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Should GOP Rethink Abortion Policy?

November 29, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Following one of the worst performances for an American president in this nation’s history, Americans awarded Barack Obama a second term. What was the pitch from the far left that got him re-elected following four years of economic upheaval and government socialization of the medical industry?

The winning formula was 1) convincing voters that an honest business genius who had turned around the failing Olympics and the State of Massachusetts in short terms and had served his fellow humans all his life without fanfare or recognition was a greedy and uncaring monster to be avoided at all costs; 2) that the government should be the only source of one’s hope for prosperity and happiness; and 3) that government supplied birth-control and abortion-on-demand are the only rights worth preserving.

There has been much armchair quarterbacking post-election, and we hear of many in the GOP wringing their hands as they contemplate a strategy to again gain the White House and Senate. Proposals such as caving in on tax increases, ala George “Read My Lips” Bush are bandied about. Or winning strategies like “go along to get along” are being trumpeted by the party’s old guard.

The Federalist Press suggests that the GOP consider adopting a democratic party long-term strategy. Indeed, democrats have exercised control of American government for much of the past 100 years by long-term planning—which became necessary following the beating they took in the Civil War and post-war reconstruction, as republicans freed the slaves and passed and enforced the civil rights amendments.

Democrats have had 4 simple strategies for reacquiring power. 1) Class warfare, promulgated by taxing citizens at different rates—taking from some and giving to others. 2) Spending escalation, making the government the provider of goodies. 3) Create dependent underclass by impoverishing minorities and opening borders, making over ½ of voters dependent on government handouts. 4) Re-educating population through leftist takeover of media and education systems, to believe that socialism is the fairest system of government.

It’s that simple. So, can the GOP learn anything from the left?  Perhaps, but these tactics are naturally repugnant to those who espouse personal liberty, so it is doubtful.

What is in the abortion issue that could help the GOP, if as polls indicate, it is minorities who are voting in extremely high percentages for Democrats? Let’s revisit the founding of the birth control and abortion movement, and see what is behind it.

Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, and like-minded racists, like Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf and Lothrop Stoddard, a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against White Supremacy. Margaret Sanger was an ardent proponent of sterilizing those she considered “unfit,” which would be the “salvation of American civilization.” Who was unfit? Those of African descent.

Margaret Sanger and her followers were the regents of Western Eugenics, the practice of improving the human gene pool by eliminating undesirable DNA. She and her associates admired the Aryan dreams of the Nationalist Socialists (Nazis) in Germany, and like their counterparts, thought that exterminating lower life forms (Jews, Blacks) was a service to God and country. For those who might doubt that the founder of Planned Parenthood held these beliefs, please refer to some of her many articles and speeches on the subject such as “Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics” (June 1920), “The Eugenic Conscience” (February 1921), “The purpose of Eugenics” (December 1924), “Birth Control and Positive Eugenics” (July 1925), “Birth Control: The True Eugenics” (August 1928), and many others.

Indeed, as a direct result of the Sanger movement, even today, American black children suffer death by the millions at the hands of abortionists. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America, with 78% of their clinics in minority communities. Although blacks make up only 12% of the population, 35% of all the abortions in America are black babies.

So when it comes to the political parties’ struggle for dominance in America, where should the parties come down on the abortion issue? With Democrats clamoring for dependent minority voters, they should be the ones who immediately outlaw the practice of murdering minority babies.  They would have at least 13,000,000 more black voters on the rolls if they had not killed them all.

Where does that leave the GOP on the abortion issue? Should they embrace the practice of killing minority babies to purify the voting gene pool?

That’s right America. This is who we’ve become. Embrace the left.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement, Ethics, Gender, Religion

GOP House Has Power to Wag The Dog

November 8, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

With the 2012 elections in the  books, the result is that there has been no change in the makeup of America’s government. The Democrats won major advances in 2008, but were rebuked in the 2010 elections with the loss of the House of Representatives. The status quo prevails.

As we leave the 2012 elections behind us and look forward to the next 4 years of governance, our state of the nation is extremely precarious, as we head for the brink of a deadly fiscal cliff. At the end of next month the Bush era tax cuts expire, and as everyone’s tax rates return to previous levels, the economy is slated to lose nearly a million more jobs and personal income, which has suffered a $4,000 annual decrease since Obama took office, will decline further, plunging the economy into a stinging recession.

The second Obama era fiscal cliff which is fast approaching are the automatic cuts to the budget enacted in 2011 as a result of the government’s inability to agree on spending and budgetary matters. Indeed, deep cuts to domestic and military budgets will automatically kick in this January.

During Obama’s first term Republicans in the House were loathe to exercise the power the Constitution affords the House of Representatives. The time to step up and enforce the Constitution is long past due, and we call upon House Speaker John Boehner to abandon his tepid leadership practices of the past and begin doing what the American people and Constitution sent him to do–govern.

In fact, not one penny gets spent in this nation without the GOP controlled House consenting to it. This fact gives Boehner and the GOP all power. They don’t have to compromise. They are the kid with the ball, who is able to take it home and end the game any time the other kids fail to play by the rules. The Democrats stopped playing by the rules of the Constitution generations ago, and their hell-bent march to the left has rendered them enemies of the Constitution.

Obamacare, deficits, military cuts . . . these are all fantasies of the left, but need not be if the GOP would just exercise its Constitutional mandates.

The GOP must simply send a balanced budget with spending appropriated for Constitutionally mandated items to the Senate with instructions: “Pass this budget and send it to the president for signing, because it is the only budget you will get from us.” If they do that, then go to the golf course; GAME OVER.

Will the Democrats in the Senate and White House whine and scream? Yes. Will it do them any good? No. Why? Because without the consent of the House, the government cannot spend any money. Not one thin dime. Not a penny. Not a peso.

Can the Dems do an end run around the House and appropriate money for their programs? No. Will the government shut down? Yes. Is that bad? No. Why? Because the American government actually does very little to help the American citizen, and we can outlast a shutdown of the US government better than federal unions and Washington deal-makers can.

Will this plan work? YES! It is time for the GOP to show the American people that they are doing the job they were elected to do–govern within a balanced budget and provide basic services mandated by the Constitution.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

America Embraces Failure

November 7, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Following 4 years of economic, social and political failure by President Obama, Americans doubled down and asked him to give them more of the same.

Historically, this election could not have happened. Any president who kept the country at an average of 9% unemployment during his first term was doomed to be turned out by the electorate. A president who increased the cumulative national debt by 60% in just one term would be unelectable. Any president who presided over tens of millions entering into poverty would have been sent packing.

So why did Americans re-elect the man who is arguably the worst president in US history?  The answer is a frightening one.

Like much of Europe, Americans’ loyalty has been purchased with their own dollars, many of which are being borrowed and must be repaid by our children, and their children, and their children.

It appears that America has reached that tipping point where bribing voters with their own dollars to keep a person and party in power is the norm. What MUST follow is a scene of rapid economic and political decline, like Romans who were placated by the emperors with the carnage of the Colosseum, sitting indolently, distracted by the games, while the empire crumbles around them.

The handouts will soon run out, and you will find yourselves in the streets–first, demanding what the government can no longer provide, then rioting, then starving.

Congratulations America. You’ve just made yourself into Greece.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

Undecided? Watch This to See Your Real Choice

November 6, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

There are still a few people who claim to be undecided about today’s elections. Do they want to continue to support Barack Obama, or has our country reached a point where we must make a change of leadership . .  from the top down?

This is a video documenting the development of Obama’s policies, and how he made certain representations to the public while making different promises to special interests, and made political decisions different than he promised.

Watch this video, then share it with your friends and associates.

Obama, in his own words:

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement, Ethics

Niall Ferguson: Obama’s Gotta Go

November 5, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Reprinted from NEWSWEEK, Aug 19, 2012 1:00 AM EDT

Why does Paul Ryan scare the president so much? Because Obama has broken his promises, and it’s clear that the GOP ticket’s path to prosperity is our only hope.

