Last Sunday’s Leadership webinar Wrap up;
Upcoming Federal Legislation Hot Topics
1. Debt Ceiling
2. Sequestration
3. Continuing Resolution
This Week’s Action
1. Begin to talk in terms of what it means to reach debt ceiling
2. Avoid advocating for government shutdown (remember we want to be on offense as much as possible with our messaging not defense)
3. Visit your congressman while he is home to talk about how we must stop overspending
4. TPP will poll our supporters for what approach to solutions they want from us
Numbers for debt ceiling
Fy 2013
Collect 2.2 trillion in taxes
Spend 3.8 trillion
Debt of this year alone 1.6 trillion
The national debt is 16.5 trillion
Trillion is too big for people to comprehend
Strike the last 8 zeros and look at it in household income terms
22,000 income
38,000 spending
16,000 credit card debt each year
this is a problem!
Total cuts in budget control act was 38.5 billion
Strike the zeros and it takes it down to cuts of 38.50 cuts for that household in one year.
The federal government can do better than that.
Borrowing is used frequently in DC.
Borrowing is when you ask a lender to give you money and I will pay you back. In order for that to actually be borrowing,
Children and grandchildren – have to pay this back
This is no longer borrowing – it is stealing, they have no voice in the matter, it is WRONG
Stop Stealing from our Children and Stop the Overspending
Sandy Relief Package
1. $60 billion emergency bill/should only cost $20 billion
2. 2 bills – $9 b for emergency relief (67 voted no; 19 voted from 2012, 22 voted
2012 class  higher percentage of freshmen voting against it than in famous
2010 class)
3. all other crap vote on January 15
Fiscal Cliff Undoes Obamacare CLASS Act
From Bill Pascoe:
We are currently operating on a CR that will run out at the end of March. Sometime
between now and the end of March the will have to pass another CR that will cover
us through the end of September.
Fiscal Cliff was 2 pieces: Taxes and Sequestration
Fiscal Cliff Legislation (HR8) took care of tax side of equation, sequester has been
punted for 60 days.
Debt Ceiling was reached on 12/31/12. Treasury says they have 30-60 days of
gimmicks (extraordinary measures) to get us by until the debt ceiling must be
reached.
Next set of negotiations will likely be that CR, Sequester, and debt ceiling are rolled
into one.
RE: Debt Ceiling – Everyone keeps talking about default. Default means that we are
unable to pay our debt. The truth is we have $200 billion in revenue each month and
enough to pay our debt service without defaulting.
Small piece of good news: Fiscal Cliff bill repealed the CLASS Act (long term assisted
living insurance program) which was part of Obamacare. Dept of Health and Human
Services admitted this program was going to be a failure.