Hatch's Record: A FCINO "Demon Sheep" Responsible For The Debt Threat

Responsibility Placed For Our National Debt Threat

With the Federal Reserve now monetizing our $14T debt, it is clear we are on the morning of a major economic downtown with high probabilities of hyperinflation, a downgraded of our bond rating, and/or removal of the dollar as being the world's reserve currency. Any one of these three threats would cause a greater financial disaster than the current recession we have; all three are well on their way to becoming reality. This crisis was caused by individual members and leaders of both parties in Congress over decades of undisciplined spending and earmarks, and of recent note includes signatures on bills from both Presidents Bush and Obama.

Spending Cuts: The Only Solution to Our Debt Crisis

No longer is terrorism my foremost concern for the defense of our country: it is instead the defense of our economic system which can ONLY be resolved through massive spending reduction. Democrats might agree on principles that the debt is a threat, but more often than not their solution is to raise taxes. My counter is that the population is already overtaxed and historically governments have been overthrown for less taxation than we are already suffering. Additionally, both Republicans and Democrats have proved time after time that increased taxation is a "green light" for them to increase spending. This would only exacerbate the problem.

So we must cut. We have to cut everything if we are to have any chance late in this fourth quarter of avoiding looming economic disaster. Entitlements including Social Security and Medicare, defense spending, earmarks, and even petty things like Obama's staff and innumerable czars have to take net hits. Fresh-faced Republicans in the 112th Congress get it and have proposed $2.5T in cuts over 10 years. This is a superb start and so much better than the spending spree of the Democrats, yet hardly enough to balance the budget or avert financialgeddon. I support these cuts, but demand more--much more. We must balance the budget within four years like McCain promised during the 2008 debates (NY Times transcript).

While the House is on to the gig, the Senate is way behind. And the finger must be pointed at fiscal liberals who have helped create this disaster--and that includes our current Senator Orrin Hatch. I have already documented that Hatch has contributed to the problem through his prolific earmarking (see "Hatch Opposes His Own Earmarks", "Hatch Proposes UTOPIA Bailout", Dec 2010).

Hatch's FCINO Record

When Hatch was sworn into office in January 1977, our entire national debt was a mere $0.6T (publicdebt.treas.gov, Wikipedia)--less that the widely-unsuccessful spending aka "stimulus" bill passed in 2009 to defibrillate our economy. Currently the national debt stands over 20 times greater at $14T. By no means is Hatch singlehandedly responsible for this debt, yet the impression of many a Republican in Utah is that Hatch has tried to stem the inevitable tide of Democratic Big Government. If that were true, I'd argue that given 34 years, Hatch has been pretty ineffective in averting economic disaster and we should pass the reigns to another.

Instead of being the chief scissors-operator some GOP Utahns believe he his, Hatch has been hiding his spending ways to his constituency behind his FCINO Demon Sheep clothing (Campaign Ad, Carly Fiorina 2010). Take as evidence the Political Courage Test sponsored by the non-partisan, non-profit Project Vote Smart (PVS): Hatch refuses to participate to let us know where he stands.

"Senator Orrin G. Hatch repeatedly refused to provide any responses to citizens on issues through the 2006 National Political Awareness Test." (PVS, Issues Positions)

If Hatch were a fiscal conservative, then to a Utah electorate he should be unafraid to tout his fiscal conservancy and ideas for cutting the budget to reduce the deficit. Hatch's problem is that he's a fiscal liberal who won't find major areas of the budget to cut. This is evidenced by Hatch's response to the PVS "Presidential Election 2000 National Political Awareness Test" where he did reveal his fiscal preferences.

The 2000 PVS Test¹ questioned candidates on 13 areas of the budget asking them to identify on a five-point scale from "greatly decrease" to "greatly increase" where they stood with funding. Hatch's revealing answers to this test precluded a single area of the budget for cuts. (Orrin Hatch, 2000 PVS Test Responses) Indeed, coupled with areas of desired fiscal expansion, Hatch's responses would be indicative of an expansion of the budget, not a retraction. In further support of this claim, the PVS Test gave Hatch an opportunity to list "Other" areas of the budget he could elaborate on response and Hatch declined to do so, thus leaving the foregone conclusion that Hatch wanted to increase the budget, a tenant of fiscal liberalism.

The Balanced Budget Amendment: Hatch's Signature Sheep's Cloth

Hatch's signature sheep's cloth is his longstanding support for a Balanced Budget Amendment. While such is a commendable good start and one I support, as evidenced above Hatch has long ignored his own constitutional budget duties to walk the talk and pass responsible budgets within the current scope of the constitution. If the answer to Congressional spending relies uniquely upon a Balanced Budget Amendment as Hatch's record points to, I predict fiscal failure for our country before we get around to it. Hatch has been trying fairly unabatedly for the past three decades to get it through Congress--including a time when Republicans held majorities in both houses. Were even Congressional passage to occur, 3/4 of the states would still have to pass--a process historically taking years at best.

Hatch's support for the Amendment provides what he thinks is cover for his well-documented spending spree and fiscal liberalism. I believe Hatch's sheepskin is rapidly falling off revealing a FCINO to his Utah constituency rightfully panicked by an inescapable debt.

¹ As background, in 2000 our national debt stood at a breathtaking $5T: to any professed fiscal conservative this is a massive, multi-bell alarm to cut spending, a firestorm out of control.

