Help Stop the Erosion of Our Liberty!

From the Harford County Dagger and the Maryland Liberty Public Action Committee:

[Last week], a full speed camera repeal bill was introduced in the Maryland House of Delegates. House Bill 251, our speed camera repeal bill sponsored by Delegate Michael Smigiel (R – District 36), was introduced and assigned to the House Environmental Matters Committee. This is a tremendous first step for us, but this only begins our work.

Back in early January, we asked you to call Delegate Maggie McIntosh who serves as the Chair for the House Environmental Matters Committee to tell her to repeal speed cameras. You came through in a big way flooding her office with phone calls and e-mails. The receptionist on the other side of the phone was very surprised at the large volume of calls– now we have to double down. We need to dial up pressure on Maggie McIntosh again today.

First, we have to make a phone call to Delegate McIntosh and ask her to:

* Hold a public hearing on House Bill 251

* Hold a roll call vote in Committee on House Bill 251

* Vote FOR House Bill 251

After you make the call, follow up with an email to her at delmaggie@msn.com.

You can click on any of the banners in the linked Dagger email and it will automatically open up a pre-drafted email for you to send to Delegate McIntosh. All you have to do is sign and send. If we don’t pressure Deleagate McIntosh, she is going to take our bill, throw it in the drawer, and never look at it again.

Speed cameras are nothing more than the privatization of our due process rights and the contracting-out of law enforcement duties. Our families deserve better. Our rights don’t come from government, and we must send a message that we will not sit by for these violations. We have the right to properly challenge and appeal tickets. We have the right not to be monitored 24-7 by our government. We have the right to question a malfunctioning speed camera system. The short-term lust for money should never trump the long-term preservation of our God-given rights and Constitutional protections.

Politicians should never view us as moving ATM machines to be poached from as we drive down the highway.

Our message to Maggie McIntosh and the House Environmental Matters Committee must be clear: we want full repeal of speed cameras and House Bill 251 is the way to do it.

This speed camera repeal battle is Maryland Liberty PAC’s first major legislative initiative. It won’t be easy, but we are committed to our plan for repeal, even if it takes years to accomplish. With the well-established cronyism existing in Annapolis it may take us several legislative sessions to ulimately be successful. What we do know is that we share company with some of the best Patriots in Maryland. You are the passionate resistance that fuels this movement. We are working as hard as we can to activate and we hope that you will join us in this initial squirmish in a long-term campaign against socialism and tyranny in Maryland. We believe in our true and time-tested principles. We can defeat speed cameras in Maryland and send a shockwave through the Maryland Government.

Jump in with us and let’s give the Establishment in Annapolis the most shocking and extensive fight yet as we tirelessly support full speed camera repeal in Maryland.

For Liberty,

Patrick L. McGrady

Chairman

Maryland Liberty PAC
Patrick@MarylandLiberty.org

O'Malley Pushes to Overcharge Marylanders for Feel-Good Electricity

from the Baltimore Sun

A confident Gov. Martin O'Malley kicked off Tuesday his latest effort to promote offshore wind energy in Maryland, telling a supportive State House crowd that enough senators had signed onto his bill this time to get it through the chamber that's thwarted him the past two years.

O'Malley said he had 24 senators as cosponsors, a bare majority but twice the number backing last year's effort. What's more, the governor said, six of his cosponsors are members of the Finance Committee, enough to break the logjam there that has stifled his legislation.

"The time to act is now," he declared, saying Maryland must do what it can to to promote renewable energy in response to climate change. He noted that the state, with all its shoreline, is especially vulnerable to rising sea level, a major byproduct of global warming.

The bill the governor is introducing is virtually the same as the scaled-down measure passed last year by the House. It would use a system of "offshore renewable energy credits" to help finance the construction of massive wind turbines a dozen or so miles off Ocean City. The bill would provide a subsidy from the state's electric ratepayers to build up to 200 megawatts' worth of power generation, provided that the average Maryland household would pay no more than $1.50 a month on its electric bill for the project. (Blogger's note: $1.50 a month won't even cover the cost of the agencies the state will create to oversea the project, let alone, develop it. $15m a year into a "billion" is how many years for investors to see a return? Does anybody know of a case of a wind turbine that ever LASTING 67 years?)

