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The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) budget model predicts the U.S. budget will be unsustainable within twenty-six years. In other words, it is impossible for the American economy to continue past 2037.  House Budget Chairman Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said President Barack Obama’s budget strategy is to “do nothing, punt, duck, kick the can down the road” while the debt remains on track to eventually hit 800% of GDP.

Greece recently teetered on the brink economic collapse when its government debt hit 120% of GDP.  Riots in the streets ensued for weeks and Greece was eventually bailed out by the EU.  What will happen when the U.S. debt is at 800% of GDP and there is nobody there to bail out our federal government?  What happens then?  And how can we begin to resolve the problem?

Republicans recently went to battle with Democrats over the 2011 budget they failed to pass by the September 2010 deadline.  The reason why Democrats didn’t want to pass the budget in 2010 is because the dialogue around the election centered on our public debt and government restraint… and Obama’s plan had increased his prior year’s budget by $79 billion, which would keep the U.S. running another $1.65 trillion in deficits.  Any Democrat who would vote for the 2011 budget prior to the 2010 election would be at an even greater risk of losing their seat during the midterms.  As it turned out, Democrats suffered one of the greatest defeats since 1938.

So, the Democrat budget of 2011 became the Democrat-Republican budget.  Republicans passed a non-binding resolution on January 25^th that placed the Fiscal Year 2011 funding levels at previous 2008 levels, which put them on record fulfilling their campaign promise to pass $100 billion in deficit reductions by their first year.  This would never be passed in the Senate and never signed by Obama. So, they had their work cut out for them.

After a series of continuing resolutions cut $10 billion from the budget, the final budget needed to be passed before April 8, 2011 or a government shut down would take place causing a furlough of 800,000 government employees.  With just hours remaining before the deadline, a deal was reached averting the shutdown. The deal included $38.5 billion in cuts from what had been budgeted for 2010.

The total budget Obama proposed was $79 billion more than the prior year’s budget… and Republicans were able to avoid that budget and force a budget with $48.5 billion in total cuts.  The budget deal was hailed as a victory for Republicans and provides the much needed momentum going into the 2012 budget.

Democrats felt they had some victories too.  Republicans failed in eliminating a few social programs which included Planned Parenthood, the NEA, the NEH, NPR and PBS.  Just about all Democrats, many Independents and a few Republicans wondered why Republicans targeted these organizations.  After all, they are non-partisan organizations that barely make a dent in the budget, right?

Planned Parenthood, an organization that advocates and assists young women with having abortions, gave political contributions in the amount of $1,062,536 (roughly $99.4%) to Democrat candidates during the last two election cycles.  Its annual budget is $1.04 billion of which approximately $350 million comes from government grants and contracts.  Why is the federal government helping fund abortions?  Why are American tax dollars being funneled through this organization and doled out to Democrats?  And even if the government defunded Planned Parenthood, isn’t it conceivable that this organization could survive either on a $690 million dollar budget or by additional private funds?  It seems to me the only people supporting government funding of Planned Parenthood are the folks on the receiving end of the 99.4% of Planned Parenthood’s political donations.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is a federal government agency that supports and funds art projects in the United States.  Being a federal agency, they are not allowed to provide campaign contributions to politicians or advocacy groups.  It has a long and controversial history of funding.  For example, the NEA partially funded Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ, a photography which depicted a plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of urine.  Also funded by the NEA was Robert Mapplethorpe’s The Perfect Moment, which included a series of homoerotic photographs and child pornography.  I’m not sure why people, especially Democrats, feel it’s necessary for American taxpayers to fund blasphemy, pornography and child exploitation, but they do.

In 2009, The White House teamed up with NEA to “tackle some of the nation’s toughest issues: education; health; energy and the environment; community renewal; and safety and security.”  Communications Director Yosi Sergant directed artists in a conference call to create works of art promoting Obama’s domestic agenda.  Naturally, the White House’s attempt to try and leverage federal dollars to get artists and cultural organizations involved in promoting their ideological agenda is an abuse of taxpayer dollars, so Yosi Sergant was fired.

