Democrats have spent the last year and a half racking up record deficits and debt, spending money with reckless abandon while claiming that their programs will create jobs for the millions of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed.  But after spending nearly a trillion dollars on a “stimulus” that was supposed to keep unemployment below eight percent and create private sector jobs “immediately,” Americans continue to ask, “where are the jobs?“ 

The latest example of the Democrats’ reckless spending binge is a bill the House is considering tomorrow: H.R. 5297, or what the Democrats call the Small Business Lending Fund Act, a $30 billion slush fund modeled after TARP.  According to Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General who oversees TARP, “in terms of its basic design, its participants, its application process, and, perhaps, its funding source from an oversight perspective, the Small Business Lending Fund would essentially be an extension of TARP’s Capital Purchase Program.”

The $30 billion TARP III fund comes on the heels of a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicating the deficit is nearing the $1 trillion mark - only eight months into the current fiscal year.  As the CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf noted: “The federal budget deficit was $941 billion during the first eight months of fiscal year 2010, CBO estimates in its latest monthly budget review…spending through May was $257 billion (or 12 percent) higher than in the same period last year, CBO estimates.”

The Democrats spending binge isn’t just fiscally reckless - passing on a debt to our kids and grandkids that will burden their future - it’s dampening job-creation as well.  The record increase in spending is hard to fathom.  Since last January, Washington Democrats have increased non-defense, discretionary spending by 84 percent, according to data compiled by the House Budget Committee Republican staff. 

Out-of-touch Washington Democrats will tell you that the record deficits - a trillion-dollars a year, every year, for as far as the eye can see - are the result of the recession.  But as the following chart, courtesy of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), makes clear, Washington Democrats have a spending problem, not a revenue problem:

This year alone, Washington will spend a record $3.6 trillion.  That’s $31,000 per household, or one out of every four dollars made in America.  But instead of cutting spending to create jobs, out-of-touch Democrats are doubling-down.  In fact, since last year, the President has signed into law $1.8 trillion in new government spending and $670 billion in new job-killing tax increases, which has exploded the deficit and pushed the national debt over the $13 trillion mark, a number which will hit nearly $20 trillion by 2015, according to Reuters.

Instead of offering a budget to restore some fiscal sanity to Washington, Democrats are passing the buck entirely and not even offering a budget resolution, a first in the modern era.    Economists say that Washington needs to cut spending now to create jobs and tackle the deficits and debt that will soon engulf the federal budget.   That’s why House Republicans, led by House Budget Committee Ranking Member Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Vice Ranking Member Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) proposed specific budget cuts totaling $1.3 trillion.

Democrats just can’t seem to break their addiction to spending.  They’ve punted on doing a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, essentially leaving federal spending on autopilot instead of making the tough choices economists say are needed to help create jobs.  And as the House and Senate conferees meet to work on the Democrats’ financial “reform” bill, a report from Bloomberg News this morning shines new light on the two government-backed mortgage companies, who were are the center of the 2008 meltdown, but are conspicuously absent from the Democrats’ legislation, which is silent on reforming Fannie and Freddie:

The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.  

Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts.

‘It is the mother of all bailouts,’ said Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, who is now a consultant to the mortgage-finance industry.

The Bloomberg story also noted that “By delaying action, the Obama administration keeps losses off the government’s books while building a floor under housing prices during a congressional election year.” 

For years, Republicans raised red flags about Fannie and Freddie’s financial condition and proposed responsible reforms only to be thwarted by Democrats who have deep political ties to the worst offenders.  These same powerful Democrats are now pushing for a financial reform bill that doesn’t even address the need to fix these government mortgage companies.

From bailouts to a failed “stimulus“, Democrats have piled up record deficits and debt on the backs of our kids and grandkids - and according to economists, their policies are killing jobs too.   But Democrats just can’t stop spending.  The President, late on Saturday night, released a request for $50 billion in more “stimulus” spending.  According to the Washington Times: “Though he didn’t call it a second stimulus, President Obama this weekend asked Congress to pass legislation that amounts to much the same thing: extending some of the first stimulus bill’s programs and adding some of the White House’s new priorities such as small-business lending and a tax on big banks.”

