Both Parties Love Big Government, Just Different Programs

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Strip away the political finger pointing over President Obama’s proposed budget and the fight boils down to a clash of values. Both major parties are really for big government — just big in different places.

Republicans say they’re outraged that Obama would “borrow and spend” his way to a new behemoth government. But they borrowed and spent their way through the ’80s and the current decade. And they love big government — when it’s at the Pentagon .

Democrats from Obama on down insist that they don’t like big government, that they’re just forced into a temporary spending spree by the recession. But Democrats love big government as well, when it’s for social programs such as universal health care.

“The basic difference between Democrats and Republicans in recent decades is which aspect of government spending they prefer,” said Steven Schier , a political scientist at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. “With the Republicans, it’s defense. With the Democrats, it’s education, environment, health care etc. That’s been the major difference between the two parties going back to Reagan.”

The numbers tell the tale …

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Both Parties Play the Blame Game for Economic Woes

By LAURIE KELLMAN | Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain deployed heavy sarcasm. Fellow Republican Marsha Blackburn trotted out a chart. A group of conservative House Republicans mocked: “‘Deficit we inherited?’ … Spare us the false outrage.” The war between Republicans and Democrats to frame the blame for the economy erupted in earnest this week.

Republicans pushed back against President Barack Obama’s claim — echoed relentlessly by his Cabinet members and Democrats in Congress — that he didn’t cause the mess and shouldn’t be judged yet on obligating taxpayers for a trillion dollars trying to fix it.

Just how long Democrats can credibly argue that they’re merely responding to — and not responsible for — a crisis created under Republican predecessors depends on which political and economic fortune tellers are doing the predicting.

“Not for too much longer,” says Stanley Renshon, a professor of political psychology at the City University of New York. “People are distracted by the sideshow only for so long, especially when the evidence is all around them. Every day brings a new cash infusion for a new industry, and the stocks drop.” …

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Top 20 Earmarkers

By GLENN THRUSH | Politico

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government spending watchdog, has released its breakdown of the biggest earmarkers.

Not surprisingly, former Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) tops the list.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Finance Committee and the Senate’s highest-profile critic of the bank bailouts, snagged the No. 2 spot, representing one of the nation’s poorest states — and a state where even the smallest tax hikes have to be submitted to a public vote. Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, a senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee’s transportation and housing subcommittee, was the third-largest recipient of earmarks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) brought home around $26.6 million — only about half the bacon delivered to Kentucky by Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Following are the top 20 Senate earmark recipients — 12 Democrats, 8 Republicans.

1. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.): $122,804,900
2. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.): $114,484,250
3. Kit Bond (R-Mo.): $85,691,491
4. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.): $76,899,425
5. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.): $75,908,475
6. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): $74,000,750
7. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa): $66,860,000
8. James Inhofe (R-Okla.): $53,133,500
9. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): $51,186,000
10. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii): $46,380,205
11. Patty Murray (D-Wash.): $39,228,250
12. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.): $36,547,100
13. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.): $36,161,125
14. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.): $35,577,250
15. Robert Casey (D-Pa.): $27,169,750
16. Harry Reid (D-Nev.): $26,628,613
17. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.): $25,320,000
18. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.): $23,832,000
19. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.): $21,952,250
20. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), retired: $19,588,625

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Obama’s Plan to Hike Taxes Meets Fierce Opposition

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER | Associated Press

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s call to raise taxes on high earners and greenhouse gas polluters met fierce opposition Tuesday from congressional Republicans and also a few Democrats. “I would never want to adversely affect anything that is charitable or good,” Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said of Obama’s call to limit high-income taxpayers’ itemized deductions for charitable donations and mortgage interest.

Republicans said the president’s plan to charge fees to industries that spew greenhouse gases amounts to a stealthy tax increase for all Americans that will far exceed the new $400 annual tax cut for workers that he wants to extend beyond 2010.

“The president’s budget increases taxes on every American, and does so during a recession,” said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee …

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Obama To Sign Bill Despite Earmarks

By Ginger Thompson | International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON: White House officials said that President Barack Obama would sign a $410 billion spending bill that includes thousands of pet projects, known as earmarks, despite campaign promises to put an end to the practice.

In appearances on television talk shows Sunday, Obama’s budget director and chief of staff both played down the issue.

“This is last year’s business,” Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in an appearance on the ABC program “This Week.” “We want to just move on. Let’s get this bill done, get it into law and move forward.”

