Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard, gives us more on this story:

If the Feds were a company , they’d be bankrupt. It starts with the Stimulus bill.  It was supposed to be a one time spending of more than $800 billion dollars.  But have you seen that money go away.  The deficits remain at record levels but we are spending that money every year.  In actuality it’s been more than $3.2 billion and no signs of actual cuts.  We ought to start with “zeroing out” that money in perpetuity.    In addition, the President keeps playing a shell game by re spending savings from Iraq and Afghanistan and calling them cuts—this balance sheet would never make it in the real world.

Halper writes, “According to disclosure forms, Biden made a cool $225,521 last year. After the pay increase, he’ll now make $231,900 per year.

Members of Congress, from the House and Senate, also will receive a little bump, as their annual salary will go from $174,000 to 174,900. Leadership in Congress, including the speaker of the House, will likewise get an increase.”

Call or write your congressman.  I’ve already written mine.  Tell them to vote to rescind this order or to make a movement to give all this money to charity.  If you look at the lists of employees getting raises, it’s mostly the political appointee class of workers with in the federal government.  So Obama is taking care of his friends, while throwing in an increase for the electeds in the House and Senate, including Republicans, so he can hang them on this.

Halper goes on to report and update the story:

A new executive order has been issued providing for a new pay schedule beginning ‘on the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning after March 27, 2013,’” reports FedSmith.com. “The pay raise will generally be about 1/2 of 1%.”

Jeryl Bier points to an example of the pay increase for average government executives:

“Not much of an increase, but an increase all the same,” Bier notes.

And the timing isn’t great either: Just as President Obama and Congress try to avert going over the “fiscal cliff,” he doles out pay increases to federal workers.

UPDATE: According to a senior Republican congressional aide who has reviewed the executive order and consulted with the Congressional Budget Office, Obama’s pay raise will cost $11 billion. “The CBO told us that the President’s pay raise for federal workers will cost $11 billion over ten years,” says the aide.

The aide explains, “On the cost-estimate, CBO says the (discretionary) cost of the .5% pay-hike the President is calling for in the Exec Order – relative to a freeze – is about $500m in FY 2013 and $11 billion over the ten years from FY 13 – FY 22.  The reason why the FY ’13 savings is only $500 million is because the pay hike as proposed by the President’s Exec Order would not go into effect until April 1^st, 2013 – when the current CR expires. So it only covers half the fiscal year. The annualized cost of the pay hike is about $1 billion/year.”

Folks, this is real money.  I campaigned on the MAP for Prosperity, and one of the planks was that if Congress didn’t balance a budget, they ought to get a 15% pay cut.  I stand by that today.

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Gauging what the Tea Party thinks about any given topic is always difficult, since there is no real centralized leadership and even the nationally known groups have limited connections to the grassroots.

But the reaction to the budget deal being voted on in Washington Thursday–from Tea Party activists organizing at the local level here and in other places around the country–was universally negative.

“The [continuing resolution] was Washington as usual. We elected Republicans because we were tired of the behind-closed-door antics of the beltway boys and four months in we are right back where we started,” Andrew Hemingway, a 28-year-old small-business owner and the chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, told The Huffington Post.

Hemingway has quickly become a sought-after Tea Party leader, with Republican presidential hopefuls ranging from former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) requesting audiences. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was set to meet with Hemingway on Thursday for about 20 minutes, and he is organizing the meeting Monday between Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and activists.

“This CR was a joke and I expected more of Speaker Boehner,” Hemingway said. He added that Pawlenty, in opposing the budget deal, “is standing with the American people and I am proud to stand with him.”

Much of the Tea Party was skeptical of the deal when it was reached Friday night, with House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office trumpeting $38.5 billion in spending cuts. But as the exact number of those cuts has come into question, skepticism has turned into disappointment and anger.

“I wasn’t happy with the outcome last Friday night and am far less so after all this began to come to light. The disingenuous nature of this deal is staggering and seems to be just more business as usual in Washington,” said Doug Mainwaring, a real estate agent and local conservative activist in Bethesda, Md.

Mainwaring told HuffPost that “Boehner and the Republican leadership have frittered away a lot of the leverage they had.”

