Marco Rubio: Stop Washington's reckless spending

Any increase in the borrowing limit must be accompanied by real cuts.                                                                                           
President Obama should view this not as a political nuisance.
It's a chance to solve our debt problem and build a stronger middle class.
Generate revenue not through new taxes but by creating new taxpayers.

Just 17 months ago, Washington raised the nation's debt limit to $16.39 trillion, the largest debt ceiling level in our nation's history. But because this increase didn't include serious spending reductions, it didn't take long to reach this borrowing limit.

In the coming weeks, we will again reach the debt limit, and President Obama is once more asking Congress to raise it, no questions asked.

OUR VIEW: Don't hold the economy hostage

Before we consider raising the debt limit, the American people deserve a real debate about how to ensure we don't have to keep raising it. The mountain of debt we are accumulating is mortgaging our children's future.

Without real spending cuts, future generations will be weighed down by high interest payments on our debt and won't be able to afford basic government functions, such as a strong national defense and social safety-net programs.

That is why any future increase in the debt ceiling must be accompanied by real spending cuts and reforms to unsustainable entitlement programs.

President Obama should view this not as a political nuisance, but as a real chance to adopt a plan that solves our debt problem and builds a stronger middle class.

We must simplify our tax code, stop needless regulations from holding back our job creators, encourage our energy industry to create more jobs, reform the way we educate and equip our middle class with skills for 21st century jobs, and reform health care by empowering individuals and families with more health care choices.

These policies will create middle-class jobs, boost take-home pay and help generate revenue for government — not through new taxes but by creating new taxpayers.

However, this new revenue does no good if Washington politicians spend it instead of paying down our debt. 

Therefore, we need fundamental spending reforms that will stop Washington's spending spree, including a balanced budget amendment and saving Medicare and Social Security.

The president's goal should not be to find the path of least resistance to raise the debt ceiling. He should join the American people clamoring for a solution that creates jobs for the middle class, stops Washington's reckless spending, and preserves America's exceptionalism in the 21st century.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., serves on the Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

A TEMPORARY GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN WOULD NOT CAUSE A DEFAULT ON THE NATIONAL DEBT

Interest on the national debt is only 6% of the nation’s budget. Revenues to the federal government (2012: $2.468 trillion) do not cease in a government shutdown. We all still have to pay taxes, federal withholding from our paychecks continues and businesses continue paying taxes. So, the government has more than plenty of money to pay the interest on the national debt. Only “non-essential” services (why does government even have “non-essential” services?) would temporarily close during a government shutdown.

An Open Letter To General Powell

By: Ken Blackwell / Townhall Columnist

I was disappointed with the clear implication in your Meet The Press interview that those of us, in the GOP who defend life, protect traditional marriage and advance religious liberty are intolerant.

It was obvious to anyone who watched the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, that NO! had it. There was no way the convention chairman could have heard a two-thirds vote for the YES! position. Three times the chairman asked them to vote. Three times they denied God. Denied Him Thrice!

What has happened to the Democratic Party that,in the 1960's, provided such leadership for the cause of Civil Rights? It was Democrats like John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey who supported the fight for civil rights among the white majority in the1960s. Kennedy, the first Catholic president, was in good company in his church. Roman Catholic bishops were among the first to strike out against segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was surely a Baptist preacher, but he could rely on thousands of Catholic priests and nuns to join his great March on Washington in 1963. And when he wrote his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail, he cited St. Thomas Aquinas to make his case that an unjust law was no law at all.

For the Democratic Party of Kennedy and King to vote three times to reject God was a shock to millions of black Americans. And it must have been especially shocking to black clergymen who have been leaders in the struggle for equal rights and equal opportunity for four decades and more. It is bad enough these pastors and their congregations have been given short shrift by the new elites in the Democratic Party, but we now see that God was not put in the back of the bus. God was not allowed on the bus at all.

Only by an obvious power play did the convention chairman overrule the obvious sentiment on the floor. Anyone with ears to hear knew that the spirit of those delegates was against acknowledging God in the Democratic Platform. How far we have fallen from that great Inauguration Day in 1961 when John F. Kennedy said: "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God." No one in America yelled NO! on that crisp, clear day in Washington.