O'Malley acknowledged that ratepayers would have to pay, but stressed the economic benefits of the measure, repeatilng projections of up to 850 construction jobs and 150 to 200 full-time jobs to maintain the turbines. State officials have projected almost $1.3 billion in economic benefits if an offshore project gets built.

With a number of urban lawmakers skittish about voting for any measure that will raise power bills for the poor, the administration did sweeten the minority-business carrots in last year's bill. It provides that minority investors will get a chance to buy into any offshore wind project, explained Abigail Hopper, the governor's energy adviser. The legislation also includes $10 million in funding to assist small and minority-owned firms seeking to participate in the project's subsitantial supply chain.

O'Malley acknowledged that even if his bill passes, it may be years, if ever, before turbines go up off Ocean City. His measure offers a "narrow strike zone" that wind developers may well be unable to hit, he said. He suggested that Maryland may need to partner with neighboring Delaware or with the federal government to provide enough incentives for a project to be launched in the mid-Atlantic.

Del. Tom Hucker, a Montgomery County Democrat who wias among the General Assembly's earliest advocates for offshore wind, noted that President Obama vowed in his inauguration speech this week to try to break the political deadlock in Washington over national action to fight climate change. Hucker said even if it's uncertain that Maryland's legislation will yield results, the state "has a historic opportunity to affect this debate."

Polls indicate a large majority of Marylanders favor offshore wind and would even be willing to pay a little extra for electricity generated by turbines. But some lawmakers remain skeptical of asking ratepayers to subsidize such an expensive, as-yet unproven undertaking, with an offshore wind project costing $1-2 billion.

Sen. Joan Carter Conway, a Baltimore city Democrat and head of the Senate's Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, said that while she supports offshore wind in concept, she's reluctant to ask ratepayers to pay more for a project which she doubts will do that much for Marylanders.

"Many people don't like to pay for something they're not going to benefit from, and they're not going to receive," she said.

I actually DO think that Maryland's rate payers wouldn't mind paying a little extra for offshore wind. What they DON'T want, however, is to end up seeing their electric bills QUINTUPLED, as is likely under even the BEST of real-world circumstances! And believe me when I say that the additional surcharge of $1.50 a month is a bad legislative DECEPTION meant to give taxpayers the FALSE impression that offshore wind energy is affordable. It is NOT!

As Liberals Re-Fine Liberalism, Republican Pundits Eat Crumblecake

from the Washington Post

It has become conventional wisdom that Republicans are suffering an internal split that President Obama is successfully exploiting to neuter the Republican House. It is not true, however, that the Republican split is philosophical and fundamental. And that a hopelessly divided GOP is therefore headed for decline, perhaps irrelevance.

In fact, the split is tactical, not philosophical; short-term, not fundamental. And therefore quite solvable.

How do we know? Simple thought experiment: Imagine that we had a Republican president. Would the party be deeply divided over policy, at war with itself in Congress? Not at all. It would be rallying around something like the Paul Ryan budget that twice passed the House with near 100 percent GOP unanimity.

In reality, Republicans have a broad consensus on what they believe, where they want to go and the program to get them there. But they don’t have the power. What divides Republicans today is a straightforward tactical question: Can you govern from one house of Congress? Should you even try?

Can you shrink government, restrain spending, bring a modicum of fiscal sanity to the country when the president and a blocking Senate have no intention of doing so?

One faction feels committed to try. It wishes to carry out its small-government electoral promises and will cast no vote inconsistent with that philosophy. These are the House Republicans who voted no on the “fiscal cliff” deal because it raised taxes without touching spending. Indeed, it increased spending with its crazy-quilt crony-capitalist tax ”credits” — for wind power and other indulgences.

They were willing to risk the fiscal cliff. Today they are willing to risk a breach of the debt ceiling and even a government shutdown rather than collaborate with Obama’s tax-and-spend second-term agenda.

The other view is that you cannot govern from the House. The reason Ryan and John Boehner finally voted yes on the lousy fiscal-cliff deal is that by then there was nowhere else to go. Republicans could not afford to bear the blame (however unfair) for a $4.5 trillion across-the-board tax hike and a Pentagon hollowed out by sequester.

The party establishment is coming around to the view that if you try to govern from one house — e.g., force spending cuts with cliffhanging brinkmanship — you lose. You not only don’t get the cuts. You get the blame for rattled markets and economic uncertainty. You get humiliated by having to cave in the end. And you get opinion polls ranking you below head lice and colonoscopies in popularity.