“I’m not sure they have the political willpower to accept the mandate that was handed them from the Tea Party last November,” Mainwaring said.

Jim Carley, a Tea Party activist and retiree in Des Moines, Iowa, told HuffPost that Republicans should have made Democrats vote against deeper spending cuts, “and you can hold them to the fire the next election.”

“But how do you hold them accountable when you are the one that caved?” he said.

National Tea Party groups were equally displeased.

“The deal was cut in a back room, announced without specifics, members supported it without specifics and without reading the bill (shocking, right?), and now it turns out not to be even as it was vaguely presented. Sickening,” said Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots.

“And amidst all this, Speaker Boehner proclaims that there is ‘no daylight’ between he and the Tea Party. If he actually believes that, he must have his eyes closed,” Meckler told HuffPost.

But even among the grassroots, there was a recognition that bigger fights over the debt ceiling and the fiscal 2012 budget should become the focus of the GOP now, marking a willingness to swallow the weak tea that the budget deal for the current fiscal year now represents for them.

Bob MacGuffie, a conservative Tea Party activist in Connecticut, said the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget are “the main event.”

“This is the fight worth having,” MacGuffie said. “We want to engage in a ferocious battle over the debt ceiling and 2012 budget–bring it on–we’ll give the Republicans a spine by holding our bayonets firmly at their backs.”

1. Did you know that . . . since Jan. 1 of this year (2011), you cannot use your flex-account at work (FSA) or health savings account (HSA) to purchase over-the-counter medicines?

2. Did you know that . . . since July 1 of last year (2010), Americans have been paying a 10 percent excise tax on all indoor tanning services?

3. Did you know that . . . starting in 2018, if your health insurance is “too good” or considered a “Cadillac” plan, then you will incur a new 40 percent tax on your health plan?

4. Did you know that . . . Obamacare has 21 new or higher taxes in it, totaling over $500 billion in increased taxes going to the government over 10 years?

5. Did you know that . . . beginning in 2014, individuals and families that do not purchase “qualifying” — as defined by federal bureaucrats — health insurance will be forced to pay a yearly tax penalty?

6. Did you know that . . . 7 tax hikes in Obamacare directly break President Obama’s “firm pledge” not to raise any form of taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 per year and families making less than $250,000 per year?

7. Did you know that . . . the capital gains tax rate under Obamacare will rise to 23.8 percent starting in 2012? That is a 59 percent increase from its current rate.

8. Did you know that . . . in 2013, those Americans facing the highest medical bills and the least ability to pay for them will find their ability to deduct medical expenses is further limited (medical expenses must be reduced by 10 percent of income under Obamacare, rather than current law’s 7.5 percent)

9. Did you know that . . . beginning in 2014, businesses with over 50 employees will be forced to offer health coverage for everyone, or pay a hefty tax for each employee?

10. Did you know that . . . in 2013, Obamacare caps the amount individuals and families can put in their flexible savings accounts at $2500? Currently there is no cap and these accounts are used for a myriad of health expenses including paying upwards of $14,000 in tuition to special needs schools for some parents?

She could be considered the tea party’s godmother. With her Sarah PAC and support for 2010 tea party candidates, Palin has generated a lot of good will, not to mention publicity, for a movement that began only two years ago. She also isn’t afraid to attack popular Republicans such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.Further proof that Palin isn’t always a GOP team player: She is skipping the first GOP primary debate on May 2 to give a keynote address, “Tribute to the Troops with Sarah Palin,” at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood, Colo. Some take this as a sure sign, along with her tanking poll numbers in key places like Iowa, that Palin will not seek the White House in 2012.

Could Palin, ever the rogue, be concocting a different plan?

What if Palin is building a grassroots army of patriots to help her undertake this mission? Palin, unlike any failed vice presidential candidate before her, has taken an opportunity and spun it into a gold mine. But to remain relevant in a crowded 2012 field of attention-seeking veteran politicians, Palin may have to make an unconventional move.

Although third-party candidates seldom win in America’s two-party system, they can certainly rain on political parades. At the same time, they can help down-ballot candidates by getting voters to the polls who might otherwise stay at home.Palin certainly has many of the qualities of a third-party candidate – charismatic and passionate, with a status as an outsider intent on storming the barricades of the establishment.