NEA’s budget is $167.5 million a year and its Chairman is Rocco Landesman was appointed by Obama in 2009.  Rocco has a long history of donating campaign contributions to Democrats and, in fact, gave $6,900 to Obama’s victory fund and Obama for America in 2008.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is also a federal government agency like the NEA, but they support research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities (ie. the languages, literature, law, history, philosophy, religion).  They also receive $167.5 million annually in tax payer dollars.  Although less controversial than the NEA, the NEH is still a federally funded partisan organization.  While the current Chairman, Jim Leach, is a former Republican congressman from Iowa…. He did endorse Obama in 2008.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is a non-profit corporation funded by the federal government to help promote public broadcasting.  Most of the public broadcasting licenses are locally licensed, but the two best known public broadcast networks are Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).  The budget for CPB is about $445 million a year of federal tax dollars.  Although the chairman of CPB, Patricia Harrison, is a Republican, she has not made any campaign contributions to Republicans in over a decade. Furthermore, her appointment was designed to quell a brewing controversy over the left wing bias of both PBS and NPR.

NPR, which receives well over $90 million, from the CPB directly and indirectly through member stations, is another example of a federally funded tool for Democrats to further empower and enrich themselves.  A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that 61% of NPR’s audience describes itself as “progressive.” In terms of party affiliation, 40% of NPR listeners described themselves as Democrats, while only 14% called themselves Republicans.  This is because the biased socio-political content of these programs attract left wing listeners.  Perhaps if Hannity, Limbaugh and Beck all had shows on NPR, the study would have different results.

Last month NPR came under more political controversy.  James O’Keefe, a political provocateur best known for bringing down ACORN, sent partners “Simon Templar” and Shaughn Adeleye to secretly record their discussion with NPR’s outgoing senior vice president for fundraising, Ronald Schiller. In that discussion, Schiller made disparaging remarks about the Tea Party and right wingers, as well as controversial comments regarding Palestine and funding for NPR.  Schiller immediately resigned, and NPR conveniently disavowed Schiller’s comments.

PBS, which receives well over $282 million from CPB, also has its share of controversy and left wing bias.  In 2005, former CPB chairman Kenneth Tomlinson characterized the popular Bill Moyer program, NOW, as “the image of the left-wing bias” on PBS.  Tomlinson commissioned a study of the program which revealed support for his criticisms… that NOW presented topics with a bias which went unchallenged by a balancing point of view on public broadcasting’s Friday evening line-up.  Why were tax dollars being used to promote an unbalanced and biased television program on PBS?

Also in 2005, federal tax dollars were spend on an episode titled “Sugartime!” of the popular children’s animated series, Postcards from Buster.  The cartoon, intended for children ages 6-12, chronicles the travels of an eight year old bunny around North America.  This particular episode, which aired in New York (WNET) and Los Angeles (KCET), showed Buster in Vermont with a pair of animated lesbian bunnies. Rightfully so, parents were upset at the subversive introduction of sexuality to such young children paid for by viewers and non-viewers like you.

So, where does our federal tax dollars for PBS eventually end up?  One shining example is Boston’s PBS station, WGBH.  Headquartered is an opulent $85 million building in Brighton, it includes a 200-seat amphitheater, amazing atrium and other amenities. Four WGBH vice presidents and producers made more than $300,000 and another 10 made more than $200,000 in pay and benefits; 145 of the station’s 950 employees earned more than $100,000; Ex-WGBH president Henry Becton Jr., the station’s existing Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of WGBH Educational Foundation, made $160,873 in total compensation for working just 24 hours a week; And those that run the company, well, they received more than $200,000 in bonuses in 2009.

For the record, Sesame Street, a popular PBS children’s program, made more than $211 million from toy and consumer product sales from 2003-2006.