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In the Weekly Republican Address, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) talks about Washington Democrats’ out-of-control spending spree and its devastating impact on small businesses and our economy as a whole.

Boehner notes that this week, he gave President Obama a statement signed by more than 100 economists urging both parties to take immediate, decisive action to cut federal spending in order to create jobs and boost our economy.  Still, President Obama has not pressed leaders in his own party to pass a budget, standing idle while this critical opportunity to turn things around goes by the wayside.  Boehner calls this a “stunning failure of leadership - the kind of leadership President Obama promised to provide.”  Lastly, Boehner notes that Republicans are offering better solutions to cut spending and giving taxpayers a chance to have their say through initiatives such as America Speaking Out and YouCut.

Democrats once called passing a budget "the most basic responsibility of governing," intoning that "if you can't budget, you can't govern" – yet they are on the verge of "making history" by becoming the first Congress in the modern era not to pass a budget. On CNN's The Situation Room last evening, Jack Cafferty lambasted Democrats for refusing to pass a budget and echoed Leader Boehner’s statement that President Obama “should find someone’s ‘ass to kick’” on the budget deficit.

Jack Cafferty commented in the “Cafferty File”:

At a time of skyrocketing federal deficits and a national debt that just passed $13 trillion, the Democrats in Congress can’t be bothered to pass a budget for next year.

That’s their job. Congress is supposed to decide how to spend the taxpayers’ money.  They are mandated to pass a budget; and presumably to stick to it… but that’s a whole other story.  Yet efforts to pass a budget have stalled in the House because Democrats can’t agree on what and how much to cut. See, it’s an election year - can’t be seen cutting things in an election year.

It’s simply outrageous.

Republicans say Democrats are making a "huge mistake’ by not passing a budget; and they’re right.  House Minority Leader John Boehner suggests Pres. Obama should find someone’s "ass to kick’ when it comes to the budget deficit. He says the GOP will be relentless about this issue.

This morning’s Washington Times reported on the Democrats’ lack of a budget:

Democrats face a dilemma on spending.  They have added hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal tab over the past year and a half, arguing that it will boost the economy and create jobs.  But the unemployment rate remains high, even as pressure builds from Republicans and even from within their own party to begin reining in spending.   Democratic leaders have designated much of their new spending as an emergency, making it exempt from so-called "pay-as-you-go’ rules that require offsets.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) commented at his weekly press briefing yesterday:

Listen, the Democrat spending spree is scaring the hell out of the American people and it’s hurting our economy.  Not doing a budget, Democrats are passing up a critical opportunity to create jobs and to get our economy moving again.  And they are banking on the fact that the American people won’t even notice.  But this really isn’t "inside baseball.’  Every American family puts a budget together, and believe me, the American people will hold the Democrats accountable for their budget failure and their massive spending spree.

Economists say that Washington needs to cut spending now to create jobs and tackle the deficits and debt that will soon engulf the federal budget.  In fact, yesterday, Leader Boehner handed the President a statement signed by more than 100 economists saying immediate action is needed to rein in federal spending to boost the economy and create private sector jobs.  House Republicans have demonstrated their commitment to fiscal responsibility, proposing specific budget cuts totaling $1.3 trillion.  With a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit, the American people are demanding that Washington get its fiscal house in order - and passing a budget is the first step Congress must take.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH), in a meeting with President Obama and Congressional leaders at the White House today, asked President Obama to provide the American people with a  progress report on the implementation of his Executive Order which purports to ban taxpayer-funding of abortions.  Leader Boehner noted that in her recent “progress report” to Congress on the implementation of ObamaCare, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius did not make any mention of efforts by the administration to implement the president’s Executive Order (EO).