What does it mean for a party to reject God? First of all, it means they must reject life itself. We know that God is the author of life. Speaker after speaker demanded abortion, and more of it. No longer would Democrats have any hesitation about abortion. No longer would they say, as Bill Clinton said, it should be safe, legal, and rare. The Democratic Platform dropped those last two words, and rare. Even the usually liberal Cokie Roberts--an NPR reporter--thought the Charlotte convention lineup of pro-abortion speakers was "over the top."

She pointed out that 30% of Democrats are pro-life. And who would those pro-life Democrats be?

Disproportionately, they are black and Hispanic voters. And Catholic and Evangelical voters.

Why should black voters be against abortion? Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger, made clear her own plans when she addressed the Ku Klux Klan of New Jersey in the 1920s. She wanted to have more children from the fit, fewer from the fit. When you read about her "Negro Ministers Project," you learn that Planned Parenthood has been targeting minorities for a long time. Today, in New York City, 61% of unborn children of black mothers are killed before birth. Planned Parenthood is there, pushing abortion all the way.

President Obama's health care takeover and his HHS Mandate against Catholic and other religious institutions will only increase the daily death toll. Religious freedom is trampled when you force Christians to participate in ending the lives of innocents. Even Herod didn't do that!

In 1866, as historian Allen Guelzo reports, Tennessee recorded thousands more marriages than in the previous four years. That's because newly freed black couples were walking to Tennessee to have their marriages recognized by law. How tragic, then, that the Charlotte convention came out against marriage too. They say they only want to add to the number of happily married couples by allowing men to marry men and women to marry women. But we know that wherever these counterfeit marriages have been recognized, true marriage declines. All over Northern Europe, when civil unions were enforced, true marriage ceased to be that special. Just as counterfeit money drives out true money, same sex marriage drives out true marriage.

Some leading liberals know this. George Washington University Law Professor, Jonathan Turley, told an overflowing crowd at the Newseum in 2008 that critics say "gay marriage will lead to polygamy." He was wildly cheered by the educated, mostly white crowd when he said: "I'm for that!"

President Obama knows that the black community, and especially the black church, is not for that. In North Carolina--just three months before the Democratic Convention met in Charlotte--black voters providing the winning margin for a state referendum that affirmed true marriage. There was no stronger group of voters supporting marriage than black voters.

President Obama seemed reluctant to abandon this constituency that has so loyally supported him. Consider how much has changed and how fast. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act passed Congress by an overwhelming vote. It won 342 votes in the House and 85 votes in the Senate. It was so strongly supported that it would have been approved if there were no Republicans in either House of Congress. That’s why President Bill Clinton felt he had no choice but to sign it.

President Obama has refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act and pledges to repeal it. He has openly joined the Marriage Enders. They're not changing marriage. They are ending it. If two men can marry, why not three? If gays and lesbians can marry, what about bi-sexual persons and persons who have sought to change their sex? Why can't they have one spouse of either sex?

After slavery, after Jim Crow, after the KKK, it is fair to say that among the worst things visited upon black Americans have been the targeting of our families by abortionists and the effort to end marriage.

That is why we are in a crisis. This is what happens when a major party rejects God.

Best Regards,
Ken Blackwell

Barack Obama: Weapon of Mass Distraction

By: David Limbaugh / Townhall Columnist

President Obama's latest news conference was further confirmation that his voracious appetite for spending was not satisfied but whetted by the fiscal cliff deal, which he views as an appetizer.

We were told that the GOP achieved a coup in the fiscal cliff negotiations because they lured Obama into an agreement to lock in the Bush tax rates except for the highest-income earners. Never mind that Obama agreed to no spending cuts or entitlement reform after demanding a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction; they told us he'd be forced to address those matters in a couple of months in the debt ceiling negotiations. They argued that by agreeing to make the Bush rates "permanent," Obama had tacitly admitted that he couldn't sustain the welfare state through tax increases on the middle class and that he'd now have to -- grudgingly or not -- turn his attention to spending cuts and entitlement reform.

