Emanuel Cleaver, Fiscal Hawk

A Missouri news site, The Source incredulously asks: Did you Hear that Emanuel Cleaver is Tough on Spending?

Neither did we, until we saw his somewhat unlikely sounding “SAVINGS SPOTLIGHT”. According to Cleaver:

“You asked for more efforts to reduce the deficit, crack down on wasteful government spending, and impose fiscal discipline. The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (enacted into law), according to the CBO, will cut the deficit by $19 billion over the next 10 years.”

Small talk, considering that the budget deficit for 2010 is $1.17 trillion – and that even if we could count all of those savings today, it would take more than 70 similar announcements to balance this year’s budget. To eliminate the national debt completely, we’d require thousands of “SAVINGS SPOTLIGHTS” from Emanuel Cleaver – and that’s assuming he could figure out a way to balance the budget, which he clearly hasn’t.

Here’s a clue – Stop spending so much. When Dems keep passing massive spending bills, measures like this don’t make much difference.

And Cleaver has voted for every one of the massive spending bills the Dems have put forward since Obama was elected, including the $862 billion (failed) Stimulus bill, the pork laden Omni spending bill, G.I.V.E Act, Cap and Tax, and disastrous and wildly unpopular ObamaCare, (which he doesn’t believe goes far enough). Plus he’s part of a majority party that neglected to pass a real budget, this year, instead opting to ‘Deem’ a Faux $1.1 Trillion Budget ‘as Passed’:

Key points from the House Republican Budget staff on the House Democrats’ deeming resolution:

This is not a budget. The measure fails to meet the most basic, commonly understood objectives of any budget. It does not set congressional priorities; it does not align overall spending, tax, deficit, and debt levels; and it does nothing to address the runaway spending of Federal entitlement programs.
–       It is not a ‘congressional budget resolution.’ The measure does not satisfy even the most basic criteria of a budget resolution as set forth in the Congressional Budget Act.
–       It creates a deception of spending ‘restraint.’ While claiming restraint in discretionary spending, the resolution increases non-emergency spending by $30 billion over 2010, and includes a number of gimmicks that give a green light to higher spending.
–       It continues relying on the flawed and over-sold pay-as-you-go [pay-go] procedure. Pay-go – which Democrats have used mainly to raise taxes, and have ignored when it was inconvenient – does nothing to reduce deficits or restrain spending growth in existing law.
–       Outsourcing fiscal responsibilities. The measure is another hand-off by the Democratic Majority of Congress’s power of the purse – this time relying on the Fiscal Commission created by the President to do Congress’s job.

Congressman Paul Ryan called the scheme “an admission of fiscal failure”:

What House Democratic leaders call a “budget enforcement resolution” is in fact just another “deeming” scheme – one that concedes they cannot meet their most fundamental governing responsibility: writing a congressional budget. They have created a masquerade that only advances their spend-as-you-go philosophy, accelerating the march toward a fiscal and economic crisis. They are doing so because a majority of rank-and-file Democrats cannot vote for a budget with trillion-dollar deficits. As even House Budget Committee Chairman Spratt has acknowledged: “You can say that that’s a lack of courage.”

In spite of all this, Congressman Emanual Cleaver (D-MO) is trying to pass himself off as some kind of fiscal hawk.

Here are some more of Cleaver’s SAVINGS SPOTLIGHTS as posted on his Facebook page:

•Emanuel Cleaver II SAVINGS SPOTLIGHT: You asked for more efforts to reduce the deficit, crack down on wasteful government spending, and impose fiscal discipline. I am proud to tell you I supported the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act (signed into law July 22, 2010) which cracks down on improper federal payments and will help reduce wasteful, improper payments by $50 billion between now and 2012.

Basically, this bipartisan legislation stops paying dead people Medicare, and other federal benefits, which is a good thing, although a suspicious Michelle Malkin called it a “gimmick”:

…if he were so interested in rooting out fraud and saving taxpayers money, why the hell did he wait more than a year to issue his presidential directive?

And given how Team Obama has waged war on independent watchdogs, how long before these anti-fraud efforts get sabotaged or muzzled by this administration?

•Emanuel Cleaver II SAVINGS SPOTLIGHT: You asked for more efforts to reduce the deficit, crack down on wasteful government spending, and impose fiscal discipline. I am proud to tell you I supported the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act (now law), which saves taxpayers money by cracking down on Pentagon waste and cost overruns, which the GAO says amount to $296 billion just for the 96 largest weapons systems.

Unfortunately, within months of the onerous bill’s passing, a backlash was already being felt. NDIA reported:

One particular source of unhappiness is the creation under WSARA of a director of cost assessment and program evaluation. The DCAPE is expected to provide independent cost assessments of major weapons systems to the secretary of defense. But several insiders who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity question the usefulness of this new bureaucracy and predict it will create unnecessary complexity. They argue that independent cost estimates already were being handled by the program evaluation and analysis directorate (PA&E) and the CAIG, or cost assessment improvement group. The new office creates a chain of command that operates in parallel to the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, so there is much confusion at the Pentagon as to how programs are supposed to be certified and approved under the new regime, said one acquisition official.

“They are making it harder to deliver systems,” he said. “At the Pentagon, they’re having trouble figuring out how to implement the new law.” A combination of confusion and fear of making mistakes is fueling paranoia and creating an environment where programs will see costs rise and schedules delayed, the manager said.

•Emanuel Cleaver II SAVINGS SPOTLIGHT: Since 2009, I have voted time and time again for measures that reduce the deficit, crack down on wasteful government spending, and impose fiscal discipline. For example, I was proud to support a new House rule to require periodic hearings on waste, fraud and abuse by House committees to ensure that tax dollars are spent wisely.

Please. With Dems controlling Congress, that’s like putting the fox in charge of guarding the hen house.

•Emanuel Cleaver II SAVINGS SPOTLIGHT: Since 2009, I have voted time and time again for measures that reduce the deficit, crack down on wasteful government spending, and impose fiscal discipline. For example, I was proud to support the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act (now law), which reinstituted a requirement to offset new policies that increase mandatory spending or reduce revenues, giving it the force of law.

ShamWow! The ink was barely dry on the PayGo bill, passed, last Feb, when Dems began bypassing it to pass parts of their agenda. They’ve repeatedly bypassed PayGo, or used it as an excuse to raise taxes.

According to The Committee For A Responsible Federal Budget:

…the PAYGO law passed by Congress earlier this year contains several major exemptions totaling upwards of $2 trillion, including for the Medicare “doc fix” and extensions of the 2001/2003 tax cuts for the middle class.

“The new statutory version of PAYGO has loopholes so absurdly large, you could drive a tanker through them. The rules in the House and Senate are far more responsible and consistent with previous iterations of pay-as-you-go budgeting. Instead of trying to bypass the basic principle that we need to pay for what we spend and the sensible PAYGO rules, lawmakers should be figuring out how to comply with them.”

Cleaver is taking credit for “savings” while not consistently complying with the savings measures passed in the bill.

It’s time to retire this tax and spend, liberal Democrat. There is a true fiscal conservative running against Cleaver – His name is Jacob Turk, and citizens of MO-5, who are concerned about the massive debt the Dems have been accruing for the past year and a half, would be wise to give him their vote.

Here’s Turk after sailing to victory in the August 3rd primary election in MO-5. He gave a heart-felt victory speech to a roomful of enthusiastic supporters.