Dee Perez-Scott is out of her depth on budget matters

Dee Perez-Scott wrote,”As Republicans continue to pander to the Rich and demand more cuts (Medicare, Social Security) for the Middle Class, IF they continue to stonewall the President and push our country into a deeper Recession/Depression and refuse to Raise the Debt Ceiling, then the President should invoke the 14th Amendment and pay our Country's bills. True Americans stand behind our President.”

She uses the phrase "true Americans" but her readers will remember vividly how critical she was of those who used the term "real Americans. She doesn't get to decide who is and who is not a true or real American. Dee Perez-Scott, if she had any sense, would know that America will pay the interest on the national debt as its first priority. Everyone but she knows that. Next in line are Social Security and Medicare and Armed Services pay. Moreover, as Obama has already stated, he does not plan to resort to any sort of tricks such as invoking the 14th amendment. He understands that he has no basis for doing so as long as we have the resources to pay the interest on the national debt. Even if he did, only the House has the constitutional authority to appropriate money. If Obama tried to operate solely on the basis of more debt, that would surely seal his fate in 2012 as everyone begins to realize that every dollar of such debt has Obama written all over it.

It really takes two parties to stonewall anything. If the president and the democrats weren’t stonewalling, there would be no crisis. It makes no sense to raise the limit on a credit card when one is already deep in hock. In fact, ethical credit card companies would refuse to do so. China should let it be known that if the U.S. does not undertake austerity measures like those being imposed on Greece, it will cash in its U.S. bonds and refuse to buy any more. The who will finance the national debt?
If Dee understood the budget deficit and national debt, she would realize that even if the super rich were taxed at 100% that would not be enough to cure the problem. We have to cut expenditures and Medicare and Social Security are the only major budget items that have the capability of solving the problem. I am not in favor of drastic cuts in either of them but there will have to be some contribution from that quarter if there is to be any chance for our country to return to solvency. The proposed changes are modest: a small adjustment in the cost of living formula and an increase of the age for a full annuity to 67. I don’t like either one but, unlike Dee, I am being realistic.


In a recent article, ultra-liberal-progressive, Katrina vanden Heuvel said: "Invoking the 14th Amendment defuses the bomb Republicans have strapped to the hostage." By doing so, the President would end the debt ceiling negotiations and create another basis for his impeachment. The 14th Amendment says: “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law ... shall not be questioned.” vanden Heuvel and others of her ilk should understand that no one is questioning the “validity of the public debt” and that includes the intra-governmental debt (like all the borrowing from the Social Security trust fund) which the Obama Administration and the Congress often conveniently overlook because it runs the national debt up to $120 trillion.

Katrina continued: In Freytag v. Commissioner (1991), the Supreme Court held that the president has "the power to veto encroaching laws . . . or to disregard them when they are unconstitutional." The Supreme, the final arbiter of constitutionality, will have the final word.. "As a simple matter of constitutional logic, the president can refuse to enforce a statute he believes violates the Constitution," said Professor Barry Friedman of NYU Law School in a telephone interview with me. It is also unlikely that the action would be successfully challenged in court. Only Congress would have standing to sue, but doing so would require a joint resolution, something a Democratic-controlled Senate would almost certainly block." In other words, vanden Heuvel is suggesting that the President rather than the Supreme Court should determine the constitutionality of a statute. That would inflict such heavy damage to the concept of separation of powers that even the Democrats in the senate would hesitate to take that route. Instead the statesmen in both Houses should expedite the resolution and ask the court to give it immediate priority.

I do think the Republicans would be making a PR mistake by continuing to insist on no tax increases of any kind, direct or indirect. However, any tax increases should be limited to individuals rather than the businesses that we depend upon to create jobs. If they do so , we will stand behind the Republicans and toss Obama out of office next year.

Dee Perez-Scott: Can't Read and Can't Comprehend a Budget

Dingy Harry Reid said, "Republicans want to shut down the government because they think there's nothing more important than keeping women from getting cancer screenings." That is a blatant and outright lie! That has never been the Republican position. They are just trying to get the Democrat’s attention. The above graph shows America’s future if the Democrats don’t get real and Dee Perez-Scott doesn't shut up. Where is the Democrat’s proposal to cut the remaining $62 billion from this year’s budget to meet the goals set by the People’s House earlier this year?

Contrary to Dee’s lies about the 2012 budget submitted by Rep. Paul Ryan, Chairman of the People's House Budget Committee, “it is the president's recent budget proposal that would accelerate America's descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. The President’s budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership.”

“The Republicans’ budget, which they call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. That proposal also brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.”

“A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down, consolidate dozens of duplicative job-training programs into more accessible, accountable career scholarships that will better serve people looking for work.”

It will strengthen and improve welfare programs for those who need them and eliminates welfare for those who don't. The Republican budget targets corporate welfare, starting by ending the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. It gets rid of the permanent Wall Street bailout authority that Congress created last year. And it rolls back expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy, calling instead for a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration.


This budget's reforms will protect health and retirement security. This starts with saving Medicare. The open-ended, blank-check nature of the Medicare subsidy threatens the solvency of this critical program and creates inexcusable levels of waste. This budget takes action where others have ducked. But because government should not force people to reorganize their lives, its reforms will not affect those in or near retirement in any way.” That is a far cry from Dee Perez-Scott’s lies like accusing the Republicans of proposing more “...tax cuts for the Rich while dumping Medicare for the elderly (another outright lie) and Medicaid for the poor.” Dee has never been able to comprehend the need to make businesses competitive with competitive tax rates so they can create more jobs. It is just beyond the capacity of her small brain.

According to the WSJ report on the Ryan budget, “starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health-care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose a plan that works best for them from a list of guaranteed coverage options. This is not a voucher program but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost.”
“In addition, Medicare will provide increased assistance for lower-¬income beneficiaries and those with greater health risks. Reform that empowers individuals—with more help for the poor and the sick—will guarantee that Medicare can fulfill the promise of health security for America's seniors.

We all know that Social Security must be reformed to prevent severe cuts to future benefits. This budget forces policy makers to work together to enact common-sense reforms. The goal of this proposal is to save Social Security for current retirees and strengthen it for future generations by building upon ideas offered by the president's bipartisan fiscal commission.

“This budget recognizes that it is not enough to change how much government spends. We must also change how government spends. It proposes budget-process reforms—including real, enforceable caps on spending—to make sure government spends and taxes only as much as it needs to fulfill its constitutionally prescribed roles.” It proposed to prevent adding all those unfunded goodies liberals want to reward those who feed at the public trough and keep returning them to office.

In the area of tax reform “this budget would focus on growth by reforming the nation's outdated tax code, consolidating brackets, lowering tax rates, and assuming top individual and corporate rates of 25%. It maintains a revenue-neutral approach by clearing out a burdensome tangle of deductions and loopholes that distort economic activity and leave some corporations paying no income taxes at all.” This is another challenge for Dee Perez-Scott to understand.

This is America's moment to advance a plan for prosperity. Our budget offers the nation a model of government that is guided by the timeless principles of the American idea: free-market democracy, open competition, a robust private sector bound by rules of honesty and fairness, a secure safety net, and equal opportunity for all under a limited constitutional government of popular consent.

We need to “reform government so that people don't have to reorient their lives for less. We can grow our economy, promote opportunity, and encourage upward mobility. This budget is the new House majority's answer to history's call. It is now up to all of us to keep America exceptional.” Too bad Dee is not willing to help in this endeavor!