that the GOP is ‘the party of no’ is fading, too. Independents are noticing that the Democratic Party is the ‘Party of No Ideas’, which is why they’re fleeing the Democratic Party in droves.

When Georgia Republican Rep. Tom Price complained in Baltimore that the president kept saying “that Republicans have offered no ideas and no solutions,” Mr. Obama shot back, “I don’t think I said that.”

But of course Mr. Obama and his people have said that repeatedly. They did so starting in April, when White House aides swarmed Sunday talk programs to label the GOP the “party of no” and say that the party lacked both constructive ideas and vision.

The ‘Party of No’ meme was this administration’s justification for not including Republicans in health care or stimulus bill negotiations.

Mr. Rove devoted this column to discredit President Obama’s claim that the deficits are President Bush’s fault:

Team Obama has been on history’s biggest spending spree, which has included a $787 billion stimulus, a $30 billion expansion of a child health-care program, and a $410 billion federal spending bill that increased nondefense discretionary spending 10% for the last half of fiscal year 2009. Mr. Obama also hiked nondefense discretionary spending another 12% for fiscal year 2010.

These figures aren’t fiction. They’re verified through the Budget committees. This information has been repeatedly used in newspaper articles. Yes, President Obama inherited a mess. No, the deficits aren’t President Bush’s fault.

You can’t blame President Bush for bills passed after he left the White House. PERIOD. End of sentence. Independents know that. That’s why this administration’s whining about how President Bush ruined everything doesn’t play in Peoria.

Until President Obama comes up with an appealing common sense agenda and until President Obama stops whining about the Bush administration, the Democrats won’t snap out of the tailspin they’re in.

Technorati: Victimhood, President Obama, David Obey, Deficits, Spending, Stimulus, Bailouts, Democrats, Tom Price, President Bush, Republicans, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative

God bless Sen. Judd Gregg for eviscerating OMB Director Peter Orszag during yesterday’s Senate Budget Committee hearing. Here’s what Sen. Gregg said in response to Director Orszag’s tesimony:

While President Obama was visiting Nashua, Gregg’s birthplace, the three-term senator was on Capitol Hill skewering Peter Orszag over the plan to funnel $30 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Gregg erupted as Orszag spoke of the TARP use to solve lingering problems with access to credit for small businesses. “No! No! No!” he yelled out. “You can’t make that type of statement with any legitimacy. You cannot make that statement.” Gregg then held up a guideline for the TARP, which he helped write in 2008 to keep the country from further economic collapse.

“This is the law,” he said. “Let me tell you what the law says. Let me read to you again because you don’t appear to understand the law. The law is very clear. The monies recouped from the TARP shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for the reduction of the public debt. It’s not for a piggy bank because you’re concerned about lending to small businesses and you want to get a political event when you go out and make a speech in Nashua, N.H.”

Gregg accused Orszag and Obama of passing on debt to generations of Americans and having an abashed sidestepping of the TARP law. “And,” he said, “you ought to at least have the integrity to be forthright about it.”

The legislation that established TARP is very specific. Once the money is repaid, that money goes into the general fund. It’s against the law to use the repaid money as a slush fund to be spent on whatever this administration wants to spend it on. PERIOD.

Under further questioning from Gregg, Orszag said the administration would be seeking congressional approval. Then Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, chimed in, “That is how laws are made usually, Congress passes them.”

Gregg fired back, “Did the senator from Vermont make a statement? Well the senator is wrong. This is the law as it stands today. There is no law on the books.”

This administration and their progressive allies in Congress have this nasty habit of running roughshod on the laws of this country, especially if those laws stand in the way of President Obama’s ability to recklessly spend money at unsustainable rates. Thank God that people of the intellectual heft of Sen. Gregg still serve in the Senate. Sen. Gregg is the taxpayer’s watchdog. For that alone, I’ll grant him hero status.

Orszag, whose official title is director of the Office of Management and Budget, appeared before the committee to testify on the President’s 2011 budget. In his prepared remarks, Orszag placed much of the blame on the country’s budget deficit on the Bush administration.