As I've written before, I never understood this optimistic outlook, because from the get-go, Obama and his Democratic colleagues swore that they had only begun on the "revenue" side and that they were bound and determined to focus on more revenue extraction in the next round of negotiations.

It is painfully naive to assume that Obama is operating in good faith. Throughout his term, he has rarely focused on the merits of policies he's promoted. He has used various scapegoats to distract the public's attention from the substantive arguments in order to facilitate the results he seeks.

With Obamacare, the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, his many environmental initiatives, his assault on religious liberty and his ruthless opposition to Arizona's immigration law, to name a few, he glossed over the substantive issues involved and demonized his political opponents and certain individuals and interest groups in order to make the outcome turn on personal, rather than policy, considerations. This is the stuff of sheer demagoguery.

Similarly, in the fiscal cliff negotiations, Obama wouldn't permit the discussion to focus on the real issue: our crushing national debt. If that had been his intention, he would have used his presidential bully pulpit to steer the conversation toward the major debt drivers, which are spending and entitlements, not a lack of taxes.

But he barely discussed the debt problem. His gambit was to distract the public's attention from our catastrophic deficits and debt and agitate them against the wealthy, whom he maliciously misrepresented as being responsible for these problems in the first place. He made the discussion not about the debt or deficits but about "fairness." As a result, he succeeded in raising rates (and phasing out personal exemptions and deductions) on the "wealthy" but saw to it that we ignored spending and entitlements.

Now, as we're poised to enter the debt ceiling negotiations, Obama has held a news conference in which he telegraphed that he's going to employ the same type of strategy again: to distract the public's attention from the pressing debt and deficit issues and continue to resist spending cuts and entitlement reform. Indeed, he said he would consider only "modest adjustments" to Medicare and other entitlements. That's it? Modest adjustments? Are you kidding me?

Instead, he aims to spotlight the alleged irresponsibility and partisanship of Republicans who would hold "a gun against the heads of the American people" over the debt limit and not allow him -- the paragon of fiscal responsibility -- to pay our bills and honor "the full faith and credit of the United States." Plus, he will aggressively pursue more "revenues" to close unfair "loopholes."

His purpose is to keep the evil Republicans on the hot seat over their threat not to raise the debt ceiling and over revenue "fairness," all the while claiming he's pushing for a balanced approach, by which he means a completely unbalanced, one-sided approach that focuses on tax increases only, ignores spending cuts and entitlements, and even includes new spending. If his ploy were to succeed, it would guarantee that America would go bankrupt, yet Obama is masquerading as the responsible one. It's surreal, and I swear I wouldn't believe it is occurring if I weren't witnessing it with my own eyes.

It's time for the naive among us to wake up and help in the fight instead of rolling over to this tyranny. Obama is going to continue his fast march toward fundamentally transforming America into a full-blown socialist state while pretending to be a champion of capitalism and representative government. Can those on our side at least quit providing him aid and comfort by refusing to open their eyes to what is happening?

It should now be abundantly clear what Benjamin Franklin meant when he responded to the question of what type of government the Framers had crafted: "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

Well, can we keep it? Do we even want to keep it?

Here's the real unemployment rate

Government's 'headline' statistics hide true conditions

by Jerome R. Corsi / WND Money

NEW YORK – The real unemployment rate for December 2012 is closer to 23 percent, not the 7.8 percent reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to economist John Williams.

Williams, author of the Shadow Government Statistics website, argues that the federal government manipulates the reporting of key economic data for political purposes, using methodologies that tend to mask bad news.

In the BLS news release Jan. 4, the unemployment rate for December 2012 was reported to have remained unchanged at 7.8 percent.

Williams recreates a ShadowStats Alternative unemployment rate reflecting methodology that includes the “long-term discouraged workers” that the Bureau of Labor Statistics removed in 1994 under the Clinton administration.

The BLS publishes six levels of unemployment, but only the headline U3 unemployment rate gets the press.

The headline number does not count “discouraged” unemployed workers who have not looked for work in the past four weeks because they believe no jobs are available.

Williams has demonstrated that it takes an expert to truly decipher BLS unemployment statistics. For instance, in Table A-15, titled “Alternative measures of labor underutilization,” the BLS reports what is known as “U6 unemployment.”

