Rare Cost Cutting Measure on Capitol Hill - Longest Serving Democrat Demands an Investigation!

The House’s longest-serving current member, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), is calling on Republican and Democratic leadership to justify their recent decision to terminate the page program.



In a letter sent Friday to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Dingell expressed concerns about the recent cancellation of the program — in effect for nearly 200 years — due to prohibitive costs and advances in technology.

So, the pages were an anachronism, left over from an earlier age where you might need to send a runner from one office to another (or to fetch coffee or the Congressman's dry cleaning), and as a cost saving measure, in difficult economic times, there is no cut so small that some Democrat somewhere will not protest. No program, however antiquated that should be terminated. What was it that Ronald Reagan said? "A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!"

Boehner and Pelosi’s offices have not responded to requests for comment. The House leaders announced their decision to terminate the program in a joint statement Aug. 8, saying the program will come to an end as of Aug. 31.



The page program employs roughly 70 high school students to serve as messengers and couriers on the House floor and around the Capitol complex, offering them the opportunity to work and attend high school in Congress for a semester, or for several weeks during the summer.



“This decision was not easy, but it is necessary,” Boehner and Pelosi wrote of the cancellation, noting that the cost to operate the program exceeds $5 million annually.

To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, "Five million here and five million there, and pretty soon, it'll add up to real money!" I wonder if Dingell will ever figure out that he could hire whomever he wants out of his own office budget? Nah. Maybe the honor of having a berry named after him has gone to his head?



H/T Memeorandum

Let's "Means Test" Congress

One of the points that tends to come up in discussions of making Social Security solvent, is "means testing" recipients. Is there anything wrong with this picture? Asking people who paid into a system all their lives, often against their will, with the promise of only a crappy return on their money, and now facing the prospect of being denied even that crappy return, because their income or net worth might be above some arbitrarily set level, which would indicate that they might not "need the money"?

Let's say there's someone eligible for Social Security, who had been paid millions of dollars in, say, book sales. Should that person receive Social Security, since it is obviously not "needed"? How about independently wealthy government employees? Should they receive government pensions on top of the salaries that they "don't need"?

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that 82% believe members of Congress should take a 25% pay cut until the federal budget is balanced. Only 14% disagree.

That 82% is seven per cent higher than this time last year. Is it too much to ask our ruling class to lead by example? Say what you will about Arnold Schwarzenegger, he didn't need the governor's salary and he didn't take it.

Before we "means test" Social Security, let's "means test" Congress and the Executive Branch. Before we take away the meager returns of Social Security from people who were forced to contribute, some for half a century or more, let's join Barack Obama in asking the "millionaires and billionaires" in Congress and the Executive to do what's "fair", and means test themselves turning down the salaries and pensions, that they are entitled to, much as SS recipients are entitled to theirs.

I'm going to hold my breath until that happens. (When I'm sufficiently blue, I'll audition for the Avatar or Smurf sequels. There's a better chance of that happening. )

Israeli Prime Minister Gets 29 Standing Ovations in Congress

...at his 2011 SOTU, Obama got 25. (Not that anyone's counting!)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint meeting of Congress had all trappings of a State of the Union address by a president with sky-high approval ratings.

Speaking to a packed House chamber with Speaker Boehner and Vice President Biden over his shoulders, Netanyahu was repeatedly interrupted by applause – including more than 20 standing ovations. One of his biggest applause lines was aimed directly at President Obama.

“Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967,” Netanyahu said, prompting a big standing ovation.

Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be getting a lot warmer reception for his views than Obama is getting for his. And rightly so!

H/T Memeorandum

Netanyahu Heckled Speaking Before Congress -video

...and gets a standing "O" for his comeback.



More at Mediaite

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Obama No Longer Feels Your Pain about the Price of Gasoline

Saw this video over at Flopping Aces. I knew Congress and the Democrats were hip deep in hypocrisy over gas prices, and I knew the MSM were in the tank for Obama, but this video sums it up nicely!

How Much is a Human Life Worth?