I was a good loser four years ago. “In the grand scheme of history,” I wrote the day after Barack Obama’s election as president, “four decades is not an especially long time. Yet in that brief period America has gone from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the apotheosis of Barack Obama. You would not be human if you failed to acknowledge this as a cause for great rejoicing.

Despite having been—full disclosure—an adviser to John McCain, I acknowledged his opponent’s remarkable qualities: his soaring oratory, his cool, hard-to-ruffle temperament, and his near faultless campaign organization.

Yet the question confronting the country nearly four years later is not who was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.

In his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.

In an unguarded moment earlier this year, the president commented that the private sector of the economy was “doing fine.” Certainly, the stock market is well up (by 74 percent) relative to the close on Inauguration Day 2009. But the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak. Meanwhile, since 2008, a staggering 3.6 million Americans have been added to Social Security’s disability insurance program. This is one of many ways unemployment is being concealed.

In his fiscal year 2010 budget—the first he presented—the president envisaged growth of 3.2 percent in 2010, 4.0 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012. The actual numbers were 2.4 percent in 2010 and 1.8 percent in 2011; few forecasters now expect it to be much above 2.3 percent this year.

Unemployment was supposed to be 6 percent by now. It has averaged 8.2 percent this year so far. Meanwhile real median annual household income has dropped more than 5 percent since June 2009. Nearly 110 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011, mostly Medicaid or food stamps.

Welcome to Obama’s America: nearly half the population is not represented on a taxable return—almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a household where at least one member receives some type of government benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation—half of us paying the taxes, the other half receiving the benefits.

And all this despite a far bigger hike in the federal debt than we were promised. According to the 2010 budget, the debt in public hands was supposed to fall in relation to GDP from 67 percent in 2010 to less than 66 percent this year. If only. By the end of this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will reach 70 percent of GDP. These figures significantly understate the debt problem, however. The ratio that matters is debt to revenue. That number has leapt upward from 165 percent in 2008 to 262 percent this year, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund. Among developed economies, only Ireland and Spain have seen a bigger deterioration.

Not only did the initial fiscal stimulus fade after the sugar rush of 2009, but the president has done absolutely nothing to close the long-term gap between spending and revenue.

His much-vaunted health-care reform will not prevent spending on health programs growing from more than 5 percent of GDP today to almost 10 percent in 2037. Add the projected increase in the costs of Social Security and you are looking at a total bill of 16 percent of GDP 25 years from now. That is only slightly less than the average cost of all federal programs and activities, apart from net interest payments, over the past 40 years. Under this president’s policies, the debt is on course to approach 200 percent of GDP in 2037—a mountain of debt that is bound to reduce growth even further.

And even that figure understates the real debt burden. The most recent estimate for the difference between the net present value of federal government liabilities and the net present value of future federal revenues—what economist Larry Kotlikoff calls the true “fiscal gap”—is $222 trillion.

The president’s supporters will, of course, say that the poor performance of the economy can’t be blamed on him. They would rather finger his predecessor, or the economists he picked to advise him, or Wall Street, or Europe—anyone but the man in the White House.

There’s some truth in this. It was pretty hard to foresee what was going to happen to the economy in the years after 2008. Yet surely we can legitimately blame the president for the political mistakes of the past four years. After all, it’s the president’s job to run the executive branch effectively—to lead the nation. And here is where his failure has been greatest.Jobs Graphic

On paper it looked like an economics dream team: Larry Summers, Christina Romer, and Austan Goolsbee, not to mention Peter Orszag, Tim Geithner, and Paul Volcker. The inside story, however, is that the president was wholly unable to manage the mighty brains—and egos—he had assembled to advise him.

According to Ron Suskind’s book Confidence Men, Summers told Orszag over dinner in May 2009: “You know, Peter, we’re really home alone … I mean it. We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes [of indecisiveness on key economic issues].” On issue after issue, according to Suskind, Summers overruled the president. “You can’t just march in and make that argument and then have him make a decision,” Summers told Orszag, “because he doesn’t know what he’s deciding.” (I have heard similar things said off the record by key participants in the president’s interminable “seminar” on Afghanistan policy.)

This problem extended beyond the White House. After the imperial presidency of the Bush era, there was something more like parliamentary government in the first two years of Obama’s administration. The president proposed; Congress disposed. It was Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts who wrote the stimulus bill and made sure it was stuffed full of political pork. And it was the Democrats in Congress—led by Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank—who devised the 2,319-page Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank, for short), a near-perfect example of excessive complexity in regulation. The act requires that regulators create 243 rules, conduct 67 studies, and issue 22 periodic reports. It eliminates one regulator and creates two new ones.

It is five years since the financial crisis began, but the central problems—excessive financial concentration and excessive financial leverage—have not been addressed.

Today a mere 10 too-big-to-fail financial institutions are responsible for three quarters of total financial assets under management in the United States. Yet the country’s largest banks are at least $50 billion short of meeting new capital requirements under the new “Basel III” accords governing bank capital adequacy.

And then there was health care. No one seriously doubts that the U.S. system needed to be reformed. But the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 did nothing to address the core defects of the system: the long-run explosion of Medicare costs as the baby boomers retire, the “fee for service” model that drives health-care inflation, the link from employment to insurance that explains why so many Americans lack coverage, and the excessive costs of the liability insurance that our doctors need to protect them from our lawyers.

Ironically, the core Obamacare concept of the “individual mandate” (requiring all Americans to buy insurance or face a fine) was something the president himself had opposed when vying with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. A much more accurate term would be “Pelosicare,” since it was she who really forced the bill through Congress.

Pelosicare was not only a political disaster. Polls consistently showed that only a minority of the public liked the ACA, and it was the main reason why Republicans regained control of the House in 2010. It was also another fiscal snafu. The president pledged that health-care reform would not add a cent to the deficit. But the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that the insurance-coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of close to $1.2 trillion over the 2012–22 period.

The president just kept ducking the fiscal issue. Having set up a bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, headed by retired Wyoming Republican senator Alan Simpson and former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles, Obama effectively sidelined its recommendations of approximately $3 trillion in cuts and $1 trillion in added revenues over the coming decade. As a result there was no “grand bargain” with the House Republicans—which means that, barring some miracle, the country will hit a fiscal cliff on Jan. 1 as the Bush tax cuts expire and the first of $1.2 trillion of automatic, across-the-board spending cuts are imposed. The CBO estimates the net effect could be a 4 percent reduction in output.

The failures of leadership on economic and fiscal policy over the past four years have had geopolitical consequences. The World Bank expects the U.S. to grow by just 2 percent in 2012. China will grow four times faster than that; India three times faster. By 2017, the International Monetary Fund predicts, the GDP of China will overtake that of the United States.

GDP Graphic

 

Meanwhile, the fiscal train wreck has already initiated a process of steep cuts in the defense budget, at a time when it is very far from clear that the world has become a safer place—least of all in the Middle East.

For me the president’s greatest failure has been not to think through the implications of these challenges to American power. Far from developing a coherent strategy, he believed—perhaps encouraged by the premature award of the Nobel Peace Prize—that all he needed to do was to make touchy-feely speeches around the world explaining to foreigners that he was not George W. Bush.

In Tokyo in November 2009, the president gave his boilerplate hug-a-foreigner speech: “In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another … The United States does not seek to contain China … On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations.” Yet by fall 2011, this approach had been jettisoned in favor of a “pivot” back to the Pacific, including risible deployments of troops to Australia and Singapore. From the vantage point of Beijing, neither approach had credibility.

His Cairo speech of June 4, 2009, was an especially clumsy bid to ingratiate himself on what proved to be the eve of a regional revolution. “I’m also proud to carry with me,” he told Egyptians, “a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalamu alaikum … I’ve come here … to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based … upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.”

Fact Check: Has Obama Kept His Promises?

Obama
Charles Ommanney for Newsweek

 

Believing it was his role to repudiate neoconservatism, Obama completely missed the revolutionary wave of Middle Eastern democracy—precisely the wave the neocons had hoped to trigger with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. When revolution broke out—first in Iran, then in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria—the president faced stark alternatives. He could try to catch the wave by lending his support to the youthful revolutionaries and trying to ride it in a direction advantageous to American interests. Or he could do nothing and let the forces of reaction prevail.

