Facing Up to the Nations Finances is back with a new Budget Blog Carnival! If you are unfamiliar, a blog carnival is an online magazine (blogo-zine) of sorts that focuses on a specific theme. This issue is all about the U.S. federal budget and the national debt.

As always, the carnival is comprised of a non-partisan collective of blog entries. While specific pieces may have ideological roots, the overall carnival is a testament to the diverse voices present in the ongoing debate that surrounds the budget, deficit and accumulated national debt.

Today, we are releasing an exciting array of entries from The Heritage Foundation, The Committee for a Responsible Budget, Econbrowser blog, ECONLOG blog and the Economists View blog, to name a few of the participants! Here is your guide to Facing Ups Dec. 2009 Budget Blog Carnival:

First and foremost, Scott Bittle, executive vice president of Public Agenda and co-author ofWhere Does the Money Go?, leads the pack with a piece entitled, The Three Questions for the Public on the Federal Budget. In the piece, Bittle highlights three key questions for the public (and American leaders) to consider: Can we afford it? Can we keep the status quo? and Am I willing to give up something I want because the government can’t afford it?According to Bittle,

Most of the people who’ve looked at this issue, whether they’re liberal or conservative, in or out of government, use the same word to describe the federal budget: “unsustainable.”

Next, economist Dr. Arnold Kling of the EconLog blog ponders various scenarios for resolving U.S. debt. From technological advances to hyperinflation, Kling provides valuable insight.

Conn Carroll of The Heritage Foundation penned a piece entitled, The Definition of Economic Insanity. In the entry, Carroll stands firmly against deficit spending as a means to stimulate the U.S. economy. In opposition to recent jobs summit proposals Carroll states,

These “new” ideas will fail for the same reason the past two government stimulus plans failed: governments do not create jobs.

In a separate piece, Carroll presents a series of government actions from the 1930s through modern times that he considers examples of the failure of government to spend its way to prosperity and makes his case for the government to step out of the way.

And Dan Perry penned an intriguing article about the urgency of the debt. Perry charges both parties with fiscal irresponsibility, as he finds fault in both President Obamas deficit spending and record-increases in spending during George W. Bushs presidency. While he sees the Tea Party movement as impressive, he writes the following:

After eight years of a Republican administration, the nation saw record spending and deficit levels without so much as a peep about the financial difficulties it might someday cause. Meanwhile, their solution to these economic woes are a series of tax cuts accompanied by no tangible reductions in spending.

Next, James Hamilton of the Econbrowser blog responds to Paul Krugman, one of the leading economists to argue that U.S. budget deficits are not that troubling in the current fiscal environment. Hamilton expresses his worries about current and future deficits. Please also read Krugmans writings on this subject here and here.

Also, heres another piece from Hamilton an assessment of federal budget commitments and the danger present in continuing on our current budgetary path.

Another exciting partner in the current Facing Up carnival is the bi-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The Committee submitted two pieces one about theessentials associated with tax reform and another that explores the true costs of health care reform. Both of these entries provide insight into the current debate over the national debt.

And, Mark Thoma from the Economists View blog highlights the three ways in which debt can make future generations worse off, while covering some of the bogus arguments that are given in the budget debate. Thoma concludes by calling some of the Republican opposition weve seen as unduly alarmist.

In a more-lighthearted commentary, Bob McCarty writes about the similarities he sees between the movie Friday the Thirteenth and the economic stimulus package.

Finally, in Musings on America’s Budgetary Challenge, David D. Kent provides a fun-filled look at federal expenditures and ponders the what ifs of potential spending scenarios.

Thats it for this edition of the blog carnival. Stay tuned for more!

The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site.

Though Barack Obama garnered much attention for his Nobel Peace Prize win, the United States has won three lesser-known, tongue-in-cheek awards at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference from a liberal environmentalist organization that has been critical of America’s refusal to wholeheartedly embrace their radical agenda.

And what “ignoble actions” earned the United States these noble prizes? According to the people at Avaaz.org, the U.S. government took home the “Fossil of the Day” award for “stalling negotiation to save life on planet earth.” Along with the Climate Action Network, Avaaz.org runs a daily award show at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. It’s worth noting that Avaaz.org is dedicated to to clos[ing] the gap between the world we have, and the world most people everywhere want.

The Fossil of the Day award is indicative of the blame America first sentiment that pervades these conferences and the Heritage team is doing all it can to make sure that, despite  this anti-US  sentiment,  the real interests of the American people are part of this debate.

Here’s video of the red carpet ceremony shot by Heritages Ben Lieberman:

We at Heritage applaud this award in part because, climate change and research aside, signing a colossal UN resolution in Copenhagen this week would mean signing over our sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in the United Nations and Europe (not to mention the tremendous economic harm Copenhagen regulations would wreak on the U.S. economy). Heres to fourth Fossil of the Day Award.