The bottom line is that the above-mentioned organizations will receive over $1.1 billion this year from federal tax dollars… and approximately $15 billion over the next decade.  These organizations are also controversial and partisan (there are no government funded gun rights groups or pro-life groups that exist).  And the organizations could very well exist in the private market without the help of the federal government.  So why are we funding these programs that we can’t even afford?

The 2012 budget fight has already begun.  Obama has proposed a plan that will add another $1.1 trillion more to the national debt.  He says his plan will reduce the deficits by $1.1 trillion over the next decade.  But then again, this is the same President who said he would cut the deficit by half by the end of his first term… and so far it looks as though he’s on course to triple it.  Under Obama’s plan, federal funding for Planned Parenthood, NEA, NEH, NPR and PBS will continue as strong as ever.

On the Republican side of the isle is Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity plan which cuts government spending by $5.8 trillion over the next decade and limits government spending to below 20% of the economy.  It also substantially changes federal payments under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, eliminates the subsidies to be provided through new insurance exchanges under last year’s major health care legislation, leaves Social Security as it would be under current law, and sets paths for all other federal spending (excluding interest) and federal tax revenues at specified growth rates or percentages of gross domestic product (GDP).  Hopefully, it ends for good federal funding of Planned Parenthood, NEA, NEH, NPR and PBS.

Republicans and Democrats go into another budget battle this week.  Which side are you on… prosperity in 2037 or economic collapse in 2037?

Obama’s reelection team sent the announcement to their supporters this morning via email, along with a snazzy campaign launch video titled, “It Begins With Us.”  The video features real people from political battleground states North Carolina, Nevada and Colorado as well as a few others from Michigan and New York providing interviews about the upcoming election and their support for Obama.  As a former member of the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) and producer of campaign videos, I took great interest in this video and this is my critique.

At their core, campaign videos can take two different approaches, they can go positive about their candidate or they can go negative about their opponent.  When taking the positive approach one must think of the filmmakers as police officers trying to talk a suicidal person off the ledge… even in amidst tragedy, chaos and depression always use positive phrases and never use any negative words.  In other words, it’s okay to bring up depressing news, but it needs to be done in a careful and methodical way as to not conjure up anything negative in the viewer’s mind.

Unfortunately for Obama, his campaign launch video is fraught with negative sound bites.

Right out of the gate Ed from North Carolina reminds the viewer that “the last couple elections that we’ve had have been, um, almost turning point campaigns.”  That sound bite harkens the viewer to two specific elections… 2008 and 2010.  In 2008, Obama, riding a wave of Hope and Change, won the election with 52.9% of the vote.  But just two years into his presidency, the citizens of the United States went back to the ballot box and rejected Obama’s Hope and Change marking the greatest midterm landslide defeat for a President since 1938.  Without uttering the details, Ed from North Carolina reminded the viewer that Republicans gained 63 seats in the House of Representatives (recapturing the majority), six seats in the Senate, six governorships, as well as 680 seats in state legislative races.

The next interviewee is Gladys of Nevada who claims she is “nervous.”  Being nervous invokes an uneasiness or apprehension toward something.  It is the opposite of being confident and bold.  In past political arenas, nervousness about a campaign reminds one of Walter Mondale running against Ronald Reagan in 1984 or Bob Dole running against Bill Clinton in 1996.  It’s definitely not a word a campaign wants associated with their candidate.

Katherine of Colorado appears next talks about “the changes we’ve seen the last two and a half years.”  Which any informed person knows have not been positive changes.  Aside from the highly unpopular and unconstitutional Obamacare bill being passed vis-à-vis backroom shenanigans, sweetheart deals, middle of the night votes and other high jinks, or the unconstitutional attack on Libya, or all the broken promise that stretch from Gitmo to Iraq and back, what positive changes is Katherine talking about?  Troubling unemployment numbers?  The looming inflation?  The weakening dollar?  Soaring food, gasoline and energy prices?  One of the most depressed housing markets in history?  Or is she referring to the massive spending and skyrocketing deficits in our government?  While I give the filmmakers credit for using positive language, it does more harm in the end because the obvious contrast between the statement and the truth.