A little over a thousand bucks, according to a chart provided by Marjorie Dannenfelser:



Christmas is a time of year when we typically think about a little baby coming into the world. But, the inclusion of Federal funding for Planned Parenthood in the pending Omnibus Spending bill that the lame duck Congress is trying to ram through, it may be a good time to think about how Congress spends our money on keeping little babies out of this world.

More at Red State

Congress Hard at Work

Rep. Barbara Lambert, D-Milford and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire Monday night as the House convened to vote on a new budget.

Remember when Bill Clinton said he'd worked harder than he'd ever worked to try to keep his promise on tax cuts? Looks like the latest crop of Democrats are following in his footsteps. At least we're not paying these clowns, are we? Are we???

No, no, no Barbara! Black ten on red Jack!

More at Allied Liberty News

Cross posted at LCR.

Colbert: Only Terrorists Have Bigger Bombs*

Humor is a subjective thing. Not everybody laughs at the same jokes. Not everyone agrees on who's funny. How else could you explain Jerry Lewis, Pauly Shore and early Adam Sandler?

That brings us to Steven Colbert testifying before Congress. Let me say up front that I've never been impressed with Colbert's shtick. I heard the audio of portions of his testimony on Levin's show this afternoon. And while Levin mildly chuckled a couple of times, I didn't. Colbert bombed. Big time.
I later saw portions of the video, with people seated, staring stone faced behind him, also not laughing. I could relate to them. The closest thing to a laugh, was when Colbert mocked Congress for not reading legislation by saying that, like them, he hadn't read it either. That might have been funny if it were not true and indicative of the rot in our nation's capitol. Not really a laughing matter.

It was supposed to be a hearing about immigration and this buffoon is doing jokes about nicknames for gay Iowans. Frankly, it was disgusting. Not the lame gay joke, but the fact that this clown was wasting the time of what ought to be a serious body of people going about the serious business of this country.

That is not to say that legislators must be perpetually dour. I enjoy a good joke as much, if not better than the next man. But, having this court jester testify at a Senate** hearing was the joke. And it wasn't funny.

If the current crop of Congress Critters can't comprehend that. Let's send them home where they can make all the gay Iowan jokes they want. Just not at our expense.

*Closed Captioning for the Humor Impaired: Figurative bombs. It's an colloquial phrase.

**It has been pointed out to me that this was a House hearing. Maybe it was all the comparisons to Al Franken that caused me to make the mistake. Or maybe it was that my Givead*mn was broken concerning this clown and Congress?

Cross posted at Left Coast Rebel, Say Anything, Lady Cincinnatus

Obama's Middle Class Honesty Cuts

Obama would much rather control the narrative than control the economy. This is nowhere more apparent than in the administration's attempt to spin the extension of the Bush era tax cuts into "Obama's middle class tax cuts".

An extension would merely maintain the status quo. Your tax rate in January would be the same as it is today. No cut. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. But in Democrat-speak, not raising your taxes the way the Democrats wanted (it was they who voted to make Bush's tax cuts temporary), is granting you a tax cut.

This hearkens back to the old Congressional accounting system where a tax increase was proposed, Congress Critters would vote for a figure smaller than the one proposed, that was still a tax increase, yet they would brag (with the MSM as their willing accomplices) that they had "cut taxes" (from the proposed increase, not actually).

Thus, anyone advocating not raising anyone's taxes in our currently weak economy, is advocating...wait for it..."tax cuts for the rich". Or what we call in a little place I like to call reality: Leaving things the way they are.

Raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea. The fact that the Obama administration is contemplating raising anyone's taxes, borders on malfeasance if not incompetence.
The fact that they want to portray not raising your taxes as a "tax cut" either speaks of how ill acquainted these guys are with reality or honesty (or both). It also illustrates the liberals' view of who your money belongs to. It belongs to the government, according to them. For letting you keep a portion of that, you should be grateful.

The fact that they want to portray not raising taxes on small businesses and "the rich", as a tax cut", (i.e., people who might be in a position to actually create jobs), Obama, Pelosi and Co. demonstrate that they would much rather control the narrative than to provide meaningful or effective leadership to the country and an end to Obama's Economic Malaise.