Abortion opponents widely viewed the EO as a disingenuous maneuver made by the Administration in the final hours of the health care fight to buy off “pro-life” Democrats instead of passing the anti-abortion Stupak amendment, which would have prevented federal subsidies for abortion under ObamaCare.  A recent analysis by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops confirms that under the new law, “federal subsidies will be used to help expand access nationwide to abortion coverage” and that all Americans, regardless of one’s personal convictions, will be forced to “pay a nominal fee for full access to elective abortions - not to be estimated at less than "$1 per enrollee, per month.’”

While the Obama Administration plows ahead on implementing what it regards as the “popular” aspects of ObamaCare, Administration officials have been coy about their aims for putting into practice the President’s EO on taxpayer-funding of abortion.  Leader Boehner is still awaiting a response, other than a cryptic reply that EO guidance was still being developed, to the questions he raised in his May 13 letter to Secretary Sebelius:

Has the Department provided guidance to states to implement the president’s Executive Order on abortions?  When does the Administration expect to issue the directive on abortions?  Will the new federal high-risk pools touted by the Administration also ensure that abortions will not be covered?  Millions of Americans care deeply about this aspect of the new law and its implementation, and no progress report is complete without detailed information about it.

The answers to the aforementioned questions will determine the extent to which taxpayer dollars fund abortions, which is why it is so troubling that the Administration continues to kick the can down the road on this issue. 

House Republicans continue to stand with the American people, to repeal and replace ObamaCare with commonsense solutions focused on lowering health care costs and protecting life.  The Republican health care solution would codify the Hyde Amendment and prohibit all authorized and appropriated federal funds from being used to pay for abortion. And under the Republican plan, any health plan that includes abortion coverage may not receive federal funds.

After Americans have repeatedly rejected it time and time again, yesterday the White House re-launched yet another “an all-out blitz” - according to The Hill - to “sell” ObamaCare to a skeptical public.  The fact remains that a majority of Americans have been opposed to the Democrats’ government takeover of health care since last July, and the latest survey from Rasmussen indicates that 58 percent of the American public wants to repeal ObamaCare. 

But Democrats are intent on changing the American people’s minds, as The Oklahoman editorialized today:

Think it can’t snow in June? Think again. The Obama administration and its allies are preparing one humdinger of a snow job to try to convince Americans of something that months of congressional debate, many presidential speeches and countless town hall meetings couldn’t: Obamacare will be a good thing….Obama will do his part from the bully pulpit, but so will an army of private groups, raising money to fund an echo chamber for the president’s pro-health care message.

The “blitz” includes a “$125 million campaign that White House allies are rolling out to defend health care reform amid growing signs Democrats are failing to get political traction on the issue,” according to a report in Politico yesterday.   As the Oklahoman noted further: “When someone hits Obamacare, proponents will hit back.  One thing about it, it’s what this president and this White House do best: campaign. Governing has been pretty hairy for them, but they know how to mobilize donors, rile up supporters and conduct a rapid-response strategy.”

But the White House’s latest PR campaign isn’t convincing small business owners.  The Columbus Dispatch pointed out in an editorial last Sunday that ObamaCare is bad for job-creators:

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Yesterday, the United Nations Security Council passed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran, in a move the President heralded as a “strong resolution” and “the most comprehensive sanctions that the Iranian government has faced.”   But the New York Times reported that “the measures did little to overcome widespread doubts that they - or even the additional steps pledged by American and European officials - would accomplish the Council’s longstanding goal: halting Iran’s production of nuclear fuel.”

The Wall Street Journal reported today that while the “international community” dithers, Iran inches closer and closer to becoming a nuclear power: “While previous resolutions appear to have slowed Iran’s nuclear pursuit, the country has moved its program forward, building new centrifuges and enriching uranium to a 20% level. Uranium must be enriched to above 90% to produce fuel for a nuclear weapon, which the West, as well as Russia and China, fear Tehran is pursing.”  In fact, Iran may already possess enough nuclear fuel for two weapons, according to a recent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

Moreover, despite the President’s crowing that the latest round of sanctions send “an unmistakable message about the international community’s commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons,” the “international community” is less unified today than it was 16 months ago.  As the Washington Post’s news analysis noted, “How could an administration that first tried reaching out to Iran and then spent months working with its allies end up with less international unity than when George W. Bush was president?“  The Post story continued:

The administration did have to pay a price to win Russian and Chinese cooperation.  U.S. sanctions were ended against Russian firms that had been linked to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, and China’s economic interests in Iran were walled off from the sanctions….Nevertheless, it took the administration 16 months to reach this point, during which time Iran added to its stockpile of enriched uranium and even began to enrich at higher levels.  In the meantime, Obama wrote two letters to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and tried hard to win Tehran’s agreement on a confidence-building measure….

