“It is the same threats,” said Limbaugh. “It’s the same danger. It’s the same crisis. It’s identical. There’s nothing about it that changes, over and over. And everybody gets sucked into it.”

Limbaugh stated that he believes the sequestration issue is a “big joke on the country” and an “embarrassing spectacle.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my life, I am ashamed of my country,” said Limbaugh. “To be watching all of this, to be treated like this, to have our common sense and intelligence insulted the way it’s being insulted? It just makes me ashamed.”

Limbaugh argued that there are actually no budget cuts being made, and that this year’s share of the planned $1.2 trillion cuts is only $44 billion. He states that the cuts are on funds that were scheduled to be spent, and do not actually scale back the U.S. budget.

“We’re just not gonna spend as much as was projected,” said Limbaugh. “It’s all baseline budgeting. There is no real cut below a baseline of zero. There just isn’t.”

Limbaugh went on to state that “we can’t afford any of this,” presumably referring to the U.S. budget deficit. He went on to excoriate the size of the U.S. government and the “dependency” that is being created.

A rant by Limbaugh is no surprise, but his stance does demonstrate the feelings of many Republicans in the U.S. Even when budget cuts are being made, for some conservatives it will never be enough.

He went on to say the “vision” portrayed by the Ryan budget “is of an America where everybody is fending for themselves, a few are doing very well at the top, and everybody else is struggling to get by.” Obama obviously has a vision for how the government needs to interact with it’s citizens. His vision includes an all encompassing federal government and a diminished state government. His “European Spending” includes providing everything for it’s citizens including healthcare, jobs, and housing.

“I believe in investing in basic research and science because I understand that all these extraordinary companies that are these enormous wealth-generators — many of them would have never been there; Google, Facebook would not exist, had it not been for investments that we made as a country in basic science and research,” Obama said. “I understand that makes us all better off.”

What he doesn’t say, is that these technologies came from military programs, that then branched out to the private sectors. They did not come from the Federal government investing in companies that they feel push their vision of the country. This is one of the reasons that the military has had a historically massive budget, because of the fact they spend more on research and development than any other entity(govt or private) than anyone in the world. The DOD will spend $77 billion next year on R&D, the highest private company is Merck & Co Inc which will spend $10 billion. The DoD will in fact spend more on R&D than the top 10 companies put together.

Republicans have their own ideas of what should be done with the Federal government and they say that Obama is distorting the facts while he is trying to get reelected.

“Chairman Ryan, passed a responsible budget that would help put Americans back to work, protect our seniors, close President Obama’s massive budget deficits, and do ‘all of the above’ to address high gas prices,” House Speaker John Boehner said. “It makes the tough choices the president refuses to make to address the staggering deficits and debt that are slowing our economic recovery, costing jobs, and threatening to destroy the American dream.”

The U.S. military’s inventory of unmanned aerial vehicles, will grow to 645 aircraft in fiscal 2022 from about 445 in fiscal 2013, which is an increase of 45%. The total is in line with the military’s budget restraints going forward.

“The military departments adjusted their plans to comply with a constrained top line by procuring fewer aircraft than desired,” Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter wrote in a letter to the leaders of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.

The Defense Department plans to spend $770 billion on aviation assets from 2013 to 2022. This includes fighter jets, attack helicopters, airlift and cargo aircraft, combat search and rescue aircraft, air refueling planes, bombers, anti-ship and submarine aircraft, drones, training platforms and other aircraft used by Special Operations forces. Annual funding levels will peak at $80 billion in 2022, according to the Pentagon.

The Air Force “plans to continue aggressive funding” for a new long-range bomber with nuclear capabilities, according to the aviation report. The bomber would reach its initial capability in the mid-2020s, according to the Pentagon. The Defense Department plans to “hold down” the unit cost to “ensure sufficient production” of 80 to 100 bombers, according to the report. And they are also starting to look at a 6th generation fighter tabbed the F-X to replace the brand new F-22. Before you freak out, remember that the F-22 is new now, but this is a 30 year plan. In 30 years, who knows where military technology will be.