The U6 unemployment rate is the BLS’s broadest measure. It includes those marginally attached to the labor force and the “under-employed,” those who have accepted part-time jobs when they are really looking for full-time employment. Also included are short-term discouraged workers, those who have not looked for work in the last year because there are no jobs to be had.

Since 1994, however, the long-term discouraged workers, those who have been discouraged for more than one year, have been excluded from all government data.

While the BLS was reporting seasonally adjusted headline unemployment in December 2012 was only 7.8 percent, it was also reporting the broader U6 seasonally adjusted unemployment in December 2012 was 14.4 percent.

In his subscription newsletter, Williams contended the “headline changes” reported by BLS for the December 2012 unemployment rate of 7.8 percent “lack statistical significance.”

“To the extent that there is any significance in the monthly reporting,” he said, “it is that the economy is not in recovery, and that unemployment has made a new high, at a level that rivals any other downturn of the post-Great Depression era.”

The only measure BLS reports to the public as the official monthly unemployment rate is the headline, seasonally adjusted U3 number.

Williams calculates his “ShadowStats Alternative Unemployment Rate” by adding to the BLS U6 numbers the long-term discouraged workers, those workers who have not looked for work in more than a year but still consider themselves to be unemployed.

Williams believes that his ShadowStats Alternative Unemployment measure most closely mirrors common experience.

“If you were to survey everyone in the country as to whether they were employed or unemployed, without qualification as to when they last looked for a job, the resulting unemployment rate would be close to the ShadowStats estimate,” Williams explained to WND.

The headline BLS unemployment rate has stayed relatively low, because it excludes all discouraged workers, Williams argues.

As the unemployed first become discouraged and then disappear into the long-term discouraged category, they also vanish from inclusion in the headline labor force numbers. Those workers still are there, however, ready to take a job if one becomes available. They are unemployed and consider themselves to be unemployed, but the government’s popularly followed unemployment reporting ignores them completely.

Here is a more complete unemployment table that includes the seasonally adjusted unemployment percentages for U3 unemployment, as well as the same for U6 unemployment, followed by the ShadowStats Alternative Unemployment rate for both December 2011 and December 2012:



Increasingly, critics like Williams believe the seasonally adjusted U3 numbers reported by the BLS as the official monthly unemployment rate do not give a reliable picture of the true magnitude of unemployment in the United States.

The definitions used by the BLS exclude from the calculation of the monthly U3 unemployment rate anyone who has not looked for work at any time during the past four weeks. Those workers are considered to be “discouraged” and “not in the labor force.”

In the U6 calculations, the discouraged workers are only those who have actively looked for work in the past year.

The BLS definitions don’t consider those who would look for work if there were a reasonable chance they could find employment.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/heres-the-real-unemployment-rate/#ch6R5WpQsB2RCbtx.99

Rubio hits back at Powell over criticism of GOP's 'intolerance'

By Jonathan Easley 

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) hit back Monday at a remark made by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who told NBC's "Meet the Press" over the weekend that "a dark vein of intolerance" in some parts of the Republican Party was alienating centrist and minority voters.

"I disagree with General Powell's assessment of the Republican Party today," Rubio said on "The Andrea Tantaros Show," according to audio uncovered by The Daily Caller.

Rubio cited growing diversity among Republicans in the Senate as evidence the party had increasing appeal among minorities.

"The Republican Party is the party that placed two Hispanics in the U.S. Senate,” Rubio, a Cuban-American, continued. "And we have an African-American senator in the United States Senate.”

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney got trounced by President Obama among Hispanics in the 2012 election. Romney and his GOP challengers tacked to the right on immigration during the campaign, often using harsh terms to frame their conservative positions on the issue.

On Sunday, Powell argued that the GOP has an "identity problem" that puts it out-of-step with the country's changing demographics.

“I think what the Republican Party needs to do now is take a very hard look at itself and understand that the country has changed,” he said. “The country is changing demographically. And if the Republican Party does not change along with that demographic, they're going to be in trouble."

This is not the first time Powell has clashed with his own party. He endorsed Obama in 2008 and again in 2012, but said Sunday he was "still a Republican."