It’s getting old to hear President Bush get blamed for everything that’s wrong with the US economy and the federal government’s budget deficits. It simply doesn’t pass the laugh test. The administration and the congress that passed two omnibus spendin bills, the failed stimulus bill and a budget that runs up trillions of dollars of debt over the next decade simply don’t have any credibility as being fiscally responsible.

President Bush wasn’t a fiscal conservative by any stretch but it wasn’t his signature that turned this administration’s failed stimulus bill into law. It wasn’t President Bush’s signatures that turned the Democratic Congress’s omnibus spending bills into a 25 percent spending increase of the federal budget. This administration and the Democratic majority’s reckless spending habits are documented facts. This isn’t theory. This isn’t speculation.

Dick Morris’s column puts the administration’s argument to rest. Here’s the important statistics:

President Obama is being disingenuous when he says that the budget deficit he faced “when I walked in the door” of the White House was $1.3 trillion. He went on to say that he only increased it to $1.4 trillion in 2009 and was raising it to $1.6 trillion in 2010.

Congressman Joe Wilson might have said “you lie,” but we’ll settle for “you distort.”

(As Mark Twain once said, there are three kinds of lies: “lies, damn lies, and statistics.”)

Here are the facts:

In 2008, Bush ran a deficit of $485 billion. By the time the fiscal year started on October 1, 2008, it had gone up by another $100 billion due to increased recession-related spending and depressed revenues. So it was about $600 billion at the start of the fiscal crisis. That was the real Bush deficit.

But when the fiscal crisis hit, Bush had to pass TARP in the final months of his presidency which cost $700 billion. Under the federal budget rules, a loan and a grant are treated the same. So the $700 billion pushed the deficit, officially, up to $1.3 trillion. But not really. The $700 billion was a short term loan. $500 billion of it has already been repaid.

So what was the real deficit Obama inherited? The $600 billion deficit Bush was running plus the $200 billion of TARP money that probably won’t be repaid (mainly AIG and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). That totals $800 billion. That was the real deficit Obama inherited.

Then…he added $300 billion in his stimulus package, bringing the deficit to $1.1 trillion. This $300 billion was, of course, totally qualitatively different from the TARP money in that it was spending not lending. It would never be paid back. Once it was out the door, it was gone. Other spending and falling revenues due to the recession pushed the final numbers for Obama’s 2009 deficit up to $1.4 trillion.

The deficit that President Obama inherited was the biggest in history to that point. Now he’s exploded that deficit, surpassing it by $620,000,000,000.

People aren’t buying this administration’s talking points that it’s all President Bush’s fault because it isn’t all his fault. This administration and this Democratic Congress certainly played a major role in doubling the deficits they inherited from the Bush administration.

Technorati: TARP, Slush Fund, Peter Orszag, Bernie Sanders, President Obama, Stimulus, Spending, Deficits, Democrats, Judd Gregg, President Bush, Republicans

Cross-posted at California Conservative

This weekend, as with other weekends, I taped At Issue With Tom Hauser. This week’s interview was with Tarryl Clark, who’s running against Michele Bachmann for the right to represent Minnesota’s Sixth District in the U.S. House of Representatives. If not for my ability to replay parts of the interview several times, I wouldn’t have believed what I’d heard. As is often the case, I transcribed a portion of the interview. Here’s a partial transcript of Tom Hauser’s interview of Tarryl:

HAUSER: Let’s talk about why you’ve decided to run. You’ve been representing the St. Cloud area in the State Legislature a couple of terms. Why did you decide to make this leap?

TARRYL: Well, as corny as it sounds, I really tried to figure out where I can make the biggest difference. Washington is clearly not working for the people and, frankly, Michele Bachmann isn’t working for Minnesotans.

I have a long track record. Before I was elected, and since then, I’ve worked bipartisanly. I do believe that it’s important that we work together, not necessarily in front of the lights…It’s time that we got together and got things done.

HAUSER: Some would suggest that you wouldn’t be that great a fit for the whole district because it tends to be more Republican, which means less government and lower taxes and those are things that you have not necessarily been for in the State Senate. How will you counter that?

TARRYL: Well, in all honesty, it’s my opponents who’ve said that and I’ve got a pretty good track record of beating them.