DoD Aviation Plan

“Science is the part of NASA that’s actually conducting interesting and scientifically important missions,”

“Spacecraft sent to Mars, Saturn, Mercury, the Moon, comets, and asteroids have been making incredible discoveries, with more to come from recent launches to Jupiter, the Moon, and Mars.”

“The country needs more of these robotic space exploration missions, not less.”

“I encourage whoever made this decision to ask around; everyone on Earth wants to know if there is life on other worlds,”

“When you cut NASA’s budget in this way, you’re losing sight of why we explore space in the first place.”

So it appears that the poor economic conditions are beginning to impact all facets of government funding. It makes sense to cut back on lofty space exploration efforts especially during these times. I don’t know how much value American tax payers truly get out of shooting our money into space. Bill Nye seems very enthusiastic about his work, but I believe these cuts make sense. Come on, a $17 billion budget?

The government officially shut down last night at midnight after a week of hard-fought negotiations. Republicans and Democrats have been in disagreement for months about the budget – specifically how to close the $5 billion budget deficit.

According to the Washington Post, the state battle mirrored the budget battle on the national front – Republicans putting the emphasis on cutting spending on certain programs and Democrats attempting to raise the taxes on the wealthiest 2% of Minnesotans.

This isn’t the first government shutdown in recent memory. In 2005, the government shutdown under then Governor Tim Pawlenty. That one lasted 8 days and resulted in the temporary layoff of about 9,000 workers. Pawlenty is now a candidate for President.

During this government shutdown, only necessary government functions will remain up and running. This includes public safety like the police and fire departments, welfare programs, state facilities like prisons, and IT management of governmental systems.

Like I noted earlier, the state parks will be closed this weekend. This is estimated to cost the state $12 million in revenue for each week the government remains shutdown.

The state government was close to a deal, but Democratic Governor Mark Dayton could not approve the GOP’s cuts to the health and human services department. Earlier in the negotiations the Republicans proposed a budget that included some layoffs for state workers and teachers. It also included some non-budgetary items such as a vote ID bill and abortion restrictions. The Democrats refused that proposal.

So, with the two parties in a deadlock, the government is now shutdown. Twitter is reacting strongly to the news, with opinions coming from all sides of the political spectrum. Here are a series of tweets blaming the GOP for the shutdown –

Some on Twitter point to Democratic ideals as the cause of Minnesota’s budget problem –

Many have just decided to take a crack at the state of Minnesota –

The question really begs another question – what is your goal for your site?

If you are operating it as a real business where you hope to either supplement your current income or rely on it as your sole source of income – then you need to be prepared to invest in search (it’s often the foundation of your marketing and a consistent source of regular traffic).

You can invest time or money and in most cases, you usually need to invest both.

I think there is someone out there spreading some erroneous information about starting a business online.  There is a lot of the “build it and they will come” mentality – in other words throw up a site and voila insta-business!

While in many ways, it is easier to do business online because you don’t need to set up physical stores and have a lot of the issues you have with brick and mortars, it is by no means a “sure thing” – you still have to work for your success.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you shouldn’t start an online business -  I am just saying if you expect your business to grow and treat you well, then you need to treat it like a serious business.

So, yes, it will be necessary for you to invest both time and money into generating traffic.

So back to the question at hand – how much should you spend on SEO?

You need to crunch some numbers and see how many visitors it takes to get a sale and how much a sale is worth to you to really fine-tune your budget – especially if PPC is part of your plans (so many people waste money on PPC that isn’t converting – spend wisely or it can suck you dry!)

For organic SEO you will find everything from $19.99 mass submission (avoid like the plague, you may as well burn your $19.99) to tens of thousands of dollars per month.