Next is Mike from New York, representing Obama’s base… the naïve first time voter.  He discusses the energy and hope for this country that Obama “had for this country” a few years ago and that he plans to help reelect him based on that platform now.  The fact that it is past tense, referring to an expired enthusiasm, isn’t going to help Obama next year.

Alice from Michigan is the next interviewee who starts off her sound bite with “Unfortunately…”  She’s only talking about Obama not being able to spend the time and energy to reelect himself so it is intended to be a call to action for those Obama supporters watching the video; however, I couldn’t get past the negative word “unfortunately” being so prominently exclaimed at the start of her segment.

From this point forward, the individuals are recycled.

Gladys mentions how American voters all have the same concerns, “we want jobs to be out there and we want people to have homes and we want people to have opportunity.”  Yet, these are the areas where Obama has failed the most.  Obama promised the American people that if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was passed, unemployment would not exceed 8% and it has been over 8% ever since.   And wanting everyone to have homes?  With millions of Americans unemployed and banks tightening their regulations on loaning money, there are no loans available to the average American looking to have a home.  Housing prices see the biggest drop in over twenty-five years which CNBC described as “depression territory” in January 2011.  This would be like Jimmy Carter running his reelection campaign on gas prices and his handling of the Iran hostage crisis.

And we revisit Ed from North Carolina who delivers the best line of the whole video while shaking his head, “I don’t agree with Obama…”  Did they just not have any other sound bites available to use?  Of course he goes on to say that he doesn’t agree with Obama on everything and he respects and trusts him, but when he says “I don’t agree with Obama,” the damage is done.

At this point it doesn’t matter that they suggest more things need to be done or that politics is how we govern ourselves and that it really takes place at the grassroots level.  It doesn’t matter because the viewer is reminded of recent major Republican victories, negative changes the last two years, Obama’s shortcomings, and that he had enthusiasm years ago, but unfortunately, we don’t agree with Obama now.

Currently, the video, “It Begins With Us,” has 71,771 views on YouTube which include 1,470 likes and 1,022 dislikes.  That is in contrast of his “Barack Obama at the 2008 DNC” video two and half years ago which has 952,132 views with 3,267 likes and only 241 dislikes.  If “dislikes” on YouTube are future indicators of anything, I think the Obama campaign really has something to be nervous about in 2012.

By contrast, in 1984 America was emerging from a recession as President Ronald Reagan began his reelection campaign bid.  One of the great political commercials ever created, “Morning In America,” (formerly titled “Prouder, Stronger, Better”) aired in support of Reagan.  There was not one negative connation in the entire commercial.  In fact, it contained statements like:

• “Today more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country’s history.”
• “With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years.”
• “This afternoon 6,500 young men and women will be married, and with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future.”
• “…our country is prouder and stronger and better.”

There are stark differences between Reagan and Obama and those differences are manifested in their own promotional media during their midterm elections.  Reagan gave America a reason for optimism.  Obama just gave vacant hope and quite a bit of frustrating change.

So, if you find yourself on a ledge thinking you might want to jump, I sincerely hope that the filmmakers of “Morning in America” come to your rescue.

Cross-posted at HollywoodRepublican

“We estimate, and I believe these are very conservative estimates, that H.R. 1, the Republican bill, would lead to 70,000 kids dying. Of that 70,000, 30,000 would come from malaria control programs that would have to be scaled back specifically. The other 40,000 is broken out as 24,000 would die because of a lack of support for immunizations and other investments and 16,000 would be because of a lack of skilled attendants at birth,” USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah testified before the House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops subcommittee.  Shah previously worked as a health care policy advisor on the Gore 2000 presidential campaign, was an active supporter of the Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008, and served as a member of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s health transition committee.