In the case of Iran he did nothing, and the thugs of the Islamic Republic ruthlessly crushed the demonstrations. Ditto Syria. In Libya he was cajoled into intervening. In Egypt he tried to have it both ways, exhorting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to leave, then drawing back and recommending an “orderly transition.” The result was a foreign-policy debacle. Not only were Egypt’s elites appalled by what seemed to them a betrayal, but the victors—the Muslim Brotherhood—had nothing to be grateful for. America’s closest Middle Eastern allies—Israel and the Saudis—looked on in amazement.

“This is what happens when you get caught by surprise,” an anonymous American official told The New York Times in February 2011. “We’ve had endless strategy sessions for the past two years on Mideast peace, on containing Iran. And how many of them factored in the possibility that Egypt moves from stability to turmoil? None.”

Remarkably the president polls relatively strongly on national security. Yet the public mistakes his administration’s astonishingly uninhibited use of political assassination for a coherent strategy. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London, the civilian proportion of drone casualties was 16 percent last year. Ask yourself how the liberal media would have behaved if George W. Bush had used drones this way. Yet somehow it is only ever Republican secretaries of state who are accused of committing “war crimes.”

The real crime is that the assassination program destroys potentially crucial intelligence (as well as antagonizing locals) every time a drone strikes. It symbolizes the administration’s decision to abandon counterinsurgency in favor of a narrow counterterrorism. What that means in practice is the abandonment not only of Iraq but soon of Afghanistan too. Understandably, the men and women who have served there wonder what exactly their sacrifice was for, if any notion that we are nation building has been quietly dumped. Only when both countries sink back into civil war will we realize the real price of Obama’s foreign policy.

America under this president is a superpower in retreat, if not retirement. Small wonder 46 percent of Americans—and 63 percent of Chinese—believe that China already has replaced the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower or eventually will.

It is a sign of just how completely Barack Obama has “lost his narrative” since getting elected that the best case he has yet made for reelection is that Mitt Romney should not be president. In his notorious “you didn’t build that” speech, Obama listed what he considers the greatest achievements of big government: the Internet, the GI Bill, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, the Apollo moon landing, and even (bizarrely) the creation of the middle class. Sadly, he couldn’t mention anything comparable that his administration has achieved.

Now Obama is going head-to-head with his nemesis: a politician who believes more in content than in form, more in reform than in rhetoric. In the past days much has been written about Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s choice of running mate. I know, like, and admire Paul Ryan. For me, the point about him is simple. He is one of only a handful of politicians in Washington who is truly sincere about addressing this country’s fiscal crisis.

Deficit Graphic

 

Over the past few years Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” has evolved, but the essential points are clear: replace Medicare with a voucher program for those now under 55 (not current or imminent recipients), turn Medicaid and food stamps into block grants for the states, and—crucially—simplify the tax code and lower tax rates to try to inject some supply-side life back into the U.S. private sector. Ryan is not preaching austerity. He is preaching growth. And though Reagan-era veterans like David Stockman may have their doubts, they underestimate Ryan’s mastery of this subject. There is literally no one in Washington who understands the challenges of fiscal reform better.

Just as importantly, Ryan has learned that politics is the art of the possible. There are parts of his plan that he is understandably soft-pedaling right now—notably the new source of federal revenue referred to in his 2010 “Roadmap for America’s Future” as a “business consumption tax.” Stockman needs to remind himself that the real “fairy-tale budget plans” have been the ones produced by the White House since 2009.

I first met Paul Ryan in April 2010. I had been invited to a dinner in Washington where the U.S. fiscal crisis was going to be the topic of discussion. So crucial did this subject seem to me that I expected the dinner to happen in one of the city’s biggest hotel ballrooms. It was actually held in the host’s home. Three congressmen showed up—a sign of how successful the president’s fiscal version of “don’t ask, don’t tell” (about the debt) had been. Ryan blew me away. I have wanted to see him in the White House ever since.

It remains to be seen if the American public is ready to embrace the radical overhaul of the nation’s finances that Ryan proposes. The public mood is deeply ambivalent. The president’s approval rating is down to 49 percent. The Gallup Economic Confidence Index is at minus 28 (down from minus 13 in May). But Obama is still narrowly ahead of Romney in the polls as far as the popular vote is concerned (50.8 to 48.2) and comfortably ahead in the Electoral College. The pollsters say that Paul Ryan’s nomination is not a game changer; indeed, he is a high-risk choice for Romney because so many people feel nervous about the reforms Ryan proposes.

But one thing is clear. Ryan psychs Obama out. This has been apparent ever since the White House went on the offensive against Ryan in the spring of last year. And the reason he psychs him out is that, unlike Obama, Ryan has a plan—as opposed to a narrative—for this country.

Mitt Romney is not the best candidate for the presidency I can imagine. But he was clearly the best of the Republican contenders for the nomination. He brings to the presidency precisely the kind of experience—both in the business world and in executive office—that Barack Obama manifestly lacked four years ago. (If only Obama had worked at Bain Capital for a few years, instead of as a community organizer in Chicago, he might understand exactly why the private sector is not “doing fine” right now.) And by picking Ryan as his running mate, Romney has given the first real sign that—unlike Obama—he is a courageous leader who will not duck the challenges America faces.

The voters now face a stark choice. They can let Barack Obama’s rambling, solipsistic narrative continue until they find themselves living in some American version of Europe, with low growth, high unemployment, even higher debt—and real geopolitical decline.

Or they can opt for real change: the kind of change that will end four years of economic underperformance, stop the terrifying accumulation of debt, and reestablish a secure fiscal foundation for American national security.

I’ve said it before: it’s a choice between les États Unis and the Republic of the Battle Hymn.

I was a good loser four years ago. But this year, fired up by the rise of Ryan, I want badly to win.

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

Why It’s Time to Change Presidents

November 4, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Community Organizer Barack Hussein Obama released his first book about himself in 1995, titled Dreams from My Father, as publicity to launch his Senatorial campaign. The book has only recently received any scrutiny, and reveals a very disturbing ideology and series of life choices in the form of socialist associations and heavy drug use of the would-be leader.

Obama’s second book about himself, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, was then written and released by Senator Barack Hussein Obama, as publicity to launch his presidential campaign. The reader quickly learns that Obama’s version of the American Dream is much different than that of the average American.

The promises made to the American people in Obama’s campaigns turn out to bear no resemblance to his actions in office: There would be no rise in taxes for anyone under $250,000 per year, Obamacare would not raise the cost of health care and those who preferred their own plan would not lose it. Also, Gitmo would be closed and the wars in the middle east would be turned off like a spigot. Or here’s a good one . . . his administration would be the most transparent of any, and the partisan rhetoric would end. Even now, Obama is stumping on the promise that he will reach out across the aisle and work with republicans if re-elected. How about this one—Obama would cut the federal deficit in half!? He actually doubled it!

In fact, of all of the promises made by candidate Obama, Pulitzer Prize winning Politifact.com of the Tampa Bay Times demonstrates that he has reneged on two-thirds.

No doubt, many of the broken campaign promises were leftist pipe-dreams and would be devastating to the country, and with thankful hearts we recognize that President Obama got a taste of reality on several fronts once he took office, and began to see the world from a more realistic viewpoint, carrying on many of the policies of the Bush administration, notwithstanding the venomous denunciation of those policies by Obama and the left beforehand.

The fact remains, however, that Obama is an ideologue, and his political thinking is much different than that of most American’s, and completely the opposite of the founders of our nation.

Notwithstanding his adoption of some less radical paths once in office, Obama has still been guilty of ignoring the will of the American people on several issues, and has comported himself more like a ruler in many regards, than a public servant—as he was elected to be.