Hatch Opposes His Own Earmarks in Omnibus Bill; Obama, Democrats, Bennett, Hatch All Fail Utah (Update)

Senate Democrats ruined last Christmas by passing Obamacare. This Christmas, they want to push the country into further oblivion by passing a last-minute, $1.1T, 1924-page (link to actual text), massive pork-barrel-laden Ominbus bill with 6600 earmarks, to make up for dereliction of duty in not passing a budget.¹ The bill if passed and signed by Obama (as widely expected if passed), would violate Obama's election promises to keep government transparent with C-SPAN coverage, fight wasteful spending, and not vote for earmarks.

Senate Democrats overwhelmingly support the spending. A few RINOs have voiced support including Bob Bennett who is on his last month as Utah's Senator and is ending his reign by showing his true, liberal Democratic colors: (The Hill.com, emphasis mine)

“That’s my intention,” said retiring Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) when asked
if he would support the package.

Bennett said earmarks in the bill might give some of his GOP colleagues reason to hesitate but wouldn’t affect his vote.

“It will be tough for some, but not for me,” he said.

After still not listening to Utah's desire for us to actually follow the Constitution and decimate the deficit, all I can say to Bennett that since I can do no more to get you any sooner out of office, may God hold you accountable for the country and the lives you are destroying.

Hatch meanwhile is doing the doublespeak. While is denouncing the Omnibus on Fox News² his own earmark requests have been stuffed into the bill. That's the problem, and he hasn't owned up to it either. As I reported in my last blog entry: Hatch Proposes UTOPIA Bailout Earmark for 2 Towns, Hatch proposed a $1M bailout earmark for helping with the UTOPIA buildout for Perry City and Tremonton in a $132B appropriations bill which had yet to be voted on: S. 3606.

The proposed $1.1T Omnibus takes S. 3606 and adopts it in full or modified form (so sorry, like anybody else in Congress I haven't had time to read it all) and combines it with the other pending appropriation bills Congress has failed to address. If you compare p. 55 of S. 3606 which authorizes the money to p. 63 of the Omnibus, they read exactly the same: both grant the continuation of the $18M in grant money (the grant money was separately earmarked on p. 76 of Senate report 111-221).

I've only had time to identify these two earmarks by Hatch in this bill. The real question--and I honestly don't know (probably no one does as of this moment)--is just how many earmarks of the hundreds Hatch has proposed for FY 2011 are in this awful Omnibus? And when will Hatch be honest to the people of Utah about his role in earmarking and contributions to the deficit?

Obama has failed. Democrats have been derelict--as well as proposing thousands of earmarks themselves--Bennett has converted to the Democratic Party, and Hatch is saying one thing and doing another. Utah: we've got a big problem on our hands. It's time to raise the alarm that Scrooge is about to steal another Christmas.

++++ Update 12/16 8am:

(h/t) Political Cornflakes Hatch has apparently stripped out his [other] earmark requests in the Omnibus due to his moratorium support (TPM). Still remains viable for Perry and Tremonton to get the money Hatch asked for.

More importantly Hatch's website has been scrubbed of his earmark requests. I half suspected this might happen so I downloaded copies before and am happy to repost the documents or email any interested parties. Naughty, naughty Hatch. Trying to cover up your wrongdoings before it gets out of the blogosphere into broadcast media.

At least Hatch is shrewd enough not to ignore lowly blogger Nacilbupera.

¹ Not to mention lame-duck Democrats attempt at passing a START treaty, a federal land grab, and a repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and others I am missing...

² While the denunciations are good, they're probably more aimed at kicking off his 2012 re-election bid than to seriously attack spending. Case in point: Hatch's vote today to extend unfunded unemployment benefits and pork spending for a weak 2-year deferment of tax increases.

Obama "Bears False Witness" Concerning Deficit

The ever master word-crafter, Obama had another "bad news" Friday leak today announcing that his projected 10-year deficit to be increased from $7T (trillion) to instead $9T (Politico) (Blog poster NeeNee has an astute elaboration on earlier bad news Fridays. See post #70: Hillbuzz.org)

What makes this especially deceptive is the fact that during Obama's press conference aimed at garnishing support for his socialistic universal healthcare just one month ago, Obama invoked the fact that he had saved the country $2T over the next 10 years:

"Then we had to pass a budget by law, and our budget had a 10-year projection. And I just want everybody to be clear about this. If we had done nothing, if you had the same, old budget as opposed to the changes we made in our budget, you'd have a $9.3 trillion deficit over the next 10 years. Because of the changes we've made, it's going to be $7.1 trillion.
Now, that's not good, but it's $2.2 trillion less than it would have been if we had the same policies in place when we came in.
So the reason I point this out is to say that the debt and the deficit are deep concerns of mine. I am very worried about federal spending. And the steps that we've taken so far have reduced federal spending over the next 10 years by $2.2 trillion."
(Source: Washington Post or Youtube video starting 31:09 through 32:12)

It seems incredulously inconvenient that now that America has awakened to the evils of HR3200 suddenly the projected savings have vanished. How can one trust one's health a leader so incompetent that the very arguments used to support passage of this monstrocity be vanquished in a mere month on a quiet Friday afternoon?

Indeed, Obama had the chutzpah this week to call religious leaders who opposed his plan guilty of "bearing false witness." Evidently, it is Obama who is "bearing false witness" to the American people in a massive misrepresentation of the severity of our federal deficit.