Posts Tagged ‘budget’

A method to cut government spending where bureaucrats will WANT to cut!

It is a well known and quite understandable reaction of any bureau to make sure that the current year’s budget has been spent by the end of the fiscal year, even on unnecessary projects, else they lose it. Personal interest should have every employee watching for any possible waste of the taxpayer’s dollars.

A new budgeting policy for each bureau should be established, where any unspent budgeted funds at the end of the fiscal year shall be equally divided up and paid out to all of the employees in that bureau, and, then the lower budget figure, pre-disbursement, would be used for the next fiscal year, with, again, any unspent surplus being distributed to the employees who made the surplus possible.

No money would be saved the first year, but from then on every department would have continuously lowering budgets. Could the cost of running the state be cut in half in three years? I think so. The bottom line would be far more efficient and less costly state services.

(Idea from Wayne Green)

Yeah, it’s going to do you a lot of good….

President Obama’s budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals – like Mitt Romney – can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.

…

Under the plan, a taxpayer’s tax-preferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement – or right around $3 million this year.

Read more by Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org

Joint Finance Committee Hearing
When: Thursday. April 4th from 10 AM until 6 PM
Where: Greendale High School Auditorium
6801 Southway
Greendale, WI 53129

Please come out and testify in support of Governor Walker’s budget!

A method to cut government spending where bureaucrats will WANT to cut!

It is a well known and quite understandable reaction of any bureau to make sure that the current year’s budget has been spent by the end of the fiscal year, even on unnecessary projects, else they lose it. Personal interest should have every employee watching for any possible waste of the taxpayer’s dollars.

A new budgeting policy for each bureau should be established, where any unspent budgeted funds at the end of the fiscal year shall be equally divided up and paid out to all of the employees in that bureau, and, then the lower budget figure, pre-disbursement, would be used for the next fiscal year, with, again, any unspent surplus being distributed to the employees who made the surplus possible.

No money would be saved the first year, but from then on every department would have continuously lowering budgets. Could the cost of running the state be cut in half in three years? I think so. The bottom line would be far more efficient and less costly state services.

(Idea from Wayne Green)

–SNIP– You probably thought the Dodd-Frank Act was all about reining in greedy big banks and Wall Street predators.

Well then, what is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau it established doing planning to “help” people manage the $19.4 trillion they’ve managed to save for their retirement?

CFPB director and longtime Democratic politician Richard Cordray earlier this month told Bloomberg News that managing retirement savings is “one of the things we’ve been exploring … in terms of whether and what authority we have.”

Every such new creature legislated into existence by our elected officials wastes little time before seeking to expand its power — always with the best intentions, of course.

There always ends up being an excuse to do things the law doesn’t give you any authority for, and the CFPB’s Office for Older Americans being headed by another big government Democrat, Hubert H. Humphrey III, is further cause for worry.

What business, exactly, does a U.S. government that has rung up over $16.6 trillion in red ink have giving consumers advice on how to save money?

Read more at IBD

And when the Republicans opened the seventh seal of the sequester, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black and the stars fell unto the Earth; and our nation’s ability to forecast severe weather, such as drought events, hurricanes and tornados, was seriously undermined. Lo, and the children were not vaccinated, and all the beasts starved in the zoos, and the planes were grounded.

Or so President Obama and his Cabinet prophets have been preaching ahead of the automatic budget cuts due to begin Friday. The bit about the weather is a real quote from the White House budget director.

But if any of these cataclysms do come to pass, then they will be mostly Mr. Obama’s own creation. The truth is that the sequester already gives the White House the legal flexibility to avoid doom, if a 5% cut to programs that have increased more than 17% on average over the Obama Presidency counts as doom.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal

The Congressional Budget Office gives its baseline budget projections for fiscal years 2013 to 2023 in its February 5, 2013  Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023. Table 1-5 shows how the CBO incorporates the $55 billion per year in sequestered defense cuts and the $37 million per year in sequestered non-defense cuts into its projections of  discretionary spending.

The sequester “cuts” are subtracted after  increasing  appropriations subject to the sequester at the rate of  inflation and adding back in more than a trillion dollars (over ten years) of spending exempted from the sequester.

Read more by Paul Roderick Gregory at Forbes.com

Now that the dust has settled and the seemingly endless campaigns are behind us, we have come a long way in the last two years and can finally sit and look at the accomplishments that Governor Walker has put in place to move Wisconsin forward.

When he came into office, he inherited a $3.6 billion budget deficit and under the previous democrat control of the state legislature spending was out of control and no end was in sight.

Governor Walker stepped right into the muck and the mire and with his sleeves rolled up; he made immediate and difficult changes that have put us back on a track toward prosperity.

Read more by Bill Folk at Caledonia Patch

Wisconsin is known for many things, such as our friendly disposition, impeccable beer and cheeses and, of course, our Green Bay Packers. Since I’ve taken office, we’ve gained national recognition for the proven results of our fiscal and economic reforms.

We took a principled stand, confronted our shortcomings and transformed them into real solutions. We’re turning things around and heading in the right direction. Unfortunately, the national outlook isn’t as bright. With growing debt and deficit without a clear solution, the problems we face as a nation are daunting.