The administration has refused to accept responsibility for its many failures and shortcomings, and has stonewalled congressional attempts to get at the heart of corruption and unlawful activities in Eric Holder’s Department of Justice as well as other agencies under the administration. The way the president and his entire administration ignored the pleas for help from our ambassador in Benghazi, then watched live video feed of their 7 hour massacre by known al Qaeda activists, then lied to the American people for more than 2 weeks to convince them that Obama had personally killed off al Qaeda is only the latest episode in the president’s arrogance and disrespect of the American people.

As a result of 4 years of autocratic rule, Obama’s loss of personal likeability in the polls and Mitt Romney’s emergence as a likeable, competent business genius has rendered the 2012 election up for grabs.

The misinformation and corruption of Obama’s 4 year presidency is crumbling around him as the Greek columns that ushered in his presidency have turned to sand and tens of millions of victims have suffered horrifically at the hands of his leftist policies. Poverty levels have skyrocketed and 23,000,000 Americans are looking for work, all while promised economic expansion resulting from gargantuan spending bills have failed to produce a single net job.

Democratic attempts to paint GOP challenger Mitt Romney as a greedy, uncaring man out of touch with common Americans melted before the flames of reality during the RNC and first presidential debate, and Obama’s significant leads among women and other groups have disappeared. Within the past few weeks polls have swung in Romney’s favor, and much of America finds itself on its knees in prayer for a change of leadership on Tuesday. The choice between socialism and capitalism has never been clearer in a presidential election, and we can only add our voices to those offering up prayers for Mitt Romney today that America will return to its traditional path of personal liberty and the prosperity that attends it.

You may recall President Obama’s famous interview with Matt Lauer on “Today” on February 1, 2009 (we’ve inserted the video below), just after taking office as he asked the congress for his first economic stimulus package—nearly $900 billion.

Lauer: At some point will you say ‘Wait a minute. We’ve spent this amount of money; we’re not seeing the results. We’ve got to change course dramatically.’

Obama: Look, I’m at the start of my administration. One nice thing I find about the situation I find myself in is that I will be held accountable. I’ve got four years. A year from now people are going to see that we’re starting to make some progress, but there’s still going to be some pain out there. If I don’t have this done in three years then there’s going to be a one term proposition.

A one term proposition indeed. Let it be so.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

‘Islamization’ of Paris – a Warning to the West

November 1, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Friday in Paris. A hidden camera shows streets blocked by huge crowds of Muslim worshippers and enforced by a private security force.

This is all illegal in France: the public worship, the blocked streets, and the private security. But the police have been ordered not to intervene.

It shows that even though some in the French government want to get tough with Muslims and ban the burqa, other parts of the French government continue to give Islam a privileged status.

An ordinary French citizen who has been watching the Islamization of Paris decided that the world needed to see what was happening to his city. He used a hidden camera to start posting videos on YouTube. His life has been threatened and so he uses the alias of “Maxime Lepante. ”

Lepante’s View

His camera shows that Muslims “are blocking the streets with barriers. They are praying on the ground. And the inhabitants of this district cannot leave their homes, nor go into their homes during those prayers.”

“The Muslims taking over those streets do not have any authorization. They do not go to the police headquarters, so it’s completely illegal,” he says.

The Muslims in the street have been granted unofficial rights that no Christian group is likely to get under France’s Laicite’, or secularism law.

“It says people have the right to share any belief they want, any religion,” Lepante explained. “But they have to practice at home or in the mosque, synagogues, churches and so on.”

Some say Muslims must pray in the street because they need a larger mosque. But Lepante has observed cars coming from other parts of Paris, and he believes it is a weekly display of growing Muslim power.

“They are coming there to show that they can take over some French streets to show that they can conquer a part of the French territory,” he said.

France’s Islamic Future?

If France faces an Islamic future, a Russian author has already written about it. The novel is called “The Mosque of Notre Dame, 2048,” a bestseller in Russia, not in France.

French publisher Jean Robin said the French media ignored the book because it was politically incorrect.

“Islam is seen as the religion of the poor people, so you can’t say to the poor people, ‘You’re wrong,’ otherwise, you’re a fascist,” Robin explained.

The book lays out a dark future when France has become a Muslim nation, and the famous cathedral has been turned into a mosque.

Whether that plot is farfetched depends on whom you ask. Muslims are said to be no more than 10 percent of the French population, although no one knows for sure because French law prohibits population counts by religion.

But the Muslim birthrate is significantly higher than for the native French. Some Muslim men practice polygamy, with each extra wife having children and collecting a welfare check.

“The problem of Islam is more than a problem of numbers,” said French philosopher Radu Stoenescu, an Islamic expert who debates Muslim leaders on French TV. “The problem is one of principles. It’s an open question. Is Islam an ideology or just a creed?”

“It doesn’t matter how many there are,” he aded. “The problem is the people who follow Islam; they’re somehow in a political party, which has a political agenda, which means basically implementing Sharia and building an Islamic state.”

In Denial or Fed Up

From the 1980s until recently, criticizing or opposing Islam was considered a social taboo, and so the government and media effectively helped Islam spread throughout France.

“We were expecting Islam to adapt to France and it is France adapting to Islam,” Robin said.

About the burqa controversy, one French Muslim man told a reporter that Europeans should respect Muslim dress. One Parisian woman wearing a headscarf said “the veil is in the Koran” and “we only submit to God and nobody else.”

But even if many government elites are in France are in denial over Islam, the people in the streets increasingly are not. Some have become fed up with what they see as the growing Islamization of France.

They’ve started staging pork and wine “aperitifs,” or cocktail parties in the street. They’re patriotic demonstrations meant to strike back against Islam.  Another national demonstration is planned for Saturday, Sept. 4.

A Warning to the West

The French parliament debated the burqa law in this year. Jean-Francois Cope, president of the Union for a Popular Movement political party, has a warning for the West and for America.

“We cannot accept the development of such practice because it’s not compatible with the life in a modern society, you see,” he said. “And this question is not only a French question. You will all have to face this challenge. ”

For more insight on the slide toward a post-Christian Western society, check out Dale Hurd’s blog Hurd on the Web. 

For more insight on ‘Islamization’ around the world, check out Stakelbeck on Terror.

Reprinted from CBN.com

By Dale Hurd, CBN News Sr. Reporter

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement, Ethics, Foreign, Gender, Religion

Swiss Arm Borders for EU Collapse

October 28, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

In a revealing move the Swiss Defense Ministry is beefing up its military presence to defend Swiss borders against a massive influx of refugees from Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and other European Union countries on the brink of collapse.

As a result of 1) skyrocketing national debts and 2) a silent invasion by Muslims from the Middle East, EU nations are facing escalating threats of violence and civil unrest from those within their borders.

Many of Europe’s top earners have already moved their savings and wealth out of national banks and into safer Swiss banks to protect them from local financial collapse or confiscation by socialist governments taking over the various members of the EU. Swiss security experts concede that Switzerland is generally considered a safe haven from the looming social collapse and resulting chaos of its neighbors, and say that the recent moves of the Defense Ministry reflect its growing unease with conditions in the failing countries.

Switzerland is not a member of the EU, and promotes a hard-working, capitalist society. As a result, the Swiss enjoy unemployment rates below 3%. Switzerland also requires that every able-bodied male of military age be armed and trained, meaning it has one of the largest armies in the world relative to the size of its population. It can quickly mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops if the need arises.

At a time when the American president is doing his best to transform the US into a EU-like nation, voters would do well to scrutinize that model more closely before casting the deciding vote.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement, Foreign

Debate Heavyweight – Candy Crowley

October 17, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

In last night’s second presidential debate, hosted at Hofstra University in New York, the candidates came out swinging. It was clear that President Obama’s handlers had taken him to the woodshed over his first debate performance, notwithstanding his own assessment of the debate–that he had won it handily–and he was prepared to engage Mitt Romney aggressively.

Indeed, the candidates sparred over issues on the economy, entitlements, energy, and foreign policy, with Obama claiming that his first term has been a resounding success, and Romney tearing the president’s performance apart and laying out his own plan to add 12,000,000 jobs in his first term. The debate was animated, and the candidates relentless in their resolve to hold their ground . . . looking as though they were ready to take it out to the parking lot on a few occasions.

