Patriot Update - A Free Press for the Conservative Revolution

Politics:

Obama Predicts Tax Bill Passage, Senate Presses Ahead

President Obama is predicting congressional approval of the tax-cutting compromise he has reached with Republican leaders, but he's not ruling out that unhappy congressional Democrats will make some changes in the mammoth legislation. In an interview with NPR released Friday, Obama said that despite a rebellion by many Democrats against his tax deal, it will pass because "nobody -- Democrat or Republican -- wants to see people's paychecks smaller on Jan. 1 because Congress didn't act." The pact would extend cuts in income tax rates for all earners that would otherwise expire next month, renew long-term jobless benefits and trim Social Security taxes for one year.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/10/obama-predicts-ta...

Politics:

You won't believe what you paid for GM bailout

President Obama will have lost many billions of dollars – the estimates include figures in the range of $30 billion in cash – of taxpayer funds by the time the bailout of General Motors is sorted out, paid up and put on a balance sheet, according to experts who have analyzed the unprecedented takeover of an American company by a president. It was former GM CEO Charles "Engine Charlie" Wilson during his 1953 confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense for the Eisenhower administration who was asked how he would handle conflicts of interests in the department's dealings with GM, and he said, "For years I thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa."

Source: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=237885

Politics:

Tax Tuition as Income to the Kid!

How much is the government losing on the tuition tax credit? That's adding to the deficit. How much is the government losing, how much revenue? They talk about how much the government's losing by keeping tax rates the same. How much is the government losing by paying people to go to college? If you take away the tuition tax credit, if there's no tuition tax credit for people going to college, look how much more money the government's gonna have. Why should the federal government suffer so people can send their kids to Harvard? Why? I mean if we're talking about saving money, if we're talking about costing the government money, let's look at why do we want the home mortgage interest deductions? Look at all that's cost the government. Why don't we eliminate that? If we're worried about how much it's gonna cost the government, why does anybody have anything? 'Cause look what that costs the government.

Source: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120910/content/0...

Politics:

Baseline Budgeting and the "Cost" of These Non-Existent "Tax Cuts"

You spent money you would have otherwise never spent because you don't need the potatoes. You only bought 'em 'cause they're on sale. So you're actually out the money, and you're telling yourself you saved a bunch. This is how our government baseline budgeting works. They have a budget that automatically triggers every item going up eight to 10% every year, and if it only goes up five, they claim that their budget's been cut, even though they had a 5% increase. You have just spent money that you weren't going to spend, but because there was a sale, you've told yourself you saved money. These guys are telling themselves this. They've been planning on a tax increase, therefore more money, but there never was a tax increase. It never became law. But now there definitely isn't gonna be one, they claim the deficit's gonna be hurt because they're not gonna get what they never were gonna get.

Source: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120910/content/0...

Politics:

Regime Flip-Flops on Double-Dip

Now, here's this AP story: "White House Warns Tax Defeat Could Trigger New Recession -- ... Larry Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser, told reporters that if the overall tax package isn’t passed soon, it will 'materially increase the risk the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip' recession. That put the White House in the unusual position of warning its own party’s lawmakers they could be to blame for calamitous consequences if they go against the president. ... Summers’ remarks contrasted with Obama’s comments at a news conference Tuesday." Obama said, "We don’t have the danger of a double-dip recession." So Obama Tuesday, "There's no worry here of a double-dip recession." Summers, the next day, "If we don't pass this thing soon, we risk a double-dip recession."

Source: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120910/content/0...

Politics:

Obama Sets Himself Up to Win No Matter What Happens to Economy

Obama's out there saying that if we don't pass the extension of the Bush tax rates we face the possibility of a double-dip recession. Now, first, in order to have a second recession you have to get out of your first recession which we're not out of the first recession. So having a double-dip is still a matter of events. But, folks, there is something going on here. Obama has not had a come-to-Jesus meeting or event here. He has not changed who he is. There's something else going on. Now all of a sudden this enthusiasm to extend the Bush tax cuts. And I think I've got this figured out. The key here is that there is nothing stimulative about them, and yet Obama is portraying them as stimulative. Why? 'Cause he knows it's gonna fail to stimulate. This is not a tax cut. And even if it were, two years is not enough for a tax cut to really indicate economic growth. It took four years for Reagan's to kick in, three to four years.

Source: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120910/content/0...

Politics:

Sound Bites: Democrats in Turmoil

We continue to listen to disgruntled Democrats and others in the administration try to 'splain themselves. Back now to Ichabod Crane, this is Austan Goolsbee this morning on Fox News Channel, American Newsroom, talking to Bill Hemmer, and Hemmer said, "Do you agree with Larry Summers that we would be headed for a double-dip recession if these tax cuts were not extended?"

Source: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120910/content/0...

Politics:

Meacham: George H.W. Bush Gets Credit for the '90s Economy

Jon Meacham, the guy who left Newsweek and he's now an op-ed contributor of the New York Times. Who woulda thought that possible? Anyway, he's got a piece here: "No Deficit of Courage." Now, this piece is amazing. This is very interesting. Stick with me on this. "IS it, in fact, 1994-95 all over again? The atmospherics are certainly familiar. We have a Democratic president who appears to be tacking to the center to work with Republicans after being battered in the midterms. Jilted liberals, meanwhile, are left wondering how they could have been so blind about the man they had fallen for so hard. The Clinton comparison has been much in the air after President Obama’s deal to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts. But a more apt analogy for the present lies in 1990, not in 1994, and with George Herbert Walker Bush, not with William Jefferson Clinton.

Source: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120910/content/0...

Politics:

Just One Puff Can Kill You?

This is from the AP: "Think the occasional cigarette won't hurt? Even a bit of social smoking -- or inhaling someone else's secondhand smoke -- could be enough to block your arteries and trigger a heart attack, says the newest surgeon general's report on the killer the nation just can't kick." May I ask again: Why is tobacco legal? This story says one cigarette can kill you. Honest! It's right here. Surgeon General: One cigarette can kill you. These are the same people that control our health care, they want to determine which procedures we can and can't receive. "Lung cancer is what people usually fear from smoking, and yes, that can take years to strike.

Source: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120910/content/0...