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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (34268)	7/11/2008 10:42:02 AM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224744

The Republican controlled Congress submitted the budget to Clinton and he had no other choice than to sign it. The Repubs had eliminated large chunks of debilitating welfare from the budget.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (34268)	7/11/2008 11:39:56 AM
From: DizzyG	Respond to of 224744

Environmental Group Sues to Block Oil Refinery Expansion Thursday, July 10, 2008 By Susan Jones, Senior Editor Environmental Group Sues to Block Oil Refinery Expansion (CNSNews.com) - An environmental group on Wednesday filed a lawsuit intended to stop the expansion of a BP oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana. A shortage of oil refining capacity is often mentioned as one reason for soaring gasoline prices. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is challenging air permits granted to the refinery by the State of Indiana. It’s part of the “ongoing fight against excessive pollution in northwest Indiana and Chicago,” the NRDC said in a news release. The permits granted to BP by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management “simply do not protect the public and do not live up to the law,” said NRDC attorney Ann Alexander. “The failure of Indiana and BP to take the public interest and the law seriously has forced the issue and required that this case be brought before the federal courts.” The lawsuit argues that BP and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management have not properly accounted for increases in pollution that will result from the refinery expansion. NRDC said the increased pollution requires the BP refinery to implement more effective pollution controls -- by operating under a more stringent “major source” permit. Just this week, G8 leaders meeting in Japan called for an increase in oil production and refining capacity to help curb soaring gasoline prices. According to NRDC, the expansion of the BP refinery in Whiting will add three new flares (torch-like structures used to burn gases and release pressure), but BP’s pollution analysis assumed that these new flares would never even be used. “Flares are enormous sources of pollution. It’s not an option for BP and IDEM to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that the problem does not exist -- the problem endangers the public and the law requires it be addressed,” Alexander said. NRDC notes that it recently raised similar objections in a challenge that sent ConocoPhillips’ air permits for the Wood River Refinery in Roxana, Ill., back to the drawing board. BP says its air permit application meets or exceeds state and federal pollution regulations. It will result in an overall reduction in air emissions “at the same time that we are processing a heavier grade of oil and producing more motor fuel," said Whiting Refinery Manager Dan Sajkowski. "Our goal is to protect the environment and bring another 620 million gallons of gasoline to the US Midwest every year that's processed from a secure source of North American oil," he said in a November 2007 news release. BP says its Whiting refinery modernization project is a “significant investment” that will allow the facility to process much more Canadian heavy crude -- and increase motor fuel production. The investment has the potential to increase gasoline and diesel output by about 1.7 million gallons a day (620 million gallons a year), BP said on its Web site. In addition, the project will create an estimated 2,000 construction jobs and 80 permanent jobs. NRDC is challenging BP’s construction permits in the Hammond Division of the Northern District of Indiana federal court. cnsnews.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (34268)	7/11/2008 11:49:28 AM
From: DizzyG	Respond to of 224744

Who Balanced the Budget? by Stephen Moore President Clinton has repeatedly expressed anger and frustration that he has not gotten enough credit for the dramatic reduction in the budget deficit in recent years. With federal red ink now projected to fall below $40 billion this fiscal year, White House spinmeisters are claiming that the disappearing deficit vindicates Clinton's embattled 1993 record tax hikes. Meanwhile, on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, Budget Committee chairman John Kasich is crowing that it has been the GOP commitment to a balanced budget that has slowed the red ink in Washington to a trickle. Since fiscal year 1995, when Republicans seized control of Congress, the budget deficit has fallen by two-thirds. Stephen Moore is director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute. So just who deserves the credit for the nation's improved fiscal health, President Clinton or the Republican Congress? The surprising answer: neither of them. The 1993 tax increases did reduce the budget deficit, but not by nearly as much as the White House claims. The best evidence of that is found in the Congressional Budget Office baseline deficit forecast released just before the Republican Congress enacted its first budget blueprint in April 1995. That forecast gives us a snapshot of the "Clintonomics baseline." The accompanying chart shows that the deficit was expected to hover at or above $200 billion well into the next millennium. The cumulative budget deficit from 1996 through 1998 is now expected to be $415 billion below the Clintonomics baseline. Mysteriously, that information appears nowhere in White House press releases. The figure suggests that at least some of the improvement since April 1995 derives from the modestly tighter fiscal restraints imposed by the GOP Congress. But the truth is that domestic spending is now growing at only a slightly slower pace under Republican rule of Capitol Hill than it did when the Democrats ran Congress. The president who deserves the most credit for the fast-approaching balanced budget we are now witnessing is not Bill Clinton. And the Republican who deserves the most credit is not Newt Gingrich. The galloping economy has played a major role in reducing the deficit by sweeping record levels of tax revenue into the treasury over the past two years. This year, federal revenues are running about $110 billion above those of 1996. Here again Republicans can deservedly claim partial credit -- but mainly for what they have not done, rather than what they have done. They have not crippled the economy with costly new mandates or regulations (although the forthcoming EPA clean air mandates may be a severe body blow). They have not enacted expensive entitlement expansions (with the glaring exception of this year's child health care programs). They have not raised taxes. The animal spirits guiding this economic expansion appear contented enough with a Congress that is at a bare minimum committed to doing no harm. The historical irony is that the person most responsible for deficit reduction gets very little attention in the national media. The president who deserves the most credit for the fast-approaching balanced budget we are now witnessing is not Bill Clinton. And the Republican who deserves the most credit is not Newt Gingrich. Rather, the politician whose long-run policies are most responsible for leading us to a potential balanced budget next year is Ronald Reagan. Yes, Reagan, the man vilified by Clinton for "tripling the national debt in the 1980s." Reagan's legacy affects us dramatically today in two ways. First, Reagan's anti-Communist foreign policy and his military buildup hastened the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In the past eight years, America's victory in the Cold War generated a half-trillion-dollar peace dividend. That peace dividend grows every year, and it fell like manna from heaven into President Clinton's lap. The budget deficit is falling, not primarily because Clinton raised taxes and not primarily because the congressional Republicans committed themselves to a balanced budget, but because the defense budget is nearly $100 billion lower today than when the Berlin Wall came down. The second effect of the Reagan years was to launch America into what is now widely regarded as a remarkable 15-year low-inflation, high-employment bull market (the Dow was at 800 in 1982, 8,000 today)--interrupted only mildly in the middle Bush years. These 15 years of prosperity were propelled by Reaganomics: lower tax rates, a long-run decline in inflation and interest rates (which also lowers tax rates), freer international trade and a strong dollar. Even with the anti-supply-side Bush and Clinton tax hikes, the top tax rate today of 40% is far below the towering 70% tax rate that disabled the economy in the 1970s. The end of the Cold War has created an international environment of peace and stability, nudging the economy into still higher gear in recent years. Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich can compete for the Washington spotlight over the good news of dramatic deficit reduction. Their policies have not contributed much to this riveting high-technology age of economic expansion and corresponding fiscal improvement—but, by the same token, their policies haven't impeded it either. Meanwhile, the politician whose policies are most responsible for cultivating this era of growth lives 3,000 miles beyond the Washington Beltway. cato.org