Democracy and Power 108:  Obfuscation Wherever politics intrudes upon economic life, political success is readily attained by saying what people like to hear rather than what is demonstrably true. Instead of safeguarding truth and honesty, the state then tends to become a major source of insincerity and mendacity. – Hans F. Sennholz

To help Senators and activists prepare for this week's Senate votes on competing budget plans, FreedomWorks has prepared a handy cheat sheet. We've done the research for you, carefully reviewing and "grading" each plan based on numerous important criteria. For example, you can use this one-pager to see how quickly the various budget proposals will take to achieve balance.

General Electric reported that its first-quarter earnings have increased by 77 percent compared to the fourth-quarter of 2010.  This comes as the New York Times reported that GE paid zilch on their taxes, while raking in over $14 billion in profits in 2010.  Even worse, GE actually received $3.2 billion in tax benefits.

"I'll tip my hat to the new constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again Don't get fooled again No, no!, Meet the new boss Same as the old boss" - The Who, "We Won't Get Fooled Again"What The Who lament here is that despite how things change, they always stay the same. With politics and power, nothing rings more true.

Watch below as Max Pappas and Dean Clancy of FreedomWorks discuss Obama's 4/13/2011 Budget Speech. 

Rising energy and gas prices are ravaging the wallets of American citizens and President Obama has taken bold, decisive steps in order to secure an abundant supply of oil in the United States for the foreseeable future.   This bold plan entails the outsourcing of American energy production to other countries such as Brazil.  Indeed, this new strategy represents the stale status quo that has been on autopilot for as long as Americans ca

President Obama has stepped up his rhetoric against the health care system, but fiscal deficiencies in his plan for a government take over have become increasingly apparent in recent weeks. Now, some on Capitol Hill are toying with the idea of taxing employee health benefits to subsidize the cost of government-provided care. But, as Americans learned during the collapse of GM, many union labor agreements provide extremely generous benefit packages to workers who are unlikely to support any proposal that might put their compensation at risk.

A bunch of us here at FreedomWorks are heading to a rally for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships.  It's at 1pm at the Freedom Plaza down the street.  The voucher program was cut out of an omnibus spending bill earlier this spring and was blogged about here. The tragedy and irony surrounding this decision abound - President Obama said that he would make decisions about education reform based on programs that work, the D.C.

President Obama's budget proposal working itself through Congress right now includes funding from a $600 billion cap and trade energy tax.  The plan would place a limit on the amount of carbon emissions that a firm is allowed to produce.  They can then sell their rights to carbon to other companies that wish to exceed their limit.  Cap and trade increases energy costs by restricting output and raising costs to producers.