At CompleteColorado.com’s new Page Two, Independence Institute senior fellow Barry Fagin warns against getting faked out by the Orwellian language trickery being used in the ongoing budget debate in Washington, DC:

We’ve all heard the typical media spin on the budget negotiations. The Democrats are proposing a “balanced” plan of spending cuts and tax increases, while the Republicans are being dogmatic and unreasonable. After all, who can argue with balance? It makes it seem like the alternative is falling over.
Let me state this as clearly as I can: A “spending cut” is when you spend less money than you did before. It’s not that hard to understand. Think about it: If your family has to cut spending, are you going to spend more, or less? It just couldn’t be any simpler.
Unless you’re in Washington. There, cutting spending means spending less than you were hoping to. That’s a very different thing. Think about it this way. If you get a 3 percent raise when you were expecting 5 percent, was that a pay cut? If your taxes go up 5 percent when you thought they would go up 10 percent, were your taxes cut? According to Democratic Party Newspeak, the answer is yes.

Enjoy the whole thing here.

Few things I want to highlight real quick:

Editorial page editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette Wayne Laugesen was kind enough to write a little blurb about and link to the show we did a couple weeks ago. We talked about the horribly fallacious campaign to smear the Springs with deputy director of the Colorado chapter of Americans For Prosperity Sean Paige.

While we’re on the topic of the Gazette, make sure to check out the Reason Foundation’s Colorado kid wonder Harris Kenny in his op-ed, Colorado Should be Wary of Handouts to Hollywood.

Over on our Environmental Policy page, Amy Oliver shows us once again how much green it takes to be green. Both taxpayers and ratepayers will find their wallets just a bit lighter because of this. Additionally, over on Townhall.com Amy has a little fun with our national debt. Guess how many Superbowl tickets you could buy with our national debt? You’ll have to check out Amy’s article to find out.

Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson shares his thoughts on the most recent ruling against Obamacare on his blog, constitution.i2i.org. That unconstitutional individual mandate just can’t catch a break these days…

In a perfect world, our queen MAD (Mothers Against Debt) Mom Amy Oliver would be the 21st century’s Rachel Carson. And I don’t mean that in the environmental way. What Rachel Carson did in 1962 with her book Silent Spring was to start a worldwide environmental movement. The book helped launch the ban on DDT. Turns out that DDT was not the evil pesticide it was portrayed as, and banning it actually kills millions of people who suffer from malaria. (oops) Despite being wrong and extremely deadly, Rachel Carson and her book were able to sound the alarm, get activists fired up, change policies, and set in motion a movement that lasts some 40 years later.

Although Amy Oliver doesn’t have a book (yet), she is on a mission to kick start a movement to get activists fired up and policies changed. In this Townhall op-ed, Amy outlines her version of the Silent Spring – what she calls our “Economic Silent Spring.”

Right now every man, woman and child in the United States is shackled with more than $46,700 of national debt and that does not include interest or unfunded liabilities such as Medicare and Social Security. Assuming we continue down the superhighway of spending, by 2015 every child in America and their parents will owe more than $70,000 each according to the U.S. Debt Clock.

Debt is the new DDT. But unlike the harmless pesticide, debt is toxic. As it grows and grows it poisons our children’s future. Amy’s plea for less spending and a brighter future for our kids is not going unnoticed. Mothers Against Debt is getting bigger each day (like our debt). More Moms are coming to understand the danger in having policies that promote the “spend now, leave bill for later” lifestyle of Washington, DC. After all, the bills we are accruing at an unprecedented rate are neatly stacking up in each and every baby cradle across the country. Forget your kid’s impending college debt. They’re already tens of thousands in the hole before they take their first class.

If Amy gets her way, the Economic Silent Spring will start a movement that lasts over 40 years and changes business as usual in Washington. Help Amy ban wreckless debt. Join Mothers Against Debt today.

[Copyright Ben Hummel at PolitixCartoons.com]

Was anyone out there happy with the debt deal Congress just made? I haven’t seen much in the way of praise for the deal, either from the left or the right. The left doesn’t like the “draconian cuts” made to their beloved social programs, while us free marketers don’t like the complete lack of any cuts at all. See, in Washington, a “cut” is when you don’t spend as much as you originally wanted to. For example, say you were going to spend an extra $1,000 next month. If you decided to take it easy and instead only spend an extra $950 next month, that would be a “cut” in Washington-speak. Despite all the “cuts” the left is wailing about, the federal budget is scheduled to increase next year. And the following year. And the year after that… etc.

In addition to senior fellow and Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson’s severe disappointment with the debt deal, our Barry Fagin is also not impressed. In yesterday’s Colorado Springs Gazette, Barry outlines why he isn’t a fan of the deal and also what we could do to end our perpetual federal spending crisis. Hint: it doesn’t require any action from those spendaholics in Congress.

Even though the whole debt ceiling fiasco is on its way out, I want to point this iVoices.org podcast in your direction. Last week a new narrative emerged from the debt ceiling = default storyline. It advanced the idea that the president could raise the debt ceiling unilaterally – Congress be damned! As you might have guessed, our constitutional scholar Professor Rob Natelson had some serious constitutional issues with this narrative. It’s no accident that the president does not enjoy both the power of the “sword” and the power of the “purse” at the same time. The Founders rightfully feared a president who was both commander and chief and guardian of the nation’s checkbook. Thus, the idea that President Obama could raise the debt ceiling by himself would have angered (and frightened) the Founders. Professor Rob Natelson addressed this issue in a blogpost on constitution.i2i.org and in this iVoices.org podcast.

Power Line just ran a highly contested and highly coveted contest for a grand prize worth $100,000 to “whoever can most effectively and creatively dramatize the significance of the federal debt crisis.” They allowed any and all types of creative art – like sculpture, paintings, songs, poems, videos, dance, etc. The Independence Institute decided to get in on the action so we created a video for the contest that you’ll find below. It focuses on the fiscal child abuse our national debt is hanging around the necks of our future generations. Although we didn’t win, we did get 7th place! I am so proud of our team for making such a high quality video, while having to work with such difficult on-screen talent (Todd!). You can see some of the other top entries here.