Three-year freeze

By GottaLaff

Via an e-mail alert from Politico:

President Barack Obama plans to announce a three-year freeze on discretionary, “non-security” spending in the lead-up to Wednesday's State of the Union address, Hill Democratic sources familiar with the plan tell POLITICO.

For more information...http://www.politico.com

Video- President Obama's remarks on government efficiency

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Poll: Cut Congress and White House Salaries to Slash Federal Debt

Really not that surprising of a poll, I'm just putting it up because I think it's interesting how few respondents said to delay new initiatives.

Americans are deeply concerned about government spending and growth. Which of the following is the best way to address those worries?

Cut salaries for Congress and top White House officials	51%
Fund the growth with new taxes on wealthy families	17%
Return government spending to pre-stimulus levels	15%
Delay new initiatives like energy and healthcare reform	14%
Halt all new federal hiring	3%

Death and Taxes

Pretty damn cool. h/t The Full Ginsburg.

"Death and Taxes" is a large representational graph and poster of the federal budget. It contains over 500 programs and departments and almost every program that receives over 200 million dollars annually. The data is straight from the president's 2010 budget request and will be debated, amended, and approved by Congress to begin the fiscal year. All of the item circles are proportional in size to their spending totals and the percentage change from 2009 is included to spot trends and disproportion.

Impeachment's hottt again... if it's Obama

By GottaLaff

Impeach Bush? Never! Who cares about torture, lies, illegal wiretaps, fraudulent wars, etc.? No, no, pish-posh, what were we thinking? During the Bush presidency, impeachment was so Clinton ago. Well, guess what? It's 2009, Obama is in the White House, and impeachment is hotttter than evah!

After accepting illegal and unethical behavior for years from President Bush, the right wing has finally come around to advocating for the impeachment of a President. On Sat. March 21, more than 4,000 people gathered in Orlando for a “tea party” protest to denounce what they called “wasteful Washington spending.” The Orlando Sentinel quoted one attendee saying, “They need to shove that bum out,” referring to Obama. The signs that were distributed said “Obama Bin Lyin’ IMPEACH NOW”.

Holy cow! President Obama is trying to get us out of a depression via a bold stimulus package! Shove the bum out!

Dick Cheney, on the other hand, ran secret "executive assassination rings"... and that's A-OK with the tea-partiers.

Nothing wrong with that logic, right?

H/t: BuzzFlash

Quote-O'-The-Day-- Newt: Obama = Bush = Obama

By GottaLaff

If only I'd realized that Prez O and Bush were clones of each other, I would have voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004*:

"The great irony of where we are today is that we had a Bush-Obama big-spending program that was bipartisan in its nature. We got big spending under Bush, now we've got big spending under Obama."

-- Newt Gingrich, quoted by the New York Times.

*Kidding. I'm kidding. Come on.

VIDEO-- Barney Frank: Iraq was the biggest spending program ever

By GottaLaff

Thank you Barney Frank. Thank you Think Progress:


From ABC's This Week

Sam Stein adds, "The argument Frank makes is that in the context of chiding government spending, self-purported fiscal conservatives should not be entitled to selective memory."

And thank you, Sam Stein.