There is history here. The Gingrich Revolution ran aground when it tried to govern from Congress, losing badly to President Clinton over government shutdowns. Nor did the modern insurgents do any better in the 2011 debt-ceiling and 2012 fiscal-cliff showdowns with Obama.

Obama’s postelection arrogance and intransigence can put you in a fighting mood. I sympathize. But I’m tending toward the realist view: Don’t force the issue when you don’t have the power.

The debt-ceiling deadline is coming up. You can demand commensurate spending cuts, the usual, reasonable Republican offer. But you won’t get them. Obama will hold out. And, at the eleventh hour, you will have to give in as you get universally blamed for market gyrations and threatened credit downgrades.

The more prudent course would be to find some offer that cannot be refused, a short-term trade-off utterly unassailable and straightforward. For example, offer to extend the debt ceiling through, say, May 1, in exchange for the Senate delivering a budget by that date — after four years of lawlessly refusing to produce one.

Not much. But it would (a) highlight the Democrats’ fiscal recklessness, (b) force Senate Democrats to make public their fiscal choices and (c) keep the debt ceiling alive as an ongoing pressure point for future incremental demands.

Republicans should develop a list of such conditions — some symbolic, some substantive — in return for sequential, short-term raising of the debt ceiling. But the key is: Go small and simple. Forget about forcing tax reform or entitlement cuts or anything major. If Obama wants to recklessly expand government, well, as he says, he won the election.

Republicans should simply block what they can. Further tax hikes, for example. The general rule is: From a single house of Congress you can resist but you cannot impose.

Aren’t you failing the country, say the insurgents? Answer: The country chose Obama. He gets four years.

Want to save the Republic? Win the next election. Don’t immolate yourself trying to save liberalism from itself. If your conservative philosophy is indeed right, winning will come. As Margaret Thatcher said serenely of the Labor Party socialists she later overthrew: “They always run out of other people’s money.”

So the Republican solution is, "Let them spend us ALL broke...", sounds more like an evasion than an attempt at a solution. So much for "realism".

Lictors for Me... Lectures for You!

from the Dallas Morning News six days ago...

WASHINGTON — Dallas’ best-protected resident, George W. Bush, can now sleep more soundly. President Barack Obama today signed into law a measure granting the 43rd president — and himself and future presidents– a lifetime of protection by the Secret Service.

Congress stripped that benefit in 1994, enacting a 10-year limit for presidents who take office after Jan. 1, 1997 — a list that so far includes only Bush and Obama.

Under the new law, children of presidents will be protected until they turn 16. Presidents and their spouses get lifetime protection.

... and then yesterday he scolded us and said that you and yours will not be allowed to protect yourselves with guns as you have in the past... signing 23 Executive Orders making it more difficult.

O'Malley Over-Reaches in Attempt to Grab Marylander's Guns

from the Baltimore Sun

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, who has otherwise expressed support for Gov. Martin O'Malley's plans to seek new gun control measures this year, expressed skepticism Tuesday about the governor's proposal to require licenses for handgun purchases.

"I think that will have probably a difficult time on the floor of the Senate," Miller told reporters after the morning Senate session. "Licensing begins to trample on Second Amendment rights."

Miller added that he still thinks a ban on assault weapon sales and limits on the bullet capacity of gun magazines can pass. "Absolutely, positively, unequivocally, yes," he said.

O'Malley laid out his plans for those gun restrictions, as well as new licensing and training requirements, at a gathering of firearms policy researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Health Monday. Under the proposal, which would give Maryland one of the toughest gun laws in the country, would-be handgun buyers would have to apply for a Maryland State Police license and submit to fingerprinting and a stricter background check than is required now.

So Did TARP Free Up Liquidity?

...or just give bank managers money to play the derivatives market with?

O'Malley to the Rescue!

from the Harford County Dagger

When Governor Martin O’Malley first ran for Governor, he said he wouldn’t balance the State’s budget on the “backs of local government.” He called it a “shell game.” He said, “It does not make us stronger if we balance the budget at the state level and leave a hole at the municipal government.” One of the reasons Senate President Mike Miller kept pulling out a threat of a Doomsday Budget was because of the damage it would cause to local governments and therefore local tax increases.