None of that seemed to matter to the dissenters at the council.  Turkey and Brazil, in fact, took the administration’s confidence-building measure — a swap of nuclear material for an Iranian medical research reactor — and revived it last month over U.S. objections.  So in this case, one of the administration’s efforts at engagement may have backfired.

Moreover, the latest sanctions may even have the perverse effect of lulling the “international community” into a false sense of security, as the Jerusalem Post pointed out today:

Breaking and evading these sanctions ought to be a breeze for Ahmedinejad.  A full year after Iran’s deceptive elections, which spurred countrywide demonstrations, he may be less popular but his position is stable.  After the regime brutally quashed his opposition, it is very doubtful that stunted sanctions will destabilize his hold on power….Wednesday’s sanctions….are not the antidote to the Iranian nuclear threat that Israel had hoped for and that the free world so badly needs. In some ways, they may even exacerbate Israel’s predicament. They will lend the appearance of an international mobilization to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, but in actuality will achieve nothing - the worst of all worlds.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said yesterday:

Today’s action by the United Nations Security Council is long overdue but unfortunately doesn’t go far enough.  What’s most disappointing is that the President’s 16-month "engagement strategy’ on this issue has simply given the Iranians 16 more months to work on acquiring a nuclear capability, and this sanctions resolution does nothing to stop that.  At the request of the Administration, Congress has repeatedly delayed mandatory bilateral sanctions legislation.  Any justification for delay is now at an end, and the Congress must act immediately.

Iran possessing nuclear weapons is a thought too terrible to contemplate - yet it may be a reality unless the United States and our allies stand firm against the regime in Tehran, and that starts with Congress taking action on long-delayed bilateral sanctions legislation immediately.

Today, in a speech at the liberal Center for American Progress, President Obama’s Budget Director, Peter Orszag, made a laughable claim about the Democrats’ trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending program:

[W]hat has been most striking is that for an initiative this large, we have not seen any substantial incidences of fraud and abuse.  This, I believe, is to the credit of ‘Sheriff Joe’ - our Vice President - who has made it his mission to make sure that the Recovery Act is implemented swiftly and effectively.

Come again?  The “stimulus” has been chock-full of waste, fraud, and abuse, so much so that the Administration"s claims of jobs “saved or created” were so exaggerated that it quietly abandoned the metric at the end of last year.  In fact, a recent CBS/New York Times poll found that “just 6 percent of Americans think [the "stimulus’] has created jobs” while 48 out 50 states have lost jobs. With the unemployment rate at nearly 10 percent, any claim that the “stimulus” has been a success doesn’t pass the straight-face test.

The Office of Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) compiled a report on the one-year anniversary of the “stimulus,” which listed just a few of the many “stimulus”-funded projects that “Sheriff Joe” may want to look into:

• $400,000 to build a new runway for the Williamson Flying Club, a private social club for local pilots in upstate New York.
• ABC News reported that road signs advertising stimulus-funded road projects cost $500 a piece in Maryland and New Hampshire, $1,700 in Georgia, $2,000 in Pennsylvania and New York, and $3,000 per project in New Jersey. For the price of one $2,000 sign, 40 potholes could be repaired. New York was reported to be spending about $1 million on signs, and in most states, the signs are made before projects are started.
• $250 Social Security stimulus checks were sent to 1,700 inmates, for a total of $425,000.
• $128 million for a bridge in Martin County, Florida, to connect two towns that are already connected by another bridge three miles away.
• $219,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to Syracuse University to study ‘hookups’ among adolescents.
• $1 million was spent by a Portland, Oregon, transit agency to build 250 bike lockers.
• $840 to a Baltimore, Maryland company to take apart one desk, and assemble and ship two other desks.
• $500,000 to hire an ‘urban forester auditor’ and three apprentices who will ‘interface with residents and increase awareness about the importance of trees in the District,’ according to city records.
• $2.2 million to install skylights in a state-run liquor warehouse in Helena, Montana.
• $700,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to hire fishermen to recover lost crab pots.
• $350 million in stimulus funds was set aside to create ‘a national broadband map that could guide policies aimed at expanding high-speed Internet access.’ The $350 million price tag ’struck some people in the telecommunications industry as excessive, compared with existing, smaller efforts,’ and the map ‘won"t even be done in time to help decide where to spend much of the $7.2 billion in stimulus money earmarked for broadband programs.’

That’s not all.  The Administration has had trouble counting the number of jobs it claims have been “saved or created” - some of which were in non-existent congressional districts. 

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The May jobs report released by the U.S. Department of Labor this morning was disappointing enough based on the fact that about 95 percent of the new jobs created last month were government jobs, and only 41,000 private sector jobs were created.  But according to an analysis released this morning by economist Larry Lindsey, the news gets even worse for out-of-work Americans: as much as 20 percent of those 41,000 private sector jobs may be attributable not to renewed economic growth, but to the BP oil spill clean-up operation. 

According to Lindsey:

Employment in support activities for the mining industry was up 3 percent in the month, or 8,000 workers on top of a 5,000 job gain last month.  Given the otherwise flat performance of this sector prior to the start of the spill in April, it is safe to assume that much of these jobs are being created to clean up the mess [in the Gulf of Mexico].  So, it could be that as much as 20 percent of the net private sector job creation in May was due to the oil spill.  This is not the type of job creation that is the kind that makes one cheery about the long term prospects for the economy.

Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today reacted to Lindsey’s analysis:

The simple fact is, the policies of the Obama administration are hurting private sector job creation in America, not helping it.  For the president and vice-president to suggest that their massive "stimulus’ spending bill and job-killing government takeover of health care are helping our economy create jobs is disingenuous and misleading.  To help our economy create jobs, we need to repeal the job-crushing health spending law and take action now to rein in government spending.  But the Obama administration is heading in the opposite direction, digging in on implementation of ObamaCare while congressional Democrats punt on even passing a budget - the first time in modern history that such a failure of leadership has occurred.  Mr. President, where are the private sector jobs you promised our nation?

Follow @GOPLeader for Twitter updates

The May jobs report released by the U.S. Department of Labor this morning was disappointing enough based on the fact that about 95 percent of the new jobs created last month were government jobs, and only 41,000 private sector jobs were created.  But according to an analysis released this morning by economist Larry Lindsey, the news gets even worse for out-of-work Americans: as much as 20 percent of those 41,000 private sector jobs may be attributable not to renewed economic growth, but to the BP oil spill clean-up operation. 

According to Lindsey:

Employment in support activities for the mining industry was up 3 percent in the month, or 8,000 workers on top of a 5,000 job gain last month.  Given the otherwise flat performance of this sector prior to the start of the spill in April, it is safe to assume that much of these jobs are being created to clean up the mess [in the Gulf of Mexico].  So, it could be that as much as 20 percent of the net private sector job creation in May was due to the oil spill.  This is not the type of job creation that is the kind that makes one cheery about the long term prospects for the economy.

Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today reacted to Lindsey’s analysis:

The simple fact is, the policies of the Obama administration are hurting private sector job creation in America, not helping it.  For the president and vice-president to suggest that their massive "stimulus’ spending bill and job-killing government takeover of health care are helping our economy create jobs is disingenuous and misleading.  To help our economy create jobs, we need to repeal the job-crushing health spending law and take action now to rein in government spending.  But the Obama administration is heading in the opposite direction, digging in on implementation of ObamaCare while congressional Democrats punt on even passing a budget - the first time in modern history that such a failure of leadership has occurred.  Mr. President, where are the private sector jobs you promised our nation?