Obama was tireless in his efforts to convince viewers that he has turned in a stellar performance in his first term, and that he deserves their nod for a second. Romney turned and spoke to the audience, saying, “I think you know better. I think you know that these last four years haven’t been so good as the president just described and that you don’t feel like you’re confident that the next four years are going to be much better either. I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a repeat of the last four years. We just can’t afford four more years like the last four years.”

At an especially contentious point near the close of the debate an audience member asked Obama about the administration’s failure to provide the requested security for our embassy in Benghazi, Libya, prior to the attacks that killed four Americans. “Who was it that denied enhanced security and why?”

After glossing the question over with a dose of the Administration’s convoluted double-speak, Romney laid bare the Administration’s vacillation and cover-up of the terrorist attack that murdered our diplomats in Benghazi.

Obama fired back indignantly, “The suggestion that anybody in my team … would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, Governor, is offensive. That’s not what we do.” Of course, that is exactly what Obama and his administration do, but he made the claim with a straight face. Obama then claimed that he had designated the assault a terrorist attack from the beginning, calling it that the following day in a Rose Garden press conference.

Romney bristled at the remark, reminding the public that Obama and his people had claimed repeatedly for the next 14 days that the assault was a “spontaneous demonstration” spawned by the existence of a YouTube video. Moderator Candy Crowley (CNN) was quick to interrupt, waiving some papers she had picked up, saying, “It — it — it — he did in fact, sir. So let me — let me call it an act of terror.”

Obama asked her to repeat it, and she dutifully complied. “He — he did call it an act of terror.” Romney seemed confused by the assertion, based on weeks of Administration obfuscation, and said he wanted to get the claim into the record.

After the debate Crowley was forced to recant her assertion, based on the actual presidential transcript of Obama’s Rose Garden statement, which makes it clear that Obama was doing his best to include the word “terror” without actually saying the incident was a terror attack. After mentioning 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan, the president had stated, “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.” He then moved on to the Libya attack, not calling it a terrorist attack, and sent out Administration officials for the following 2 weeks with the story about a “spontaneous demonstration” turned violent. Certainly, no news agencies reported during that time that the president had claimed the assault was a terrorist attack.

In fact, the Administration’s position has been that Obama is personally responsible for wiping out al-Qaeda, having dispatched Osama Bin Laden with his own bare hands, and that his policies have brought peace to the Middle East and the friendship of Muslims everywhere. The reality is much different, of course, but it is that narrative which drove the Administration’s efforts to cover up the terrorist attack on on our diplomats in Benghazi.

Overall, the debate was a feisty display of unmitigated testosterone . . . and the presidential candidates were a little testy too. Crowley did the same thing that moderators in the first two debates did–cover for the Democrat, interrupt and cut off the Republican, and ensure that the Dem gets more speaking time; over 3 minutes more in this debate.

Although there appears to be a general consensus that Dems will believe that Obama won the debate and GOP will believe Romney won, political pollster Frank Luntz conducted a focus group in Nevada, a swing state, during the debate, made up of undecideds, most of whom voted for Obama 4 years ago. The conclusion of this focus group was that although Obama turned in a good performance, it was nothing more than empty rhetoric, too little too late, and that another 4 years of his policies would be toxic to our nation. In contrast, they nearly unanimously agreed that Romney is a seasoned businessman who understands the economy and how to create jobs, and that it is time to put him into the White House. That cannot be good news for an administration hopeful that Romney’s momentum would be slowed if the president performed well.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

VP Debate Turns Bizarre

October 13, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

The vice presidential debate between VP Joe Biden and GOP challenger Paul Ryan was anticipated by liberals as the party’s opportunity for payback following the spanking their fearless leader took in the first presidential debate last week at the hands of Mitt Romney. Feeling that Obama had simply failed to put in the necessary time to adequately prepare for the debate, Joe Biden was removed from the campaign trail and sequestered in debate rehearsal for nearly a week.

The VP debate was moderated by ABC News political correspondent and Obama cronie, Martha Raddatz. If one were to read a sterilized transcript of the debate, he would come away with the impression that each candidate expressed his party’s view on the issues presented by Radditz, and that there was no reason to think that bias or chicanery played a major role in the debate.

For those of us who watched the debate on television, however, that’s not how the evening went. In fact, Radditz ran interference for Biden all evening, tossing him underhanded pitches and assisting him to make clarifications, while interrupting and cutting off Paul Ryan a total of 82 times while he attempted to make his points, and allowing Biden to do the same more than 30 times. Overall, Biden was afforded a minute and a half more talking time than Ryan.

During the entire debate Biden laughed, smirked, scoffed, grunted, snorted and chuckled during Ryan’s speaking time in an animated and exaggerated display. The behavior was not only unbecoming the office of the Vice President, but would have been considered reason for being kicked off even a high school debate team. One must wonder why the VP and his debate coaching team made a conscious decision to have him carry on in such a disturbing and unprofessional manner, especially when they well knew that the broadcast would provide a split screen view to the 54 million viewers.

Although one could argue that each candidate adequately delivered his ticket’s respective message, conservative and leftist, the debate will go down in history as one of the most bizarre displays of strange behavior by a sitting vice president, bordering on drunken and obnoxious.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

Dems’ $6 Trillion Lie

October 8, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

We observed a brief exchange in social media between a liberal and conservative, based on a quote posted by the liberal: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

The implication is the same always proffered by the left–that government wastes its revenues on defense spending at the expense of social programs, and should reduce spending on defense and increase spending on social programs.

The argument, on its surface, is one that causes the good hearted to stop and reflect. Certainly, we all want to assist those in dire circumstances, and as a society we have made a social pact to protect those who have fallen from a secure position in life. We seek to lift up the weak, and to champion the oppressed.

But is it true that we spend more on defense than on social uplift?

As we look at the question, we must first ask ourselves, what is the role of government? For instance, is it the duty of the San Francisco city government to provide aircraft carriers in the Pacific Ocean? We all know it is not. But why is it not? Because different levels of government have different duties to their citizens. With all levels of government working together to provide for the needs of their citizens, so the theory goes, all needs are covered.

So, starting at the top, what is the duty of the federal government to its citizens? The constitution mandates that the federal government be delegated certain duties by the states and their citizens, duties, like national military defense, that cannot be provided by state or local governments very well. Those duties, and powers to fulfill them, are limited by the constitution. These limited powers enable it to provide for the common defense, free the flow of commerce, coin money, establish weights and measures, provide for immigration, bankruptcies, postal services, patents and copyrights, declare wars, establish a Navy and Army, and to establish duties, imposts and excises to pay for the national government’s activities. That’s it.

So if the federal government has no constitutional delegation to provide schools, hospitals or firefighters, how do we get those? We get them from state and local governments. In fact, at the state and local level we find almost all “social uplift” programs. Do states, counties and cities have to provide social uplift programs? No. Do they choose to? Yes.

So how much money do all levels of government spend each year to pay for all levels of government and the services they provide? Here is what we will be spending in the next year:

Federal Gross Spending $3.8 trillion
Intergovernmental $-0.7 trillion
State Direct Spending $1.6 trillion
Local Direct Spending $1.7 trillion
Total Spending $6.4 trillion

Armed with this information we can now make some simple comparisons.  For instance–How much is the defense budget? It is $830 billion, or $0.83 trillion. As anyone can see, defense is only 14% of total spending. But how does defense spending stack up to educational spending? In this same time frame we will spend approximately the same amount on each (see our article of June 11, 2012, NEA Report Card: F).

So if America spends around 14% of its annual taxes on defense, and a like amount on education, where does the remaining 72% go? It goes to healthcare ($1.1 trillion), welfare ($0.8 trillion), public employee pensions ($1.1 trillion), etc.

Those on the left have created a myth of government spending that they share among themselves that says that most taxes go to defense spending (which actually pays for the employment of millions of Americans), and social programs get the leftover crumbs. In fact, it is not true at all–it is quite the opposite.