Of course, we all know that you can’t take what a politician says to the bank. You can probably take it to a casino and put it on the roulette wheel because you have the same chances of your number coming up as you do a politician holding true to their promise. We saw the State cut half of their aid on teacher pensions (which I entirely supported), but O’Malley said he didn’t cut any school funding for the local governments. Instead, what he did was cut Highway User Revenues and diverted them to the State General Fund. This left a huge hole in a county’s ability to pay for necessary road repairs (did I happen to mention O’Malley bemoaned the danger of not paying for road repairs after the Minnesota Bridge collapse). But at least our Governor was able to protect the children from a budget cut.

To give you a background on highway user revenue, it is funding given to the county based on a formula of the miles of roads compared to the total state in that municipality, and the number of vehicle registrations that municipality has. Now you might think that by me using the word municipality that includes Baltimore City, but Baltimore City is exempt from the calculation and just gets an arbitrary number. They can also use their money for things that other counties can’t such as traffic enforcement. Now Baltimore City will say, “Hey we have to pay for our own roads whereas the State pays for highways within the counties.” However, Baltimore City maintains roughly 1,900 miles of roadway and gets 7.7% of Highway User Revenue, the counties and municipalities combined maintain 24,000 miles of roadway and don’t even reach 2% of the Highway User Revenue funding (Pg 264). Just don’t tell that to Speaker Busch who swears that the rural areas get a windfall from the State.

Anyway, now that Martin O’Malley has raided the local Highway User Revenue funds to plug the budget gaps in the State, he wants more money for the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF). When he increased the alcohol tax, he also took away the percentage of that tax that went to the TTF, but that’s not considered raiding it because there is no intent to ever pay it back. On top of that, revenues from the gas tax and the titling tax were down by $13 million. Good thing we had higher taxes on corporations to make up the difference.

Governor Martin O’Malley is going to his good ol’ wheel house of raising taxes in order to get more funds to pay for a wish list of special programs. O’Malley wants an increase in the gas tax. He’s already had two failures on this front with a legislature dominated by 70% Democrats, one being to add the sales tax (a sneak way to do it since you won’t notice the rise in prices on the actual signs) and the second being an actual increase that is tied to inflation to increase for the rest of our lives. All “dedicated” to the Transportation Trust Fund.

Speaker Mike Busch whose chamber has been the opposition to the gas tax in the past wants to increase the sales tax (AGAIN) and “dedicate” that money to the Transportation Trust Fund.

I hope I showed you in this piece that there is no such thing as dedicated funding. Even if you have a constitutional amendment, as proposed by Senator “Gas Tax” Garagiola, the legislature can simply change what money goes into the TTF before the funds get there, so you aren’t raiding the fund, you are just denying it funds.

The other thing to consider is what will this money go toward? Baltimore City wants a new “Red Line” metro system to connect the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and SSA in Western Baltimore County through the City to the Bayview campus .The D.C. suburbs want a “Purple Line” to follow I-495, and of course light rail system. Why do we need tax increases to cover these things? Because Maryland has a law that says that light rail must cover 35% of the cost through fares so the other 65% has to come from the Transportation Trust Fund. The legislature had to reduce the number from 40% to 35% because it hadn’t reached its goal in over 10 years. Heck, it hasn’t hit 35% in at least the last 6 years.

One if by gas tax, or two if by sales tax. Either way, rather than tackling any structural changes, setting reasonable expectations for the public, or even enforcing existing laws for mass transit recovery cost, let’s just increase some more taxes.

Since When Have Democrats Ever Let Incomplete/Inconclusive Science Stop THEM from Acting???

from the Baltimore Sun

An advisory commission studying whether shale gas extraction should proceed in Maryland called Monday for new legislation to deal with potential abuses in leasing and drilling for the fuel, but environmentalists said so many questions remain about the safety of the drilling method known as "fracking" that they want lawmakers to impose a moratorium until the issue has been fully analyzed.

The 15-member panel appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley agreed during an Annapolis meeting to recommend three bills to address concerns about the hydraulic fracturing drilling method, including a proposed state "severance tax" on any gas extracted to help pay for effects on nearby communities.

Another suggested bill would give landowners the right to be compensated if drilling hurts their property, while a third would require all "land men" who negotiate drilling leases to register with the state.

The panel had agreed last fall to recommend a fourth measure, which would have required drilling companies to provide binding assurances that they can pay to clean up any leaks or pollution from their wells.