Consider previous candidates with engaging and controversial personalities who attempted to carve their own path to the Oval Office.

Larger-than-life Theodore Roosevelt ran on his Bull Moose Party ticket in 1912. He won 27.4 percent of the popular vote and carried six states, totaling 88 electoral votes. Roosevelt’s candidacy split the Republican vote, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the election.

In 1948, Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat segregationist, a major draw in Southern states. Former Democratic governor George Wallace of Alabama ran in 1968 on the American Independent Party line. He remains the only third-party candidate since 1948 to win a state.

Ronald Reagan didn’t face just Jimmy Carter. He also had to run against John Anderson, who had run in the crowded Republican primary. When it looked certain that Reagan would win, Anderson jumped to an independent candidacy. He received support from Rockefeller Republicans, author Gore Vidal, television sitcom creator Norman Lear and even the editors of “The New Republic.”

One of the most prominent third-party candidates, perhaps, is Ross Perot. With his charts and nasal voice, he became a household name and the star of many “Saturday Night Live” skits, with Dana Carvey playing Perot. The billionaire Texan threw a wrench into George H.W. Bush’s re-election bid against Bill Clinton. He finished second in two states – Utah, ahead of Clinton, and Maine, ahead of Bush. Perot won 18.9 percent of the popular vote but no electoral votes.

He gave it another shot in 1996, but with lesser impact, on the Reform Party ticket. He garnered 8 percent of the popular vote.

Ralph Nader has run four times for president – twice as a Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000 and twice as an independent, in 2004 and 2008.

For Palin to run as a tea party candidate, it would require money and keen organization. To become a legitimate third party, as opposed to its current status as a movement, the tea party would face a series of steep obstacles it likely could not scale by 2012.

For example, each state has its own ballot-access laws. Some states simply require a filing fee, but others have complex petition-gathering requirements for a party to become established, purposely aimed at keeping third parties off the ballot and protecting the elevated status of the major parties.

And the tea party isn’t showing any effort to become established.

That’s because the Republicans have figured out, for now, how to please the tea party.

“We will look at this very seriously and we will very methodically lay out the framework of what we’ll do next,” Gingrich said in brief remarks at an event with Georgia GOP Gov. Nathan Deal. “And we think its key to have citizens that understand this is going to take a lot of us for a longtime working together.”

As anticipated, Gingrich stopped short of announcing a formal presidential exploratory committee, but instead pointed supporters to a new Web site, newtexplore2012.com that features a note from he and his wife, Callista. (The site notes it is paid for by Newt Exploratory 2012).

“We are a nation like no other. To remain so will require the dedicated participation of every citizen, of every neighborhood, of every background. This is the responsibility of a free people,” reads a message from the couple on the site. “We are excited about exploring whether there is sufficient support for my potential candidacy for President of this exceptional country.”

Just hours before the news conference Gingrich appeared to scoop his own announcement, telling Georgia talk radio host Martha Zoller about the Web site that signals the beginning of the exploratory phase of his bid for the 2012 Republican nomination.

“Callista and I are prepared to see if there are enough folks who want to get this country back on the right track,” he said on the radio show. “It’s a great challenge but it’s one that we both take very, very seriously both as citizens and behalf of our grand children and all the young people of America.”

Gingrich plans to start raising money more aggressively and, as many expect, an official announcement of his candidacy could be coming soon.

“Callista and I promised, as you know, for well over a year that we would make a decision in late February or early March and we have kept our promise,” Gingrich told Zoller. “We will have a Web site up later on today, people can go to it. It’s newtexplore2012.com and it’s an effort to reach out to folks and say if we really want to get back to being a country of American exceptionalism and we really want to create jobs competing with Germany and China and India and we really want to shrink government, get power out of Washington, balance the federal budget and we really want to have a stronger national and homeland security so we’re safer. Lots of folks are going to have to decide if that’s a project they want to be engaged in.”

Gingrich did little to elaborate on the opening phase of his campaign, taking only a single question at the news conference and telling reporters in the room: “I think you’ll have more than enough to write about” in coming days.

In addition to the Web site, Thursday’s limited roll out, included a “Newt Explore 2012″ Facebook page and a twitter account.