From CNSNews.com:

House Republicans are set to vote later this week on a balanced budget amendment (BBA) that would not cap federal spending as a percentage of GDP or require a supermajority to raise taxes.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the vote would probably take place this Friday.

Cantor said that this version of a BBA, H.J. Res 2 — rather than one that would cap federal spending, H.J. Res 1 — was the version “overwhelmingly” favored by House Republicans.

What is it with the Republican leadership and self-defeating Kabuki theater?  This bill is a spectacularly bad idea for several reasons… First, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer is actively whipping against the bill, so it’s an open question whether this turd will even pass in the House. But if buy some miracle it does, the odds of getting the 67 votes needed to pass in Harry Reid’s Senate are about the same as the Miami Dolphins winning the Super Bowl this season.

Second it gives political cover to vulnerable Democrats, who can claim they voted for a Balanced Budget Amendment even though know it has no chance of passing.

Third it paints House and Senate Republicans who favor a tougher version of the amendment, H.J. Res 1, into a political corner. Democrats and their willing allies in the media will trumpet the fact that Republicans have come around to a “reasonable” compromise on the balanced-budget amendment that would have passed save for the objects of few radical extremists.

Finally, and most importantly, under Speaker Boehner’s amendment, federal spending could easily rise to 25% or more of GDP as long as the budget is balanced. This is a recipe for disaster that will ultimately lead higher taxes… We’ve seen this game played out time and again in states that have balanced budget amendments without spending caps — politicians keep spending and raise taxes to pay for it because their state constitution say they have to balanced the budget.

This is how Republicans lose elections, they were winning the debate on fiscal policy, but then they lost their focus and started putting political symbolism over substance. They badly misjudged President Obama’s willingness to cut spending and allowed budget debate to move to secret supercommittee where Democrats will almost certainly torpedo negotiations in and effort to gain a re-election advantage. And now they put forth a hollow balanced budget amendment that Democrats will gladly feign support for, but that has no chance of actually reducing spending or preventing future tax increases… Instead it virtually assures them.

It was a bullshit question, first of all unless those spending cuts are immediate they’ll never materialize… particularly when the baseline for negotiations is that the taxes increase are made in the first year, while the spending cuts are made over 10 years. Everyone remember President Reagan’s 3:1 deal? Heh, yeah, we’re still waiting for those spending cuts to be made. At least Republicans learned that lesson.

Second, the notion that we can tax our way out if this debt debacle is pure lunacy. As I’ve explained previously, this is not a revenue problem, it’s spending problem… The federal government spends roughly a $1 trillion more each year than it collects in revenue. President Obama and the Democrats in Congress argue that we can close that gap by raising taxes on the “rich”.

But what does that get us? Blake Ellis answered that very question at CNN Money.com recently:

President Obama has defined the nation’s wealthy as those who make $200,000 or more a year.

According to a recent report from the Internal Revenue Service, that leaves out about 97% of the tax-paying population.

The report, which provides a complete breakdown and analysis of returns for the 2009 tax year, found that only a mere 3% of tax returns were filed by people earning a gross adjusted income of $200,000 or more.

Americans earning $1 million or more were even more rare, comprising just 0.2% of total tax filers and accounting for a mere 236,883 of the 140 million tax returns received in 2009.

The wealthiest taxpayers — those earning $10 million or more in adjusted gross income — are even less prevalent. There were only 8,274 people belonging to that elite club, according the IRS.

Out of the nearly 4 million “rich” people making more than $200,000 a year, 1,470 didn’t pay any income tax whatsoever in 2009. But the people who did pay taxes earned a total of nearly $2 trillion in income — about 26% of total taxpayer income in 2009.

President Obama’s tax proposals — which many Republican’s call “job-killing” tax hikes — include getting rid of some corporate tax breaks enjoyed by oil and gas companies and corporate jet buyers, and restoring some Bush-era tax rates for high-income households. If the Bush tax cuts expire as planned in 2012, the top two income tax rates will revert to 39.6% and 36% from 35% and 33%, respectively.

Yet, even though these high-income earners are a minority, Obama says the proposed tax increases would boost revenue by $750 billion over a decade.

