Feinstein Gun DOA | Dem’s Partisan Budget: Disappointing, Massive Tax Hike, Hurts Middle-class Families

Sen. Feinstein's Gun Ban DOA

Today in Washington, D.C. - March 18, 2013
The Senate reconvened  resumed consideration of H.R. 933, the House-passed continuing resolution that funds the government through the end of September.

Last night, the Senate voted 63-35 to invoke cloture (cut off debate) on the Mikulski substitute amendment to the Senate version of the bill.  If an agreement is reached, votes on other amendments could occur today.

Cloture has also been filed on the underlying CR bill, H.R. 933, making a cloture vote possible if no agreement is reached. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has indicated he wants to begin consideration of Senate Democrats’ budget (their first since 2009) today and conclude debate on it by the end of the week.

The House convened and will consider  expenses of some committees of the House of Representatives in the 113th Congress. As reported yesterday, "Congress should also consider cutting the cost of haircuts, bottles of waters and other things the taxpayers pay for themselves? Members of Congress get both large salaries and large expense accounts as well as perpetual benefits and retirement programs. Our forefathers never envisioned perpetual retirements."

The Washington Post noted that "Two groups of bipartisan lawmakers in the House and the Senate are racing to put the finishing touches on massive and complex legislative proposals for immigration reform that could be introduced shortly after Easter. A bipartisan group of eight senators has been meeting virtually daily to hammer out details of the bill, including how to structure new visa programs that would fundamentally alter legal immigration, as well as the politically treacherous issue of extending legalization and eventual citizenship to the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants." Of course these meetings are secret and as Acts 17:11 says, "The kingdom of evil is built on lies, secrets, and darkness."

The Washington Times reports that Harry Reid has declared Sen. Feinstein's gun-ban bill dead on arrival (DOA). "Sen. Dianne Feinstein emerged from a closed-door meeting with Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday — but her ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines didn’t.  Mr. Reid turned down her attempt to bring her ban on 157 different weapons and ammunition clips aboard the Democratic Party’s comprehensive gun bill, Politico reported. . . . Her bill instead will have to go forth separately or as an amendment — and that means it’s probably not going anywhere."

It is obvious that Harry Reid is not yet willing to risk efforts to push more taxes or to risk more Democrat Senate seats in 2014. The Obama administration is seeking to gain back control of the House of Representatives in 2014. Lord forbid, if this happens, Feinstein's bill will at that time be welcomed by Reid and Pelosi.

After nearly four years and over 1400 days without a budget offered by Senate Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said finally that this week they will bring a budget proposal to the Senate floor for debate and amendment. As the editors of The Wall Street Journal put it last week, “Ring the church bells and send up the white smoke: Senate Democrats have released their first budget in four years. Give Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray credit for finally proposing something in public view, but after reading the budget document we can see why Democrats were so reluctant for so long.”

On the Senate floor this morning, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell laid out just why Democrats ought to be embarrassed about their budget. “Last week, I noted that the Senate Democrat budget was one of the most extreme, most unbalanced pieces of legislation we’ve seen. One that would never balance – ever – and one that would have devastating consequences for the middle class. I said its centerpiece is a $1.5 trillion tax hike, the largest in American history. Some on the other side have argued with this $1.5 trillion figure. They say their budget only contains a $1 trillion tax hike, which is a stunning and telling admission in itself. And despite that massive hit to working families, the Democrats’ budget still would not ever balance.But that’s just one of the reasons this budget’s so destructive to the middle class. Take spending. Americans know that a good way to create jobs and increase economic growth is to balance the budget and put our massive national debt on a path to elimination. Yet, the Senate Democrat budget would actually increase spending by more than a half-trillion dollars. Put another way, Democrats want to take another half-a-trillion dollars out of the economy – on top of all the money they’d take out with their tax increase – and put it into the hands of Washington bureaucrats and politicians to spend or waste as they see fit.”

The WSJ editors were pithy in their summation of the Democrat budget: “The bill manages the unique achievement of offering no net nondefense spending cuts and no entitlement reform worth the name, while proposing to raise $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue in such a way that would ruin the prospects for bipartisan tax reform.”

But even The Washington Post editors last agreed with many of these criticisms: “Partisan in tone and complacent in substance, it scores points against the Republicans and reassures the party’s liberal base — but deepens these senators’ commitment to an unsustainable policy agenda. . . . It is on the issue of entitlements that the Democrats’ document really disappoints. There is literally nothing — not a word — suggestive of trimming Social Security, whether through greater means-testing, a more realistic inflation adjustment or reforming disability benefits. The document’s fuzzy call for $275 billion in ‘health savings’ is $125 billion less than the number President Obama has floated. . . . In short, this document gives voters no reason to believe that Democrats have a viable plan for — or even a responsible public assessment of — the country’s long-term fiscal predicament.”

As Leader McConnell explained, Democrats “want to grow the government at the expense of the economy, and that’s just not the way to create jobs or get the private sector moving. . . . So here’s what we’d get with the Senate Democrats’ budget: A massive tax hike, and thousands less for middle-class families; Half-a-trillion more in big-government spending; 42 percent more debt, with each American owing $73,000; And more than 600,000 lost jobs.

“Here’s what we won’t get. We won’t get balance, just more and more and more unbalanced tax hikes. We won’t get the kind of deficit reduction our country needs, just more spending to enrich the Washington establishment at the expense of Main Street. We won’t get more jobs, or a better economy, or sensible reforms to prevent Medicare or Social Security from going bankrupt. And we certainly won’t get a balanced budget. Not only does the Senate Democrat budget never balance – ever – but top Washington Democrats now say they simply don’t care about balancing the budget anymore.”

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