People are struggling. I’ve been listening throughout the district while our congresswoman has been in California. I’ve been listening around the district. People are really struggling. We have the highest unemployment rate and the highest foreclosure rate. Small businesses are really reeling with the cost of health care.

First, Tarryl saying that she’s “got a pretty good track record” of defeating her opponents is questionable if you don’t forget that Dave Kleis defeated her for the state senate seat she currently occupies. Let’s put that aside temporarily since that isn’t really the answer to Tom Hauser’s question. He asked about the 6th District leaning more towards smaller government and lower taxes and how Tarryl would “counter that.”

Based on her answer, I’m betting that she’d pray like hell that some well-informed blogger like myself wouldn’t mention her 2007 Minnesota Chamber of Commerce ratings. That year, the 7 bills that the MCoC rated state senators on focused mostly on tax increases with the only exception being a health care bill and the DREAM Act. According to the MCoC’s chart, Tarryl voted for a:

bill would have created a fourth income tax bracket at 9 percent. The Minnesota Chamber opposed the bill because the personal income tax is a small business tax;
transportation finance bill contained a 5 cent gas tax increase, allowed for a 2.5 cent gas tax surcharge to finance the debt service of bonds, a license tab fee increase, authority to impose a one-half cent sales tax to be divided between roads and transit in the seven-county metro area, authority for greater Minnesota counties to impose a half-cent sales tax, and authority for all counties to impose a $5 or $10 wheelage tax. (The Chamber “opposed the conference committee report because we continued to support a more moderate transportation funding package.”)
bill that “increases the statewide property tax, paid by commercial, industrial and utility property, and increases the tax on Minnesota companies that use the foreign operating corporation structure” and that included “significant and permanent business tax increases [that] more than offset the benefit of the up front exemption and sales-only apportionment provisions”;
another income tax bill that “would have created a new fourth personal income tax bracket at 9.7 percent, the highest state income tax rate in the nation.”

I’d love hearing Tarryl answer Mr. Hauser’s question without slipping the question. Based on the MCoC ratings, it appears that Tarryl voted to raise small business’s property taxes (once) and income taxes (twice). Meanwhile, Tarryl voted for a host of tax increases in the transportation bill that the Chamnber opposed because they supported “a more moderate transportation funding package.”

Implicit in that last sentence is that the bill that Gov. Pawlenty vetoed wasn’t moderate. In fact, we know that since this is what Sen. Murphy said about the bill:

“I’m not trying to fool anybody,” said Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, sponsor of the measure that would increase funding for roads and transit by $1.5 billion a year once it was fully implemented in the next decade. “There’s a lot of taxes in this bill.”

Based on this objective information, it’s clear that Tarryl hasn’t hesitated in voting for tax increases. This begs the question of why Tarryl thinks she’s a better fit for the 6th District’s voters who prefer low taxes and limited government better than Michele Bachmann. Based on their voting habits, I’d say that Michele Bachmann is the perfect fit for this district.

I’ve been saving the best for last. Here’s another thing that Tarryl said that I simply can’t exclude from this post:

TARRYL: Frankly, there’s times when government can do things but, frankly, there’s times when we just need government to just get out of the way.

Based on her votes, I’m curious if Tarryl has voted to just get government out of the way. I know that Tarryl was bummed out in 2007 about not being able to do “many good things:”

“This is it. And unfortunately I think people have been led to believe that we’re awash in new money and that we can do many good things. I think it’s definitely the wake-up call that we can’t do many good things; not with these kinds of dollars,” according to Clark.

This is the same Tarryl that told Tom Hauser that there wasn’t much fat to be trimmed from the budget:

Hauser: You can talk about reform all you want but reform inevitably ends up meaning that some people that are getting state services now won’t be getting them after this reform, whether it be in HHS, whether it be in education, early childhood, any of those things.

Tarryl: Sure, and an estimate, a good estimate would be that maybe we could figure out how to save about $500 million.

At the time, Minnesota’s budget was approximately $34,000,000,000. That $500,000,000 equalled 1.5% of the budget. Based on her quote, Tarryl thinks that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find meaningful amounts of waste in Minnesota’s budget.

Based on these things, isn’t it reasonable to conclude that Tarryl’s past votes and quotes betray this weekend’s quotes? Doesn’t it sound like Tarryl is like President Obama in that she’s great at talking like a moderate without voting like a moderate?