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/276955-rubio-hits-back-at-powell-over-criticism-of-gops-intolerance#ixzz2I3xxc3d9

Op-ed: 
Threats against Americans...has Obama gone too far this time

By: Diane Sori                                                   

As I write this anger overwhelms me, because at yesterday's press conference Barack HUSSEIN Obama actually had the audacity to threaten both the Republicans in Congress and the American people...YES threaten!

Saying to those in Congress, and I quote, “If congressional Republicans refuse to pay America’s bills on time, Social Security checks, and veterans benefits will be delayed.  We might not be able to pay our troops, or honor our contracts with small business owners.  Food inspectors, air traffic controllers, specialist who track down loose nuclear materials wouldn’t get their paychecks.”

Just who the hell does this man think he is threatening our seniors, our vets, and our brave men and women currently in uniform (those who give so much to keep us safe and free) or anybody else for that matter.  And who does he think he is blaming America's debt on Republicans...as he, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, racked up more debt in just 3-1/2 years than George Bush did in his entire eight years in office.

Blame the Republicans...NO...I don't think so...as the blame for America being boggled down in IOUs rests squarely on the shoulders of this worst president in our nations history...a man who has freely spent our taxpayer dollars on freebies and handouts for the 'sponges' of our society...on those whose votes he bought and paid for with food stamps and cell phones.

And without his oh-so-wanted debt ceiling increase, the very thing he's hanging over the Republicans heads, the government will NOT have enough money to pay the interest due to our debt holders, but more importantly to Obama, there won't be enough money to pay for the government programs to give those 'sponges' their promised food stamps and cell phones. 

Now that will make for some very unhappy 'sponges' will it NOT... 

And with Obama saying, “The debt ceiling is not a question of authorizing more spending.  Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending.  It simply allows the country to pay for spending that Congress has already committed to” we know damn well that this man has NO intention whatsoever of working with Republicans to cut spending. 

By raising the debt ceiling this allows Obama to rack up even more debt and has NOTHING to do with paying for what we have 'already committed to' as he says.  The only thing that will allow us to pay down some of this debt is to CUT, CUT, and CUT some more...CUT the out of control spending (but NOT to our defense budget), and use the monies saved to make a small inroad into our IOUs.

Cut your damn handouts and freebies!!!

Saying NOT raising the debt ceiling 'is absurd' Obama reiterated once again that he will NOT negotiate with Congress, saying instead that if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling on their own that he will issue yet another Executive Order.  An Executive Order that would force Congress to relinquish their Constitutional authority to him so he can bypass them completely and raise the debt ceiling on his own.  More power coalescing his authority as he puts us and future generations into even deeper debt than we're already in. 

And NOT only is he destroying our economy with his out of control spending but Obama is also trying to disarm us as well.  As part of yesterday's bloviations Obama outwardly threatened our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms by saying, on the issue of gun control, “And I think we can do that (gun control) in a sensible way that comports with the Second Amendment...Some of them will require legislation, some of them I can accomplish through executive action.”

Comports...to be in harmony, or conformity with...NO, Obama...NOT in comports with the Second Amendment...to be in total agreement with the Second Amendment...as in LEAVE OUR RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS (any arms we so choose) ALONE!!! 

Saying, “The issue here is not whether or not we believe in the Second Amendment...”  Uh, excuse me...is Obama saying 'if' he believes in the Second Amendment...a president of these United States is supposed to believe in, honor, and abide by ALL of the Constitution NOT just pick and choose the parts he likes or deems relevant...so by saying 'if he believes in' isn't that subversion of our Constitution..I would think so. 

And as for Executive Action...we know very well, and Obama knows we know that Executive Action goes way beyond the banning of assault weapons for it really means that confiscation to one degree or another is NOT far behind, and that is something we law abiding, legal firearm owners will NOT abide...NOT abide at all.

Add in yesterday's threat to withhold monies from 'We the People' that is rightfully ours plus this chipping away at the Second Amendment, and it's only a matter of time before we say loud and clear...'ENOUGH'! 

Can a Second American Revolution be far behind...