All of those $ trillions are up for grabs to an array of government employee unions, special interests, and administration cronies and contributors, and are funding all manner of social and anti-social programs and movements. This is why Mitt Romney, noting that the federal government borrows 40% of its budget every year (to be paid by a future generation), indicated in the first presidential debate that government spending must be pared back to essentials until the economy returns to full employment.

With all of those fingers in the $6.4 trillion pie (which does not include unfunded obligations), it may be a little difficult for a Romney-Ryan administration to serve the American people without offending a few hogs at the trough.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

Romney Schools Obama

October 4, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

In the first of three presidential debates held Wednesday evening GOP challenger Mitt Romney won a decisive victory over the incumbent, Barack Hussein Obama. Obama’s performance was lackluster, to say the least, while Romney appeared energetic, friendly, and in command.

Obama began his opening statement informing the audience that America should not look at the past, implying we should ignore his record, but to the future. For the entire 90 minutes Obama explained why the federal government should be expanded along with Americans’ tax burden.

Romney’s opening statement echoed the recent statement made by Vice President Joe Biden, that Obama’s first term policies have “buried the middle class,”and he laid out his 5 Point plan for reversing America’s current economic calamity.

Romney was on the offensive all evening delivering blow after blow to the President’s record and devastating economic policies, and the President stammered and stuttered while trying to explain why Americans should entrust him with the presidency for another 4 years.

Obama repeatedly attempted to simply recite campaign rhetoric and democratic party talking points about his own record and the proposed economic fixes proffered by Romney, but Romney just as often set the record straight in an authoritative and convincing manner, in what appeared to be a humiliating challenge to the president’s heretofore unchallenged “facts.” At one point Romney chided Obama that because he had 5 sons, he was used to people telling him untruths and simply repeating them in an attempt to persuade him of their veracity, but that the technique was wasted in the presidential race, because although Obama was entitled to a private plane and house as president, he was not entitled to “private facts.”

Romney clearly got in some of the best lines of the evening, describing Obama’s economic policy as “trickle down government.” When Obama accused Romney of being the defender of big oil company tax breaks, Romney retorted that most of the $2.8 billion tax breaks go to small and middle sized oil exploration companies, not big oil, and that the amount is a mere pittance compared with the $90 billion that Obama palmed for his cronies in the wind and solar industries–an amount that equals 50 years of oil tax breaks. Romney quoted a friend who recently observed that Obama doesn’t just pick winners and losers in meting out government billions to green companies, he just picks losers, referring to the recent insolvency of many of the recipients, being run by big contributors to the president’s campaign.

Romney further chastised Obama’s assertion that his plan is to “invest” in 100,000 new teachers to boost America’s failing education system, when the $90 billion he had wasted on “green energy” projects would have hired 2 million teachers.

Obama appeared perturbed for most of the whipping, staring off at moderator Jim Lehrer or smirking and tensing his jaw as he looked down at his own notes. Romney looked presidential as he explained free-market economics to a befuddled Obama.

The exhibition was a resounding victory for Mitt Romney, and signs of a re-energized base were apparent as preliminary polls reflected the victory. Democrats were trying to spin the outcome in a favorable light, but the Internet and Twitter reflected that democratic supporters were very disappointed by the president’s inability to explain or defend his first 4 years in office, or to make a case for a repeat performance.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

Social Engineering In The Parking Lot

September 21, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

We recently visited a local library in the state of Arizona and were surprised to find opposite the obligatory row of 6 handicapped parking spots, reserved nearest the library entrance, a gratuitous row of 8 Alternative Fuel Parking spaces.

I had to stop and count the reserved parking places in each section to confirm what a quick glance told me — that there were more spaces reserved for alternative fuel vehicles than for handicapped people.

My first observation is that there is a very low threshold for who can obtain a handicapped parking sticker. In the many states I have visited, I have watched as thousands of cars have parked in the reserved handicapped spaces. As I have observed the drivers and their passengers exit the vehicles and head to the bustling places of business, it has been the rare occasion indeed when any of those leaving the handicap-stickered vehicles ever showed any signs of actual handicap. Nary a limp in most cases. Rarely have I watched someone who actually needs to park near the entrance get the wheelchair unloaded and wheel away.

So why does the government mandate that a large number of parking spaces be set aside for handicapped people — especially when so few people actually need close parking spaces? It is for the same reason that so many people are designated as being protected and championed by the government — due to their gender, age, color, nationality, sexual orientation, size, disease, disability — to invent needy constituencies for liberals to give free stuff to, including preferential treatment.

So why are there even more alternative fuel parking spots in the library’s parking lot? For the same reason — to give preferential treatment as a reward for conforming to government desired behavior.

Social engineering is the practice of maneuvering or manipulating citizens into certain desired behaviors through a series of government meted rewards and punishments. This ‘carrot and stick’ psychological technique has been adapted by leftist social engineers to bring about their desired social utopia — which is no utopia at all. The problem is that these programs generally cost taxpayers dearly, as the Alternative Fuels Program did in the state of Arizona, nearly bankrupting the state, but fail to deliver on the promised benefits. Nationally, the bio-fuel craziness has driven up not only fuel prices, but food prices as well. See our article The Ethanol Boondoggle, of May 12, 2012.The bio-fuel boondoggle produces a gallon of fuel only after the investment of 2 gallons of gasoline and 1500 gallons of water, and has increased world starvation by 25% and world food prices by an equal amount.

It is the philosophy of conservatives that governments should not be in the business of telling Americans how to live their lives — whether it be what kind of fuel to put in the tank or in the stomach. Every attempt to manipulate the masses only turns out to cost taxpayers money and liberty, without benefiting the people.

PUBLIUS

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Who Should Pay Their Fair Share?

September 11, 2012 By Editor 2 Comments

We hear so much these days of “fairness.” Indeed, liberals have been beating the drums hard that it is time for the “rich” to start paying their “fair share.”

In reality, 47 percent of the country pays no federal income taxes whatsoever, and the top 25 percent of earners pay 87 percent of the total burden. The top 1 percent pay 36% of all federal income taxes, while the top 5 percent pay 58%!

In truth, this distribution scheme is unfair, but it is not those who now bear a significantly higher portion of the burden who should be made to shoulder even more of the load.

Presidents Kennedy and Reagan both understood that to stimulate economic growth and bring more money into government’s coffers, it is necessary to LOWER taxes on those who shoulder the burdens, and free up the economy.

In his annual budget message to Congress, President Kennedy explained the reasoning behind lowering tax rates:

“Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased — not a reduced — flow of revenues to the federal government.”

This is exactly what Mitt Romney plans to do to stimulate economic growth and to balance the federal budget–combined with numerous other things, like making the nation energy independent.

There is a story that I heard years ago about the fairness of the distribution of tax burdens that I think will be instructive. It’s precise origin is unknown as far as I know, but I would like to give proper credit if I could find the person who developed it.

Suppose that every day ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers, he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,’ but he got $10!’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’

‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’

‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

That is how our tax system really works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction — and it is they who stimulate the economy when we leave their earned income in their hands to spend in the economy. As that money passes through many hands, the wealth is distributed naturally, and it is taxed each time it changes hands.

But tax these too much, as we have, and attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier, as we now see in the case of many French, German and American citizens whose wealth has been threatened to the point of removing it from their native countries’ borders.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

DNC Has a Stolen Platform?

September 5, 2012 By Editor 8 Comments

Communists Sue Democratic Party For Stealing Platform

Reprinted from Red Square

In a surprise move, the CPUSA (Communist Party USA) has announced a lawsuit against the Democratic Party and its leadership for the alleged theft of intellectual property. The plaintiffs claim that the entire so-called “new” Democratic agenda is, in fact, the product of a decades-long, painstaking campaign by CPUSA theorists, agitators, and underground subversive cells – which makes it the intellectual property of the Communist Party USA, protected by American copyright laws. “They stole our entire platform, rebranded it ‘progressive’, and claimed it as their own,” declared a CPUSA spokesperson at a press conference in San Francisco. “And we communists say, not so fast! Not in this country anyway, where we still have property rights and the rule of law, thank God! Actually, let me rephrase that…”

The Communist Party representative explained that government ownership of the auto and financial industries, redistribution of wealth, and free rationed healthcare have always been among the glorious CPUSA objectives: “We held on to these goals through all the difficult years of factional infighting, purges, denunciations, and heroic espionage on behalf of the Soviet intelligence services.

