This site aggregates Arizona's political blogs. If you would like to have your blog added to the list, contact site administrator Mark B. Evans at mevans@tucsoncitizen.com.
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For a list of all the blogs aggregated, see below.
As lawmakers begin round two of their political grandstanding against cutting three cents on the dollar in federal spending, a new report shows that billions are still being wasted. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently found that only 12 percent of its more than 300 recommendations to “eliminate, combine or modify duplicative programs” have been carried out. Keep that in mind the next time someone asks if they are going to have to eliminate all funding fo...
With the IRS admitting to inappropriately targeting conservative groups – beginning back in 2011 – it’s worth taking another look at how the culture in Washington has been driven by politics even before this latest scandal. Just a few weeks ago, serious questions were being raised about how federal agencies were implementing the sequester. The White House repeatedly warned of the dire consequences of a 3 percent spending cut, and some have suggested that the...
Yesterday, the Defense Department announced it would have to furlough over 600,000 workers come July, claiming it “has no choice” because of the automatic budget cuts known as the sequester. Yet, other agencies have been able to find ways to make the required spending cuts without furloughing any employees. Did the Pentagon really try “everything they could” to avoid furloughing workers? A recent GAO report showing that millions were wasted on new camouflage patterns i...
Tea Party Conservatives and Occupy Wall Streeters don’t agree on much, but they do agree on one thing — both groups despise crony capitalistsand crony capitalism.
Huge corporations, especially banks, insurance companies, and other big financial institutions are nominally born of free-market capitalism where success and growth comes from providing the best services at the lowest prices. One might think that these huge corporations would therefore favor unfettered competition. And...
White House “number crunchers” have now identified nearly $5 billion they can avoid cutting through recalculations and “arcane budget rules.” So cutting three cents on the dollar was impossible, but when it comes to finding new spending, the White House rolls out the number crunchers. Meanwhile, the headlines on wasteful spending continue to pile up, much like our $16 trillion-plus national debt.
In the audio excerpts below, Jonah Goldberg and Dennis Prager have an insightful discussion on the use of clichés by the liberals, how liberals make Big Government look attractive to the electorate, and what the prospects are for reversing America’s leftward slide.
Highlights of Goldberg’s remarks:
1. With the decline of family, community, and faith, liberals promote Big Government as a seductive surrogate for all three. (Hence the pronouncement “Government is the one thing...
Market Watch reports, “The U.S. created a net 165,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department said Friday. The increase surpassed the 135,000 forecast of economists polled by MarketWatch. What’s more, the economy created an additional 124,000 jobs in March and February than previously reported. The number of new jobs created in March was revised up to 138,000 from 88,000, the Labor Department said, while February’s figure was...
RHETORIC: President Obama: “No Smart Way” To Cut $85 Billion: “The problem is, when you’re cutting $85 billion in seven months … there’s no smart way to do that. There’s no smart way to do that.” (“Obama on Sequester Cuts: ‘There’s No Smart Way To Do That,’” Real Clear Politics, 2/26/13)
REALITY: Vacant Office Government Buildings Cost Taxpayers $1.7 Billion Annually: According to a report by the Government Accountability Office,...
Bloomberg reports, “President Barack Obama began experiencing first-hand the effects of across-the-board federal spending cuts as the first wave of White House furloughs kicked in yesterday. The $85 billion in cuts known as sequestration hit White House staffers with day-long furloughs scattered throughout the next two weeks. All staff classified as non-commissioned will miss one work day without salary during May...
The blame game in Washington reached a new low yesterday when President Obama said that he shouldn’t have to tell Congress how to “behave” when it comes to the sequester. In light of the comments, Bankrupting America decided to take a look back at how the White House has been behaving when faced with cutting three cents on the dollar in government spending.
IDEA OF SEQUESTER ORIGINATED FROM WHITE HOUSE
Some Say Sequester Was Obama’s Idea. Chris Wallace, ...
Remember when President Obama prided himself on the desire to get out the red pen and go “line-by-line, page-by-page” through the federal budget to eliminate waste and inefficiency? That was a long time ago. Now, the White House is changing its tune. When it comes to the sequester, “line-by-line” is “piecemeal.” And that’s no way to do business in Washington … at least if you want to hold onto your political leverage for...
More and more lawmakers in Washington are lining up to say we don’t have a spending problem and are ready to defend their massive deficits that add trillions to the debt. But a new poll from Public Notice shows that the vast majority of Americans disagree; the best way to improve the economy is by cutting spending and exercising some fiscal restraint. At the same time, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is warning that the debt is unsustainable without...
POLITICO reports, “Call them the debt crisis dissenters. The two parties are miles apart on how to cut the deficit and national debt: Republicans want to slash spending even more. Democrats want to raise revenue. And then there are the other Democrats — the ones who reject the entire premise of the current high-stakes fiscal fight. There’s no short-term deficit problem, they say, and there isn’t even an urgent debt...
I want to start this article with this thought in mind. Republicans don’t need to change their platform to bring in Latinos/ Hispanics to the GOP, they need to get their message to the Latino/ Hispanics people. I base that comment on my MANY conversations with Hispanic and Latino Arizonans. It seems that when I approach a Hispanic or Latino Voter I ask them what they think about the Republican Party. I usually get one of these two answers or both. “Republicans are racist and...
March 18, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The following statement was issued by the Arizona State Chapter of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons:
“Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer, like some other Republican governors who say they oppose ObamaCare, is pushing for implementation of a key feature of the Affordable Care Act: an expansion of Medicaid.
“The media campaign features the standard formula of presenting hard-luck stories. An upstanding, hard-working citizen has, throu...
For months the White House has warned of the dire consequences of the sequester, maintained there is “no smart way” to cut spending and even threatened to veto a bill that would give them that flexibility. They were wrong. After insisting for months that the only way to deal with a 1.4 percent budget cut in the Department of Transportation was to furlough air traffic controllers and cause massive delays, it took less than a week for Congress to...
“Bill to End Airport Delays Headed for House Vote”
The Associated Press reports, “Legislation to end furloughs of air traffic controllers and delays for millions of travelers is headed to a House vote after a dark-of-night vote in the Senate that took place after most lawmakers had left the Capitol for a weeklong vacation. The bill passed late Thursday without even a roll call vote, and House officials indicated it likely would be brought up for quick appro...
Avoiding the sequester was “not impossible.” Or maybe it was. The White House’s hands are tied when it comes to granting agencies flexibility. Well, actually, except for meat inspectors. And Customs and Border Protection. And the Bureau of Prisons. And TSA. And Vice President Joe Biden’s office. But the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)? Definitely no flexibility for them. Taxpayers are waiting for hours at the airport, airline industry officials a...
Today, we salute you, lawmakers in Washington. No one can knowingly avoid fixing the sequester for two years, then panic when it goes into effect quite like you can. But now, it seems you’ve done the impossible: rather than playing your usual blame-game, you actually put on your thinking caps, took out a red pen, and are figuring out ways to avoid furloughs in some of your departments!
ADMINISTRATION CLAIMS “NO SMART WAY” TO AVOID SEQUESTER
FAA Management: “Make Furloughs as Hard as Possible for the Public” The Wall Street Journal editorializes, “The Federal Aviation Administration claims the sequester spending cuts are forcing it to delay some 6,700 flights a day, but rarely has a bureaucracy taken such joy in inconveniencing the public. Though the FAA says it is strapped for cash, the air traffic control agency managed to find the dollars to update its interactive ‘command center’ tool o...
