New Senate Republican Says Defense Budget Could Be Cut

Budget Cop Paul Ryan: No 'Naked' Debt Increase, No Bailouts for States
Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee in the new Republican era, is staking out territory as the tough new cop on the beat. In an hour-long session at the National Press Club, Ryan laid down conditions for raising the Debt Limit. He also said his budget won't include any money for the new Health Care law and he opposes bailing out states in fiscal crisis. The country's Debt is more than $14 Trillion and rising, and is expected to bump up against a borrowing ceiling in early spri...

Gates seeks $78 billion in cuts to Pentagon budget
GATES SEEKS $78 BILLION IN CUTS TO Pentagon Budget.... As far as the House Republican leadership is concerned, lawmakers have to slash federal spending -- but the defense budget, well over a half-trillion dollars, should be considered off-limits. The Secretary of Defense disagrees. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Thursday told Congress the administration is seeking $78 billion in cuts to the Defense budget over the next five years on top of $100 billion in efficiencies. House Armed Services Co...

Pelosi's Final Debt Tab: $5.3 Trillion Added During Speakership -- $3.67 Billion/Day...
(CNSNews.com) - In the 1,461 days that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) served as speaker of the House, the National Debt increased by a total of $5.343 Trillion ($5,343,452,800,321.37) or $3.66 billion per day ($3.657,394,113.84), according to official Debt numbers published by the U.S. Treasury. Pelosi was the 52nd speaker of the House. During her tenure, she amassed more Debt than the first 49 speakers combined. The total National Debt did not climb above $5.343 Trillion (the amount amassed duri...

Should Defense be immune from cuts?
Mark Tapscott asks the same question at the Washington Examiner I have begun asking fiscal Conservatives who rightly see runaway federal spending as a threat to our economic health.  We need to find ways to erase over $1.3 Trillion from annual spending just to get to the point where we don’t add to the National Debt, let alone start to shrink it.  After the obvious targets at NPR and the National Endowments for the Arts contribute their drops in the bucket, where will those cut

Pentagon to cut spending by $78 billion
The Pentagon will have to cut spending by $78 billion over the next five years, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday, forcing The Army and Marine Corps to shrink the number of Troops on Active Duty and eventually imposing the first freeze on Military Spending since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The surprise announcement from Gates was a reminder for the Military establishment - which has benefited from a gusher of new money over the past decade - that it will not remain exempt from pai...

Defense Secretary Gates Proposing Program Cuts in Military Budget
Thursday, January 06, 2011 By Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Washington (AP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates is announcing the latest round of cost-cutting measures for the Military, including a plan to do away with a new amphibious vehicle that can ferry Troops to shore while under fire. The plan is aimed at staving off potentially deeper cuts by the White House or Congress by showing that the Pentagon is taking seriously a call to rein in the nation's Deficit. The Defense Department is ...

House budget chairman says deeper cuts ahead
"If people think we're afraid of cutting $100 billion they've got another think coming," House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said Thursday. "That's just a down payment." Ryan's comments come one day after he and other Republicans said they would not reach their target of $100 billion in immediate cuts, prompting conservative complaints that they were not living up to their campaign promises. Republicans had promised before the November Elections to roll back federal spending to 2008 level...

House budget chairman says deeper cuts ahead
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-led House of Representatives will push for Spending Cuts in the next Fiscal Year that will be deeper than they promised voters in last year's congressional Elections, the lawmaker leading the effort said Thursday. "If people think we're afraid of cutting $100 billion they've got another think coming," House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said Thursday. "That's just a down payment." Ryan's comments come one day after he and other Republicans said they wo...

Gates details Pentagon cuts
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is proposing to send $78 billion back to the treasury over the next five years through internal savings, including cutting a prized Marine Corps vehicle, top House Republican chairmen said Thursday after meeting with Gates at the Capitol. And while Congress is itching to reduce Government Spending, the details, like the widely anticipated demise of the Marines’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, are already making waves in Congress. Continue Reading Text Size...

House cuts its own funding
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The new Republican-led House of Representatives voted Thursday to cut its operating Budget by 5% -- a move meant to reflect the GOP's desire to reduce the size of the Federal Government. The measure, which GOP aides claim will save $35 million, passed 410-13. The "no" votes were cast by Democrats. Email Print Comment Of course, the $35 million won't make a dent in the nation's Deficit. The cuts amount to 0.001% of Washington's $3.5 Trillion annual federal budget...

Holtz-Eakin sets the record straight on the debt ceiling
The Obama Administration and Democrats are presenting Republicans with their first challenge on reducing the size and scope of government with a vote expected to occur in the first half of the year to raise the Debt ceiling to almost $14.3 Trillion. Democrats and some Republicans are warning of dire economic consequences if the increase isn’t passed. Over at the Daily Caller, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office, takes issue with the view presented by the O...

Tea Party Betrayed On Spending Cuts
The Tea Party membership is being set up for yet another huge betrayal by the DC Republican establishment. The members had very clear expectations that specific Spending Cuts would fix the government's Budget problems. The Republican leadership is betraying them by cutting things Tea Party members do not want cut, and are not cutting the things they were led to believe would fix the Budget problems. Tea Party members expected the new Congress to fix the Budget by cutting "government waste," st...