Does anyone else see the fallacy of the President’s argument? The simple truth is there no way in hell we’re going to balance the federal budget on the backs of just 3% — three percent of income taxpayers. $750 billion in new revenue over a decade — $75 billion a year doesn’t even begin to put a dent in the annual budget deficit much less the debt.

As you can see, the idea that raising taxes on a small minority of taxpayers can solve our budget problems is just… its nuts!

If we’re going to talk about our nations budget problems and tax policy, let’s do it, let have serious adult conversation about it. Not simply toss around the same old, worn out class warfare rhetoric.

Step 1, amend or repeal the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to eliminate baseline budgeting and force the federal government to live by the same Generally Accepted Accounting Principles as everyone else.

You may not realize this, but baseline budgeting automatically increases the federal budget every year. What Congress likes to do is use a bit of smoke and mirrors to make spending cuts that aren’t really cuts at all. For example if program is scheduled to see and 8% increasing in spending Congress will reduce it to 3% and call it a cut when it’s still a 3% percent increase over the previous year. Frankly, if a publicly traded company managed its finances the way the federal government does it would a) go bankrupt and b) the management would be indicted for fraud.

Step 2, undertake comprehensive tax reform that broadens the tax base and flattens rates. Personally, I’d scrap the entire current income tax code and replace it with a simple, no deductions, no loopholes 15% flat rate income tax. In short, it would work like this everyone would keep the first $10,000 they earn each year income tax-free. After that everything, earned income, interest, dividends, capital gains etc. would be taxed the same 15% rate. In other words someone who earns $30,000 a year would pay an income tax of 15% of 20,000 or $3,000… Someone earning $300,000 would pay an income tax of 15% of $290,000 or $43,500. I’d follow a similar model for the corporate income tax rate.

Step 3, undertake comprehensive regulatory reform with an eye toward merging or eliminating agencies with overlapping jurisdictions and reducing regulatory impediments  to economic growth.

And that’s the bottom line, if we’re going to get out of this hole we have to get our economy moving again… The goal of the federal government should be creating an environment where 5% GDP growth year over year is the norm.

Related

• Debate flashback: Which candidates would support a 10:1 mix of spending cuts and tax hikes? – Hot Air

Ouch, I love it!

It’s about time Republican candidates started calling the sound bite media on the carpet for wasting everyone’s with time trivial, tabloid gotcha questions instead of asking substantial policy questions. Newt was absolutely right to go after Chris Wallace the way he did tonight… and judging by the crowds reaction they agreed with the former Speaker.

H/T: Jim Hoft.

Christian Schneider explains:

The Wisconsin Constitution requires a quorum of three-fifths of the Senate in order to pass a bill that “imposes, continues or renews a tax, or creates a debt or charge, or makes, continues or renews an appropriation of public or trust money, or releases, discharges or commutes a claim or demand of the state.” For weeks, it had been known that Republican senators could separate the fiscal provisions of the bill from the proposed collective-bargaining changes, which were seen as non-fiscal. However, there was speculation that, if a bill was brought to the Senate floor that contained only the collective bargaining changes, it might not have the votes to pass.

On Wednesday night, the bill passed with a number of provisions that could be considered “fiscal,” such as the requirement that many government employees contribute 5.8 percent of their salaries to their pensions and pay 12.6 percent towards their health-insurance premiums.

GOP senators consulted with the Legislative Fiscal Bureau on this point, and were sent a memo indicating that while there were some “fiscal” provisions of the bill, these provisions didn’t technically make an “appropriation,” and therefore were not subject to the three-fifth quorum requirement. This allowed senators to keep the bill virtually intact, which the GOP felt helped bolster their argument that all the collective bargaining changes were, in fact, fiscal in nature.

What is perhaps most stunning is that Fitzgerald’s maneuver tonight seems to have caught the Democrat Minority Leader completely off guard. Senators Miller and Fitzgerald have access to the same legislative attorneys and were likely given the same options for resolution.  “I think [Miller] actually thought he was going to win,” said one GOP source.

Frankly, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the fleebagging Democrats or the public employee unions who have been acting like a bunch spoiled children for the past three weeks… As Bob Owens notes: “if you refuse to take part in representative democracy, and in fact encourage your representatives to abdicate their roles as your representatives within the government, don’t cry foul when the elected officials doing their jobs find a way to pass the legislation before them.”