Finally, Tarryl said that she’s been travelling the district, listening to people, doing the hard work of finding out what the people want. It’s interesting that she’d mention that after last winter’s listening tour:

From: Gene Pelowski [mailto:Rep.Gene.Pelowski@house.mn]
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 10:13 AM
This Friday, February 20, there will be a bicameral hearing held in our region. Senators and Representatives from both political parties will be in Winona from 3:30 to 5:30 PM, Winona City Hall, 207 Lafayette St. The purpose of this hearing is to get testimony from affected programs in every level of government, education, health care or service impacted by the cuts suggested by the Governor’s state budget.

I am writing you to ask that you or a designee get scheduled to testify. You may do this by going to the House website at www.house.mn and clicking on “Town Meetings”.

We would ask you to focus your comments on the impact of the Governor’s budget including what is the harm to your area of government or program. Please be as precise as possible using facts such as number of lay offs, increases in property taxes, cuts in services, increases in tuition, elimination of programs. To be respectful of the time necessary to hear from a large number of constituents it would be advised to use no more than 3-5 minutes to convey your message. If you choose to provide handouts or printed materials, please plan to bring approximately 25 copies, enough for committee members and media.

Sincerely,
Representative Gene Pelowski
District 31A

Who can forget that not-so-old golden oldie? For that matter, who can forget the night the Misery Tour visited St. Cloud? That’s the night when “a sizable group of people were upset that there wasn’t a segment devoted to cutting spending.” They had time to manipulate the testimony but they didn’t allocate time to suggested cost savings. Now that the TEA Party movement has sprung up, Tarryl’s returned to sounding like a fiscal moderate.

Isn’t it time we rejected politicians that talk moderate and vote for radical tax-and-spend agendas? Haven’t we had enough of that type of politician?

Technorati: Interview, At Issue, Tom Hauser, Tarryl Clark, Tax Increases, Income Taxes, Property Taxes, Small Businesses, Spending Cuts, Fiscal Moderation, DFL, Michele Bachmann, TEA Parties, Conservatism, Election 2010

Earlier tonight, I read a post on the Hill Magazine’s blog quoting Majority Whip James Clyburn as saying something that stunned me. Here’s what Rep. Clyburn said that I found stunningly stupid:

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House majority whip, said that trying to find greater savings in the budget, which was released by President Barack Obama this morning, wouldn’t help alleviate the recession.

“We’ve got to make some decisions here as to what’s in the best interests of our country going forward,” Clyburn said during an appearance on Fox News. “And I think the best interest is to invest in education, control these deficits, while at the same time trying to get people back to work.”

“We’re not going to save our way out of this recession,” the majority whip added. “We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that.”

It’s obvious that Rep. Clyburn either thinks that we’re stupid enough to believe that another Porkulus bill will accomplish what the first Porkulus bill didn’t or he actually thinks that that’s the solution to the economy. I don’t know which answer scares me more.

There’s little proof that raising taxes on small businesses, America’s job creation engine, during a recession will get the economy running again. There’s even less proof that pursuing a radical agenda will improve the economy. In fact, there’s abundant proof that pursuing a radical agenda is hurting the U.S. economy.

Rep. Thad McCotter said something important when I interviewed him that made so much sense that it hit me right between the eyes. Here’s what Rep. McCotter said:

I then asked whether signing a health care bill into law might start the next round of layoffs. I said that I was basing that on businessmen and women talking about not hiring because of uncertain labor costs. Chairman McCotter said that he’s warned Republicans that just knowing what the labor costs are isn’t enough. He said that knowing that you’re being taxed too much won’t help job creation.

Chairman McCotter said that it’s important that we bring certainty to the labor costs but that we also make labor costs affordable enough so that businesses have an incentive to start hiring and growing their companies again. According to Chairman McCotter, that isn’t possible without controlling spending and reducing government’s intrusion into our lives.

In other words, the key to reviving the economy is in not pursuing a radical agenda that, if passed, would impose greater burdens on small businesses. Put differently, we’re better off if government just got out of the way so entrepreneurs would have an incentive to invest in their businesses, whether that means buying new equipment or hiring more people.