But commission members steered clear of recommending a specific severance tax rate and could not agree on how far to go in legislating "surface owners' property rights." While more than 160,000 acres in Western Maryland have been leased, some landowners have complained they signed away permission to drill on their property without being made aware of concerns about fracking's environmental impact.

"I do regret that some people got into leases they didn't understand," said James M. Raley, a Garrett County commissioner on the panel. But he expressed reluctance to have the state impose conditions on contracts already agreed to.

It's unclear how many of these measures might be voted on this year. The 90-day legislative session begins Wednesday.

The advisory commission is entering the final year of a three-year study ordered by O'Malley to assess the promise and pitfalls of fracking in the gas-rich Marcellus shale rock formation underlying part of Western Maryland and the rest of Appalachia. O'Malley put drilling in the state on hold and tasked the group with deciding whether safeguards can be put in place to avoid problems that have cropped up in neighboring states like Pennsylvania, where shale gas extraction has been booming.

In fracking, large quantities of water, sand and chemicals are pumped into the ground to fracture or break rocks holding pockets of gas. Environmentalists contend the method has contaminated wells, caused air and water pollution, and harmed livestock, but industry officials and supporters defend the practice as safe and say there's been no conclusive evidence of any harmful side effects.

David Vanko, the panel's chairman and a geologist at Towson University, said the group has yet to tackle the most important questions over whether the drilling activity poses any risk to people's health.

At the end of the three-hour session, Mike Tidwell, head of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, told the panel its deliberations to date "have been raising more questions than answers."

Speaking at a State House rally later, Del. Heather R. Mizeur, a Montgomery County Democrat who has championed environmental concerns about fracking, said the gas industry has thwarted efforts to fund the panel's work with a tax on gas leases.

This year, Mizeur said, she's drafting a bill to replace the governor's de facto moratorium with a legally binding one that would not be lifted until there has been what she called a "vigorous independent scientific review." She said she's open to different ideas on how to finance that review but believes the industry rather than taxpayers ought to pay for it.

Raising the Debt Ceiling... Tragedy or Farce?

What would happen if America's "elites" were to one day discover that their REAL ability to waste taxpayer money supporting crony capitalists was LIMITTED? Would they continue to behave as drunken sailors spending as if it were their first night in port after a year at sea? Or would they adjust, sober up, and only spent their last draw of ship's credit?

Annapolis Stacks the Deck to Rob Marylander Energy Rate Payers

from the Baltimore Sun

A change in the membership of a key Maryland Senate committee could hand Gov. Martin O'Malley a long-sought victory on a measure to foster development of a wind power industry off Ocean City.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller has replaced Sen. C. Anthony Muse on the Finance Committee with Sen. Victor R. Ramirez, Miller's office confirmed Thursday. The switch, which replaces one Prince George's County Democrat with another, was first reported on the Washington Post's web site.

Muse was one of three Democrats who joined committee Republicans in firmly opposing O'Malley wind bill last year. Finance Committee Chairman Thomas M. "Mac" Middleton, a Charles County Democrat, said that with Ramirez on the panel, the chances that O'Malley will win approval of his top remaining environmental priority are much improved.

Miller said this week that he expects the wind legislation to be approved this year -- the third time O'Malley will have backed such a measure. But the Senate president's office said last night that the switch was not made solely for the purpose of advancing one bill. (Editor's note: B.S.)

Muse will replace Ramirez on the Judicial Proceedings Committee, which handles such highly contentious issues of crime and punishment as the death penalty. Both Ramirez and Muse are considered to be opponents of the death penalty repeal, so the change would not change the panel's current 6-5 lineup against repeal.

Muse would become the second African-American on Judicial Proceedings, along with Baltimore's Sen. Lisa Gladden, the vice chair. Miller said he has heard criticism that black senators were underrepresented in that panel.

The Senate president has said that if O'Malley can muster the support on the floor to pass a repeal bill, he will find a way to get the measure to an up-or-down vote.

Muse, elected in 2006, has more seniority than the freshman Ramirez, but the new Finance member is generally regarded as more of a team player. Last year, Muse ran a quixotic primary campaign against U.S. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, losing badly after receiving little support from his Democratic colleagues.

A call to Muse was not immediately returned.

Senate Minority Leader E. J. Pipkin, an Eastern Shore Republican who sits on the Finance Committee, said his party would continue to fight the wind bill and wouldn't concede that it has the votes to pass.

