By John Stevens

1st August 2011
Vice-President Joe Biden has charged the Secret Service $13,000 in rent for officers protecting him to live in a cottage that he owns next to his Delaware home, it has been revealed.

Mr Biden has collected the sum in rental payments for the property next to his waterfront home in Wilmington since April according to Federal purchasing documents.

The agency pays $2,200 a month for the house. The U.S. Secret Service will have paid $66,000 in rent for the house by the time the contract expires in fall 2013.

The Secret Service said the close proximity of the property to the Vice-President’s home meant that they could provide a high level of security for him and his family.

But taxpayers’ groups have responded with outrage to the payments.

‘He should be afforded every single protection available to him and his family, as should every vice president and president,’ said Leslie Paige, spokesman for Citizens Against Government Waste.

‘But this arrangement seems bizarre to me,’ she told the Washington Times.

‘You’d think the Vice-President, who shepherded the deficit committee, would think twice about charging the Secret Service rent. Why would he need the money? I don’t get it.’

According to Mr Biden’s office, his mother lived in the cottage until she died in January 2010.

It was rented by a private tenant, but when they moved out the Secret Service approached Mr Biden about renting the property.

‘The cottage was an existing rental property at the time the Secret Service signed its lease,’ a spokesman for Mr Biden told the Washington Times.

Mr Biden and his wife Jill last year reported earnings of $379,178, including $11,000 from the property, last year, according to tax returns.

Sun Jul. 31 2011

Washington politicians appear to be inching closer to an agreement that could end the bitter dispute over the debt ceiling and avert a federal default, but long-term problems remain for the U.S. economy.

The White House and congressional Republicans are, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, discussing a deal that would see the U.S. debt ceiling raised by about $2.4 trillion in two steps while cutting federal spending by slightly more than that amount.

The first step, which would take effect immediately, cuts spending by about $1 trillion,. The remainder would be trimmed before the end of the year.

Senate Majority Leader Mitchell McConnell said on Sunday he was very close to recommending a tentative agreement to Republicans in the upper chamber.

A senior White House adviser later said both sides are in general agreement on a deal, though key details still need to be worked out.

CTV’s Washington Bureau Chief Paul Workman said the second round of cuts would be determined by a bipartisan committee, which raises the possibility of further disagreements in the near future.

Republicans and Democrats are working to agree that cuts will be made to traditionally untouchable programs such as defence and Medicare in the event of a future deadlock,.

“These are the kinds of very serious things they’re looking at,” to ensure a second round of cuts, said Workman.

The proposed agreement would contain none of the tax increases sought by U.S. President Barack Obama and would introduce a constitutional amendment that would require a balanced budget. Republicans have been resisting any talk of tax hikes while Obama — having backed down from his original push to put more taxes on the wealthy — wants a deal that will stand until after the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

Without a compromise in place by Tuesday, Aug. 2, officials say the Treasury will run out of funds to pay all the nation’s bills. The looming catastrophe threatens to scuttle America’s long-sterling financial status and send economic shockwaves around the world. The political standoff has been marked by late-night negotiations and heated rhetoric on both sides of the aisle.

However, Workman said financial institutions may yet downgrade the U.S. credit rating, even with a deal in place.

The U.S. faces serious economic challenges either way, suggests author and radio commentator Peter Schiff. He said America will remain largely helpless against the lending ceiling of other countries, most notably China.

“The real ceiling is the one we can’t raise,” Schiff told CTV News Channel on Sunday.

“What happens when people lending [the U.S.] money say they’ve loaned too much to us and that they don’t think we can pay it back?”

The bad news for the U.S. would be good news for China, Schiff added. “The Chinese economy will boom when they stop buying our debt but ours will collapse.”

Schiff says individuals can protect themselves by “limiting their exposure” to the U.S. greenback. He says Canadians are relatively safe because of the strong loonie in relation to the U.S. dollar. Ottawa, however, should raise its interest rates to curb the Canadian dollar’s downward slide against other world currencies.

“Hopefully Canada will come to its senses and raise rates,” he said.

U.S. investors, meanwhile, should turn to the commodities market, precious metals such as gold and silver, and currencies and bonds from other nations to gird their own portfolios, he said.

Workman said the tax cuts will hit the wallets of U.S. taxpayers, in particular those of the Democrat-friendly middle class.

“The money’s got to come from somewhere and it’s going to come from people’s pockets.”

Jul 28, 2011

House Republicans are pressing ahead with a vote Thursday on a newly modified plan to stave off an unprecedented government default next week, even though the legislation faces a White House veto threat and unanimous opposition among Senate Democrats.

As the House prepared to vote Thursday, investor worries that a dysfunctional Congress might remain gridlocked sent stocks plunging. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped almost 200 points Wednesday, on top of a 92-point drop the day before.

House Speaker John Boehner (Republican-Ohio) made headway with balky conservatives unhappy that the measure contains smaller spending cuts than a more stringent debt measure that passed the House last week.

.The new measure depends on caps on agency budgets to cut more than $900 billion from the deficit over the coming decade while permitting a commensurate increase in the nation’s borrowing to allow the government to pay its bills.

Boehner acknowledged that the measure was hardly perfect but represented “the best opportunity we have to hold the president’s feet to the fire. He wants a $2.4-trillion blank cheque that lets him continue his spending binge through the next election. This is the time to say no.”

Boehner made the comments Wednesday to conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.