“This may seem like a foreign idea to you, but we sacrificed everything for it – our friends, our neighbors, and our nation. We suffered from all kinds of ulcers and split personality disorders by blindly following Stalin’s directives. We risked our chances of promotion within US government agencies by dutifully advancing Soviet foreign policy. And for what? So that some spoiled Democrats could ride on our backs to power while throwing us crumbs in the form of minor cabinet appointments?

“It’s just like taking someone else’s hard-earned income and redistributing it! … Never mind, bad example… It’s like infiltrating a respectable organization and taking over its management while engaging in subversive propaganda and the rewriting of history… Whoops, bad example again… It’s like being devoid of moral standards and rejecting all the norms and values of Judeo-Christian civilization… No, that was totally inappropriate. Scratch that…

“It’s time we got our fair share of credit from the current administration. As a gesture of good will, we would be pleased to accept the credit in the form of stimulus checks, subsidies, and loan guarantees for our members. If not now, when?”

CPUSA lawyers presented documents to the press showing that the Democratic platform of 2010, almost-line-for-line, reiterates the CPUSA platform of 1963. As the lead attorney for the plaintiffs pointed out, even a casual reading shows that while the rhetoric occasionally varies, the underlying policies are nearly identical.

“If the public knew that all the Democrat ideas are ours, we’d have more high-paying jobs in the Obama administration,” remarked the CPUSA spokesperson. “While all our members can’t be czars, we should at least get royalties. We can’t survive on government handouts alone, not yet anyway.”

This announcement seems to overturn past communist policy favoring the liquidation of czars and royalty.

The Democratic National Committee has declined to issue an official comment on the lawsuit, but a high-ranking White House official stated privately that this development is the result of an historically inevitable “convergence of opposites” – a philosophical concept outlined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – whereby the American public catches up with the glorious promise of communism, while the CPUSA becomes so American that it becomes embroiled in litigation. “Don’t quote me on this,” he added, “but Barack and I believe we can easily reconcile whatever minor differences we have with the CPUSA, and work together to prepare Americans for the final march, in well-organized and neat columns, towards our radiant progressive future.”

Special thanks to Will Beria for contributing to this story

; )

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

DNC Platform – More Taxes, Abortions and Sodomy

September 4, 2012 By Editor 3 Comments

As the Democratic party faithful gather together in Charlotte, NC, to launch their final appeal for votes in the November general election, their new platform has been shaped to maximize support from the fringes of American society.

Indeed, the Rainbow Coalition that has become the Democrats’ base has wandered ever farther from the center-right mainstream of America.

In an all-out class warfare charge up the final hill of this election cycle the Democrats have focused their efforts on diverting voters’ attention away from President Obama’s abysmal record, especially on the economy.

Indeed, democrats have been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into attack ads attempting to refocus the issues on the GOP challenger’s record, re-written by the Democrats to make Governor Mitt Romney seem like a blood-thirsty capitalist who cares nothing about the average person or women, instead of the successful, hard-working, kind and generous man that thousands who know him personally have testified.

Rather than admitting that their leadership has plunged the nation into the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression, and condemned 23,000,000 Americans to the permanent unemployment roles (most of whom are women, many of whom have descended into poverty) or burger flipping jobs, Obama and his surrogates tell us that all is well, that his policies are working, and that the private sector is doing just fine–although we do need to increase government jobs.

Indeed, rather than propose anything that might put American’s back to work, the Democratic party is offering us higher taxes on job creators, which would gut their ability to create jobs, and the revenue from which would run the government for just 9 days.

They additionally assume that most American’s feel that taxpayer funded birth control and abortions are paramount, and that we need to immediately expand programs that pay for them.

And last, homosexual marriage is being proffered like candy at Halloween. That’s just what working American families need and are clamoring for–government sanctioned sodomy, and just like traditional marriages to be endowed with all of the benefits that are offered to loving couples who enter into a lifetime covenant of fidelity and mutual care, and who take upon themselves the responsibility of rearing children to promulgate society.

The election decision between the traditionally centrist platform of the GOP and the extreme left proposals of the Democrats has never been so clear. This election will truly determine whether America rediscovers its greatness, or continues its slide down that slimy hill into the abyss of every other society that has corrupted itself into oblivion.

PUBLIUS

 

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement, Ethics, Gender

Paul Ryan Defines GOP Message

August 30, 2012 By Editor 1 Comment

In his acceptance speech as the GOP vice presidential candidate at the RNC convention, Congressman Paul Ryan laid waste the false assertions of the Obama campaign while detailing the reasons for his support of Governor Mitt Romney and his plan for America’s comeback.

Both GOP candidates have been much maligned in a barrage of false attacks from Obama’s campaign, accusing them of everything from killing strangers’ wives to attempting to kill millions of seniors by destroying Medicare. Ryan fired back detailing how Governor Romney and he have a plan that will save Medicare from the Obama raids that have cost the program $716 billion, and will secure the program for several generations to come. He offered personal stories of how Medicare had helped him and his mother care for his grandmother while she was in sharp decline with Alzheimer’s, and how his own widowed mother was now utilizing its important benefits.

Representative Ryan, generally accepted as the nation’s leading congressional economic expert, further detailed how the Obama administration’s policies have plunged the nation into economic decline, and outlined the GOP plan to bring the economy back through tried-and-true fiscal policies which include lowering taxes as well as regulatory barriers to small business success. He recounted the President’s many failures, like channeling many billions of taxpayer dollars to political contributors and cronies.

“It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new,” Ryan reminisced. “Now all that’s left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind.” The line that brought the greatest response was “College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

Ryan detailed tongue-in-cheek generational differences with Mitt Romney, but emphasized their shared philosophies, faith and goals for America. Pointing out Mitt Romney’s litany of successes in life, Ryan questioned at what point did hard work and success become a negative, as the Obama campaign has been claiming.

Echoing the need for “plain talk” with the American people about the serious nature of the nation’s fiscal problems raised the evening before by Governor Chris Cristie, Ryan pledged, “We will not duck the tough issues, we will lead.”

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

Our $16 Trillion Debt

August 25, 2012 By Editor 1 Comment

President Obama and his associates on the left follow the Keynesian theory of economics, the idea that when economies wane, government deficit spending will reignite the flame. To that end the Obama administration has spent trillions of dollars in 3 years, 40% of which has been borrowed, and on which the country is now paying unsustainable interest.

The national debt stood at $10 trillion when Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office just 3.5 short years ago. That nearly incomprehensible amount represented the unbridled deficit spending of generations of fiscally irresponsible presidents and congresses—Democratic and Republican. It was the cumulative debt of the nation, spanning more than 200 years.

Candidate Obama said that President Bush and congress had forced the national debt up by $4 trillion in 8 years, and called it “irresponsible and unpatriotic.” (Obama video below) The editors agree. But how much more irresponsible and unpatriotic is the addition of $6 trillion to that amount in just 3.5 years? It is treason, by Obama’s reasoning.

The national debt will turn over to $16 trillion in mere days, a 60 percent increase during Obama’s short time in office. It represents a massive federal government spending spree reminiscent of a teen who mistakenly believes he has won the lottery. If Obama is re-elected the national debt will exceed $22 trillion by the end of his second term. To get a handle on the enormity of this number the editors have consulted mathematicians who tell us that America probably does not have 22 trillion leaves on its trees. Plus, this is only actual dollars out the door; it does not include the herculean amounts of entitlement obligations not on the books, which add $ tens of trillions over the next two decades.

Let’s get back to our current debt. What’s the problem with a $16 trillion debt, you ask?