This has to be the lowest of the low scare tactics… using children as political pawns.  Hooray for CHANGE!

Foreign Policy

What happens when America appoints a community organizer as Commander in Chief? Thanks to the election of Barack Obama, we now know.  First, he breaks his campaign promise to bring Iraq troops home within a year.  Next, he breaks his campaign promise to close Gitmo within a year.  Then he isn’t even a month in office when he is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which he would later win in spite of having accomplished nothing with the exception of going on a grand American Apology Tour.  His next move as Commander in Chief was to send just a little over half the number of troops to Afghanistan that were requested by the Generals on the ground to help push back a rise in the insurgency.  If all this wasn’t enough, Obama signed an arms limitation deal with an extremely untrustworthy Russia (a country that completes military exercises with China and Venezuela).  The mission in Afghanistan is now looking like it might fail with no exit strategy.  And if all this wasn’t enough, Obama is now working with al-Qaeda in an effort to topple Libya for “humanitarian” reasons without prior approval from Congress despite four or five other neighboring Mideast governments who have behaved no different than the Libyan government.

Obama’s debacle with Libya begins with a strong cry for democracy by civilian protesters throughout the Mideast that began earlier this year.  The first big protest was against the Mubarak government in Egypt and ended with dissolution of the current government one month later.  During this time, Obama took no sides and maintained that Egypt’s future would be “determined by its People.”  During this time Human Rights Watch estimated over 300 deaths including 135 protesters.  Obama championed the will of the people and ushering in a day of democracy.

The next successful revolution was Tunisia.  During the protests, which became violent, Obama stated, “I urge all parties to maintain calm and avoid violence, and call on the Tunisian government to respect human rights, and to hold free and fair elections in the near future that reflect the true will and aspirations of the Tunisian people.” The BBC reported that at least 219 people died during the struggle to topple the government.

Clearly, the trend was not in favor of the governments in the first few months of the revolutions taking place in the Mideast, specifically in the North African countries.

Major protests have continued in Algeria (8 deaths), Bahrain (22 deaths), Djibouti (2 deaths), Jordan (2 deaths), Oman (6 deaths), Syria (100 deaths) and Yemen (122 deaths).  And the governments have pushed back. Other protests, considered minor, have occurred in Iran (3 deaths, 1,500 arrested), Morocco (6 deaths), Saudi Arabia (2 deaths and 100 arrested), Sudan (1 death) and Western Sahara (1 death).

While Jordan, Oman and Yemen have adopted new changes to their governments to help quell the protests, other countries such as Algeria, Syria, and Saudi Arabia continue to have ongoing protests.

Then there is Libya.

The estimates of the total number of deaths are unreliable, but is said to be in the thousands.  Even though it is reported that there are three anti-Gaddafi rebels killed for every Libyan soldier, the rebels outnumber the combined total of Libyan armed forces including their hired mercenaries by approximately 5,000.  That is before including the assistance from the U.N. and NATO which intervened on March 17, 2011.

Our Nobel Peace Prize winning Commander in Chief, unprovoked by a country that was not an imminent threat, bypassed the Constitution and authorized a military strike into Libya.  ABC reported that 122 American Tomahawk cruise missiles blew up some twenty Libyan air and ground defense systems.  CBS News reported that three B-2 stealth bombers dropped forty bombs on a Libyan airfields and US fighter jets searching for Libyan ground forces to attack.

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda works with Libyan rebels on the ground against Gaddafi and the Libyan government.  So, in essence, the United States is now working with al-Qaeda.