And that’s really the bottom line here, to paraphrase President Obama, Elections have consequences, and Republicans won. Democrats in state legislature and the leaders of the states public employee unions had a choice to make they could either participate in the process and work with Gov. Walker and the Republican majorities in legislature to find a compromise. Or they could stomp their feet and whine about unfairness or how “This is not democracy!”… They chose not to participate and got run over by the process.

Related

• Why I’m Fighting in Wisconsin – Scott Walker, Wall Street Journal
• Strange But True Provisions of Collective Bargaining – Office of Gov. Scott Walker
• Capitol Chaos: Lawmakers Get Death Threats – WTMJ Radio
• Endgame in Wisconsin – Robert Costa, National Review Online

A few quick comments…

First, 5-6 to seats in the Senate where all we could realistically hope for. Anyone predicting Republicans would pick-up 10 seats and gain control of the Senate was deluding themselves.

Second, even in a wave election candidates and campaigns matter. Republicans lost winnable races in Nevada and  Colorado because of flawed candidates or bad campaigns. In Colorado Dan Maes, the Republican candidate for Governor imploded after a series of mini-scandals including revelations he had embellished his resume.

In Nevada, Sharron Angle had every advantage imaginable… She was running against Harry Reid, a wildly unpopular incumbent in a state that leads the nation in unemployment and foreclosures and she lost.

I don’t think Ms. Angel was a bad candidate, I do think she ran a bad campaign. For starters her campaign was slow to transition from the primaries to the general election and she was savaged by Harry Reid for weeks before she responded. Yes, I know she was short of cash after the primaries, but she raised and spent a record amount of money in the general election… It wasn’t a lack of money that lead to her loss — ultimately I think it was the combination the pounding she took from Sen. Reid and his allies coupled with one to many seemingly small gaffes and her unwillingness to engage the media.

I can’t overemphasize that last point… The media may be a bunch jackals, but whenever a candidate refuses to engage and answer question it leaves voters thinking they have something to hide. Whether they want to or not candidates have to engage with reporters. When they don’t voters get suspicious.

Lastly, I agree with Haley Barbour, it’s time for new leadership at the RNC. Whatever Michael Steele’s strengths the RNC was wholly ineffective in this election cycle and for that reason alone the committee needs to choose a new chairman when Mr. Steele’s term is up.

Anyway, a few interesting election tidbits… In Iowa voters fired three Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of gay marriage. Color me unsurprised, I’m agnostic on the issue of gay marriage… I think it’s an inevitability. That said, the decision to legalize  gay marriage should be made by state legislatures not the courts. If the courts are continue insert themselves into the debate and usurp what should be a legislative decision there’s going to continue to be a backlash, including calls for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

In Oklahoma voters approved a measure that would bar judges from using international law or Islamic law when deciding case. Liberals are of course incensed and threatening to sue.

Voters in Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah all approved ballot measures that would amend their state constitutions to better protect the secret ballot in organizing elections. Call it a shot across the bow of unions who are pushing for a “card check” check law that would do away with secret ballots in union organizing elections. For the most part Americans don’t like idea the government to taking away a workers’ right to a secret ballot and they certainly don’t like the idea of workers to be pressured into joining a union.

Voters in Florida Overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding resolution calling for an amendment to the Constitution that would require the federal government to balance the budget without raising taxes. This got 3.5 million votes so it can’t be dismissed  as some obscure nonbinding resolution people paid no attention to… It really is the spending, stupid.

Last but not least, according to net neutrality opponent Scott Cleland all 95 Democrats who signed the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s net neutrality pledge lost their reelection bids. I’m not sure what to read into that other than Tuesday was really bad day for Democrats. Regardless, I have to wonder when so called “net neutrality” supporters will get it through their heads that too much government regulation is the problem?

Edit: It occurs to me  I should mention the biggest winner of the night was Sarah Palin… Ms. Palin endorsed 43 House candidates and 12 Senate candidates in this election cycle. Of the candidates she endorsed, 30 won House seats and 7 won Senate seats. And their were several races still to be decided.

Sure, a couple of her higher profile candidates lost, but at a minimum that’s a 67% average.