Republican leaders, meanwhile, accused the president of breaking his promises to change Washington’s ways …

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Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) Uncovers Who Are the Biggest Senate Earmarkers: Free Downloadable Spreadsheet

Criticism Rains on Obama’s Farm Subsidy Cut Idea

By Charles Abbott | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Wally Darneille has two words for President Barack Obama’s proposal to end the so-called direct payment subsidy to large U.S. farmers: “That’s insanity.”

“I think we’re really going down the wrong path here,” said Darneille, the head of a farmer-owned cotton marketing cooperative in Lubbock, Texas.

An array of lawmakers and farm groups agree, suggesting poor odds for the idea to become law.

Foes say the idea is poorly timed and aimed at growers who account for three-fourths of farm production. Two longtime Senate backers of farm subsidy reform oppose Obama’s proposal.

As part of his 2010 budget, Obama proposed phasing-out direct payments to farmers with sales of more than $500,000 a year, to save $9.8 billion over 10 years.

Direct payments, which total $5.2 billion a year, are paid regardless of crop prices.

“Large farmers are well-positioned to replace those payments with alternate sources of income from emerging markets for environmental services, such as carbon sequestration, renewable energy production and providing clean air, clean water and wildlife habitat,” the White House budget documents said.

Criticism of the direct-payment plan eclipsed a companion White House proposal for a $250,000 a year cap on farm subsidy payments, the usual battleground for controlling subsidies.

“Most full-time farmers, commercial farmers … it looks to me like they’re going to get hit,” said Daryll Ray, a University of Tennessee agricultural economist.

“It will include any livestock operations you have. You might even go over (the sales limit) on livestock alone.”

A farmer could reach $500,000 in sales with 885 acres of corn or 2,250 acres of lower-yielding wheat.

Roughly 126,000 U.S. farms have sales over $500,000 a year, according to the Agriculture Department.

“We did some figuring, and it would not take much to get to that cap, said Tim Bartram, who farms 400 acres of wheat in Guthrie, Oklahoma. “They are showing a real lack of understanding of agriculture.” …

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Obama Challenges Lobbyists to Legislative Duel

By CHARLES BABINGTON | Associated Press

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama challenged the nation’s vested interests to a legislative duel Saturday, saying he will fight to change health care, energy and education in dramatic ways that will upset the status quo.

“The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long,” Obama said in his weekly radio and video address. “But I don’t. I work for the American people.”

He said his ambitious budget plan, unveiled Thursday, will help millions of Americans, but only if Congress overcomes resistance from deep-pocket lobbies.

“I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight,” Obama said, using tough-guy language reminiscent of his predecessor, George W. Bush. “My message to them is this: So am I.”

Some analysts say Obama’s proposals are almost radical. But he said all of them were included in his campaign promises. “It is the change the American people voted for in November,” he said.

Nonetheless, he said, well-financed interest groups will fight back furiously …

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Economists Question Budget’s Economic Assumptions

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER | AP Economics

WASHINGTON – The administration insists it isn’t so, but some private economists are wondering if the Obama administration has brought “Rosy Scenario” back to town.

In unveiling his budget, President Barack Obama pledged to bring “honesty and fairness” back to the budget process by getting rid of the gimmicks past administrations had used to hide the real costs of government programs and proposed tax cuts.

But many economists who examined the economic assumptions that undergird the spending plan believe that Obama may have resorted to one of the oldest gimmicks around — relying on overly optimistic economic assumptions to make it look like you are dealing with soaring budget deficits when in reality you are only closing the gap on paper.

“They used to joke during the Reagan years that the highest-ranking woman in the administration was Rosy Scenario,” said Nariman Behravesh, the chief economist at IHS Global Insight, a major private forecasting firm.

Rosy may be back in town, said Behravesh, who called the Obama administration’s forecasts “way too optimistic.”

For its part, the administration insisted that it hadn’t cooked the books to show greater growth, and thus more tax revenues, in coming years. But the administration forecast is far higher than the projections for growth in the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, of many private analysts …

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Related News: Rhetoric vs. Reality: The Budget and the Campaign Promises

Budget Winners and Losers

By JOHN WARD ANDERSON | Politico

In a $3.7 trillion budget, there should be something for everyone. And there is, including — as hard as it may be for some to believe — pain.

In shifting the nation’s spending priorities, President Barack Obama highlights his plans for the rich to pay more and for the poor to get more. And he also focuses on key campaign pledges to make the country greener and more energy independent, to expand access to affordable health care, and to improve the nation’s schools.

The full details will not be known for weeks, but the 134-page snapshot of Obama’s 2010 budget that was released Thursday gives a clear indication of who gets the elevator, and who gets the shaft. So herewith, five big losers and five key winners in Obama’s spending blueprint …

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