From the Detroit Free Press:

Lt. Governor John Cherry this afternoon proposed using Michigan’s water supply to fund its education system.[...]

By charging water bottlers 10 cents on each bottle of water they pull from Michigan waterways, the state could raise $118 million a year, Cherry said. That would cover the $100 million needed for the Promise Scholarship and leave another $18 million for wetlands protection, he said.

Unjustified. What logic is there to hitting bottled water with a special tax to fund education? It sounds like just a revenue grab with a random product being chosen to take the hit. The rhetoric about taxing companies shouldnt divert peoples attention from the fact that consumers will be the ones paying this tax in the end.

Unwise. Michigan isnt exactly swimming in tax-paying business activity nowadays, so the idea of taxing a product only if it is made in Michigan is short-sighted. Does Lt. Gov. Cherry not realize that by making Michigan products more expensive with a rather hefty tax, theyll be pushed out of the market by non-Michigan products? Nestle Waters put out a press release noting that they employ a few hundred people at its water bottling plant in Michigan, with a $2 million tax bill.

Unconstitutional. Article IX of the Michigan Constitution prohibits imposing sales taxes on food products. Perhaps there is an argument about whether bottled water is a food product (the FDA says it is) and whether a tax on someone who makes food is a tax on food, but Michigan could expect extended litigation on this.

Read the original post from the Tax Foundation

From the Washington Examiner:

With its most vigorous advocate in memory presiding in the White House and commanding Democratic majorities in Congress, its difficult to believe that the end of liberalism may be within sight. We base this suggestion not on a hunch or on wishful thinking, but on mathematics. The Petersen-Pew Commission on Budget Reform has produced a new report warning that [o]ver the past year alone, the public debt of the United States rose sharply from 41 to 53 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Under reasonable assumptions, the debt is projected to grow steadily, reaching 85 percent of GDP by 2018, 100 percent by 2022, and 200 percent in 2038.

Long before the debt reaches such stratospheric levels, the commission warns, Fears of inflation and a prospective decline in the value of the dollar would cause investors to demand higher interest rates and shift out of U.S. Treasury securities. The excessive debt would also affect citizens in their everyday lives by harming the American standard of living through slower economic growth and dampening wages, and shrinking the governments ability to reduce taxes, invest, or provide a safety net.

In other words, within the lifetimes of the vast majority of living Americans, government as we have known it since the New Deal will become paralyzed, unable to deliver even basic services, let alone the myriad of entitlements that politicians had promised would last forever. Liberalism will owe its undoing to its blind faith that government could forever be the inexhaustible provider of ever more spending, more benefits and more prosperity, with nary a day of reckoning.

Read the original post from NetRightNation

Hilarious video that recaps some of the years funniest and best moments in politics, entertainment and society.  Click below to watch and be sure to pass it on!

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), ranking Member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), spoke to bloggers at The Heritage Foundation’s weekly Bloggers Briefing today and focused his remarks on the controversial “Climategate” scandal — the series of leaked e-mails that have blown holes through the theory of man-made global warming.

As Sen. Inhofe sat down to speak, he opined that he was just in the Senate trying to convince Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to investigate the subject of the e-mails, instead of the people who uncovered the e-mails. Sen. Inhofe was the leader of the global warming opposition ten years ago when he chaired the EPW Committee; when a blogger asked him what he thought about the emergent news that the science was flawed, the Senator quipped, “Redemption.”

Senator Inhofe is not alone in his views on “Climategate.” The UK Telegraph called it the “greatest scandal in modern science,” and the UK MET is reevaluating over 160 years of climate data because “public opinion of man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.” Sen. Inhofe seemed confident that neither climate bills would pass the Senate, but feared the Obama Administration would circumvent the legislative process and use the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to force regulation through the Clean Air Act. Sen. Inhofe fired back by releasing a YouTube video saying that the EPA finding that CO2 is a pollutant was based on faulty science.

Now, the United Nations is in the middle of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, where “the science is settled.” However, as we have stated, the science is far from settled. Now, the world has learned that the basis of the science that climate change was founded on could be proven faulty. This has not stopped the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change from creating a treaty that will be costly to the US economy and not have any real impact on the environment. And it’s a treaty that would infringe on our national sovereignty.

You can listen to Sen. Inhofe’s remarks here.

You can watch the video of his remarks here.

Media coverage of the CBO scoring of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care bill left out some of the fine print and heroic assumptions that were in the report. The Heritage Foundation believes they merit your consideration.

Premiums Rise

The media quotes the CBO as saying that ObamaCare would not make premiums rise for people who get their insurance through their job or other groups. This is mostly because millions of people would no longer receive coverage from their employer, and instead would buy insurance in the so-called “non-group” market that sells individual health plans. These would likely be older and sicker Americans.