Related

• 2010 Election Maps – ABC News
• Poll: GOP candidates top Obama in hypothetical 2012 race – Cnn.com
• President Obama still isn’t listening to the American people – Nile Gardiner, Daily Telegraph
• Racist Tea Party? GOP Welcomes Diverse Cast of Newcomers – Buy Benson, Townhall.com
• You think ’10 was tough? Check out ’12 – The Hill
• The Midterms: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward – Sarah Palin, National Review Online
• Devastation: GOP Picks Up 680 State Leg. Seats – National Journal
  

Our last national generic ballot poll found the Republicans ahead 45-42 despite the fact that Congressional Republicans had a 24/61 approval rating. Even among respondents who said they were going to vote Republican the Congressional GOP could muster only a 44/35 approval.

John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are going to claim a mandate when their party does well at the polls this fall but they don’t even have much of one with the people who are going to vote Republican this fall, much less with the population at large. If they keep on doing what they’re doing the GOP may well take control of the House this fall and then lose it right back in 2012.

To be honest I’m not at all surprised by PPP’s findings, first American’s aren’t terribly happy with of Congress in general. Second grassroots conservatives still haven’t forgiven the Congressional Republicans for their big spending, big government bender during the Bush years.  And third I suspect if you asked American’s what they really think of Congress they’d say both parties pretty much suck… The current generation of Congressional Democrats only seem to care about expanding the size and intrusiveness of government while spending us into bankruptcy. While Congressional Republicans only seem to care about… To be blunt I don’t know the hell Congressional Republicans care about these days.

Yeah, sure, they’re paying lip service about returning to commonsense conservative principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense and vibrant free markets, but given their big spending, big government bender during the Bush years they don’t have much credibility there…

Anyway, despite their credibility problems Republicans appear to be headed for significant gains November’s mid-term elections… The question will they hold true to commonsense conservative principles or will they go on another big spending, big government bender?

Sen. Dodd’s wife Jackie Clegg Dodd sits on the boards of four pharmaceutical companies, Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals.

Mrs. Dodd last year was one of the most highly compensated non-employee members of the Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc. board, on which she has served since 2004. She earned $32,000 in fees and $109,587 in stock option awards last year, according to the company’s SEC filings.

Mrs. Dodd earned $79,063 in fees from Cardiome in its last fiscal year, while Brookdale Senior Living gave her $122,231 in stock awards in 2008, their SEC filings show. She earned no income from her post as a director for Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals but holds up to $15,000 in stock in Pear Tree, which describes itself as a development-stage pharmaceutical company focused on the needs of aging women.

The annual financial disclosure reports for members of Congress are less precise. They only require that assets and liabilities be listed in ranges of values.

Dodd sought a 90-day extension to file his report covering last year, giving him until mid-August to submit his report, but released his report Friday to The Associated Press.

Bryan DeAngelis, Dodd’s spokesman, said, “Jackie Clegg Dodd’s career is her own; absolutely independent of Senator Dodd, as it was when they married 10 years ago. The senator has worked to reform our health care system for decades, and nothing about his wife’s career is relevant at all to his leadership of that effort.”

DeAngelis said that Mrs. Dodd has hired a personal ethics lawyer to avoid any conflicts of interest and is not a lobbyist.

In addition to Sen Dodd. Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, John Kyl and Orrin Hatchn are mentioned in the AP story.

I’m not going not to draw any conclusions, my advice is to read the entire article and draw your own conclusions… I have fundamental problem with Sen Dodd, or any Senator for that matter,  authoring legislation that may directly effect companies on whose boards their spouse sits.

The the bigger story within the story may be the APs passing mention of Sen. Dodd’s magically appreciating Irish Cottage… Michelle Malkin has the deatails on that here.

When Democrats made their case during the 2006 elections about why they should control Congress, they offered up Republican lawmakers like Mark Foley and Rick Renzi as examples of the “culture of corruption” they wanted to rid from Washington.

Mr. Foley of Florida resigned after being accused of sending inappropriate e-mails to a 16-year-old congressional page. Mr. Renzi of Arizona faced questions about land deals and accusations that he helped a defense contractor that employed his father.

Convinced that many members of Congress had lost their moral compass, voters sided with Democrats and thrust Republicans from power.

