PAYGO goes away?

An article in yesterday's WSJ proclaims the end of the line for the Democratic attempt to implement PAYGO regulations. In theory, Pay As You Go is a great way to control spending. In budgeting, the term PAYGO refers to the requirement that newly proposed expenditures (spending) or tax cuts must be accompanied by commensurate increases in revenue(taxes) or a reduction elsewhere in the budget.

The system was reestablished as a budget rule on January 4th 2007 by the 110th Congress. Remember this: "Democrats are committed to ending years of irresponsible budget policies that have produced historic deficits. Instead of compiling trillions of dollars of debt onto our children and grandchildren, we will restore pay-as-you-go budget discipline."--Speaker Nancy Pelosi, December 12, 2006.

Fast forward to last Thursday night (88-5).WSJ: "Senate Democrats gave up on "paygo," as it's called, when they realized they lacked the votes to offset the $50.6 billion cost of protecting more than 20 million middle-class taxpayers from getting whacked by the Alternative Minimum Tax this year. They've spent the year floating all kinds of tax increases to make up the difference. But in the end they passed an AMT relief bill without a penny to pay for it. Paygo is now pay gone."

According to The Heritage Foundation, .." entitlement pro­grams that are scheduled to increase by 42 percent (after inflation) over the next decade, Congress has passed legislation adding an addi­tional $179 billion. (See Table 1.) These bills would expand govern­ment, weaken the private sector, and raise the cost of government to the taxpayers. Each embodies bad policy even without any budget gimmicks. The main legislative vehicles are the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), college student financial aid, terrorism risk insur­ance, and farm subsidies."

New blogs covering Birmingham

I recently discovered two blogs covering the Birmingham area. The Terminal- Birmingham is a clearing house for local news, events, and the opinions of Andre` Natta. I particularly like the Real-Time traffic monitor on the home page. The major news pieces are links to MyFoxAL.com but the best part is the intimate knowledge (and pictures) of events and locales in town. The worst part is the unabashed support of Larry Langford's policies.

BirminghamDome.com is a blog in support of bringing a dome stadium to the Magic City. I question the timing and appearance as this blog seems to have been started on December 1, 2007. I believe the two are operated by the same person. According to this blog, a dome stadium will cure all that ails the city of Birmingham. If Birmingham builds a dome stadium then magically the schools will be better, crime and blight will disappear, and businesses will flourish again. I expect BirminghamDome to offer some neutral alternatives or specific policies about the Dome rather than the generalities in which this proposal was sold to the public.

I am also pleased to read a post on Mayor Langford by Punditry by the Pint. For a while I thought I was the only dissenting voice to the Dome proposal. I felt like Will Ferrell's character(Mugatu) in Zoolander when he said [about Zoolander's look], "Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!