The only way a President can bypass Congress to authorize a military action is when the United States is in imminent danger by another country.  No such danger existed from Libya.  And Obama did not get Congressional approval prior to the attacks.  In fact, it’s been over a week and there is still no Congressional approval.  Obama is no stranger to attacking above his Constitutional authority and with the worst Attorney General, Eric Holder, leading our Justice Department there appear to be little-to-no consequence for this and other similar actions taken by the President.

Yet, there are consequences.

First, there is a major outcry from the public as well as outspoken leaders of other countries for Obama to give back the Nobel Peace Prize… something he says he will not do.  Second, the far left wing of the Democrat Party, led by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and followed by Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), are now talking about impeachment.  Lastly, Obama’s approval ratings have sharply dropped from 51% on 3/20 (CNN) to 45% on 3/26 (Gallup).  This is not something Obama’s re-election committee wants to pile on the list of hurdles to overcome for his 2012 re-election bid.

So, how does a community organizer turned Commander in Chief try to salvage his military blunders?

First, Obama attempts to change the language to soften the tone.  The Nobel Peace prize winner and community organizer doesn’t want people to think he “attacked” anyone or that he sent our Troops into “War.” No, his administration attempted to soften the tone by calling it a “Kinetic Military Action.”  Changing the language might work in some neighborhoods around the country, but this attempt was about as successful as his earlier attempt of trying to change “Terrorism” into “Man-Made Disasters.”  Obama lacks integrity.

Next, Obama claims moral authority by saying that our attack on the Libyan government was a “humanitarian” mission, because they were brutalizing their own people.  Aside from the fact that Obama’s rhetoric all along was about the People of these countries determining their own future (presumably without foreign interference), Obama fails to realize two major points:  One, the rebels fighting the Libyan government are greater in numbers and the brutalizing goes both ways.  Two, if we are the World’s Police now saving protesters from brutal governments, why haven’t we gone into Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran or all the other Mideast countries where the citizens are dying in the course of the riots and protests?  Obama lacks consistency.

And now Obama is attempting to sell Americans tonight in a prime-time address to the nation a new reason why his actions of unilaterally attacking Libyan forces were justified.  Presumably he will suggest three things: One, we have a moral obligation to assist innocent men, women and children in a humanitarian crisis from being brutally murdered.  Two, we have an ethical obligation to work within the constructs of the U.N. and to help our coalition allies.  Three, and more importantly for a President who is hearing rumblings of impeachment from his own political party, we have a legal obligation because it is in the national interest of the United States to do so.  Obama lacks authority.

At the end of the day, Obama will not win over his critics and his approval ratings will continue to sink.  And as the 2012 election approaches, the winds of change may have turned against Obama for good… and not even the best community organizer will be able to offer the kind of hope he would need to see a second term.

At least 20 killed near Daraa, Syria as anti-government protesters defy security crackdown.  Just curious, is Obama — Nobel Peace Prize winner and President of an unprovoked country — going to do to Syria what he did to Libya?  Fire missiles into their country because the humanitarian crisis of the government brutalizing its citizens?  Or, is he going to let the future of the country be determined by its own people?  No war strategy.  No exit plan.   No strong coalition.  No approval from Congress.  No end to the humanitarian Crisis.  No confidence.  No reelection.

ALJAZEERA

After a long hard fought campaign filled with HOPE and CHANGE rhetoric, Obama accepted the Democrat Party’s nomination for President at the DNC convention in Denver on August 29, 2008.  In that speech Obama said, “As commander in chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send troops into harm’s way with a clear mission…”  Fast forward to 2011, where Obama dithered too long before making a decision on Libya, and then when he did he went in too quickly.  Moreover, he violated the Constitution by failing to get Congress approval since America was not in imminent danger.  Now the coalition seems to be falling apart as Germany pulls from the mission, NATO can’t agree on who is leading the attacks and the U.S. is stuck without a clear mission or even an exit strategy.  It’s a recipe for an international disaster that, if Obama is somehow re-elected in 2012, we can surely expect another “America Is Terrible And I Apologize” tour in 2013.

CNN