GOGI Budgeting
During my college days as a computer-science major, a popular term was “GIGO” — which stood for “Garbage In, Garbage Out” — which warned you that even if you had the slickest program this side of COBOL (remember, I’m old), it would not matter if the data were nonsense. The Congressional Budget Office is the slickest budget shop Congress could wish for. So it came as a shock to some Conservatives today that the CBO examined H.R. 2 (The Repealing the Job-K...

More form the moron zone: Repealing DADT during a war is crippling enough... now let's shrink the number of troops.
So, in addition to destroying the Military, it looks like that empty-suited, Anti-American Racist bigot in the White House is now out to destroy the country. In case it's escaped his attention, we are in a war. Do you get that, Berry? We're in a war. And as moronic as risking military catastrophe by unleashing the gay community on combat units actually is; as stupid and unconscionable as telegraphing arbitrary withdrawal dates can truly be; shrinking the size of the military while we're at war h...

Geithner Urges Congress to Raise Debt Limit
(WASHINGTON) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned congressional leaders Thursday that the government could reach its borrowing limit by spring and failure to raise it could affect millions of American jobs. The government will reach the limit between March 31 and May 16, Geithner said in a letter to congressional leaders. Not increasing the $14.3 Trillion Debt Limit could lead to Job Losses, he said. Inaction could drive up Interest Rates and make it more costly for U.S. companies...

In a single day, Obama admin. defense cuts nearly top GOPs entire first-year austerity pledge
"The surprise announcement from Gates was a reminder for the Military establishment - which has benefited from a gusher of new money over the past decade - that it will not remain exempt from painful Austerity measures that federal lawmakers say will be necessary to control the soaring National Debt," The Washington Post's Craig Whitlock noted. The $78 billion comes in addition to $100 billion in cuts that Gates directed the Pentagon to find in May. In a Thursday news conference, the defense sec...

Budget Office: Health Care Repeal Would Add $230 Billion to Deficit
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released numbers that should make any Deficit-fearing Republican stop dead on his or her way to vote to Repeal Health Care reform. If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, says the CBO, it would increase the federal budget deficit by $230 billion over the next decade and by $1.2 Trillion in the following 10 years. Contrary to their much ballyhooed new House rules that require any Legislation that increases federal spending or the deficit t...

Pentagon Anticipates $78B in Budget Cut
Thursday, January 06, 2011 By Anne Flaherty, Anne Gearan, Associated Press Washington (AP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates will cut $78 billion from the Pentagon Budget in the next five years, money that will come from shrinking the Military's ground force, increasing Health Care premiums for Troops and other potentially unpopular cost-saving measures. The plan, announced Thursday, identifies a separate $100 billion in savings found by the services, including the cancellation of a $14 bill...

Pentagon To Cut Budget $78 Billion Over 5 Years
Defense Secretary Robert Gates will cut $78 billion from the Pentagon Budget in the next five years, money that will come from shrinking the Military's ground force, increasing Health Care premiums for Troops and other potentially unpopular cost-saving measures. The plan, announced Thursday, identifies a separate $100 billion in savings found by the services, including the cancellation of a $14 billion amphibious Marine vehicle. However, the services will be allowed to reinvest that money in new...

Obama Faces the Same Problems in 2011
President Obama ended the year with a string of important victories on Capitol Hill, but that doesn't mean his success will continue into 2011. Actually, the next 12 months will be a time of competing political objectives for all sides, including the White House, and it's far from clear how much more Compromise will be possible. [See photos of the Obamas behind the scenes.] One of the basic questions is whether Obama and the resurgent Republicans will continue to work together as they did in t...

Media Give Obama a Pass on Debt Ceiling Hypocrisy
President Obama has taken an admirable stand for fiscal Austerity, and blasted attempts to yet again raise the Debt ceiling, which currently stands at $14.3 Trillion (with a T) - or roughly the GDP of the United States. Said the president: The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s Debt Limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign coun...

Final Tab for Pelosis Speakership: $5.34 Trillion in New DebtOr $3.66 Billion Per Day
Thursday, January 06, 2011 By Terence P. Jeffrey Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (CNSNews.com) - In the 1,461 days that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) served as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the National Debt increased by a total of $5.343 Trillion ($5,343,452,800,321.37) or $3.66 billion per day ($3.657,394,113.84), according to official Debt number...

Obama Was Against Increasing the Debt Ceiling Before He Was for It
Poor Robert Gibbs. In what are his apparently final days in the White House, you’d think he’d like to take some last wistful walks around the place and maybe stop by a going away party or two. Instead, it looks like much of his final time will be explaining why President Obama really thinks we should increase the Debt ceiling now, having voted against increasing it in 2006. Back then, total federal Debt was about $8.5 Trillion, just over 60% of GDP. Auditioning for the role of a fi...

Geithner Says U.S. Could Hit Debt Limit By March 31
WASHINGTON (By David Lawder and Glenn Somerville) - The United States may hit the legal limit on its ability to borrow by March 31 and faces serious consequences unless Congress acts by then to raise it, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday. "Even a short-term or limited default would have catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades," Geithner said in a letter to U.S. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid that was issued by Treasury. Geithner said it was hard to ...

You can not escape death or taxes
There is no question if state taxes could go up, the question is how much will our lawmakers charge us for their years of bad policies. Since 1999 our state has been run on a Deficit Budget and back in 2003 when then State Budget Director John Filan sounded the alarm over the $4.8 billion Deficit saying,  “Illinois is facing its worst fiscal crisis ever,” and added, “this monumental fiscal problem is real and must be dealt with in order to turn our state’s economic ...