Read more by Gov. Scott Walker at TribLive.com

The President delays needed conversations about our fiscal challenges.
February 4, 2013

WASHINGTON—Today, President Obama is required by law to submit his budget request for Fiscal Year 2014. For the fourth time in five years, however, he will miss the statutory deadline. In response, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin issued the following statement:

“I’m disappointed the President has missed his deadline. But I’m not surprised. In four of the last five years, he’s failed to submit his budget on time. We still don’t know when we’ll receive the president’s request. And for nearly four years, Senate Democrats haven’t passed a budget at all. We deserve better.

“We spend $1 trillion more than we take in each year. In fact, we spend $3 for every $2 we take in. And we can’t keep that up. If we stay on this path, our finances will collapse. The economy will stall. And the most vulnerable will suffer. We need a budget that reflects our priorities—that expands opportunity. The fact is, we cannot achieve those goals unless we budget responsibly.

“Every time the President and Senate Democrats shirk their duty, they delay choices we need to make. We’ve still got time, but it’s dwindling. Every missed deadline is a missed opportunity. We need to get serious about spending now.

“The House Budget Committee will do its job. We’ll write a budget—and submit it on time. In the past two years, we’ve offered our solutions to the country’s fiscal challenges. Now the President must do the same.”

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Press Release from Committee on the Budget: U.S. House of Representatives

This morning I heard Rand Paul, the Junior Senator from Kentucky, deliver an angry message to his colleagues. The subject was their failure to obey their own rules. He mentioned their failure to pass a budget in nearly four years. But his outrage was really triggered when he received a six hundred page bill to be voted on later that day. It contained some last minute provisions that nobody but Harry Reid is aware of—to the extent that Harry is aware of anything but his own vast ego and lust for power.

–SNIP– Our progressive rulers have been violating their Oaths so thoroughly that it is hard to understand how they can look in the mirror without blushing. Ask yourself a question. If you hired an attorney to help you understand a contract and relied on her advice that you can sign it, how would you feel if it transpired that she never even read the contract first? That would be cause for disbarment for failure to follow the ethical imperatives of the legal profession.

How much more must a failure of our elected Congressmen to even vote for a piece of legislation be a violation of their Oaths of Office, if they have not bothered to read it? If it is really necessary to have such long bills that not all of them can read these bills, then those who do not read, or who do not thoroughly understand it, it should vote Nay or abstain. Otherwise, how can they know they are bearing allegiance to the Constitution? The President gets to take one last look before signing it. The poor President had better be a speed reader.

Read more by Mike Razar at americanthinker.com

Wisconsin’s budget picture brightened Thursday, with new estimates that show a surplus will grow to $484 million, giving Republicans and Gov. Scott Walker even more room to pursue their tax cutting agenda.

The estimate from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau was nearly $137 million better than one Walker’s administration released in November. The numbers will be used by Walker as he puts the final touches on his two-year spending plan, which he’s set to unveil on Feb. 20.

Read more by Scott Bauer, AP, at twincities.com

Thank you Governor Walker for starting fix our state!

–SNIP– So we arrive at what may well be the single most important question to ask in America today.

Given that the current President of the United States seems determined to bypass the House’s appropriation authority and spend gigantic sums on whatever programs he wants or enforcing whatever Executive Orders he issues, is there an enforcement mechanism for his violating the power of the purse clauses in the Constitution?

The answer is yes. There is a federal law that specifically codifies the power of the purse clauses, and provides specific punishment for their violation by any “officer or employee of the United States government.”

Read more by Jack Wheeler at ToThePointNews.com

–SNIP– But if you are an anti-tax conservative who sincerely believes that you have to cut spending and not “feed the beast” with more revenues, then one approach on spending cuts for the super committee to consider is the simple and creative “Penny Plan” introduced by Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla.

Mr. Mack’s bill, H.R. 1848, would cut one penny out of every dollar actually spent by the federal government from year to year for the next six years, from FY 2012-FY 2017.

Beginning in FY 2018, there would be a budget cap of 18 percent of GDP (the average federal revenue as a percentage of GDP over the past 30 years). And by FY 2019, America would finally have a balanced budget — that is, assuming revenues naturally increase from the current 14.8 percent of GDP to 18 percent of GDP by 2019, after which the budget would be in surplus.

There is an automatic spending cut “trigger” under Mack’s plan — one he came up with well before the trigger used in the recently passed national debt ceiling bill.

If Congress failed to enact a budget implementing the 1 percent actual spending cut required under Mack’s measure, then there would be automatic, across-the-board actual cuts in all federal programs to meet the 1 percent reduction, and that means all: in defense, Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, defense, and national security spending. Everything.

Read more by Lanny Davis at NewsMax.com

The Mack Penny Plan

It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case.

The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that some companies are not under financial duress does not make the policy a success. It simply means that our taxpayer dollars subsidized companies that would’ve found the financial support in the private market.

So far, 34 companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers are faltering — either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy.

Read more by Ashe Schow at Heritage.org