Most small to medium sized businesses spend between $300 – $800 per month, although I’ve also heard people say numbers a little higher, like $500 – $1500 per month is the norm.  So somewhere in that range is what you should expect to pay for quality SEO work.

It always amazes me that people are annoyed they have to pay for SEO.  People will pay for a doctor or a mechanic, or even a web designer but they seem to resent having to pay for SEO.  If you have the time and knowledge, then by all means, don’t pay anyone, do it yourself.  However if you don’t have the time or knowledge, it’s a valid, and important expense and not something you should begrudge.  Driving traffic to your site is the foundation and not the area you want to go cheap.

I’m jussayin…think about your goals and think about what you are prepared to do to get there.

To be honest, this is a scary leap for marketers, who are being pushed from competitors and internal staff to enter this space , and who then feel the inevitable pressure to quantify their results.

And so the Marketer’s journey into social media begins as it usually begins: with the issuance of a request for proposal (RFP).

That is where it becomes interesting…For instance, instead of traditional detailed requests for proposals, most of the RFP’s we get are as informal as an email or a made from scratch “social media proposal”, totaling less than 5 pages in length. All of these have the same in common: they are requests to “propose specific social media strategies” and a “detailed list of pricing”.

From there, as a social media agency, we have to defend our tactics and strategies as they are met with skepticism and questions on every front – as marketers themselves are trying to make sure that they can answer the questions imposed from internal staff regarding timing, resources, and of course effectiveness and metrics.

And so, I figured that it was about time to reveal the marketer’s foray into social media by answering the most common questions/barriers that arise in the process . Some of the following questions I will be answering in subsequent posts are as follows:

1. How will a Social Media Agency Work with my current agency?

2. How long does a typical social media campaign last?

3. How will this social media campaign be measured?

4. How will content be developed?

5. What is the budget?

Hopefully this will grow into a conversation that we can all benefit from. Those on the marketing side will have a better understanding of what to expect, and those on the social media agency side will have a better understanding of how to answer these questions while sustaining ethics, generating results, and maintaining a sound business model.

Stay tuned…. And let me know any feedback or direction you’d like to see this take.

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Budget Crunches Nudge Shoppers Online

More than a quarter of holiday shoppers surveyed by Zogby for AOL Shopping plan to part with at least half of their shopping dollars online this year.

26 percent of survey respondents planned to spend this way. Out of the overall survey, 74 percent will spend some of their budgets with online retailers.

Books, movies, and music will be the gift of choice for 57 percent of shoppers. Apparel items and gift cards followed those entertainment options as the top three holiday purchases online.

Internet retailers should take note of browsing habits by shoppers. Though many will make their purchases offline, 69 percent of those surveyed plan to do some research online first. That’s an opportunity for online entrepreneurs to offer a conversion opportunity, like a mailing list of upcoming deals, to those visitors.

Despite all the sunny news out of the White House about the economy, real-world respondents name lower income as the top reason for chopping their holiday budgets. General economic concerns and skyrocketing energy costs had an impact too.

Such concerns should be suggestive to online advertisers. People may demonstrate substantial price sensitivity when shopping this year. Ad copy conveying a suggestion of better pricing could help retailers draw some extra landing page visits.

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Last year, Google spent $849 million on sales and marketing, with a tiny $188 million of that going into advertising and promotions*. Compared with Microsoft, which puts $11.5 billion into sales and marketing, or Yahoo’s $1.3 billion, and Google looks like a cheapskate.

Google’s got a powerful brand, and one it doesn’t have to prop up with very expensive advertising campaigns, so props to them. Google’s lucky more companies aren’t like them, otherwise Google would be out of business. Of course, Google’s got a lot of unpopular products, or products that have failed because no one noticed them, so they might want to buy an ad or two once in a while. GOOG-411 billboards are a good start, and they’d better advertise Google Health well (if it ever shows up) if they want it to work out.

(via Search Engine Land)

* – Consider that a bunch of that might have been wasted on Google Checkout coupons, so we’re talking even less advertising.

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