The White House threatened a veto, saying the bill did not meet President Barack Obama’s demand for an increase in the debt limit large enough to prevent a rerun of the current crisis next year, in the heat of the 2012 election campaign.

May be last-ditch effort to find compromise

Instead, Obama supports an alternative drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada) that contains comparable cuts to agency operating budgets but also claims savings from lowball estimates of war costs.

Reid’s plan would provide a record-breaking $2.7 trillion in additional borrowing authority, enough to tide the government over through 2012. Reid, however, is plainly short of the votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster.

While Boehner holds out hope that the Senate will pass his measure, a more likely outcome is a last-ditch effort to find a compromise.

In fact, Boehner’s plan has enough in common with Reid’s, including the establishment of a special congressional panel to recommend additional spending cuts this fall, that Reid hinted a compromise could be easy to snap together.

“Magic things can happen here in Congress in a very short period of time under the right circumstances,” Reid told reporters.

Unless Congress acts by Tuesday, administration officials say, the government will not be able to pay all its bills.

They include:

$23 billion in Social Security benefits due Aug. 3.

An $87-billion payment to investors to redeem maturing Treasury securities.

More than $30 billion in interest payments that come due Aug. 15.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other officials warn that a default could prove catastrophic for an economy still recovering from the worst recession in decades. But some skeptics, including conservative Republicans like Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, say Geithner can manage Treasury’s cash flow to avoid a catastrophe if Congress fails to act.

‘I can’t do this job unless you’re behind me.’

—John Boehner, House Speaker, to rank and file

House Republicans tweaked their measure Wednesday to enhance its prospects of passage after a worse-than expected cost estimate from congressional budget analysts on Tuesday. The changes were modest, but under arcane budget conventions, they brought projected savings for 2012 to $22 billion, part of a 10-year cut of $917 billion.

That would trigger a $900-billion increase in the debt limit.

Speaker revs up rank and file

While the Boehner and Reid measures differed in key details, they also shared similarities that underscored the concessions made by the two sides in recent days.

Reid’s bill does not envision a tax increase to reduce deficits, a bow to Republicans. But neither does the House measure require passage of a constitutional balanced budget amendment for state ratification, a step in the direction of Obama and the Democrats.

For Boehner, the vote shaped up as a critical test of his ability to lead a fractious majority that includes 87 first-term lawmakers, many of them elected with tea party support. Passage also was imperative to maximize Boehner’s leverage with Obama and Reid in a fast-approaching endgame.

Boehner showed fire in a meeting Wednesday with the Republican caucus.

“Get your ass in line,” Boehner told the rank and file. “I can’t do this job unless you’re behind me.”

If House conservatives torpedo the bill, any followup probably would require Democratic votes to pass. That, in turn, would mean smaller spending cuts than Republicans are seeking in exchange for raising the nation’s $14.3-trillion debt limit.

The Proposal”

When a company falls on difficult times, one of the things that seems to happen is they reduce their staff and workers.  The remaining workers must find ways to continue to do a good job or risk that their job would be eliminated as well.

Wall street, and the media normally congratulate the CEO for making this type of “tough decision”, and his board of directors gives him a big bonus.

Our government should not be immune from similar risks.

Therefore:
 
Reduce the House of Representatives from the current 435 members to 218 members.

Reduce Senate members from 100 to 50 (one per State).  Then, reduce their staff by 25%.

Accomplish this over the next 8 years (two steps/two elections) and of course this would require some redistricting.

Some Yearly Monetary Gains Include:

$44,108,400 for elimination of base pay for congress. (267 members X $165,200 pay/member/ yr.)

$97,175,000 for elimination of their staff.  (estimate $1.3 Million in staff per each member of the House, and $3 Million in staff per each member of the Senate every year)

$240,294 for the reduction in remaining staff by 25%.

$7,500,000,000 reduction in pork barrel ear-marks each year.  (those members whose jobs are gone.  Current estimates for total government pork earmarks are at $15 Billion/yr).

The remaining representatives would need to work smarter and improve efficiencies.  It might even be in their best interests to work together for the good of our country!

We may also expect that smaller committees might lead to a more efficient resolution of issues as well.  It might even be easier to keep track of what your representative is doing.

Congress has more tools available to do their jobs than it had back in 1911 when the current number of representatives was established.  (telephone, computers, cell phones to name a few)

Note:
Congress did not hesitate to head home when it was a holiday, when the nation needed a real fix to the economic problems.  Also, we had 3 senators that were not doing their jobs for the 18+ months (on the campaign trail) and still they all have accepted full pay.  These facts alone support a reduction in senators & congress. (Obama, Clinton and McCain worked their day jobs while campaigning and were not those three they are talking about),

Summary of opportunity:
$ 44,108,400 reduction of congress members.

$282,100,000 for elimination of the reduced house member staff.
$150,000,000 for elimination of reduced senate member staff.

$59,675,000 for 25% reduction of staff for remaining house members.
$37,500,000 for 25% reduction of staff for remaining senate members.
$7,500,000,000 reduction in pork added to bills by the reduction of congress members.

$8,073,383,400 per year, estimated total savings.  (that’s 8-BILLION just to start!)

Big business does these types of cuts all the time.

If Congresspersons were required to serve 20, 25 or 30 years (like everyone else) in order to collect retirement benefits, tax payers could save a bundle.

Now they get full retirement after serving only ONE term.

IF you are happy with how Congress spends our taxes, delete this message.  Otherwise, I assume you know what to do.