Pipkin, who said wind power was too expensive and runs the risk of turbine damage in storms such as Sandy, called O'Malley's proposal "one of the dumbest" he's seen in the 10 years he's been in Annapolis.

Are Republicans the Only Crony Capital / Corporate Welfare Kings?

from the Washington Examiner

The "fiscal cliff" legislation passed this week included $76 billion in special-interest tax credits for the likes of General Electric, Hollywood and even Captain Morgan. But these subsidies weren't the fruit of eleventh-hour lobbying conducted on the cliff's edge -- they were crafted back in August in a Senate committee, and they sat dormant until the White House reportedly insisted on them this week.

The Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012, which passed through the Senate Finance Committee in August, was copied and pasted into the fiscal cliff legislation, yielding a victory for biotech companies, wind-turbine-makers, biodiesel producers, film studios -- and their lobbyists. So, if you're wondering how algae subsidies became part of a must-pass package to avert the dreaded fiscal cliff, credit the Biotechnology Industry Organization's lobbying last summer.

Some tax lobbyists mostly ignored the August bill "because they thought it would be just a political document," one K Streeter told me. "They were the ones that got bit in the butt."

Here's what happened: In late July, Finance Chairman Max Baucus announced the committee would soon convene to craft a bill extending many expiring tax credits. This attracted lobbyists like a raw steak attracts wolves.

Former Sens. John Breaux, D-La., and Trent Lott, R-Miss., a pair of rainmaker lobbyists, pleaded for extensions on behalf of a powerful lineup of clients.

General Electric and Citigroup, for instance, hired Breaux and Lott to extend a tax provision that allows multinational corporations to defer U.S. taxes by moving profits into offshore financial subsidiaries. This provision -- known as the "active financing exception" -- is the main tool GE uses to avoid nearly all U.S. corporate income tax.

Liquor giant Diageo also retained Breaux and Lott to win extensions on two provisions benefitting rum-making in Puerto Rico.

The K Street firm Capitol Tax Partners, led by Treasury Department alumni from the Clinton administration, represented an even more impressive list of tax clients, who paid CTP more than $1.68 million in the third quarter.

Besides financial clients like Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, CTP represented green energy companies like GE and the American Wind Energy Association. These companies won extension and expansion of the production tax credit for wind energy.

Hollywood hired CTP, too: The Motion Picture Association of America won an extension on tax credits for film production.

After packing 50 tax credit extensions into the bill, the committee voted 19 to 5 to pass it. But then it stalled. The Senate left for the conventions and the fall campaign. Meanwhile, House Republicans signaled resistance to some of the extensions -- especially for green energy.

One lobbyist said he didn't worry too much about the Baucus bill because "we knew the House wasn't going to pass it." But another lobbyist, who had worked on the Puerto Rico issues, said he saw Baucus' bill as an important starting point that "set the parameters" of a future fight with House Republicans.

But there never was a fight. Baucus' bill sat ignored until last week, when the White House sat down with Senate Republicans to craft a deal averting the fiscal cliff.

A Republican Senate aide familiar with the cliff negotiations tells me the White House wanted permanent extensions of a whole slew of corporate tax credits. When Senate Republicans said no, "the White House insisted that the exact language" of the Baucus bill be included in the fiscal cliff deal. "They were absolutely insistent," another aide tells me. (The White House did not return requests for comment.)

Sure enough, Title II of the fiscal cliff legislation is nearly a word-for-word replication of the Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012.

So, this wasn't a case of lobbyists sneaking provisions into a huge package at the last minute. That probably wouldn't have been possible, many lobbyists told me Wednesday, because the workload in the past two weeks was too large and the political stakes were too high.

One lobbyist who worked on the bill over the summer said he would never ask a member " 'Hey, can you do this for a client,' when their political lives are on the line."

"The legislators and the staff go underground when things get so intense," another Hill staffer-turned-lobbyist told me. "Nobody has time for a meeting. Nobody wants to talk about what's going on. ... The key is to plant the seed months in advance."

GE, Goldman Sachs, Diageo -- they planted their seeds over the summer. They'll enjoy the fruit in the new year.

Democrats Definition of "Balance", 41:1 New Taxes Over Spending Cuts

Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Negotiating Sequestration and the Fiscal Cliff..."Kick the Can Can Can!"

Projected New Tax Increase Revenue's Compared to Last Year's Deficit
So where did the so-called "adults" go? Barack Obama's "Yes we can," has a new meaning. Big Government is our Future!