RSC Proposes "REBOUND"

Sure it's a political play, but this actually makes a good deal of sense. Full text of the bill here. What are the chances it can pass? None. The Republican Study Group has crafted a propsosal they are calling REBOUND, short for Reduce Obama's Unsustainable Deficit. Read the bullet pointed provisions. That's over a half trillion dollars in savings, I believe. That was considered real money once.

It's now been six months since President Obama moved into the White House and in that short time, all his economic policies have fallen flat on their face. The unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 9.5%, and the stimulus package has been defined by delays, fraud, and poor management. Americans are becoming increasingly fearful about the path the country is going - the spending, the borrowing, the government intervention.

In an effort to save the country from economic and fiscal disaster, Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA), along with RSC Budget and Spending Taskforce Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and RSC Financial Services Working Group Chairman Scott Garrett (R-NJ), have introduced H.R. 3140, Reducing Barack Obama's Unsustainable Deficit Act (REBOUND).  This RSC legislation makes a much needed turn in the direction of fiscal responsibility, including:

Repeals the spending portion of the President’s “stimulus” package - saving taxpayers $460 billion;

Leaves intact the package’s tax relief and unemployment benefits;

Prohibits the Treasury Secretary from obligating any further TARP funds - saving taxpayers $150 billion; and

Requires all repayments of TARP money to go exclusively to debt reduction - no open-ended slush fund.

Comments

[Anon]

Good messaging. Easy to understand. The general public will be able to understand it.

Every Republican should be on TV supporting this.

There may be life in the grand old party afterall.

[IslamoLlama]

You want to bring the stimulus and the TARP up for a revote? Very cute.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753780/-Obama-calls-Kyls-bluff-on-stimulus,-McCain-freaks-out

"-- WASHINGTON - Top Obama administration officials asked Gov. Jan Brewer on Monday whether the state wants to forfeit ongoing federal economic stimulus money after Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., suggested that the program should be nixed.

Agency heads ranging from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to housing Secretary Shaun Donovan sent letters to Brewer, pressing her to declare whether she supports the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or sides with Kyl and is willing to give up some of the money.
--"

"--
The governor is hopeful that these federal Cabinet officials are not threatening to deny Arizona citizens the portion of federal stimulus funds to which they are entitled," Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said. "She believes that would be a tremendous mistake by the administration."
--"

You're going to send the saner contingent of GOP Governors into apoplectic shock if this gets anywhere near passage. Nothing like a little political grandstanding to win back those voters.

[Anon]

Thugs.

[O!]

I agree with IslamoLlama. The people in the RSC who try to stand up to the fraud and waste Obama is perpetrating are risking the same kind of illegal, thuggish threats of retaliation that Arizona's getting.

"If you complain that we're wasting too much of your money, well, we'll just keep taking your money but we won't even PRETEND to be spending it on anybody but our cronies" is the way dictators run corrupt third-world shitholes -- not the way America ought to be. Good on IslamoLlama for standing up and calling out this fascism for what it is.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- The people in the RSC who try to stand up to the fraud and waste Obama is perpetrating are risking the same kind of illegal, thuggish threats of retaliation that Arizona's getting. --"

What threats? Kyl says, "We don't want the stimulus!" Obama asks the Governor, "Do you want to keep the stimulus?" The Governor, and senior Senator, fire back DEMANDING the stimulus. Is the stimulus good or bad? Will it benefit or hinder the state? Do you want it or don't you?

Was the REBOUND legislation designed to repeal all stimulus monies except for those going to Arizona?

[Anon]

It is pure intimidation, or maybe you forgot that the Obama Adminstration already intimidated and threated several governors into taking parts of the stimulus [the extending of unemployment benefits to whole new classes of people] that they didn't want due to future commitments...but were told 'all or nothing'...

And, maybe I've forgotten my civics but the governor and the senator have two different sets of responsibilities....there is nothing wrong with the senator trying to repeal the stimulus and the governor taking the stimulus money that was forced on the state at the same time.

[O!]

IslamoLlama, now you're being dishonest in claiming there were no threats.

The "stimulus" is bad -- the soaring unemployment rate makes that obvious. But the government has already forced everyone in America to be responsible for the cost of the "stimulus". For Obama and his thugocracy to now try to restrict the spoils of that forced confiscation only to political allies is definitely in third world shithole dictator territory.

A fair, honest, non-corrupt, non-threatening response would have been for the federal government to tell Arizona, "You think you can do better than the stimulus? HERE IS ARIZONA'S SHARE OF THE COST WHICH YOUR STATE CAN NOW SPEND IN ANY WAY IT CHOOSES, but your state is no longer entitled to receive any funds from the stimulus bill."

[Roger Knight]

Why is it that so many elected officials believe that it is imperative to spend as much taxpayers' money as possible? State governments will sell their sovereignty for federal funds. Can't do without a dime of any such money offered.

Then when a citizen abused by whatever program the state passed to qualify for such federal funds brings a 42 USC 1983 action in the federal courts for redress of violated constitutional rights, the state brings a summary judgment motion to dismiss the case WITHOUT DECISION ON THE MERITS, asserting its "state sovereignty". The very sovereignty it SOLD for those federal funds.

Too many federal judges are like Sotomayor who will look for the tiniest excuse to avoid granting relief to a citizen asserting constitutional rights and will give him the same consideration that Sotomayor gave the Connecticut firefighters. Often with the added bonus of sanctions for bringing a "frivolous" claim to the federal courts, even if other decisions can cited where similar claims were actually found meritorious!