While this transition could make premiums cheaper for those who would continue to receive health benefits through their workplace, they would likely see higher taxes down the road for subsidies that would be offered to people buying individual insurance, the CBO reports. And the CBO notes that other taxes imposed on medical device manufacturers, insurers and other providers would be passed onto consumers “in the form of higher premiums for private coverage.”

Additionally, the CBO said Sen. Reid’s health care bill would raise premium rates for people who buy it in the so-called “non-group” markets, and these increases would be 10 to 13 percent. So anyone who cites the CBO as saying Americans would not see their premiums jump assumes that employers will not dump their workers into an exchange where people get insurance individually.

There Is a Crowd-Out Effect

And that’s an assumption that goes too far. In fact, the CBO notes that roughly 6.4 million people who have work-based health coverage under the current law would lose it under Sen. Reid’s bill. That’s because some businesses would find it unaffordable to offer health care to their workers under the Reid bill. They’ll opt for paying the $750 fine and dumping their workers onto a health exchange. Many older and sicker employees would likely lose their job-based coverage, even if they like it, according to the CBO. Businesses would push these workers to get their health care in the “non-group” or individual market because it’s cheaper for companies. But as noted above, it’s not a better deal for the individuals.

Younger People Assumed to Fall in Line

At the other end of the spectrum, the CBO analysts make the assumption that younger, healthier workers are going to comply with the “individual mandate” in the bill. That’s the one that forces every American to buy health insurance or pay a fine (a provision whose constitutionality has been and will continue to be questioned). However, these younger workers will look at the option between a much more expensive, mandated health plan — providing benefits they don’t want or need — and a less expensive annual fine and be much more likely to forgo the health insurance plan and pay the fine. As the CBO reports, it’s the younger workers who are the biggest losers in this “reform.”

More from Heritage

Opponents of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program have been losing the war of public opinion since last February when President Barack Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill voted to phase out the program. Even liberal political pundits like MSNBC’s Chris Mathews have expressed their outrage over the decision to deny thousands of families in Washington the opportunity to choose a safe and effective school for their children.

Opponents of the scholarships have used every reason they can muster to defend their position.

They argued that the program doesn’t work, despite the fact that the Department of Education released a report earlier this year finding that a student who enters the DCOSP in kindergarten will graduate high school reading two grade levels above their peers in the D.C. Public Schools.

They argued that the local government doesn’t want the program to continue, which is also false. A majority of the D.C. City Council supports the program.

They argue cost, but it’s actually cheaper to educate a child through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The $7,500 voucher is half the amount spent per pupil by the D.C. Public Schools. Also, the taxpayers of D.C. overwhelmingly support the program. A poll conducted over the summer found that seven of 10 D.C. residents support continuation of the program.

Just when it seemed all the reasons to oppose the program were exhausted, D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells and D.C. State Board of Education President Lisa Raymond got a little creative over cocktails.

The Washington Examiner reports:

At a cocktail party on Capitol Hill a week or so ago, D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells found himself chatting with Lisa Raymond, president of the D.C. State Board of Education… When he was on the school board, he had lobbied against vouchers. But when he saw that many poor kids were actually thriving in private schools, he considered organizing the council in favor of vouchers. D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and the teachers unions hammered him. His discussion with Raymond sealed the deal, especially when she pointed out that federal funds were going to religious schools, many Catholic, that she argues discriminate against gays and lesbians.

After getting roughed up by Delegate Norton and the teachers unions, Wells decided to flip back and oppose the DCOSP, calling the program “discriminatory.” According to the Washington Post, Wells and Raymond sent a letter to Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) this week claiming that because Catholic institutions do not “provide employee benefits to same-sex spouses,” public funds should not go to their schools (879 of D.C.’s approximately 1,700 vouchers go to the city’s Catholic schools).

The Wells-Raymond letter is likely to be seen by both sides in the debate over the opportunity scholarships as an unwelcome attempt to inject another issue, with attendant religious tension, into a debate that has focused thus far on the well-being of students, whose parents make the choice among public schools, charter schools, and private schools of various kinds. It would be ironic as well if the debate over the definition of traditional marriage, which has included assertions that a redefinition will not hurt existing marriages, instead negatively impacted existing parental choices in education.

Still more disconcerting is the idea that Congress might be persuaded to agree to discriminate against low-income families (the DCOPS enrolls children from families with earnings at or below 185 percent of poverty) by limiting their choices in a demonstrably effective program. As Senator Durbin and others weigh the future of parental choice in education in the nation’s capital, that is the grievous form of discrimination on which they should focus and not on Wells and Raymond’s misguided missive after aperitifs.

To learn more about the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, watch the Heritage Foundation’s new documentary, Let Me Rise: The Struggle to Save School Choice in the Nation’s Capital at www.VoicesOfSchoolChoice.org.