But when the limelight faded, the controversies took an unexpected twist: Democrats, now in control, sought to block or limit prosecutors from gathering certain evidence of corruption against members of Congress on constitutional grounds, complicating the criminal cases against the two Republicans.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and the Democratic leadership joined with top Republicans to continue a years-long tradition authorizing the House general counsel’s office to intervene in outside investigations of its members.

Through court filings, the bipartisan coalition sought the exclusion of evidence it said was obtained in violation of Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution. The clause protects the legislative branch from meddling by the other two branches, declaring that “for any Speech or Debate in either House, [senators and representatives] shall not be questioned in any other Place.”

Many see use of the clause as an effort by Congress to protect its own.

“I think the House as well as the Senate tries to overexpand that right,” said Washington lawyer Robert S. Bennett, a prominent white-collar defense lawyer who has served as special counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics in several major cases.

Mr. Bennett said the clause should be used “narrowly” and not “to cover things up.”

“Congress is largely unaccountable. … Ethics enforcement in Congress is largely a joke,” he said.

The problem is not Republicans or Democrats it’s the Washington political culture… A culture that holds itself above the law and that tolerates corruption until it become an embarrassment that can’t be ignored. If we want real, lasting change in Washington we have to change the culture not simply the party that’s in charge.

I’m a firm believer in Congressional term limits they may not be the best answer but they’re a start.

1) Do you think the GOP will gain or lose seats in the House in 2010?

They’ll pick up a handful of seats.

2) Do you think the GOP will gain or lose seats in the Senate in 2010?

Ditto above… They’ll pick a seat or two.

3) Colin Powell said the following, “Americans do want to pay taxes for services. Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.” Do you agree?

Yes and no… On the first point no one likes paying taxes but we do it willingly for the most part. On the second point I think a great many Americans want it, or think they can have it, both ways… they want more government services, lower taxes and less regulation and as long as someone else is paying the bill they’re happy. But when the bill comes due and it has their name on it as just happened in California they scream bloody murder and blame everyone but themselves.

4) Whose views do you think are more representative of your personal opinion: David Frum, Meghan McCain, John McCain, & Colin Powell or Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Tom Coburn, & Newt Gingrich?

Overall, I agree with Limbaugh, Levin, Coburn and Gingrich more often than I do either of the either of the McCains, Frum or Powell. That said I do agree with Cassandra… many of the folks I agree with (and many I disagree with) are needlessly snotty and divisive.

5) Do you support the NRSC’s decision to endorse Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican primary?

No, the NRSC should keep it’s nose out of the primarys.

6) Do you think Barack Obama was born in Hawaii or elsewhere?

Hasn’t this bit of silliness been settled? Absent proof otherwise he’s a citizen.

7) Do you think that Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed?

Yes, she’ll face some moderately tough questioning from Republicans during her confirmation hearing but she’ll be confirmed.

From the Washington Post:

Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.

In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The memo, issued by the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to Capitol Hill, notes the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered “EITs including the use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah.” EIT is an acronym for enhanced interrogation technique. Zubaydah was one of the earliest valuable al-Qaeda members captured and the first to have the controversial tactic known as water boarding used against him.

ABC News adds:

On Feb. 4, 2003, a briefing on “enhanced interrogation techniques” for Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., revealed that interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri were taped.

In addition, that briefing “described in considerable details” the techniques used, including “how the water board was used.”

A similar briefing the following day included Goss and Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who by that time had become the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, when Pelosi moved on to become minority leader.

The report is accompanied by a letter from CIA Director Leon Panetta to intelligence committee leaders that describes the way it was compiled: “This letter presents the most thorough information we have on dates, locations, and names of all Members of Congress who were briefed by the CIA on enhanced interrogation techniques. This information, however, is drawn from the past files of the CIA and represents [memorandums for the record] completed at the time and notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals. In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened. We can make the MFRs available at CIA for staff review.

Someone has some explaining to do… Madam Speaker is either an outright liar or she has very bad memory. Either it seems pretty clear that the CIA has decided not to take the heat on enhanced interrogations alone. I suspect by now Barack Obama realizes what monumentally foolish mistake it was to release the Office of Legal Counsel memos on Enhanced Interrogations Techniques… As this leak shows top members of Congress were apparently briefed on the techniques and their use, and apparently didn’t raise objections their use.

Human Events has the list of briefings including names, dates and times, here.