JohnEnsign: http://twitpic.com/17snpd - I'm honored stand up for these brave warriors on the mend Yesterday
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JohnEnsign: So proud of young people like him who sacrifice so much for our freedom. Yesterday
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JohnEnsign: Just visited a brave young Marine from NV who was injured in Afghanistan by IED. Even with major wounds his goal is to get back to his unit Yesterday
Senator Ensign met with community leaders, Chamber of Commerce members and business owners at a breakfast in Carson City where he discussed the economy yesterday. More from the Nevada Appeal.
Sen. John Ensign decried the huge projected deficits in the budget bill working its way through the U.S. Congress before a breakfast crowd at the Carson Nugget Wednesday morning.
"If you look at the budget bill as it stands, and take all of the debt built up from George Washington through George W. Bush, we will double that debt in the next five years, and triple it in the next 10 years," said Nevada's GOP senator. "It is unsustainable."
Addressing business leaders at the Northern Nevada Development Authority breakfast, Ensign said that to handle this kind of debt, the highest marginal tax rate would have to be raised to 88 percent.
"What we are witnessing is a Europeanization of America, taking over private industry, trying to tell how much we are going to pay CEOs, the bailouts, too much involvement in the marketplace," he said.
Ensign said the auto company bailout was one of the worst things President Bush did while he was in office last year.
"I believe in saving the auto companies, if they were savable, and that meant that they needed to go into Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy," he said.
Ensign talked about his alternative budget proposal that focused on the housing market.
"Housing is what brought the economy down," Ensign said. "We all understand that. It would make sense to me that if that's what brought the economy down, then you should fix housing first."
Ensign also called for lowering corporate tax rates, citing the success of Ireland as an example, though that country is now struggling with its worst economic downturn on record, according to its government.
Thank you for coming out today to make your voice heard. Throughout our history, it has been the fury of the citizens that has fueled great change and quieted poor policies.
Increased taxes, big government, and obscene spending are policies that should be dead on arrival. I support your efforts today and will continue to fight excessive taxing and spending in Washington, D.C. You are proof that the people of this great country are still in charge. Your message will be heard by elected officials in Washington, and I will make sure that it is not forgotten.
President Obama's cap-and-trade plan is really a national sales tax on energy with the stated purpose of driving up energy costs by thousands of dollars.
President Barack Obama has been shockingly upfront about his heavy-handed plans to govern energy production across the country from Washington, D.C. His plan is known as cap-and-trade, but it amounts to a new national energy tax that will be detrimental to consumers' pocketbooks at the worst possible time.
President Obama noted that "under my cap-and-trade plan, electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket" and his Budget Director, Peter Orszag, testified before Congress that under this program "firms would not ultimately bear most of the costs of the allowances but instead would pass them along to their customers in the form of higher prices ... price increases would be essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program."
So we know the president's plan would raise significant revenues -- otherwise known as taxes -- paid by consumers. The question is: What will this cost the consumer?
An MIT study looked at a cap-and-trade scheme that closely tracked the president's proposal and projected revenue of $366 billion in a single year. To calculate the impact on families, we divided the revenue by the number of U.S. households to get a new tax burden of about $3,000 per family. That is a straightforward way to evaluate the tax burden per family.
Recently an employee of MIT accused Republicans of overestimating the per- household figure. The number we calculated, however, was lower than the one published in MIT's own study. Using an alternative household number, MIT estimated that $366 billion in revenue would equate to an astonishing $4,560 per family of four.
The MIT study assumed all revenues raised would be rebated back to consumers (and even after a 100 percent rebate, according to a letter they sent to Congress, they apparently conclude that energy costs would still increase by $340 a year).
It is unlikely, however, that consumers will see significant rebates from Uncle Sam because history has shown us that Washington will find ways, too often wasteful, duplicative and inefficient ways, to spend your money.
The Weekly Standard takes a look at the spiraling spending in President Obama's budget, and it concludes -- Obama's Budget Makes A Bad Situation Worse:
Well, it's about time. The Beltway is waking up to the realities of President Obama's budget plan, which taxes, spends, and borrows as far as the eye can see. The president's vast new commitments in the areas of health care, energy, and education have already spooked small-government Republicans and the foreign investors who help finance America's public debt. Now even some Democrats are beginning to realize that the president's fiscal policies are unsustainable in the long -- and maybe medium -- run. What took them so long?
The realities of the modern global economy require government to play a substantial role in ensuring the national and economic security of the people. Americans aren't going to dismantle the welfare state. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are -- like the Pentagon -- here to stay. The task, then, is to ensure that those programs are sensibly structured and financed, and compatible with robust economic growth. And on this score, Obama's budget is a big, fat failure.
It's true, as he so often reminds us, that Obama inherited a public debt that had doubled to 40 percent of GDP from 20 percent, and an economy in the midst of a deep recession. But Obama proposes to take a bad situation and make it much worse.
Senator Ensign appeared on CNBC last Wednesday to discuss the fiscal impact of President Obama's budget:
"We're mortgaging our children's future ... we should be a generation that says we want the next generation to have it better than we have it. And, you're not going to do that by piling this huge debt burden on them -- which means they're going to have pay a lot higher tax rates into the future."
Senators Ensign and Thune participated in a blogger conference call to discuss President Obama's 2010 budget and fiscal responsibility. Here's a roundup of blog posts from the call.
President Obama released his budget proposal for the 2010 budget (which starts 10/1/09) today.
As I have said many times in the past it is critical that we work together to solve this nation's economic woes, and President Obama has indicated he wants to do this through an 'honest' budget. But we need to remember that we don't just need an honest budget, we also need an effective one.
With this budget, Democrats have laid out their priorities for spending taxpayer dollars, and their priorities are clear: grow the size of government until it is entwined into every aspect of our lives. The era of big government is back.
This budget proposes over one trillion dollars in new taxes. Don't let the rhetoric fool you -- it is not just the rich who will be responsible for paying for this colossal spending bill -- every single American will feel the effect of this budget. If you use electricity you will be taxed to pay for this bill. It's as simple as that.
Let's get to work to craft a budget that protects taxpayers' dollars while creating jobs at the same time.
Senator Ensign wants to know your thoughts on President Barack Obama's speech before a joint session of Congress and Governor Bobby Jindal's Republican response.
Tune in to your network of choice at 9 pm tonight for the President's speech. Governor Jindal's response will immediately follow the speech.