When Americans turn off the alarm clock in the morning and hustle off to work, the first $1.2 billion they generate every day must be siphoned off of the economy just to pay the current interest on the national debt. That amount grows each day as additional money is borrowed to run the government, and as unpaid interest on the debt compounds. It will never be decreased at current rates, but only increase, because we are never paying down the principle we owe, but adding to it at the rate of $10 million every minute! Your great-great-great-grandchildren will still be paying the interest on the money Obama’s government borrows today.

The federal budget is up to $3.8 trillion a year, with multiple stimulus packages filled with crony payoffs and pork barrel spending wasting additional trillions, without any economic return to the American people. The economy is worsening, with real unemployment and underemployment over 15 percent. Americans’ personal wealth has shrunk by 40% since Obama took office.

Government leaders should have put the country on a fast-track to pay off the national debt 20 years ago . . . and 10 years ago . . . and 3 years ago. Candidate Obama promised a balanced budget in his first term. Now, those on the left boisterously proclaim that the only answer to reducing the deficit and debt is to raise taxes “on the wealthy.” In fact, as we demonstrated in our article of May 17 of this year Bringing Fairness to Taxes, “the top 25 percent of earners pay 87 percent of the total burden. The top 1 percent pay 36% of all federal income taxes, while the top 5 percent pay 58%.” Indeed, Obama’s confiscatory tax hike scheme would deplete the wealth of the job creators and the proceeds would run our federal government for a mere 9 days.

Time after time Keynesian economics has failed. So why do our universities still tout it as the model for our own economy? Why are our government leaders drawing all available dollars, current and future, into the abyss of federal spending? How many jobs were created with the shovel ready projects promised by President Obama as he highjacked $900 billion in the first stimulus package?

Debt creates poverty. Ever family knows this. Those who frequent the check cashing-payday loans establishments have learned the hard way that it is a recipe for financial disaster. So when will our government leaders learn the lesson? We recall well as Jimmy Carter addressed the nation and scratched his head in confusion as he explained that he had implemented all of the university approved, liberal orthodox policies, yet the country appeared to be languishing in a “malaise.” These are people that don’t seem to learn from past mistakes. Debt equals poverty. Perhaps this is why Americans are becoming poorer with every passing day.

There is only one possible solution–the federal government (and state governments) must immediately stop spending. We, the American taxpayer, and the main trustors of the American trust, must cut up the credit cards and end the binge spending of a presidency gone wild.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

Romney’s Education Overhaul

August 14, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

 

One of the five key elements of presidential contender Mitt Romney’s stronger economy plan is overhauling America’s education system — The Skills to Succeed. The bullet points of this education update are:

-Give every family access to a great school and quality teachers
-Provide access to affordable and effective higher education options
-Focus job training programs on building valuable skills that align with opportunities
-Attract and retain the best and the brightest from around the world

As we wrote in our article of June 11 of this year, NEA Report Card: F, the education problem has been growing in America for decades, as the costs of educating our children skyrocket and students are churned out of the public education system with less and less actual education.

A decades-long growing battle between liberals and conservatives over education is culminating in calls to either get the government and unions out of education altogether, or to entirely overhaul the system.

The first bullet point – affording every family access to a great school and quality teachers is a broadly discussed function of reversing decades of damage done by the teachers’ unions and leftist bureaucrats and administrators. Their intractable resistance to objective standards of excellence and testing of teachers for competency – or even compensation based on merit and results, has left them exposed as the typical “more money for less work” union members they have become. Merit pay for teachers and tuition vouchers for students, to take to any school they desire to attend, will have the immediate and permanent effect of forcing schools to compete for their livelihood—a capitalistic concept quite foreign to the unions and their Democratic partners.

The second bullet point – providing access to affordable and effective higher education options is a cutting-edge concept that is as yet, undeveloped in the public arena. The Federalist Press editors hereby proffer a plan that will revolutionize American higher education.

The major problems with the current system are: 1) costs have artificially skyrocketed and the taxpayer is left holding the bag for much of it while students incur decades of debt; and 2) leftists dominate the system and classrooms, leaving indoctrinated students with little usable education and mush for brains.

The editors propose a new higher education option, patterned somewhat after the current CLEP and DANTES programs. In this age of digital access it is feasible to launch a program that provides students with online classes, with lectures by top experts and stunning graphics and demonstrations. A basic 2 year core curriculum will ensure that all students receive across-the-board instruction in math, science, English, history, etc. Then specialization will occur in 3rd and 4th year online classes. This is essentially how colleges and universities are supposed to offer classes now, but they have strayed far from their mandate.

Third and fourth year specialization courses in the government offered online university should emphasize productive degree programs initially; science, engineering, language, history, chemistry, education, pre-medicine, pre-law, etc., with some liberal arts programs being added as the system is more fully developed to accommodate their greater need for interactivity.

To help reduce cheating on exams, a major problem in the current system as well, testing centers should be established for this online university system with certified proctors to administer computerized tests. Students can take online courses at their own pace, and show up to take the exams as soon as they have completed the course.

Costs, which will be only a fraction of the current $500 billion, can be shared by students and the taxpayers. Students can pay a low flat fee for each course, and the federal government can dramatically cut its higher education budget and finance the remaining cost of the online university system.

This proposal will provide higher education for anyone who wants it, and anyone who is self-motivated enough to do the work. It doesn’t get any easier, cheaper or better than this.

PUBLIUS

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement

Congressman Nugent On SCOTUS Obamacare Ruling

July 24, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling on the President’s healthcare law a few weeks ago, a lot of people on both sides of the issue have asked about my reaction to it. It probably goes without saying at this point that I think the law was an enormous mistake from a policy standpoint – $800 billion in new taxes ($675 billion in the most recent estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation plus roughly another $125 billion in taxes from their 2010 estimates of the individual mandate, employer mandate, and other revenues – likely to go up further), plus $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, zero done to control the growing costs in healthcare, etc – but setting aside the specific issue of health reform, my biggest concerns surround the ruling itself and the precedent it sets. These are issues that frankly, I think the media has a responsibility to make sure Americans are informed about.

Here is the short version. The Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance could not be allowed under Congress’ constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. The Court said very plainly that the federal government does not have the authority to require you to buy something and penalize you for failing to do it.

But in the same breath, citing Congress’ authority to levy taxes, the Court said that although the federal government can’t force you to buy health insurance, they can compel you to buy it by taxing you if you don’t. In a nutshell, the government can’t fine you for not buying something, but they can hit you with a tax penalty if you don’t… I frankly don’t see a meaningful difference between the two.

Think about it this way: the federal government has long been able to encourage certain behavior through the tax code (think about the mortgage interest tax deduction), but it has never been able to compel you to go out and buy a house by threatening to hit you with a tax penalty if you didn’t. That is a huge difference. On page 39 of his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts used the example of energy efficient windows. He suggested that although the federal government couldn’t require you to buy energy efficient windows, it could essentially force you to do so by levying a tax on you if you don’t.

I don’t think anybody out there disputes the benefits of having health insurance or lowering your electricity bill, but in the United States of America, those decisions have always been up to the people – not up to the federal government. And regardless of how you feel about the healthcare law, I think this is something that all Americans should consider very carefully. Should Congress have the power to force American citizens into buying things that they don’t want? Should the federal government be able to force you to buy a certain car, or windows, or insurance, or anything else that the Congress thinks you should have? Is that a power that We The People want to surrender?

I don’t believe it is. But that’s what the Supreme Court has done here. Regardless of whether or not the President’s healthcare law is repealed, the precedent has been set. The government now has the legal authority to force you to buy things. That wasn’t the case before the ruling and it is not something that is easily undone. Following on the heels of our Independence Day, when all Americans gather together to celebrate our freedom and the sacrifices of those who made it possible, this is an issue that I think we should all consider very carefully. Are we less free as a people in the wake of this ruling and is that something we should be comfortable with?

You know where I stand.

Congressman Richard B. Nugent

Filed Under: All Stories, Economy, Elections, Entitlement, Ethics

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