The economy will pick up when small businesses know that they won’t be subjected to this administration’s and the Democrats’ majority anti-business agenda. All of Mr. Clyburn’s pork won’t get the economy growing again if businesses think that they’ll continue to have a bullseye painted on their backs.

Adding more pork to future generations’ tabs won’t cut it anymore. That might work to get a few Democrats elected in relatively safe districts but it won’t help those Democrats representing swing districts, especially in this TEA Party election environment.

Clyburn suggested that talk of reducing the deficit was moot as long as the economy remained sluggish in the foreseeable future.

“You’re not going to bring down the deficits, you’re not going to eliminate these problems without growing this economy,” he said. “And you’re not going to grow the economy by wishing it; you’ve got to invest in it. And that’s what we’re doing with this budget.”

With all due respect to Mr. Clyburn, this administration and this Democratic congress hasn’t ‘invested’ in anything other than their political allies. That’s why the term crony capitalism is increasingly used. This isn’t about investing in all the different types of infrastructure. It’s about paying off the Democratic Party’s political allies in time for this year’s midterm elections.

There’s one thing that the Democrats’ spend their way out of: majority status in the House. That’s something I wouldn’t oppose.

Technnorati: Spending, Pork, Porkulus, Deficits, James Clyburn, House Majority Whip, Inflation, Tax Increases, Unemployment, Cap And Tax, Democrats, Thad McCotter, Small Businesses, Job Creation, Economy, Fiscal Restraint, Republicans, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative

Scott Rasmussen’s polling shows Marco Rubio surging past Charlie Crist in the Florida GOP primary for the U.S. Senate seat that Mel Martinez held from 2005 through 2009:

Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio has now jumped to a 12-point lead over Governor Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican Primary race for the U.S. Senate.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters in the state finds Rubio leading Crist 49% to 37%. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and 11% are undecided.

Crist’s slide isn’t likely to stop anytime soon, especially with Rubio announcing a fundraising bomb as a reminder of Crist’s support of President Obama’s failed stimulus plan. If you want to be part of the solution to this nation’s out-of-control spending problems, then it’s important that you contribute to Mr. Rubio’s campaign.

Crist’s fortunes appear to be tied in part to national unhappiness over President Obama and his policies. Many conservatives began rebelling against Crist when he became one of the few Republican governors to embrace Obama’s $787-billion economic stimulus plan last year. The national Republican party establishment endorsed Crist early on, but a number of prominent national party conservatives have since announced their support for Rubio. Nationally, the GOP’s Florida Senate race is being watched as a test of the new “Tea Party” mood among many conservative and traditionally Republican voters.

Charlie Crist made the same type of mistake that Martha Coakley made: he underestimated his opponent. gov. Crist thought getting the NRSC’s endorsement meant that he’d coast to victory. Coakley thought that winning the Democratic primary meant a cakewalk to the U.S. Senate.

That’s always been a no-no. It’s a bigger no-no today than at any point in history because of the power of the internet. Saying that it’s a brave new world is understatement. People that think high name recognition is the only thing that’s needed to punch their ticket to the next level are living in a world that simply doesn’t exist anymore.

Rubio is viewed favorably by 67% of primary voters and unfavorably by only14%. These numbers include 35% with a very favorable opinion of the Cuban-American candidate versus four percent (4%) with a very unfavorable view.

Perhaps more telling for Crist is that just 56% of Republican Primary voters approve of the job he is now doing as governor. Forty-three percent (43%) disapprove of his job performance.

Simply put, Gov. Crist is viewed as just another go-along-to-get-along politician. We’re overstocked in that department. What’s needed are more candidates that aren’t cookie-cutter politicians. We need more convictions-based politicians. Gov. Crist is cookie-cutter. Marco Rubio is convictions-based.

If Mr. Rubio keeps outworking Gov. Crist, he’ll beat Crist if Crist doesn’t drop out before the primary. That’s the difference between a politician with name ID and a politician with a great message.

Technorati: Polling, Marco Rubio, TEA Parties, Fiscal Restraint, Fundraising Bomb, Conservatism, Charlie Crist, RINO, Martha Coakley, Stimulus, Establishment, Name Recognition, Primary, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative