Constitutional Guardian, historical and economic insight from Nancy Tengler

I've Had It!

2012-01-23T09:15:00.000-08:00

On the Question of Whether Iran Should Obtain a Nuclear Weapon

2012-01-18T04:32:00.000-08:00

An excerpt from today's The Wall Street Journal; all you need to know about Iranian leadership.

"Accommodationists argue that a rational Iran can be contained. Not the Iran with a revered tradition of deception; that during its war with Iraq pushed 100,000 young children to their deaths clearing minefields; that counts 15% of its population as "Volunteer Martyrs"; that chants "Death to America" at each session of parliament; and whose president states that no art "is more beautiful . . . than the art of the martyr's death." Not the Iran in thrall to medieval norms and suffering continual tension and crises."

Will the Real Unemployment Rate Please Stand Up?

2012-01-09T09:34:00.001-08:00

Despite the breathless claims that the economy is getting better as witnessed by the supposed improving jobs numbers, it is important to note the relevant numbers.

If jobless claims are declining because the number of people seeking jobs is declining then the reduction is not a measure of economic improvement rather, the statistic reflects job seekers giving up and dropping out of the work force.

Art Laffer wrote in his January 5th report, Housing, GDP and the 2012 Election that today's unemployment rate stands at 8.6%. (U-6 which is the measure of those who have accepted a part-time job but are seeking full time work--the underemployed--is now at 15.6%). But, the most important measure is the labor force participation (those still looking for work) which has dropped from 66.1% in late 2007 to 63.9% (Laffer Associates). This decline is confirmed by the duration of unemployment which currently hovers at 41.1 weeks against a sixty year average of 14.4 weeks (Housing). In other words, since January, 1948 the average number of weeks an individual was unemployed is 14.4. Until now the previous peak was approximately 22 weeks during the early 80's recession. We currently sit at 41.1 weeks.

This is unsustainably bad news and should be reported as such by the media rather than lauded with selective statistics that do not reflect the reality of the lives of millions of Americans who simply want to get back to work.

Obama's Dogmatic Spending Spree

2011-11-18T05:06:00.000-08:00

In her excellent history of the the Great Depression, author Amity Shlaes chronicles Roosevelt's inaugural speech in January 1937 where he claims, "Our progress out of the Depression is obvious" (298). This was FDR's proclamation to the people on the celebration of his re-election (for the second time) as president. Never mind that the unemployment rate now at 15% was on the rise again from the November 1936 low. In fact, the Great Depression would drag on until the mobilization of the war effort in response to the December 7, 1941 Japanese of Pearl Harbor would jumpstart the U.S. economy. The point was then--as it is now--not to let the facts get in the way of ideology. Not ever.

The parallels between the Roosevelt Administration and the Obama Administration are uncanny. Who can forget the Obama Administration's "Recovery Summer" in 2010? From Politico on June 17, 2010: "Vice President Joe Biden today will kick off the Obama administration’s “Recovery Summer,” a six-week-long push designed to highlight the jobs accompanying a surge in stimulus-funded projects to improve highways, parks, drinking water and other public works.

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, said: “This summer will be the most active Recovery Act season yet, with thousands of highly-visible road, bridge, water and other infrastructure projects breaking ground across the country, giving the American people a first-hand look at the Recovery Act in their own backyards and making it crystal clear what the cost would have been of doing nothing” (Allen).

Despite the claims of recovery, there was not then and is not now a credible supporting fact for claiming so.

Mr. Obama entered office in January of 2009 with an unemployment rate of 7.6%. In February of 2009, with a sense of urgency borrowed from the FDR Great Depression handbook, Obama proposed and Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. $787 Billion in spending. $787 billion in tax-payer dollars. 787 Billion of them had to be spent. Immediately.

Christina Romer, the Administration's first Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers argued that the spending was necessary because the “stimulus program would prevent unemployment from exceeding 8%. In fact, unemployment shot up to 10.1% in October 2009. The unemployment rate in September 2011 was reported at 9.1%, while Romer and Bernstein had predicted that if their “stimulus” plan passed (which, of course, it did), it would be 6.6%" (Forbes, Woodhill).

Using the presidential pulpit to dogmatically (definition: asserting opinion as though it were a fact) claim a particular political result is bad leadership, at best or akin to propaganda, at worst. We expect our presidents to rise above politics in the midst of a national crisis.

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former Chief of Staff, boldly stated in the early days: "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

In other words, everything is political. Even at the expense of the millions of Americans still out of work despite the unprecedented spending of $787 billion of your money and mine.

Complete Self-Confidence--A Weakness

2011-10-09T09:50:00.001-07:00

The arrogance of man is such that he is forever seeking to attach his imprimatur to success in order to co-opt that success for his own gain. In capitalism, the effect is competition. In government, the result is tyranny.

From a young age, we encourage our children to "believe in themselves." We cite examples of our heroes who through sheer determination succeeded in the face of unrelenting failure. We recount the perseverance of Thomas Edison and Abraham Lincoln; we celebrate Washington's improbable victory against the British or the rags to riches stories of men and women who have risen from obscurity to wealth through hard work. This is the story of America at her finest placed center stage, integral to our cultural lore, so deeply revered it is embedded in our DNA. We believe in ourselves, we believe in others. That is the essence of being American.

But believing in one's self implies that there is something to believe in. Something fine and good and honorable at the core and if there is good there must also be humility--a self-check against delusion. For, blind belief is dangerous when unchecked as G.K. Chesterton reminds us in his 1908 publication of Orthodoxy. He writes: Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Supermen. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums...Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness.

Our political leaders would do well to consider Chesterton's words. Our president who believes in the veracity of his unproven and failed economic policies and continues to advocate them in the face of ongoing economic deterioration would do well to consider the facts. To seek guidance from history. To understand that at the core of blind confidence is arrogance. Out president would do well to understand as Chesterton did that "complete self-confidence is a weakness." And, weakness is something the leader of the world's dominant economic power cannot afford to flaunt.

In Search of a Modern Day Hercules

2011-09-04T06:25:00.000-07:00

In the mid-1800's the great Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a series of essays that were published into two volumes. From his essay on Character he first deals with its elusive nature: "...a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a Familiar or Genius, by whose counsels he cannot impart; which is company for him, so that such men are often solitary..." (Emerson,98). In other words, these men know what they are about.

And we know what they are about--just by looking at them. "..but Hercules did not wait for a contest; he conquered whether he stood, or walked, or sat, or whatever thing he did." (99) So where are these men today? Emasculated or at the very least silenced perhaps by politically correct thinking or more accurately, by the tyranny of political correct thought.

And finally: "The men who carry their points do not need to inquire of their constituents what they should say, but are themselves the country which they represent" (100)

To that I say: Maxine Waters, Anthony Weiner, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid...and sadly President Barack Obama.

Reckless Endangerment--Obama in Action

2011-08-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

In his book 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read, Dr. Benjamin Wiker addresses the question of what, exactly, the term conservatism means and begins by pointing out the most important consideration is "what is one trying to conserve?"

To understand the answer to that question, Wiker begins with Aritotle's The Politics. Aristotle believed--as I trust most Americans do--that "political life and morality are natural" versus the notion that "political life and morality are man-made." Aristotle captured, centuries ago, the salient argument that remains front and center in American politics today--from whom do politicians receive their authority?

As Wiker states: "Conservatives tend toward political caution, because they believe man is not infinitely malleable; and they believe that morality is objective and puts limits on what human beings can and should do. (emphasis mine) Liberals tend to believe the reverse: that morality is relative and that man is malleable and can rightfully be subject to political manipulation to some advance some heady notion of the common good to expedite some grand "progressive" project" (14)

But here is where the difference becomes most stark. Conservatives prefer experience. Liberals are just fine espousing some Utopian theory and then muddling along to see if it works never minding about what history or the Constitution say. Think: stimulus, then more stimulus and the promise of future stimulus in the face of deteriorating economic and employment results. Think Nancy Pelosi telling us that "we have to pass the bill to learn what's in it" after the notorious health care railroad vote.

History is written for a reason. To learn from it. As George Santanya famously penned: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

"Playing doctor" with the world's growth engine is reckless endangerment of an unprecedented kind.

Enjoy your vacation Mr. President.

Fiscal La La Land

2011-07-29T06:19:00.000-07:00

The name calling and obfuscation surrounding the debt ceiling debate is remarkable even by Washington standards. The time for politics is past. The entitlement mentality in Washington which has spread throughout the country is not sustainable. It is time for us to know the numbers, the breadth and depth of the problem. Consider the following from a recent Wall Street Journal editorial and take a moment to the let the scope of the spending sink in. (Note also that the emphasis is mine.)

"According to the most recent government data, today some 50.5 million Americans are on Medicaid, 46.5 million are on Medicare, 52 million on Social Security, five million on SSI, 7.5 million on unemployment insurance, and 44.6 million on food stamps and other nutrition programs. Some 24 million get the earned-income tax credit, a cash income supplement."

And the next time one of your liberal friends suggests that we cut defense spending to solve the spending problem, consider this:

"By 2010 such payments to individuals were 66% of the federal budget, up from 28% in 1965. We now spend $2.1 trillion a year on these redistribution programs, and the 75 million baby boomers are only starting to retire." (WSJ)

Finally, to understand the reckless pace of spending, to put it in historical perspective read on.

"Spending as a share of GDP in the last three years is higher than at any time since 1946. In three years the debt has increased by more than $4 trillion thanks to stimulus, cash for clunkers, mortgage modification programs, 99 weeks of jobless benefits, record expansions in Medicaid, and more. The forecast is for $8 trillion to $10 trillion more in red ink through 2021."

All of this before ObamaCare costs hit the books.

Doing Things on His Own

2011-07-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

If only President Obama received the same kind of intense media scrutiny George Bush was subject to and all presidents should be held to, his comments today would at least be a part of the national dialogue.

According to Catherine E. Shoichet of CNN, Obama told the National Council of La Raza: "The idea of doing things on my own is very tempting, I promise you, not just on immigration reform. But that's not how our system works. That's not how our democracy functions."

Democratic National Committee Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz stated today: "I commend President Obama for his address at NCLR today." Presumably Ms. Schultz read the president's speech. Presumably she understands the conflict between the Constitution and the president confessing that "the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting."

Presumably as chairwoman of the DNC, Ms. Schultz understands that the president takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and that doing things on his own, while tempting, would be in breach of that oath.

Yikes.

Reckless Endangerment

2011-07-18T06:41:00.001-07:00

If the budget/debt ceiling debate doesn't focus voter's on 2012 nothing will. After cramming ObamaCare through Congress using a parliamentary procedure (Reconciliation) meant for routine spending bills not massive entitlement bills; after cajoling and threatening and "rewarding" (we call it something else in the private sector) loyal party members with scads of taxpayer money for pet projects if they voted to support ObamaCare; after listening to Nancy Pelosi so aptly declare: "We have to pass the bill to know what's in it..." if you were still sitting on the sidelines, now is the time to engage in the debate.

Let's set aside the $1.whatever Trillion spending boondoggle that is ObamaCare. Let's focus instead on the question of spending and the sustainability of spending of our federal government.

Fact: in 2011, the US is projected to spend $772.4B on pensions, $874.4B on health care (before the effects of ObamaCare spending kick in in 2014), $417.1B on welfare, $254.5B on interest on the accumulating debt (projected to be in excess of $15 trillion by the end of FY 2011) and $830.9B on defense. Compare the budget in 2011 to the budget in 1961.

Just fifty years ago federal spending on pensions was $12.8B ($760 billion less than we pay each year to retirees in 2011). Health care costs were $1.6B ($872.8 billion less than 2011, and this is before the enormous costs of ObamaCare commence. It should also be noted here that despite exponential growth in health care payments since 1961, our health care system and availability of health care to the poor was so egregiously wanting, that we had to pass Obama's $1 trillion solution to fix it. What we couldn't do with $872 billion surely we can accomplish with $1 trillion more! ) Welfare costs were $3.2B. Our interest payment on debt outstanding was $7.5B and our defense spending totaled $57.0B.

Consider: Since 1961 the federal budget has expanded 3,735%. According to the government's own cost of living calculator. $10.00 in 1961 is worth the equivalent of $75.49 in 2011. In other words, while the average citizen in the United States has experienced a 654% increase in living expenses since 1961, the government has expanded its budget by 3,735%.

And is borrowing over 40 cents for each dollar spent.

This is the debate of 2012. Obama wants tax increases--more of your money--rather than to temper spending. And this is before the effects of the inflationary monetary policies of QE2 etc. seep into the economy and turbo charge consumer prices. The question for each of us: are his policies sustainable, effective, or for that matter, constitutional.

What is the primary purpose of government after all?

To protect her citizens from harm. And that includes reckless economic harm.

Enamored of His Own Reflection

2011-07-13T07:43:00.000-07:00

Or how Americans put a serial narcissist in the White House.

Some day when the historians are chronicling the national disaster that is this Administration, I wonder if someone will think to take note of the thousands, nay millions of times this president has used the word "I." It is difficult to recall any public figure so self-referential, so self-absorbed and self-satisfied as this president. And will the historians take particular note of the fact that rarely, if ever, have such a civilized and intelligent populace willingly granted so much power to such an unaccomplished individual. Nor one so economically ignorant.

Point in fact: the president's press conference on Monday where he remarked: "And I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing, in fact, I’m able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don’t need, while a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds that they’ve got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans." (emphasis mine)

What the president seems to forget, or perhaps never understood, is that he has the free will to donate that "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in extra income directly to that struggling parent. He doesn't need to wait for the IRS to come and get it and run it through the horrendously and inefficient grinder that is the government bureaucracy. He is free to do with what that money he doesn't need whatever he wants to. That was the whole idea of the American Revolution: the right to produce and earn and keep the fruits of our labor. A rejection of arbitrary taxes imposed by a distant and out of touch and self-absorbed monarchy...We seem to have become a reflection of all that we rejected and fought for over 200 years ago.

We seem to have come full circle.

Busybody Town

2011-07-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

A man who knows and concerns himself with his own interests is regarded as a man of practical wisdom, while men whose concern is politics are looked upon as busybodies.

Aristotle

Nicomachean Ethics

Q: Since when is it a bad thing to be rich in America?

A: Ever since the democrats--most notably under FDR--have used the wealthy minority as red meat for their socialist policies.

There is no reason to dance around the issue. Confiscating money from those who earn it to spend it on whatever a few people in power deem appropriate is definitely not the trait of a free and democratic society. Remember that our founders did not include a direct tax (income tax) in the constitutional power of government because doing so would create the ideal opportunity for the many--the poor(er)--to tyrannize the few--the rich(er).

Why does our government require ever-exponentially-increasing-historically-unprecedented levels of cash? Because our politicians--and especially the left-leaning ones--are convinced they know better than you how to spend your money. They know this because most of them have never accomplished anything other than being elected to office. Where, here again, they spent other people's money to do so.

So while the national busybodies are wrangling over how much of our money we get to keep in the coming years; while they ignore the fact that they just implemented one of the most profligate spending sprees in American history and unemployment, instead of declining as promised, has relentlessly increased as economic growth has sputtered. While they ignore these pesky facts they are once more arguing for yet higher taxes slamming the rich in an attempt to somehow claim the moral high ground.

Let us not be deceived. Before Congress and the President do anything the following tax increases are set to kick in according to an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal:

Starting in 2013, the bill (ObamaCare, or as the pols named it: the Affordable Care Act) adds an additional 0.9% to the 2.9% Medicare tax for singles who earn more than $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000.
For the first time ever, the now 3.8% Medicare tax will also be applied to investment income, including dividends, interest income and capital gains. That doesn't just hit the rich, this implementation of the Medicare tax goes after every American with any assets at all.
Also in 2013, a 2.3% excise tax will be imposed on medical device makers. Which means medical devices will become 2.3% more expensive for everyone. Not just the rich. And if you want a real laugh take a look at what constitutes a medical device to these infernal busybodies. They have no shame. They want to tax your toothbrush and feminine care products included in their taxing scheme.

These taxes just scratch the surface of the scheduled taxes increases to fund the "Affordable" Care Act. The WSJ summarizes the affects of ObamaCare taxes and the current wrangling in Washington:

"There are numerous other new taxes in the bill, all adding up to some $438 billion in new revenue over 10 years. But even that is understated because by 2019 the annual revenue increase is nearly $90 billion, or $900 billion in the 10 years after that. Yet Mr. Obama wants to add another $1 trillion in new taxes on top of this."

Voters overwhelmingly repudiated this kind of Gladys Kravitz peer-through-the curtains invasion into our lives in the fall. Let us hope the freshman Congressional class will have the courage to stand their ground against the nosy ruling class in Washington.

Security Risk?

2011-07-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

We all know air travel is a pain. From yesterday's Drudge Report.

A Miami photographer was escorted off a US Airways plane and deemed a “security risk” after she snapped a photo of an employee’s nametag at Philadelphia International Airport Friday.

Sandy DeWitt said the employee, whose name was Tonialla G., was being rude to several passengers in the boarding area of the flight to Miami.

So DeWitt snapped a photo of her nametag with her iPhone because she planned to complain about her in a letter to US Airways. But the photo didn’t come out because it was too dark.

However, once DeWitt was settled in her seat, preparing for take-off, Tonialla G. entered the plane and confronted her.

“She told me to delete the photo,” DeWitt said in an interview with Photography is Not a Crime Saturday morning.

DeWitt, who already had her phone turned off in preparation for take-off, turned the phone back on to show her that it didn’t come out, but deleted the photo anyway.

“I complied with her wishes but it’s not something I would normally do,” she said. “It just wasn’t usable.”

But Tonialla G. wouldn’t let the issue go. She then walked into the cockpit to inform the pilot that DeWitt was a “security risk.”

Tonialla's behavior is a result of unchecked power. She cried "security risk" because she confused DeWitt's right to free speech (taking a picture of her name tag presumably to complain about Tonialla's behavior) with an, at best, flimsy claim that that free speech compromised the security of the passengers on the plane. Not only did her actions have a profound impact on DeWitt (she was escorted off the plane and, despite the fact she was a "security risk" placed on another airline, arriving at an airport 45 minutes from her home in the middle of the night with no means of transportation home) but Tonialla's tantrum delayed other passengers and trivialized the very real security concerns that exist in our air travel system each day.

Consider the following:

In May, I flew from Oakland to Baltimore. The security line was the zoo it always is. Except this time I was behind two Muslim women dressed in black gowns and head scarves. As I was removing my shoes, then my jacket, my scarf and my hat, I noticed that the two women sailed through without even removing their head scarves. No body scan, no enhanced pat-down, no questions. I queried the TSA agent--how was this possible?--and he said that any passenger can attempt to go through security without removing their jacket or head scarf, etc., but TSA has the right to detain them and pat them down. Except they didn't. And, as he was finishing his explanation I turned to see my daughter who wore a hooded sweatshirt being patted down instead.

In June my husband boarded a flight in Phoenix. The flight was delayed while all the passengers' ID's were checked against the manifest so the flight crew could identify the extra passenger on board. The man seated directly in front of my husband was not ticketed on the flight and was escorted off the plane. While the agent's found the passenger in the end, how did he get on the plane without a ticket in the first place?

Today, a good friend was in the security line at Oakland Airport. Behind her was a man with a ticket who spoke only enough English to tell the TSA agent, "No ID." In other words, he had a ticket, but no ID. The man was escorted out of line and when my friend inquired of one of the agents whether he would get through without an ID, the clerk replied, "Well, it will take him a long time."

Tonialla G., if you are listening, take note. Now, those are legitimate security risks.

Obama's Red Meat Rhetoric

2011-06-30T07:32:00.000-07:00

Stay with me here. I am about to quote Aristotle again. I have to. Because his ethics and understanding should be part of our dialogue today. Especially when it comes to politicians. Especially when it comes to Obama and his policies.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Chapter 6, paragraph 7 on Theoretical Wisdom, Aristotle writes: "That is why it is said that men...have theoretical but not practical wisdom: when we see that they do not know what is advantageous to them, we admit that they know extraordinary, wonderful, difficult, and superhuman things, but call their knowledge useless because the good they are seeking is not human" (157). Or good.

He goes on to provide an example of the man who knew that "light meat is easily digested, and hence wholesome, but did not know what sort of meat is light, he will not produce health" (158).

This man does not produce health. Knowing that light meat is healthy is only half the equation. The other half--the important half--is having the ability, understanding and, yes, wisdom to be able to identify light meat. Healthy meat.

The same is true of Obama's rhetoric. Saying that we need to produce jobs and then proposing penalties to the very people who produce those jobs is akin to arguing for a healthy diet while downing a bag of Cheetos Cheese-Puffs. Voters of all ages and educational background instinctively understand the notion of cause and effect. If I touch the hot stove again, I will get burned. That is practical wisdom. Something that Obama lacks.

Time to step back from our president's raging inferno of rhetoric and acknowledge that his policies have done nothing to create jobs and everything to create unprecedented deficits. In record time. Six months ago he was all for the Bush era tax cuts and now he demagogues the rich and argues for tax increases. Which is it? White meat or dark? What is the cause of our problems, rich people? Or uncontrolled and fraudulently wasteful spending?

I know healthy meat when I see it and this red meat Obama is throwing at his far left base is reckless and irresponsible. And anything but practical.

Finally, Some Sanity on the (Un) Constitutionality of ObamaCare

2011-06-28T07:32:00.000-07:00

Encouraging news from an article on today's Opinion page in The Wall Street Journal by David B. Rivkin and Lee A. Casey: "The Supreme Court's most important ruling this year may have been its unanimous decision in Bond v. United States, which held that individual citizens can challenge federal statutes when they encroach on authority the Constitution reserves to the states."

This remarkable, unanimous decision supports each citizen's right to challenge federal laws that exceed the authority of the Constitution. "The court stated without equivocation that "[b]y denying any one government complete jurisdiction over all the concerns of public life, federalism protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power. When the government acts in excess of its lawful powers, that liberty is at stake.""

Rivkin and Casey conclude: "That's why the decision is bad news for those who defend ObamaCare—the most extravagant challenge to that dual system in our history."

The dual sovereignty of the federal and state governments was established to guard citizens against the absolute power, or tyranny, of a single government. The Constitution provides clear boundaries for the federal and state governments. "In enacting the ObamaCare law, Congress seized for itself the very type of power—the ability to regulate individual conduct regardless of any significant connection to interstate commerce or another legitimate federal regulatory interest—that the Constitution reserves solely to the states."

ObamaCare overrides the individual's personal decision of whether or not to purchase health care insurance. Additionally, ObamaCare places the sole authority of that decision with the federal government which stands in stark opposition to the Commerce Clause which delegates the authority to regulate commerce to the States. The Supreme Court's decision in Bond v. United States sets a clear and welcome precedent.

What exactly does it mean to be "Pro"-Choice

2011-06-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I am tired of special interest groups co-opting and then distorting words and phrases from every day speech.

Pro-Choice has been inculcated by the pro-abortion crowd to portray a democratic, libertarian bent to the question of abortion. If you aren't "pro-choice" then you must favor oppression and lack of choice. You must be judgmental or, worse, an evangelical. You must not be a very nice person. Choice is good. Even noble. Limiting choice is bad. Evil.

Yet the same but political ideologues who demand a woman has a right to make decisions regarding her own body and the life of her unborn child, view the question of choice simply from the woman's point of view. Never from the child's. More remarkable these same people advocate that individuals must now give up their health care choices. As Obamacare invades the patient/doctor relationship, delegating basic decisions to government run committees--in other words, limiting and in some case doing away entirely with choice--these pro-abortion and pro-government run health care advocates refuse to acknowledge their contradictory logic.

The hypocrisy and lack of intellectual honesty is breathtaking.

Aristotle understood that choice was a function of human morality. Or lack thereof. He understood that choice could result in good and/or bad outcomes. That choice for choice sake wasn't the point. The point was to make good choices. He wrote: "That is why there cannot be choice either without intelligence and thought or without some moral characteristic; for good and bad action in human conduct are not possible without thought and character."

Choice in and of itself is not good. Making the right choice results in good. The abortion question regarding a woman's choice of carrying the baby to term or terminating the baby's life

focuses, in my view, on the wrong choice. The original choice, the one that caused the pregnancy, carried consequences. A baby was one of those consequences. Seems to me that being pro-choice should focus on the question of choosing to or choosing not to engage in activities that could result in the death of another human being.

2333 Years Later

2011-06-17T07:55:00.000-07:00

Sometime before his death in 322 BC, Aristotle completed the Nicomachean Ethics. The Ethics was compiled from Aristotle's lectures at the Lyceum exploring the Socratic question of how men should best live.

In Book Five, Aristotle responds to the question: What is just in the political sense? He writes, "That is why we do not allow the rule of a man but the rule of reason, because a man takes too large a share for himself and becomes a tyrant. A (true) ruler, however, is the guardian of what is just, and as such he is also the guardian of equality and fairness. We think of a just ruler as one who does not get more than his share."

For 2333 years Aristotle's work has stood as the definitive work on ethics. Our founding fathers, among others, relied on the Ethics to influence the framework of our government. Yet, our leaders continue to feed at the trough of hard-earned tax payer funds taking more than their share. Yesterday, we discussed Nancy Pelosi and her well-funded, luxurious flights at our expense. But that is only one example. There are countless other demonstrations of this tyrannical abuse by our leaders.

Politicians whose family members are highly paid lobbyists, trade on the position of their elected spouse, father, wife or son. Congress shoves an unworkable, unpopular, unconstitutional health-care bill down the throats of the people while exempting themselves and their friends. Meanwhile Timothy Geitner, Obama's Secretary of the Treasury, the well-publicized tax cheat gets off Scot-free and becomes the national guardian of our treasury. One set of rules for us, another set of rules for them.

It grates on me. Gets under my skin. Just doesn't set right. We are an educated people. We ought to recognize tyranny when we see it and certainly before it is too late. Before, as a shopkeeper in Ireland told me while discussing their prohibitive value added tax (VAT), "they've broken us." Tyranny and tyrannical leaders eventually accomplish that.

Aristotle warned those who would listen. 2333 years ago.

Courtesy of The People

2011-06-15T17:05:00.000-07:00

I know we're all busy. But surely we have just a moment to share a little outrage.

The Hill reported yesterday that Nancy Pelosi's net worth grew by 62% in 2010. Compare that to the change in the total net worth of all households and non-profit organizations in the United States which improved by a mere 7.4% during the same period. Or compare it to the Federal Government whose liabilities rose exponentially during the same period. In other words, the Federal Government's net worth declined exponentially while under the fiscal direction of Speaker Pelosi while her own assets increased mightily.

Ms. Pelosi's assets now total $43.4 million (with $8.2 million in liabilities) making her one of the wealthiest members of Congress. So explain to me then why the, former majority leader (now minority leader) spent oodles of taxpayer money on her flights and in-flight service during the first two years of her Speaker-ship. World Net Daily reports that the then Speaker spent "more than $101,000...for "in-flight services" – including food and liquor...on Air Force jets over the last two years. That's almost $1,000 per week."

"Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch, which investigates and prosecutes government corruption, show Pelosi incurred expenses of some $2.1 million for her use of Air Force jets for travel over that time."

John Boehner, the new Speaker, flies commercial. Presumably paying for his own liquor. Oh, and his net worth? The Speaker reports a net worth of $2.1 million (up 16.7% over the previous year) and zero liabilities.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/nancy-pelosis-in-flight-food-and-drink-costs-101000-2010-1#ixzz1PRii4kYli

Read this from The Heritage Foundation

2011-06-14T07:03:00.000-07:00

Morning Bell: Unemployment Is No Laughing Matter

From The Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell

As President Barack Obama swung through North Carolina yesterday, he did all he could to show that he cares about the U.S. economy, its 9.1 percent unemployment rate, and the 13.9 million Americans who remain out of work. Well, that is, until he let a bit of honesty slip off his tongue.

During a meeting with his Jobs and Competitiveness Council—a group of CEOs the President created to give him advice on the economy—conversation turned to Obama’s $787 billion stimulus that promised to “create or save” 3.5 million new jobs by 2011 by pumping money into “shovel ready” jobs. Confronting the reality that his stimulus failed, the President quipped, “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.” The council, led by GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, burst into laughter.

But for those millions of jobless Americans who have not seen the promise of Obama’s stimulus come to fruition, unemployment is no laughing matter. Still, though, that reality escapes those on the left who continue to cling to the notion that President Obama’s big government, Keynesian policies have succeeded despite all evidence to the contrary.

Case in point: On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” host David Gregory confronted DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz with the cold hard facts—unemployment is up 25 percent since President Obama’s inauguration day, the debt is up 35 percent, a gallon of gas is up 104 percent, and 59 percent of Americans disapprove of the President’s handling of the economy. Wasserman Schultz’s reply that, in all likelihood, is still spinning like a top two days later: ”We were able to, under President Obama’s leadership, turn this economy around.”

Obviously enough, the economy has not turned around. In a roundtable published by Barron’s magazine, 10 money managers and financial market experts were unanimous in their belief that slower economic growth is in store for the second half of 2011. Meanwhile, economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal say that the biggest risk to the U.S. economy’s recovery is a slowdown in hiring. On average, they expect the economy to add just 2.2 million jobs over the next year. And to make matters worse, Bill Gross of the Pimco investment firm told CNBC that the United States is in worse financial shape than Greece when its public debt is added to all the money owed to cover future liabilities in entitlement programs.

Or if you apply simple logic, if the economy had turned the corner, the President wouldn’t need to tour the country to convince America that down is up, night is day, and that he’s doing a great job getting people back to work.

In another bit of unintentional Obama economy comedy, the LA Times‘ Peter Nicholas laments today that “traditional tools to jolt the economy [are] largely exhausted or unavailable” to the President—more spending and tax cuts are off the table, he writes, because Congress is “concerned with reducing the federal debt.” Remember, though, that debt comes from spending, and it’s Obama’s reliance on spending that has helped put us where we are today. Heritage’s James Sherk and Rea Hederman, Jr., write:

The President responded to the recession with the stimulus, which massively expanded the size of government. President Obama now fiercely resists attempts to reduce spending and insists on dealing with the deficit by raising taxes on “the rich”—i.e., successful entrepreneurs and business owners. Increased government spending displaces private-sector business investment.

Other Obama policies that have made America’s economic picture worse include the President’s health care plan (which makes hiring new workers significantly more expensive, while leaving uncertainty over future costs); an increased effort to foist unionization on employers and employees; a refusal to submit trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama (that would create new business opportunities, along with tens of thousands of jobs); and an opposition to increasing domestic energy production, which will leave Americans to grapple with high energy costs.

There are, in fact, things the President can do to help the economy get on the right track. As Sherk and Hederman note, it starts with opening the door for entrepreneurs and businesses to expand and create new jobs by lifting the stifling regulations and burdens that have been created in the past two years.

President Obama might want to joke about jobs or downplay his failures as mere “bumps on the road.” He might also like to blame America’s troubles on the previous Administration or “unease about the European fiscal situation.” The truth, though, is a different story, and rather than joking, downplaying, or blaming, it’s time for the President to get to work on fixing the problem.

2011-06-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

High- Minded Hope

(Photo courtesy of Gloria Carlson)

A few weeks ago I attended my son's graduation from the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis. The graduation was everything one would expect: inspirational, patriotic and celebratory. Secretary Gates gave the keynote and focused on the character of leadership that these young men and women would soon be demonstrating. And I thought, we have a chance if these graduates lead us.

As a college lecturer I experience a cross-section of America's youth each semester. I love each and every one of the young scholars I teach. Yet, each semester I am struck by the lack of knowledge they have accumulated in the previous 12 years of their schooling. Last semester in my English Composition class I asked my students to read and evaluate The Declaration of Independence. When I surveyed my class of seventeen how many had read the document previously only two raised their hand. Two of seventeen. The semester prior I asked the same question to my two classes and five responded affirmatively. Previous surveys have produced similar results.

And more remarkable: When they read an excerpt from the 911 Commission Report--a handful expressed their view that the attacks on the World Trade Center were an inside job.

In my Collegiate Seminar of the Great Books we read Aristotle. We discussed his notion of the "high-minded" individual. The high-minded is the man who "thinks he deserves great things and actually deserves them." The counter to the high minded is the fool; the man who "thinks he deserves them but does not" (Nicomachean Ethics, 93). As a group, my students had more trouble accepting the nature of the high-minded man than the fool. They felt he was arrogant and conceited rather than the other way around. I believe this is emblematic of our society. We pity and often exalt the fool at the expense of the high-minded. We're more comfortable with the fool because he challenges us less. Our weaknesses or faults pale in the shadow of the high-minded but shine when compared to the fool. Instead of being outraged by the audacity of the fool claiming the prizes of greatness we seem more intent on putting the high-minded man in his place rather than rewarding him.

Witness the defense of Anthony Weiner by prominent women, fellow members of the Democratic caucus and the media. Charlie Rangel, as reported by the AP, summarized the inside-the-beltway view when he said "that other members of Congress had done things more immoral than Weiner." Rangel's defense magnifies Aristotle's characterization of the Fool. Our political leader's believe they are entitled to the privilege of office, the trappings of greatness, despite their behavior or character.

I, for one, am pinning my high-minded hopes on men and women like the Ensign's and Second Lieutenants of the USNA graduating class of 2011. They, at least, understand the importance of integrity and discipline and...honesty.

Politics politics and more politics

2011-05-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

Today's, Heritage Foundation Morning Bell hits the mark when it comes to the Obama Administration's penchant for playing politics with just about every subject under the sun. The President's reckless comments at the border, defiance of two court orders to reinstate oil drilling permits in the gulf and his shameless bin Laden victory tour have shown that nothing is above politics to this Administration.

Though Congress is implementing the bash- the- oil companies strategy, the effort transparently tears a page out of the Democratic/Obama playbook. Heritage focuses on the critical issue in lowering prices at the pump: removing the barriers to production.

"There's much the president and Congress could do if they truly wanted to give Americans a break at the gas pump. For starters, they could provide access to our country's domestic energy reserves, roll back regulatory burdens on companies and lift the de facto moratorium on offshore drilling permits.

Attacking the oil industry might satisfy the left's bloodlust against corporate America, and it might play well in press conferences. But targeted tax hikes against industries one might not like is not an answer to the high price of gas. It might feel good in the short run, but it's not a long-term solution to America's energy problems."

Tax Rates=Incentives=Revenues

2011-05-06T16:40:00.000-07:00

About ten years ago, give or take, then California Governor Gray Davis gave a press conference to discuss the Golden State's financial crisis (yes, even then). In that press conference he explained to reporters that it was not that state government spent too much, rather that the revenues weren't large enough. The translation of his remarks for the economically naive is: despite the fact that Californians are among the highest taxed citizens in the nation (exceeding even New Yorkers) they weren't paying enough for the state's services. If they were, we can extrapolate from Mr. Davis' statement, the revenues would be great enough to cover spending.

Thou hath not changed much California.

Except in one regard: businesses and wealthy individuals are fleeing the state. In 2007 according to the Pew Research Center, California experienced net migration of -681,000 individuals. In other words, California, in one year alone lost almost 700,000 taxpaying citizens to other, more tax-attractive states. In one year alone. From 2004-2007 the net loss of California citizens was 1,900,000. That's 1.9 million.

The California revenue problem has continued to deteriorate.

Enter Dr. Arthur Laffer (who also exited California during that period). He identified the importance of tax policy to economic growth illustrated best by the Laffer Curve. The Laffer Curve demonstrates that lower tax rates increase incentives to produce income and economic growth thereby resulting in increased tax revenues. There are two points on the Laffer Curve--picture a side-saddle bell curve--where tax revenues equal zero: at a zero percent tax rate and at an 100% tax rate. The former equation is obvious--absence of a tax rate will result in no revenues. At a 100% tax rate, zero tax revenues are also collected because all incentives to produce are removed when the government's take reaches 100%.

Economic growth and job creation needs to return to the forefront of our national dialogue. A realistic and economically sound tax policy should be debated. Economic class warfare benefits no one. Dr. Laffer believes, "the 2012 election will be a referendum on the economic policies of President Obama."

I certainly hope so.

Rising Public Sector Costs in California

2011-05-06T06:49:00.001-07:00

An informative and shocking video from Americans for Prosperity. Cut and paste.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5FytHY2qhc

Exponentially Expanding Debt Crisis

2011-05-03T17:02:00.001-07:00

The Washington budget demagoguery was put on hold when Congress recessed. And now is taking a back seat to the capture and death of Osama bin Laden. Our Navy Seals are the finest in the world--the best investment tax payers make in my view--but we need to hold our elected official's feet to the mounting debt fire. The blaze is raging dangerously out of control.

An unprecedented U.S. budget and debt crisis looms. We cannot afford to look away for even a moment while the Congressional foxes are guarding the national treasury henhouse. The Heritage Foundation reminds us:

"Today’s national debt—the public debt that government has accumulated to finance its out-of-control spending—is approximately $14.3 trillion. To put that into perspective, the government’s annual budget for 2011, which is in itself bloated, is roughly $3.7 trillion. And to put the future health of our economy in perspective, President Obama proposed in his 2012 Budget proposal that we add $9 trillion to that debt over the next ten years."

The most accessible explanation of our mounting debt is available at the following URL. Cut and paste and watch the short video. It is well worth the trouble.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=317827

2011-03-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

"If they win a victory, they follow it up at once, and if they suffer a defeat, they scarcely fall back at all."

The Debate at Sparta

The History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides, 432 B.C.

The Corinthians were seeking help from their allies, the Spartans. The year was 432 B.C. Threatened by the Athenians, the Corinthians presented their case to the Spartan assembly warning of the relentless determination of their Athenian foes: "...if they suffer a defeat, they scarcely fall back at all."

In November of 2010, the Republicans won a a landslide victory in the U.S. Congress and in State Houses around the country handing an historic defeat to Democrats. Virtually every state, except for California rejected the destructive policies of the Pelosi-Reid Congress and endorsed a more socially and fiscally conservative agenda. In other words, the majority of Americans expressed through their vote a desire for a return to a Constitutionally based government. Months later the mood has not shifted. Polls continue to indicate a national lurch right or, perhaps, more accurately a return to the Foundational principles of our Republic.

Yet since the election, the Democrats, for the most part have not fallen back and respected the wishes of the American people, rather they have dug in. The President has defied two court orders to allow off-shore drilling and continues to prohibit the drilling of oil off the coast of the Gulf states, eliminating thousands of jobs for hardworking Americans and further increasing our dependence on foreign oil sources precisely when we should be ramping up production in the Gulf and, yes I'll say it, ANWR in the interest of national security and sound economic policy. Though gas prices have increased markedly in recent months, the President has yet to comply with the courts while unemployment and inflation threaten many American families and most especially those oil rig workers he forced into unemployment.

Our porous borders--particularly in Arizona--continue to place our citizens at risk and the President's response is not to enforce the law by beefing up border security but to sue the state of Arizona for passing a law requiring enforcement of an already existing federal illegal immigration law. Meanwhile murders continue in southern Arizona and a well worn copy of a book on jihad is found in the Arizona desert. Secure borders are a matter of national security, not merely a politically correct debate on immigration policy. If Mexican drug lords know our borders are open, does not Al Quaeda know the same?

ObamaCare is the most egregious act of defiance yet. Judge Roger Vinson, a federal judge in Pensacola, Florida in a 78 page ruling effectively declared ObamaCare unconstitutional. The Administration continued to implement the law for a month before the judge threatened an injunction unless they appealed his ruling in seven days. They have done so but continue to fund the law to the tune of billions of dollars. Each passing day, despite the voice of the American people, a repeal by the new Congress and two rulings by federal judges striking down the Constitutionality of the law, we move one step closer to losing our health care freedom.

Dug in. No retreat. They will not fall back. No budget in place for this fiscal year as Congress spends with no accountability. Debt accumulating like poker chips. Public unions demanding ever more from the tax payer coffers.

And we won the election. Some things, despite the passing of 2,400 years, never change.

Courage

2011-03-07T07:03:00.001-08:00

"Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. "

Pericles' Funeral Oration to the Athenians

Oh for courageous leaders. For a president who would stand up and say enough is enough, we will not spend beyond our means any longer: Read my Budget!

For a Congress that would enforce the difficult fiscal decisions. Cut through the fat, reduce funding of voluntary programs, spend responsibly. Reduce the unwieldy size of government.

For a judiciary that would enforce the Constitution rather than re-write it.

For leaders who are also adults. Who eat their broccoli before the creme brulee. Who are man and woman enough to stand up to short-term disapproval in order to make the right decisions for the nation, for the long term.

And for a citizenry like the Athenians Pericles describes: this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

It is a time-proven tenet that ultimately people get what they deserve. Is it possible through our complacency we have indeed obtained the leaders we deserve? Let's hope that is not the case, that it is not too late to reverse the tide and through our interest in and engagement of the issues elect the kind of leaders America truly deserves. That our children and their children deserve.

It seems to me the least we can do. To have the courage to leave this country a little better than we found it.

Obama's Mettle

2011-03-04T06:51:00.000-08:00

This semester I have the privilege of teaching a collegiate seminar of the Great Books. We just completed Thucydides' account of the "The Debate at Sparta and Declaration of War" from his History of the Peloponnesian War.

There is a reason the study of this work has long been considered the foundation of classical education. Our culture seems to have lost a thirst for the Great Books, unless of course we can digest them on screen in Hollywood extravaganzas like Troy which are often loosely, to say the least, based on the actual text.

During the Debate at Sparta, the Corinthians were presenting their grievances against Athens to their allies, the Spartans. ...the likeliest way of securing peace is this: only to use one's power in the cause of justice, but to make it perfectly plain that one is resolved not to tolerate aggression.

Sound advice we would do well to consider as our servicemen are gunned down at airports by Islamic extremists, our soldiers are gunned down on our own army base in Texas by an Islamic extremist and our citizens are held captive and murdered on their own vessel by Somali Pirates. Our response has been muted through each of these hostile, aggressive acts. Our response, frankly, has been absolutely shameful.

The Corinthians understood what Sparta didn't: that Athens was a determined and patient foe. ...they gradually encroach upon their neighbors. Now they are proceeding slowly because they think your insensitiveness to the situation enables them to go on their way unnoticed; you will find that they will develop their full strength once they realize that you do see what is happening and are still doing nothing to prevent it (emphasis mine).

Joe Biden told us during the election that our "young president" would be tested and we would wonder at his response. From the New York Post, October 21, 2008:

"Watch. We're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he's going to need help . . . to stand with him. Because it's not going to be apparent initially; it's not going to be apparent that we're right."

For once I agree with ole Joe. It is CLEARLY not apparent that "we're right." The Corinthians, however did understand the role of government in protecting her citizens: to use power in the cause of justice and to make it perfectly plain to our enemies that we will not tolerate aggression.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/politics/item_SwNf3ALrmaf4Zdb4K0KDoN#ixzz1FdyQ7YV4

Obama's "Instrument of Unimagined Power"

2011-01-18T04:42:00.000-08:00

I am unconsolably dismayed by the latest Rasmussen polling showing the President's approval rating improving in recent weeks. The talking heads attribute the positive trend to Obama's most recent promotion of more centrist ideals, and I suspect they are right. Whether the change in public sentiment sticks or not remains to be seen.

Bill Clinton certainly lurched successfully right after the mid-term elections during his first term. He heard the people and he adjusted his agenda. But Obama's shift feels more like FDR's approach after his re-election: a shift in rhetoric rather than behavior. A commitment to Keynesian ideology. A masterful manipulation of words and sentiment to change the subject. A shameless use of failed policies to justify the implementation of more-of- the-same.

Amity Shlaes' essential history of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man is once again an invaluable source:

During FDR's second inaugural address he claimed economic victory where there was none: "Our progress out of the Depression is obvious." Yet unemployment was above 15% and subsequent data would show that joblessness had risen since the election. FDR's claims were baseless (298). We have heard nothing less from President Obama. The economy is on the mend. We are beyond the worst of it. Yet unemployment continues to rise. Housing languishes and government debts grows exponentially.
FDR continued to attack the wealthy and the economics of a free market: "We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics." (298) Again, we hear the same disdainful vitriol targeted at the private sector and the "rich" by the Obama Administration. The tax payers, the job creators, the philanthropists. Evil. Evil. Evil.
FDR was the master of double-speak. After claiming the country was moving out of the Depression, Roosevelt said this: "I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." This gave him, he believed, the moral authority to establish a "new order of things." (298) We see the same from every corner of the Obama Administration. The president, after passing an unprecedented number of regulations in the first two years of his presidency is now suddenly going to attack unnecessary regulations.
Last week he wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial: "For instance, the FDA has long considered saccharin, the artificial sweetener, safe for people to consume. Yet for years, the EPA made companies treat saccharin like other dangerous chemicals. Well, if it goes in your coffee, it is not hazardous waste. (emphasis mine) The EPA wisely eliminated this rule last month."

That ought to do it. Let's lighten up on saccharin. Never mind that the EPA is now regulating CO2. If we exhale it, it is not hazardous waste. But I digress.

FDR believed in the moral superiority of government over individual liberty: "We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world." (299)

"An instrument of unimagined power." Can you say Obamacare?

History Repeats Itself, Yes, But This is Remarkable

2010-12-26T06:31:00.000-08:00

Obama: "He just moves on to another issue. Never skips a beat," a friend of mine remarked of the President. "Obama has given more speeches and made more appearances than I can recall of any president. One speech, one issue after another. Remarkable really," he concluded.

FDR: In The Forgotten Man (published in 2007), Amity Shlaes quotes Ray Moley, a one-time advisor to Roosevelt: "When one set of these objectives...faded, he provided another." And Shlaes remarks, "The fact that he shifted did not have to matter" (248).

Obama: Obama talks of unity, then famously divides. Recall the recent comment he made to a crowd prior to the mid-term elections: "We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.” A divisive comment like that is one thing coming from a candidate, it is quite another coming from the president of ALL of the people--Republican and Democrat.

FDR: "Now by defining his forgotten men as the specific groups he would help, the president was in effect forgetting the rest--creating a new forgotten man. The country was splitting into those who were Roosevelt favorites and everyone else. The division started at the top" (Shlaes 246).

Obama: After spending trillions of dollars in the first two years of his Administration, unemployment in the US has risen. Yet we are being told by the experts the economy is in recovery-- a jobless recovery.

FDR: The New Deal, also a Keynesian recovery plan that formed countless government agencies and spent billions of dollars, "was causing the country to forgo prosperity, if not recovery" (Shlaes 263). In 1934, Will Green, head of the AFL made the following point to the press, "While business has recovered half its Depression loss, only 30 percent of the Depression unemployed have been put to work." People might be speaking about recovery, but business activity was still far below 1929 levels--and it was a jobless recovery (262).

Obama/FDR Cabinets: Roosevelt was criticized that his "Brain Trusters," his advisors were largely former professors with no real world experience. The Washington Times recently published the chart below. With all the criticism of FDR's Brain Trusters take a look at Obama's Cabinet.

Nick Schulz, editor of the American Enterprise Institute's The American magazine, catches this eye-popping graph from a J.P. Morgan research report:

at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/less-10-percent-obama-cabinet-has-private-sector-experience#ixzz19EVjmrKc)

Stay Tuned. The similarities between these two Administrations are remarkable. Really.

From the Heritage Foundation

2010-12-24T07:01:00.000-08:00

Remembering the Providential Gift of America

Morning Bell, The Heritage Foundation

12/24/2010

Christmas, 1776.

Summer had begun with strong declarations of noble ideals, but by winter the cause of liberty seemed to be at low ebb. Having suffered defeat after defeat, many had all but given up hope. It looked like freedom would succumb yet again, as it had throughout history, to the forces of authoritarianism and tyranny.

Then, on Christmas Day, 1776, a small band of colonial forces under the command of Gen. George Washington, having retreated all the way from New York, again crossed the Delaware River and brought battle at Trenton, New Jersey. Washington not only won the battle but regained the initiative and turned the war in the patriots’ favor. One week later, Washington defeated the British at Princeton and forced the enemy to withdraw, preventing its advance on Philadelphia, seat of the Continental Congress.

When it announced itself to the world in 1776, the United States of America was little more than an alliance of 13 small colonies on a barren continent, thousands of miles from their ancestral homeland, surrounded by hostile powers.

Now, well over two centuries after winning independence from the British Empire, America is the freest, wealthiest, most powerful nation on Earth. Along the way it established sovereign nationhood, settled a continent and more and brought unprecedented prosperity to its citizens. It survived a devastating Civil War that threatened its very life, abolished slavery and raised up the emancipated to be citizens equal to their one-time masters. It triumphed in two world wars fought on foreign soil and a decades-long struggle against worldwide communism that, 20 years ago, led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union.

What accounts for this monumental success? The founding of the United States was indeed revolutionary. But not in the sense of replacing one set of rulers with another, or overthrowing the institutions of society. John Adams queried:

What do we mean by the American Revolution? The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people. . . . This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.

Our revolution was about the ideas upon which a new nation was to be established. Permanent truths “applicable to all men and all times,” as Abraham Lincoln later said, proclaimed that principle rather than will would be the ultimate ground of government.

What is truly revolutionary about America is that, for the first time in history, these universal ideas became the foundation of a system of government and its political culture. Because ofthese principles, rather than despite them, the American Revolution culminated not in tyranny but a constitutional government that has long endured.

To this day, 233 years after Washington and his men crossed the Delaware, these principles–proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and promulgated by the Constitution–still define us as a nation and inspire us as a people. These principles are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other. They are the highest achievements of our tradition, a beacon to those who strive for freedom but also a warning to tyrants and despots everywhere. Because of these principles, not despite them, America achieved greatness.

The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson later recorded, was “neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, [but] was intended to be an expression of the American mind.”

As Americans, our aim must be a clear expression and forthright defense of the nation’s principles in the public square so that they become, once again, an expression of the American mind. Despite constant scorn by academic elites, political leaders and the popular media, most Americans still believe in the uniqueness of this country and respect the Founders’ noble ideas. They may fail a test of particulars – quick: when did Washington cross the Delaware? – but they overwhelmingly want to know about this nation and its meaning.

We must give voice to all those who have not given up on their country’s experiment in self-government, have not concluded the cause of liberty and limited constitutional government is lost and have not accepted America’s decline as inevitable.

The goal must be to restore the liberating principles of the American Founding as the defining public philosophy of our nation. As it was for most of American history, so it can be again.

The joy of this wonderful season is about new beginnings and the eternal promise of redemption. We Americans have the immeasurable benefit, the providential gift, of having inherited a great country.

We must never forget its confidence, optimism and promise, its endless capacity for renewal, are contained in our dedication to the enduring principles of liberty with which all men are endowed by their Creator.

May you and yours have a merry and blessed Christmas.

Lies and More Lies in the Never Ending Quest for Revenue

2010-12-23T06:40:00.000-08:00

(Liberty Bell from my personal collection of photos.)

A country's tax policy lies at the center of the debate over liberty. The Founders understood that. They believed that the individual must be protected from government because they understood further that when government has license to confiscate property it will eventually become addicted to doing so.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 35 wrote: "if the jurisdiction of the national government, in the article of revenue, should be restricted to particular objects, it would naturally occasion an undue proportion of the public burdens to fall upon those objects. Two evils would spring from this source: the oppression of particular branches of industry; and an unequal distribution of the taxes" (emphasis mine)

He was right.

A recently published study revealed the United States ranks first among nations for the most progressive tax structure. In an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal Alan Reynolds writes: "A 2008 study of 24 leading economies by the the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) concludes that, "Taxation is most progressively distributed in the United States." For all the accusations by the left that the rich must pay their fair share, The Journal of Economic Perspectives reports "the upper 1% of the income distribution earned 19.6% of total income before tax [in 2004], and paid 41% of the individual federal income tax. No other major country is so dependent on so few taxpayers" (Reynolds).

The accusations and distortions by the left are nothing new. Hamilton characterized these kinds of attacks as follows: "...argument presents itself under a very specious and seducing form; and is well calculated to lay hold of the prejudices of those to whom it is addressed. But when we come to dissect it with attention, it will appear to be made up of nothing but fair-sounding words. (emphasis mine)

Despite the fact that the Democrats recently claimed victory over the extension of the Bush tax rates, claiming that raising taxes would harm the economy, they will soon be back to their old bully pulpit attacking "the rich" for their greed and calling for higher tax rates for the "wealthy."

It is they who are greedy. And, sadly, ignorant.

Hamilton understood the importance of sound economic and tax policy and understood further the risk to the citizenry when those in leadership didn't. "There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or to sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue" (Federalist 35).

It is time for economic literates to explain to the public the facts of sound fiscal policy. Ronald Reagan style. And give voice to the Founders' intentions when they penned the Constitution: That purpose of government is to protect its citizens, not confiscate an ever increasing portion of their income and property in its never ending quest for revenue.

Ronald Reagan Move Over

2010-12-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

The extension of the Bush tax rates (what the media is now calling Obama's tax cuts) is a victory for Conservatives that should not be squandered. The Obama tax cuts are neither Obama's--they are Bush's--nor are they tax cuts--they are an extension of the current rates that were set to expire on 12/31/10. But the claim of the Democrats that these extensions had to be made because raising taxes on Americans in this economy would be disastrous is a true victory for Conservatives. It is also sound fiscal policy and should be capitalized on.

An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal points out: "As Milton Friedman taught us with his "permanent income hypothesis," consumers base their consumption on their longer-term income expectations, not merely on current income." Temporary tax rates return money to its rightful owner, the earner, but without the certainty of knowing what future tax rates are increased consumption will be muted by the lack of clarity. The Republican majority in the House has a golden opportunity to revisit the tax question while they have the Democrats on their heels and push for further, permanent cuts in 2011.

After passage of the bill Senator Dick Durbin (D) claimed: "The president has a big victory here. It's big because it means there won't be a tax increase at the first of the year, which could have hurt our economy."

Suddenly, though not un-coincidentally (recall the landslide November elections), the Democrats have found lower tax religion. If, as the Senator says higher taxes "hurt" our economy, why has it taken two years for the Democrats to support this extension of the Bush tax rates in an economy they call the worst since the Great Depression? Additionally, why didn't they propose lower and permanent rates to further stimulate demand?

President Obama, too, is a an enthusiastic member of the lower tax club. Only a week ago he was complaining that the House Republicans were holding unemployment benefits hostage to the tax rate extensions, then upon signing the bill declared: "This is real money that's going to make a real difference in people's lives. That's how we're going to spark demand, spur hiring, and strengthen our economy in the new year" (Reuters)

Ronald Reagan move over and meet the new supply-sider in the White House. His claim that "lower taxes spark demand, spur hiring and strengthen our economy" should be rung from every mountain top from now until 2012.

You heard it here folks.

2010-12-17T07:21:00.000-08:00

(photo courtesy of my personal collection taken at the 111th Army Navy game)

Much has been made in the press regarding Mr. Obama having to postpone his Christmas vacation because of a recalcitrant Congress wrangling over "his" tax bill. A little has been made about Congress having to stay in Washington; potentially working through Christmas because the Democrat leadership left all of the heavy lifting until after the November election when they could--how to say this politely?--uh, stick it to the electorate during their lame duck session. With the passage of the extension of the Bush tax rates by Congress and scrapping of the $1.1 TRILLION budget in the Senate last night, perhaps our ruling class friends will get to go home after all and the President will get to don his Oakley's and board shorts and body surf for the cameras in the Oahu surf. Sigh of relief.

Yet, not once in the breathless press reports regarding Mr. Obama's Christmas vacation have I ever heard commentary or sympathy or even appreciation for the members of our military who will be working right through Christmas. Away from their homes and families. In a far away and hostile land. Not once.

So, I would like to thank them, each and every one, and their families. I would like to thank them for their courage and their self-sacrifice and their dedication to the preservation of this great Republic. I think about our military often, I think about their quiet discipline and constancy, their devotion to liberty, and their self-effacing humility.

I think of none of those qualities, by the way, when I think of Congress. But I digress.

As impressed as I am by the members of our military, I am equally as impressed with the naivete of many of our citizens. Can anyone tell me what that mysterious Coexist bumper sticker means? Tell me please why someone would slap an End this Endless War sticker on their back window? Do these people think that our country, and particularly those that serve, like war? That it never occurred to the average person to "coexist" peacefully with our neighbors? Is their smug moral superiority so veneered onto their brains that they think the rest of us have lost our way? That we enjoy seeing our military men and women sacrifice and suffer and die simply for the sake of mindless aggression? Did they not study the history of the Revolutionary War that launched this nation? Can you imagine a Revolutionary patriot slapping a Coexist sticker to the rump of his horse? Or a Revolutionary farmer planting an End this Endless War sign in their front garden while their neighbor marched shoeless through the bitter snow of New England trying to defeat the most powerful army the world had ever known?

Justice Stephen Breyer in an interview on Fox News Sunday last week argued that the Founder's couldn't possibly have understood what the future would hold for this nation when they penned the Constitution and the Federalist Papers: "That being the case, and particularly since the Founding Fathers did not foresee how modern day would change individual behavior, government bodies can impose regulations on guns, Breyer concluded." (emphasis mine)

(http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/12/breyer-founding-fathers-allowed-restrictions-guns/#ixzz18NrY5pkU)

It is exactly Justice Breyer's kind of arrogance that inspires our fellow citizens to explain to the rest of us the way the world works. It is what motivates City Council's to ban McDonald's toys, or the First Lady to dictate nutritional standards to our children; that arrogance emboldens the hapless Prius owner to paste a Coexist sticker on their bumper--to remind us all that peace is the answer. In case we didn't know.

So Justice Breyer in all his sophistication doesn't believe the Founder's exercised foresight? Allow me to quote from Federalist 34 where Hamilton is arguing for (among other things) a strong defense: "A cloud has been for some time hanging over the European world. If it should break forth into a storm, who can insure us that in its progress a part of its fury would not be spent upon us? ...Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others. ...To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.

Those prescient statements seem to me to anticipate wars and attacks, jealousies and aggression and most importantly, to clearly understand the true nature of man. So, until the rest of us are civilized enough to Coexist, let's offer support and prayer to the real hero's--the ones who will quietly serve far from home during Christmas and the New Year, Easter and children's birthday's and wedding anniversaries. With deep humility and sacrifice.

An inadequately heartfelt Thank You members of our Military. May God Bless you and your families this Christmas Season especially.

Oh yes, and: Go Navy! Beat Army!

A Change of Men

2010-12-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

In Federalist 21, Alexander Hamilton writes: "The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men."

In November the country overwhelmingly demanded a change of men. A change of direction. A return to Conservative, Constitutional principles. The election was a repudiation of the reckless disregard of Nancy Pelosi's House, and Harry Reid's Senate for the Constitution so carefully and courageously crafted by our Founders. The Founder's understood as Hamilton wrote in Federalist 22 that "The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority. "

In other words, the Founders respected the will of the people.

How far we've sunk.

Since the decisive election in November, instead of heeding the voice of the people, the left-leaning, Democratic majority continues the path they blazed with the unconventional hijinks employed to ram through Obamacare. They are rejecting the mandate of the election and the limitations of the Constitution. They do so arrogantly and without remorse. And their popularity has reached an historic low.

We might be able to suffer through Congress's treachery if we were blessed with a courageous leader in the White House. Instead our President continues to whine about his legacy.

The Hill reports: "In urging lawmakers to vote for his tax deal, President Obama is using one of his go-to lines from the healthcare debate, according to a Democratic lawmaker.

Obama is telling members of Congress that failure to pass the tax-cut legislation could result in the end of his presidency, Rep. Peter DeFazio (Ore.) said.

"The White House is putting on tremendous pressure, making phone calls, the president is making phone calls saying this is the end of his presidency if he doesn't get this bad deal," he told CNN's Eliot Spitzer" (Fabian).

The people spoke in November and the current ruling class has chosen to continue to ignore the very people they serve. They treat our governing framework with disdain and the President, instead of advocating for his constituents and protecting the Constitution, worries instead about his legacy. Hamilton had it right when he suggested the cure for an ill-administration is a "change of men" and that the "original fountain of all legitimate authority" is indeed the CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE.

Our current ruling class is imposing their will against the consent of those they serve. This is a dangerous and capricious precedent. Yet our president is focused merely on saving his presidency while the deficit quadruples and this cabal of self-serving bandits squanders our children's future.

We need a change of men. And we need it fast.

Come January. Quick.

The Washington Elite--Meet Charlie Rangel

2010-12-02T18:38:00.000-08:00

A few years back I began working on a book about tax policy history in America entitled The Power to Destroy. The title comes from a ruling by John Marshall, the fourth, yet arguably the most important Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In McCulloch v. Maryland, which involved the question of taxation and the rights of the states to tax the federal government Marshall wrote: “…the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”

In a section discussing out of control Washington spending I wrote: In FY 2008, the U.S. Congress pushed through $17.2 billion in pork attached to 12 appropriations bills. There were many moments to cherish but we will consider but one here; certainly not the biggest earmark but one of the most interesting.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), a nineteen term representative, asked for and got $1,950,000 for a library and archives at the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at The City College of New York. In other words Congressman Rangel received $1.95 million dollars of my money and yours to finance a little library named for himself at a college in his district. He was challenged in his request by a mere two term republican from California, John Campbell who said, “You don’t agree with me or see any problem with us, as members, sending taxpayer funds in the creation of things named after ourselves while we’re still here?” Rangel did not. He responded, “I would have a problem if you did it, because I don’t think that you’ve been around long enough that having your name on something to inspire a building like this in a school.”

Today Congress voted to censure Mr. Rangel. By all reports he is a likable man but that is no excuse for his abuse of the trust bestowed on him by the American people. It's also no excuse for the cavalier way he has used taxpayer money.

The Wall Street Journal writes: "During the debate, Mr. Rangel sat slumped in a chair on the House floor as fellow lawmakers said his misconduct had dishonored them all. The 80-year-old Democrat who has represented Harlem for 40 years was found to have misused congressional perks, failed to pay taxes on some income for 17 years, failed to report assets properly for a decade and misused a rent-stabilized apartment as a campaign office" (WSJ).

Any one want to venture a guess as to what would happen if we failed to pay taxes on some of our income for 17 years...?

I know! I know!

The Land of Fools

2010-11-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."--Abraham Lincoln

Welcome to the land of fools, California, where you can indeed fool all of the people all of the time. Witness Tuesday's election.

Jerry Brown: former two-term governor who, despite term limit rules in California has argued his previous two-terms occurred prior to the term limit law being passed and therefore, didn't count. This from the recent State Attorney General who should be enforcing laws on behalf of Californians not skirting them. But then he has an impressive "skirting" record given his office's invisibility in defending California voters against the court's ruling overturning Prop 8 for the second time. His role as governor with Prop 13 is another story. And then there's his problem with language. First, he compared his opponent to a Nazi propagandist like Joseph Goebbels, then someone on his campaign staff (most pegged his wife) called Meg Whitman a "whore." Of course, the whore comment related to Meg's supposed relationship to the public unions--the very unions Jerry created when he was governor in the 70's. Now that's irony. I've met Jerry Brown. A number of times. He's a kick. But eccentric, left wing policies on steroids are not what California needs. We are already hemorrhaging from those very policies. The very same economic and centralized government policies the rest of the country repudiated last night were embraced by a majority of Californians.
Barbara Boxer: THIS is the best we have? The most liberal Senator in the Senate. We've sent her to represent us again. Despite the fact that California faces one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Despite the fact she is a do-nothing (check her record), self-important (watch her interchange with the General during Senate hearings), silly (watch her debate with her opponent) ridiculously leftist members of the Senate.

Well done California. President Lincoln was wrong--you really can fool the majority of the people all of the time. As California unemployment rises and taxes are tacked on your every exhale...I'll be basking in the Arizona sun. If you don't mind, I am going to sit this one out.

Obamacare, A Boon to Scientology?

2010-10-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

Did you know that there are, "reportedly," groups that are exempt from the Obamacare requirement to own health insurance? I say this, mindful that Nancy Pelosi declared "we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it." It passed and we are still trying to find out what's in it.

But, according to Sally Pipes in her book, The Truth About Obamacare, some religious groups are exempt from the mandate to own health care. Groups such as "Christian Scientists, who are uncomfortable with modern medicine, as well as Scientologists, whose criticisms are less clear, and Muslims who might oppose the idea of insurance altogether. American Indians are also exempt" (41).

If true, we may need to refresh our reading of the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

Arbitrary exemptions will do nothing to increase the popularity of Obamacare, but may go a long way in increasing the the membership rolls of Scientologists.

Based on my read, equal is equal.

Obamacare Waiting in the Weeds

2010-10-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

With the increasing likelihood of the Republican party regaining control of the House and, perhaps, the Senate, it is time for concerned citizens to turn our attention to Obamacare.

To do so we must follow the trail of bread crumbs that brought us to this point. Let's start with what Obama told us when he was campaigning non-stop around the country for health care reform.

First, he told us that our health care system was in crisis with over 45 million uninsured Americans. Obamacare would insure everyone he told us. Next he promised that Obamacare would reduce the cost of health care for each family. He announced a savings for the average family of $2,500 per year. He pledged the government would spend less on health care when Obamacare was implemented and finally he declared emphatically that those of use who liked our health care plan could keep it AND the cost of our coverage would decrease.

Abracadabra. More and better care for much less money. Welcome to Obamaland where the laws of physics ("the seas will go down") and the laws of economics (reduce competition, increase demand and supply will expand while costs decrease) are suspended. That is some rabbit, Mr. Obama. And some hat.

But what has really happened since Obamacare was signed into law last March? Health care insurance premiums are rising at breathtaking speed. Announcements of insurance companies getting out of the health care insurance business are increasing. Enormous tax hikes loom. One month after passage the chief actuary for the Medicare and Medicaid Services found that spending on health care under Obamacare will increase $311 billion from 2010 to 2019, a rise strictly due to the passage of the bill. He also estimates that 23 million people will still be uninsured by 2019.

Oh.

But there's more. The CBO estimated that the cost of Obamacare to taxpayers would be $989 billion from 2010 to 2019. The problem with that estimate is that the bill is front loaded which masks the true cost. Tax hikes begin years before the "benefits" kick in in 2014.. The cost in the first ten years of Obamacare (2014-2024) are closer to $2.5 trillion according to Sally Pipes new book, The Truth About Obamacare.

As Ms. Pipes summarizes, "So after the creation of 159 new agencies, the promulgation of 2,562 pages of bureaucratic regulations, and the spending of $2.5 trillion in tax dollars, two-thirds of those uninsured still will be. Only in government could that be considered a victory" (48).

As we prepare to vote in November let us keep in mind that under the current leadership the 2010 deficit (and this is before Obamacare) is 1.3 trillion dollars. The national debt has increased $3 trillion dollars since Obama took office. Huge income tax hikes loom on January 1st for working Americans while unemployment has sustained levels only seen during the Great Depression. Congress has recessed while neglecting to pass a budget, perhaps their single, most important function. And our president tours the country castigating business.

If that is not enough, waiting in the weeds is Obamacare, the greatest potential threat to our economic freedom yet.

Socialism through Welfarism

2010-09-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

Here is what Barry Goldwater wrote in 1960 in The Conscience of a Conservative: The effect of Welfarism on freedom will be felt later on--after its beneficiaries have become its victims, after dependence on government has turned into bondage and it is too late to unlock the jail."

Well, we're feeling it all right. When Goldwater wrote this some fifty years ago the entire budget for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (which included Social Security) was around $15 billion. Welfare program expenditures ranked second to national defense in overall allocations.

Fast forward to today. President Obama's 2010 budget calls for the following: $721.5 billion for Social Security, $457.1 billion for Medicare, $284.5 billion for Medicaid and $194.3 billion for unemployment claims just to name a few of the entitlements. And defense? Trailing the sum total of the quartet by a cool (approximately) $937 billion at $719 billion. In other words the president's 2010 budget called for $1.65 TRILLION in those four entitlements alone which is more than double the amount planned for defense. Add in income security benefits (a fancy name for welfare) at $363 billion and we have close to $2.1 TRILLION allocated to entitlement programs, dwarfing defense three to one and consuming the lion's share of the budget, our economy and our future.

Time to Put the Lid On (Government)

2010-09-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

I love these Tea Party folks. They understand that liberty is being confiscated each and every day Obama and the Democrats are in power. They understand, too, that the battle has been raging in earnest since FDR began his New Deal of centralization of power and redistribution of wealth. They understand that BIG government and consequently BIG deficits are bubbling over and it is time to put the lid on. And quick.

But here's the thing I don't get. Why aren't more people outraged? Why aren't ten times as many people attending Tea Party events? And sending money to conservative candidates? Or simply talking about what is going on, what can be done, to stop the spread of this, well tyranny?

The government has invaded every aspect of our lives, maintaining a presence in our bathrooms through regulation of toilet flushing standards, seeping into our kitchens with their stamp of approval on virtually every food item lining our shelves; government now regulates our light fixtures legislating the phase-out of the incandescent light bulb over the next few years to be replaced by the--some would say--toxic, halogen bulb. The government sets the standards of education for our children, fuel standards for our cars, supports the "arts," subsidizes education and housing for the poor and not so poor, and now they want to invade our very bodies with a health care program that will set the quality of health care in our country back a century. These, my friends, are not the legitimate powers of government. At least not a government guided by a Constitution such as ours.

As long as Americans acquiesce to every government demand, every invasion into our lives and consequently our freedom, the need for ever increasing taxes will continue. As Barry Goldwater wrote in The Conscience of a Conservative, "Property and freedom are inseparable: to the extent government takes the one in the form of taxes, it intrudes on the other" (43). If government continues to expand, the demands for funding will continue to grow. It is as simple as that.

So I applaud the Tea Party and the rising Conservative movement. But I will continue to wonder why it is not larger. Why the clamor is not greater. For as Goldwater also presciently remarked, "...as the public grows more and more cynical, the politician feels less and less compelled to take his promises seriously."

The time to take this crisis seriously is upon us.

Unbelievers Stand Aside Please--You are About to be Crushed at the Ballot Box

2010-09-25T07:13:00.001-07:00

To me the difference between conservatives and liberals comes down to one simple thing: the Believers versus the Unbelievers, in freedom. Of the individual sort.

The Believers count on their fellow man to act in his own best economic interest. Believers believe at their core the ideals America was founded on: individual freedom and liberty. And, in their view, this extends to private property--that is: the individual's right to amass and employ his private wealth however he sees fit. The Believer's assume their fellow citizens will--for the most part--manage their lives well. They will save and spend the money they work for on things that improve their lives and the lives of their children. The things that are important to them. That is their right.

The unbelievers don't take such a sanguine view of the individual. They believe that the government has a right to usurp individual rights in the interest of the common good. This is manifested most clearly in the debate over taxes. Nancy Pelosi (among others, the President included) claim that cutting the taxes of "the rich" is something the country can't afford. Doing so will increase the deficit--as though "the rich" work for the sole purpose of reducing the deficit having no say over its creation in the first place. The unbeliever's place the needs of the State above the needs of the individual who is creating the wealth. And in their view--manifested most clearly in the progressive income tax structure--the more wealth you have, the more of a right to it they have.

None of this is new. Nor original. Or progressive for that matter. Taxes have been the source of tyranny since the beginning of recorded history. As Charles Adams writes in his tome on the history of taxation, For Good and Evil--The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization, the Rosetta Stone, the "Proclamation of Peace" issued by Ptolemy V to end the Egyptian civil war sparked by increased tax burdens carried as its most important provision a "general amnesty for..tax debtors and rebels. Tax debts were forgiven" (Adams, 19) The tax burdens in Egyptian society had reached confiscatory levels. Debtors were thrown into prison, filling the prisons to overflowing. Private property had been confiscated and villages and farms abandoned. The fabric of society was threatened by excessive taxation. A remedy was required. Tax amnesty via the Rosetta Stone proclamation of peace restored order (Adams, 21). And the rights of the individual.

During FDR's reign, in 1935 to be precise, the economy was deemed to be in recovery--"a jobless recovery," ironically, according to Amity Shlaes', The Forgotten Man. Yet for political reasons FDR determined it was time to go after the rich, the source of jobs. Benjamin Anderson of Chase Bank warned against such a strategy. His point was, there is danger in targeting the rich. He noted while the economy was improving some, "the country was not getting the strong recovery that it should expect. The New Deal was causing the country to forgo prosperity, if not recovery" (Shlaes 263). The marginal tax rate had been increased to 75%. And the level of unemployment still 70% above pre-depression levels.

And so here we are again. With the democrats referring to our taxes as revenue needed for deficit reduction, adding threats that the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire for the wealthy while being reinstated for the middle class, with Cap and Trade, the Leviathan of taxation looming, state governments--like California--effectively bankrupt despite one of the highest marginal state tax rates in the nation, the politicians are forgetting one thing: it is our money. It is our government. It is our liberty. And it is our intention to exert our great displeasure with their policies in November.

Something it has taken the modern day citizen-militia or the tea party as it is most commonly called, to commemorate.

Conscience of a Conservative

2010-09-20T09:19:00.000-07:00

"...the Constitution is: a system of restraints against the natural tendency of government to expand in the direction of absolutism."

Barry Goldwater, 1960

Conscience of a Conservative

If you don't have a copy of Barry Goldwater's, Conscience of a Conservative, buy one. If you have one, pull it out and re-read it. Focus, in particular, on the chapter entitled "The Perils of Power."

In that chapter, Goldwater recounts for the reader the intentions of the founders in constructing our Constitution and three-branch government: to limit power. He reminds us that our founding document is "an instrument, above all, for limiting the functions of government." That "throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man's liberty." Government, not rich guys.

He also presciently reminds us: "The framers were well aware of the danger posed by self-seeking demagogues--that they might persuade a majority of the people to confer on government vast powers in return for deceptive promises of economic gain." And, finally, that no matter how airtight they crafted the hull of the Constitution, dishonest men would attempt to sail it anywhere they pleased, without regard for the will of the passengers. Goldwater writes, "rules of government... would be no match for men who were determined to disregard them. "

Which brings me to the health care law looming before us. Rasmussen reported today that 61% of Americans at least somewhat favor repeal of the law. Up 8 points from last week. And still, few Americans--including Nancy Pelosi and most of Congress--actually understand what is in the bill. My prediction? When Americans understand the gritty details of the law opposition will rise to 70%.

As you prepare to vote on the candidates, inform yourself. Even if you're voting for City Council-- or especially if you are voting for City Council and live in the city of Bell (population 37,000) where the city manager earns $787,000 annually and the city council members who work part-time earn approximately $100,000--learn about the candidate and his/her positions on the issues important to you. Treat your ballot selections like an exam where getting the right answer is the difference between life and death. Of our country as we've known it. Of our liberty.

Then cast your vote for the candidate who says as Goldwater wrote: "My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them."

The President of Me

2010-09-14T07:01:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had that feeling sweep over you that you have been in the very same place before? That out-of-body, deja vu realization that something was happening that had happened before?

While reading Amity Shlaes' history of the FDR Administration, The Forgotten Man I have experienced instance upon instance of that very sensation. I find myself checking the publication date again and again: 2007. She published the book in 2007, wrote it in the years leading up to 2007. While Bush was still president. Before Obama was the certain Democrat candidate, the president. There is no way she could have molded the narrative to fit our current political situation. No way she could have known just how eerily similar Obama's policies would be to FDR's. She is brilliant but she is not psychic.

The latest wave of deja vu came when I read the following few paragraphs.

"As Roosevelt in 1936 would freely acknowledge to another adviser, the election was about a single issue--Roosevelt (249). It seems that everything political over the past 20 or so months has been about one thing: Obama. There is no other way to view the bulldozing through of ObamaCare. He, in fact, said so himself. The Founders anticipated leaders like Obama and FDR. Madison wrote in Federalist 10: "Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." And, thus they provided an intricate set of checks and balances to mitigate tyranny. Hamilton summarized, perhaps, the most effective check against tyranny in Federalist 22: "The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority." In other words, it is about us, not the Me occupying the White House.
The president (FDR) relished squeezing cash for the poor out of the well-to-do...The country was splitting into those who were Roosevelt favorites and everyone else. The division started at the top" (248-249). So obviously similar to what we are experiencing today and anticipated by the Founders. They understood that the very nature of man ensured society would have factions. The owners, the renters, the employer the employee, the religious, the atheist. Society (government) should not inflame the factions, increase the chasm of separation as FDR did and as Obama is doing, rather government should seek as Madison proposes in Federalist 10 "to control its effects. "Justice," he wrote ought to hold the balance between them."
"He (FDR) illuminated objectives--even fantastically unrealizable objectives. These excited and inspired. When one...faded, he provided another." The fact that he shifted did not have to matter (248). And this, too, is familiar. Obama talks of jobs, then health care, then castigates the rich, then castigates the Republicans, then talks of the need for increased spending to stimulate, then lectures on religious freedom, back to health care, jobs again, more stimulus. Each speech overflowing with the pronoun "I." Ever focused on himself, his legacy, his agenda. One new idea after another. Spinning. Spinning.

Out of control.

Another Play Out of the FDR Playbook

2010-09-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

"Roosevelt had played around with economics, and economics hadn't served him very well. He would therefore give up on the discipline and concentrate on an area he knew better, politics."

The Forgotten Man by, Amity Shlaes (246)

At almost precisely the same point in his first term as Roosevelt was in his, Obama seems to be shifting from playing around with the economy, to hard-boiled, special interest politics. Economics hasn't served him very well so he is returning to the divisive accusation-driven speeches that hallmarked his campaign.

Back to Shlaes for a moment: "If he (FDR) followed his political instincts, furiously converting ephemeral bits of legislation into solid law for specific groups of voters, then he would win reelection. He would focus on farmers, big labor, pensioners, veterans, perhaps women and blacks" (246).

This was Roosevelt's strategy for re-election in the face of economic failures and disappointing rulings in the court against his Great Government Centralization Plan. Obama is taking the same bet. He's just raising the stakes some with angry and accusatory rhetoric. FDR, too, lashed out at the media and Supreme Court when he lost the Schechter Brothers case to a unanimous decision signaling the death knell for the NRA. He tried castigation and abandoned it. Conciliation and clever co-opting became the new calculation. And it worked.

Luckily for us, there is not a conciliatory bone in Obama's body.

There are more similarities. Social Security legislation was assigned to Frances Perkins of the Labor Department. This was a high priority item. Think ObamaCare in measuring its importance to the Administration. Ms. Perkins worried that she would have difficulty getting her social insurance system past the Court. A little snag called The Constitution. She confided her worry to Justice Harlan Stone. Stone gave her the following advice: "The taxing power of the federal government...is sufficient for everything you want and need" (Shlaes 229). Justice Stone was providing the critical clue to how the Court would view the Constitutional test of Social Security. If it was insurance it wouldn't hold up. If it were simply another tax, it would meet the threshold.

In response to the various suits against the Constitutionality of ObamaCare, the government is now scrambling to take the same position.

One can hope they are just a little too clever too late. Setting your defense after the offense has already run the play doesn't usually work out so well.

Fingers crossed, set, hike.

2.5 Trillion Dollars in 19 Months. Oh Yes He Did!

2010-09-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

The U.S Treasury Department calculates the federal debt held by the public. The federal debt is the money government borrows from those willing to buy U.S. Treasury notes--investors, or as the liberals like to call them: the wealthy. Those funding the federal debt, the wealthy, are the enemy of every liberal. Liberals hate the wealthy though they have no problem spending their money. Just a problem with the people who provide it. But, I digress.

For the first 200 or so years of our country's history, from the administration of President Washington to that of President Reagan, the federal debt grew to approximately $2.1 trillion. That's a great deal of zeros to be sure. But, President Obama, proving that he is truly the first post-sound economic policy president ,among other things post, generated $2.5 trillion in publicly held debt in just 19 months raising the total debt outstanding to $8.8 trillion. In one insatiable spending binge Obama beat all the records of the first 200 years of our history in just 19 months.

Yes he did.

And what did we get for all that spending? A chicken in every pot? A BMW in every garage? Not exactly. Despite record spending and promises from the president's economic advisers that if we spent the money unemployment would not rise above 8%, 19 months later unemployment hovers at 9.6%. The economy is growing in single digits rather than the robust growth the very same economic advisers and the president and the vice president advertised in their Summer of Recovery.

And now our economic-savant president has proposed more spending to get our economy rolling again. If that almost $900 billion stimulus bill didn't do the trick, how about $50 billion to rev things up? That's his plan. Oh Yes It Is.

Will it work? Not on your life.

This economy needs jobs. Private sector jobs. And to get those jobs employers need some certainty that they will not be taxed into usurious oblivion by a hostile federal government. And to increase investment in the private sector the government needs to stop sucking every last available cent out of the markets to fund its profligate deficit spending.

In short, we need tax cuts and an iron clad spending freeze. Government needs to shrink, not grow bigger.

Oh Yes It Does.

"Nero At His Worst"

2010-09-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

"This is Nero at his worst. As for the Constitution, it does not seem too much to say that it is gone. "

Justice James McReynolds

in his opinion on the Roosevelt Administration's Gold Policy

Justice McReynolds' indictment against Roosevelt rings true today. Every time we turn around government grows bigger and we lose a little more liberty. The Constitution was painstakingly crafted to protect "we the people" from the government. But somewhere along the line, something went seriously awry. And, based on my read of history, a good deal of it began with FDR.

Return with me for a moment to Amity Shlaes' remarkable history of the Great Depression: The Forgotten Man.

Frances Perkins of Labor was worried that the Supreme Court would reject the social insurance system she working to put in place--what we know today as Social Security. She stated her concern to Justice Harlan Stone who advised: "The taxing power of the federal government, my dear; the taxing power is sufficient for everything you want and need" (Shlaes229). His words were meant to assure. If the Social Security Act was formulated as a tax rather than a government insurance program it would clear the Constitutional hurdle (229).

Fast forward: This is now one of the tact's the Obama Administration is taking in response to the many lawsuits against ObamaCare. Flimsy at best. But, more importantly, right out of the playbook.

In the famous Schechter Brothers case, where the justices ruled unanimously in favor of the Schechter Poultry Corporation and against the constitutionality of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA), Justice Hughes read the opinion: "Extraordinary conditions may call for extraordinary remedies. But the argument necessarily stops short of an attempt to justify action which lies outside the sphere of constitutional authority. Extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional power" (emphasis mine, 242).

The corruption of the Constitution had gone far enough. Too far.

Justice Brandeis sent the message to FDR via two of the New Dealers' lawyers: "This is the end of this business of centralization, and I want you to go back and tell the president that we're not going to let this government centralize everything. It's come to an end" (243).

Roosevelt's response? To "castigate the press and the court" (244). Sound eerily familiar?

If congressional Republicans do not understand they are enjoying a tidal wave of support in their direction because the population overwhelmingly desires repeal of ObamaCare and the government's sudden lurch to the left, they will squander the greatest opportunity to preserve what's left of the Constitution in the history of this country. According to yesterday's Rasmussen polling 57% of Americans disapprove of the President's performance. 47% strongly disapprove. The numbers are remarkable to be sure. Additionally, 56% of likely voters favor repeal of ObamaCare though only 39% believe repeal is likely.

Republicans need to muster up the courage to do the right thing. They need to send the message that the American people are fed up. That "we're not going to let this government centralize everything."

Amen.

A Nation in Need of Repentance

2010-08-29T14:26:00.001-07:00

Lest you think this is another "bash America" diatribe from the Left, hold tight. It is nothing of the sort.

A number of years back, I briefly substitute taught at the Christian school my children had attended. One day when I was filling in for the third grade teacher I was asked to administer a science test. I scanned the tests as they came in. A fill in the blank test on the subject of electric charges. One entry caught my eye and made me grin. In answer to the question "opposite charges attract and like charges ________" one student filled in the word: repent instead of repel. Like charges-- repent. Only at a Christian school, I thought. When in doubt? Repent.

Then I considered the meaning of the word. Repent, in essence, means to turn and go in another direction. My third grader wasn't so far off the mark after all. Like charges do indeed...repent.

And that brings me to America. If ever a nation needed to turn and go in another direction it is us and it is now. We elected a President and a Congress that does not have the wishes of the people and the limitations of the Constitution in their cross hairs. We have elected a yee-haw group of political elites hell-bent on wresting control of every aspect of our lives away from us and under the scrutiny and control of the government they head. They speak platitudes and engage in thievery. Of our liberties. One by one.

We need to repent. We need to go in another direction this next election. If you are in doubt, if your memory is fuzzy (as mine is) because you are busy living your life, raising your family, making a living, just trying to get by, well then get a copy of David Limbaugh's new book, Crimes Against Liberty. In the first 50 pages there are a hundred reminders of the audacious lies and power grabs we have witnessed these past few years. So many they will make your head spin.

So many, you will want to repent...you will become energized to make sure you do all you can to ensure this nation turns and goes in another direction. And quick.

November is closer than you think.

I Want Your Money (Trailer)

2010-08-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wty7974IKg&hl=en_US&fs=1?color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6

Let's hope the movie is as good as the trailer. A great view!

Answering the Wrong Question

2010-08-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

The Democrats and their profligate spending indicate clearly that they are motivated by the question: How much money can we spend?

Not how many jobs can we create.

And their spending, rather than slowing, is gaining momentum like a snowball rolling down a hill. Faster, more furious, unstoppable. Trillion after trillion after billions zoom by to the point of eyes glazing, minds numbing. A giant blur of dollar signs. Expansive, exploding, multiplying like a deadly virus, unreal in its magnitude and potential for calamity.

Yet despite the spending, the unemployed remain so, in fact their numbers have ballooned. The job creators are punished by irresponsible, class-warfare rhetoric of this Administration and the looming threat of higher taxes in 2011. Still, the worse things get, the more they spend. Despite the breathtaking ignorance of the current ruling class, they are unrepentant and unresponsive to the will of the people. Their Keynsian model only prolonged the suffering during the Great Depression but that doesn't stop them, in fact, it seems to embolden them. Today's spending, is a puffed up version of FDR's, like a cream puff on steroids.

In today's Wall Street Journal we read that for the 22nd straight month the government spent more than they took in. A deficit of $165 billion. The second highest monthly deficit since last July. Another historic achievement for President Obama--the two highest deficits in the history of our country. Impressively historic. Don't you think?

The cumulative deficit is even grimmer. Again from the WSJ, "For all of fiscal 2009, the U.S. ran a record $1.42 trillion deficit. Fiscal 2010 might run a little higher—the Obama administration sees $1.47 trillion. " And this is before health care is funded.

Yet they spend more. At almost breakneck speed. Nancy Pelosi hauled the House members back to DC to pass ever more spending this week; wearing her ignorance like a crown. Christina Romer, of the stimulus bill fame told us that by spending we would keep unemployment from rising above 8%. Bye bye Ms. Romer. Adios to $787 billion in "stimulus"spending. And hello to almost 10% unemployment and another 7% of out of work Americans who have simply given up looking.

The democrats think if the $787 billion didn't do the trick it is because we didn't spend enough. Follow their logic. If one or two Vicodin don't halt the pain, three or four, five or six, seven even, just might.

Or they just might kill you.

The hope and change we were promised didn't materialize. Instead we got more of the same. Much more and much worse. Unprecedented corruption has infected this White House and Congress. Leadership is no where to be found and the Constitution has been shredded in the interest of self-interest and brazen power grabs unlike any we have seen in our history. I still believe in the ingenuity and the determination of the American people to succeed "in spite of." But we will be digging ourselves out from under this Everest of debt for generations.

Frankly, I won't be happy until those who voted for these failed and damaging policies apologize to all of us. Publicly and sincerely.

But that's just me.

The Problem--In a Nutshell

2010-08-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

You'd have to be nuts to think that we, that is--us, that is--the United States of America, can continue along this path: public employee retirees that collect north of $100,000 per year in pension benefits. In perpetuity.

Indulge me for just a moment: In the small little county in which I live we have an exclusive club. It is a rather small club at the moment--535 members. Though it is growing rapidly, adding over 100 new members in the last year alone. That's almost 25% growth. In a sluggish, no growth economy. This particular club doesn't actually DO anything. Rather, it is a club where the members are rewarded just because.

Because they are part of the cabal that makes all the rules.

The club of which I speak is a subset of the Contra Costa County Employees Retirement Association (CCCERA) and includes those public employees who have retired with pension benefits in excess of $100,000.00 per year. $100K! Guaranteed. No matter what.

I don't know a business that provides a defined benefit plan any longer. That is not to say they don't exist. But, it is to say they are rare. Because defined benefit plans are expensive and businesses (you know, the entities that must match revenues with expenses, that can only spend what they take in, based on the value they provide to their clients rather than government which holds the arbitrary ability to increase revenues via tax increases totally disconnected from any value added and not in the least voluntarily paid by those who provide the revenue ) must manage their affairs responsibly. They will not be around for long if they continually spend more than they take in. That's just the way it is.

So here are the ugly facts of the CCCERA Club from an article written by Bill Gram-Reefer on Halfway to Concord:

The club represents 7.3% of all county retirees but they receive 23.8% of the benefits.
The Club costs the public $5,766,927 each and every month. Guaranteed. No matter what.
The number one position in the club is held by a retiree who receives an annual retirement benefit of $291,000. And, it should be noted, despite the budget shortfalls in our county and our state and our country, his benefits rose last year.

It should not be lost on any of us that while the rest of the population suffers (i.e., the private sector) the public sector is thriving. Since the private sector funds the public sector through the production of goods and services--that people actually want--there is something terribly wrong with this equation. The public sector cannot continue to grow while the private sector shrinks.

And that's the problem. In a nutshell.

The Let Them Eat Cake Regime

2010-08-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

I can’t help it.

I think about taxes all the time. Income, sales, and property taxes. Energy. Excise. And estate. The social security tax, disability insurance tax--an alphabet soup of taxes--FICA, SDA SSI--and somewhere in the mix, a tax for Medicare. Escrow tax when I sell real estate. Food and liquor and cigarette taxes.

A myriad of government fees. The security fee when I fly, the registration fee for my car, license fee for my dog, building permit fee for a remodel, park usage fee when I want to hike, a driver’s license fee; the telephone usage fees for my home and cell phones. Hunting license fees. Fishing, too. Fees to register a new business. Fees for tanning. A permit fee to dig a well in my own backyard.

Not to mention bridge and road tolls. And a whopper of a fee for speeding down a (almost) deserted road.

When I am not thinking about taxes, I am talking about them. To my family, friends, to myself. And when I’ve exhausted my listeners, I write about the evils of, the history of, the effects of. Taxes.

We hear from the ruling aristocracy that we must pay our fair share. We are told there are needs government must meet and to do so government needs more revenue, which means higher taxes. We are asked to suspend our good judgment and believe that government is as good a steward with our money as we are, or at the very least, as good as our favorite charity. And yet...

In the midst of the "worst economic crisis since the Great Depression," Michelle Obama rents 60 rooms at a five star resort in Spain for yet another vacation, at who knows what expense to the American people. Mrs. Obama's office has refused to release the cost of the trip to the media according to the Los Angeles Times, but room rates at the resort range from $400-$6,500 per night and initial estimates (so far) are upwards of $250,000. The good news? CBS assures us that Mrs. Obama's many guests will be picking up their own expenses for incidentals, like "shopping in boutiques." Finally, according to the UK Mail Online the First Lady "will have enjoyed eight holidays by the end of the summer."

(Read the whole article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1300852/Spanish-police-close-public-beach-Michelle-Obamas-250k-Spanish-holiday.html)

And then there is Senator John Kerry, who according to the Boston Herald has "repeatedly voted to increase taxes for Americans," berthed his new 76 foot, New Zealand built $7 million yacht in Newport Rhode Island, effectively avoiding $435,700 in Massachusetts sales tax and $70,000 in annual excise taxes.

There is a pattern here. Do as we say. Not as we do. It is the kind of ruling class, let them eat cake mentality that has sparked revolutions, not to mention good, old-fashioned anger.

Quietly, out of the limelight we learn that it is possible to govern responsibly. We can see from the example set by Republican Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Republican Governor, Chris Christie of New Jersey that budget deficits can be eliminated while cutting taxes. But to do may require less spending. I don't know about you, but I am GOOD with that.

From an editorial written by Karl Rove in The Wall Street Journal: "Already, the GOP victors in last year's gubernatorial contests are providing powerful contrasts to Mr. Obama's policies. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell erased his state's nearly $2 billion deficit without raising taxes. Facing a $13 billion shortfall, a hostile Democratic legislature and more than $7 million in negative ads launched against him by labor unions, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie nonetheless balanced the budget while cutting taxes."

With courage and determination, responsible leaders can correct the disastrous mistakes facing us. Without reaching further into our pockets with fingers sticky with cake frosting.

Yes. We Can Do It

2010-08-03T14:21:00.000-07:00

During the Second World War, in the midst of the ongoing economic fallout of the Great Depression and the horror of tyranny spreading across Europe, women returned to work in record numbers. Rosie the Riveter became the symbol of American feminine ingenuity. Over six million women helped build necessary war machines like planes, bombs, tanks and other weapons. Others drove streetcars and operated heavy machinery or worked in lumber mills and steel mills. Some even unloaded freight. No job too big. Or too tough.

So it is in the spirit of Rosie, in the midst of what the President has called the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, I have decided it is time to knuckle down and get to work. A number of months ago, we cancelled our last remaining luxury--the gardeners. And since both of our kids are away at school, I took over the responsibility for the lawns and the weeding and helping my husband with the pruning.

And I love it.

Despite the warnings of the pundits that illegal immigrants are needed to fill the jobs no one else will do, I found taking responsibility for my garden and the cleaning of my home to be... well, a liberating experience. I enjoy my yard and my home in ways I never did before. I understand my decision is not for everyone. During my thirties when the kids were little and I was red-eyeing to New York each week, I had twice weekly cleaning, a cook and gardeners. I couldn't find my way around my own kitchen, let alone the linen closet or the laundry room. I had no choice but to have help. There was not enough time in the day.

But now my kids are gone. I am a college professor and a writer. Though I am still short on time, I have more than I used to and I love the feel of the dirt, the smell of the grass, the exertion of weeding and mowing, the satisfaction of surveying my work. But mostly I love the knowledge that I can do what needs to be done. That I am independent and somewhat self sufficient. That I am not hostage to a myth.

Yes, I can do it. And when the kids come home for the summer and Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, I make sure they help in the yard and split and stack the wood and have the supreme pleasure of accomplishment and the sweet satisfaction of knowing that they can do anything they put their minds to.

Just like Rosie. And the millions of Americans who have made this the greatest country in history through sweat and determination and plain, old-fashioned hard work.

The Power to Destroy or How Charlie Rangel Got Tangled in His Own Web

2010-07-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

From my forever in progress book on the history of taxation in the United States entitled The Power to Destroy.

Chief Justice John Marshall penned the famous words: “…the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”

"In FY 2008, the U.S. Congress pushed through $17.2 billion in pork attached to 12 appropriations bills. There were many moments to cherish but we will consider but one here; certainly not the biggest earmark but one of the most interesting.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), a nineteen term representative, asked for and got $1,950,000 for a library and archives at the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at The City College of New York. In other words Congressman Rangel received $1.95 million dollars of my money and yours to finance a little library named for himself at a college in his district. He was challenged in his request by a mere two term republican from California, John Campbell who said, “You don’t agree with me or see any problem with us, as members, sending taxpayer funds in the creation of things named after ourselves while we’re still here?” Rangel did not. He responded, “I would have a problem if you did it, because I don’t think that you’ve been around long enough that having your name on something to inspire a building like this in a school.” Huh?

We have strayed too far. This should cause us to converge on Washington. But we have become complacent. The budget is too big, too unwieldy. We’re busy. We have our own jobs to do.

Consider this too. In 2006 138.9 million people filed income tax returns. Approximately 32% of those who filed did not pay income tax, leaving 94.5 million tax payers. If we took Charlie Rangel’s earmark and divided it amongst each of us it would come to something like $0.021 per taxpayer. I don’t know about you, but I might be willing to spot Charlie the two cents if the rest of you were, but when you consider the 17.2 billion in earmarks in FY 2007—that rises to $182 per taxpayer in pork. And if you consider the tally of pork since the Citizen’s Against Government Waste have been keeping track of pork barrel spending in 1991 the total is $271 billion which has cost American taxpayers around $2,868. For some that is a great deal of money. For others it is not.

But the important fact is that it is your money, not theirs. And the fact is, that money is being allocated for pet projects not for the kind of expenditures provided for under the Constitution. Certainly not the way most of us would spend our own money given the other demands on us like food and clothing and providing for our retirement or our children's education. One of the greatest concerns of the Founder’s when creating this nation was the responsibility of government to protect property rights, not confiscate them. Allocating your money for “projects” not requested by or approved of by you is not freedom. It is tyranny. As I thumb through the 2008 Pig Book Summary I see $1.5 million for the Appalachian Fruit Lab, $7.6 million for grape and wine research, $4.8 million for wood utilization research, $1 million for berry research, $750,000 for olive fruit fly research, $211,000 of which is to be spent in Paris, France, millions and hundreds of millions for space centers and aquariums and presidential libraries, for shrimp and lobster and oysters, sea lions and seals, bears and and latinos. Brown tree snakes in Hawaii, 54 million for the ABL Facility Restoration Program, whatever that is, and on and on and on. This is above and beyond the regular budget of $2.7 trillion or $28,900 annually per tax payer households. This is not counting the $32,000 of the U.S. debt that belongs to each citizen. In my household that obligation is 32x 4."

I wrote the above two years ago. The debt per person in the almost two short years Obama has been in office has ballooned to $42,800. We now understand that Charlie Rangel's corruption goes far beyond the interchange I featured. If we stretch our imaginations just a bit we can imagine that there is plenty more of the Charlie style of Congressional entitlement among our representatives yet to be revealed . We wouldn't have to work too hard to conjure up the kinds of frivolous projects the $787 billion stimulus bill is now bankrolling. While many of us seek desperately for jobs, scrape by each month and watch our children's futures click by on the national debt clock. $13 trillion. $13.1 trillion $13.2 trillion...

I am sorry Mr. Rangel will end his career in disgrace. I am sorry that he got caught up in the tangled web of greed. I am sorry that Congress continues to act irresponsibly, recklessly with our children's and their children's futures. I am overwhelmingly sorry. But there is just a little part of me that sees the Rangel case as a pin hole of light, a kind of hope that even in the midst of corruptness, there is a modicum of justice. I am holding onto that.

With a vengeance.

The Day the Rule of Law Died

2010-07-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, I worked for a Swiss company. I loved the people I worked with, I loved my visits to the home office in Zurich, I loved the elegance and history of the country. But there was one thing I didn't understand. Neutrality. My Swiss colleagues would frequently say things like: Well, I don't know, I'm neutral on that point. I couldn't say really. My view of your strategy proposal is neutral. Then, one day it hit me. Neutral? How can anyone be neutral on any matter of significance? In my world view only two things inform neutrality--a want of knowledge or a want of courage. Even Webster's defines the state of neutrality as lacking stamens or pistils...OK, so maybe I am reaching on that point, but, for me, neutrality is, at the very least, dangerous.

Recently many of my liberal friends have taken to calling themselves independents. I understand the distaste many feel for political parties. I generally share those views. Both are fraught with problems. Being independent denotes in their minds anyway, a kind of neutral ground. A place where criticism and labels can't stick. And then there is the fact that Americans cherish independence. It is a badge we wear. Or at least used to.

Our way of life is changing quickly, each day our liberties are being consumed by the behemoth, lumbering incompetence of bureaucracy. This Administration has shown a reckless disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution. Twisting and obfuscating, politicizing friendly courts, ignoring the rulings of unfriendly ones. Honestly friends, neutrality is no longer an option. It is time to pick a side. Time to back a team, bet on a horse, double down on the side of liberty and freedom. Oh yes, and independence.

The ruling by Judge Bolton in the Arizona immigration case is just another example of the blurring of the separation of powers. According to The New York Times, Carter appointee and immigration law professor at Yale Law School Peter Schuck commented on Judge Bolton's ruling, "She rushed to judgment in a way I can only assume reflects a lot of pressure from the federal government to get this case resolved quickly." That ought to get the attention of some of my independent friends. Three branches of government, each independent of the other. Checks and balances. No collusion. No pressuring of one branch to another. That's what the Constitution provides. Protecting that should fit right in with an independent view of the world.

And there's more.

From The Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell:

Taken alone, the White House's behavior on this issue is troubling enough. But put into the broader context of the first 18 months of this Administration, a truly pernicious pattern emerges. First, there was the Obama Justice Department's decision to dismiss voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party. Then there was the Obama administration's use of TARP to bail out its union allies in what bankruptcy law scholars have called "so outrageous and illegal that until March of this year [2009], nobody even conceptualized it." Then there was the Obama administration's shakedown of BP in the White House's Roosevelt Room. Less than a week later after a federal court found its first oil drilling ban to be "arbitrary and capricious," the Obama administration issued a second oil drilling ban that was wider and killed even more jobs than the first.

Our founder's had it right. I am on their side. The side of conservative constitutional values and the rule of law. To my independent friends: Consider that to preserve our cherished independence it may be time to come down on the side of the values that have made this country great: Our Constitution and the rule of law.

Talking Out of Both Sides of the Presidential Mouth Once Again

2010-07-26T21:22:00.000-07:00

President Obama is once again giving Joe Wilson fits. The President publicly decried the Scottish release of the Lockerbie bomber all the while signaling otherwise to the Scottish government in private diplomatic correspondence.

According to The Guardian:

"Although Megrahi was allowed to go home to die in Tripoli, Scottish officials believe this (the leaked correspondence) undermines Obama's vigorous criticisms of the decision to free Megrahi earlier this month, when he said he was left "surprised, disappointed and angry" by the Libyan's release.

The existence and content of the US embassy note was first disclosed by the Guardian last August, at the height of the controversy over Megrahi's release, and its full text has now been leaked to the Sunday Times.

In it, the deputy head of the US embassy in London, Frank LeBaron, said the US believed Megrahi should remain in Greenock jail because of the seriousness of his conviction for killing 270 passengers and crew, and 11 Lockerbie townspeople, by bombing Pan Am flight 103 in 1988.

But he added: "Nevertheless, if Scottish authorities [conclude] that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose" (emphasis mine)."

The Scottish government took the U.S.'s response to represent only "half-hearted" opposition to Megrahi's release. And so he was sent home. To Libya. On compassionate grounds. Because he had less than three months to live.

Yet now we learn according to a July 26th article published in The Scotsman, the medical expert who examined Megrahi, the convicted murderer and terrorist, did not endorse the view that he had three months or less to live:

"A cancer specialist who examined the Lockerbie bomber has revealed he did not endorse the view that he had less than three months to live. Professor Jonathan Waxman, one of the world's leading oncologists, visited Abdelbaset ali Mohmed al-Megrahi in prison a year ago but said he was not surprised to see him alive today. Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds was on the basis of a medical report which indicated he had three months to live - but next month will mark a year since he was freed."

270 lives perished on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Eleven more people on the ground also died that day. Mass murder. Lives cut short. Children taken from parents. Parents taken from children. Wives and Husbands. Grandmothers and Grandfathers. Murdered.

But in the twisted world of "compassion" that uneasily co-exists with the tragic reality faced by the victims each and every day, the prisoner, the perpetrator, the murderer is released. It is compassionate. He is dying of cancer we are told. And the victim's families? They are forgotten in all hoo-haw. They are counting on society to remember, to rally around and do the right thing. Meanwhile, the president of the greatest, most compassionate and fair-minded country in the world, who claims to be "surprised, disappointed and angry," the evidence would suggest, is none of the above. Another cold and calculated, purely political gesture that stands in direct opposition to the facts. Another Joe Wilson moment--for those of us paying attention--to swallow.

This one made me so sick, I couldn't write about it for days. I hope you will join me in mourning the victims. The forgotten ones. It seems to me to be the truly compassionate thing to do.

When Words Cease to Have Meaning

2010-07-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God" (emphasis mine).

Congressional Oath of Office

www.senate.gov

I am one of those people that think words mean something. I spend a great deal of my day with words. As a college professor, I love meeting new ones, sorting through my brain to recall old ones, searching the dictionary for a precise meaning of a specific one. I hang my hat on words. I depend on them. I respect them.

Which is why I am so troubled with the careless and reckless disregard for the meaning of words in our Congress and by this President. Joe Wilson took a lot of heat for shouting "you lie" during President Obama's health care speech. Decorum aside I didn't really see what all the fuss was about. We don't live in a monarchy or a dictatorship. Disagreement, discourse--these are givens in a free society. One has to merely watch a few minutes of floor debate in the British Parliament to appreciate the relative benignity of Wilson's comment. I am not justifying his outburst, I am merely reflecting on his right to do so. I encourage you to listen to the speech and determine for yourself if the President spoke the truth or Congressman Wilson did.

In Federalist 51, James Madison writes: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Our government is out of control. In the last year and a half our President has repeatedly overreached the bounds of his office. Congress has passed thousands of pages of new legislation without reading it and without demonstrating a sound understanding of the very Constitution that provides their job description. The one that they have sworn to uphold. Their lack of respect for the Constitution may come from a lack of familiarity with same. House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Representative Jon Conyers referred to the "good and welfare" clause as his justification of the health care bill's constitutionality. There is no "good and welfare" clause. Representative Phil Hare cited Americans' right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as his constitutional justification for voting for the health care bill. The phrase life, liberty and pursuit of happiness comes from the Declaration of Independence not the Constitution.

When our representatives in Washington--our congressman and senators and president--swear to uphold the Constitution and then don't, we have more than a problem on our hands, we have a crisis.

Speaking Out of Both Sides of the Presidential Mouth

2010-07-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

"When we continue to spend as if deficits don't matter that means our kids and our grand kids may wind up saddled with debts that they'll never be able to repay."

President Obama on signing the Improper Payments Bill 7/22/10

"You just can't make this stuff up."

Nancy Tengler 7/23/10

This from the most outrageously spendthrift administration in the history of the United States. This from the man who increased the deficit from north of $400 billion when Bush left office to a CBO estimated $1.85 trillion in 2009.

Let's start with a definition of terms shall we?

deficit equals the difference between government revenues and government spending. During the last year of the Bush Administration the deficit was greater than $400 billion. In 2009, the first year of Obama's Administration the deficit was estimated at $1.85 trillion. For 2010 it is expected to be around 1.5 trillion. Our government is borrowing 41 cents for every dollar it spends. It is crucial to understand that a deficit in one year is added to the deficit in the previous year. That cumulation of deficit spending becomes our debt. Current debt? $13.2 trillion or approximately $42,798 per citizen. And they're just getting started.
government revenues = taxes. Taxes are my money and your money being hijacked by the government to pay for programs we have no say in. Entitlements, give aways, preferential hiring and spending--things the Founders, in their wildest nightmares, could never have imagined. Sen. Byron Dorgan's recent statement on the Senate floor is all you really need to know about Washington's perspective on revenues and taxes. He went after Republicans who supported tax cuts that would "reduce this country's income." Our representatives in Washington think it is their money. Not ours.

Obama decries the spending out of one side of his mouth while signing into law another $33 billion extension in unemployment benefits almost simultaneously. $33 billion dollars we don't have. Just pile it on, no problem. But don't think we are going to "continue to spend as if deficits don't matter." No sir. We're not going to saddle our children and grandchildren with debt. Not on your life.

Well, not at least until we have to start paying for Obama's Health Rationing Plan. Wait to you see the bill for that one!

When Labor (as in AFL) Still Wanted to Work

2010-07-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 1934, about the same time in FDR's Administration as we sit in President Obama's, despite the creation of numerous new agencies and bureaucracies designed to get Americans working again, the unemployment problem simply would not improve. With upwards of 20% of Americans not working (Not so very far off from today's U-6 of over 17%. U-6 is the Labor Department's gauge of underutilization, which accounts for those who have given up looking for work or can't find full time jobs.) William Green, head of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) began arguing with one of FDR's New Deal Agencies--the National Recovery Agency (NRA) over new job creation. As Amity Shlaes explains in The Forgotten Man, Green wanted "industry, not relief agencies, to solve the economic problem" (Shlaes 201)

Addressing the surge of NRA hirings and subsequent layoffs, AFL's Green said, "We cannot indefinitely support one-sixth of our population on money borrowed against future taxes" (201).

The New Dealers were worried because after all the gyrations and machinations, after the grabs for power and unprecedented centralization the "...Depression was refusing to disappear" (202). At the American Bar Association's annual meeting during the summer of 1934, a report submitted showed that over the last year of FDR's Administration, 10,000 pages of new law had been written dwarfing a century and a half of federal law which numbered 2,735 pages. For all the agencies created and money spent to puff up government the unemployment rate during that one year period had declined from 22.9% to 21.2%.

The AFL's Green understood instinctively that growing government would not put the people back to work. Today's union leaders, however, instead of fighting against our unprecedented and unsustainable borrowing from future generations that has done nothing to improve the unemployment picture would seem, rather, to feed at that very trough.

Where is the outcry from labor now? Andy Stern, former president of the country's largest union, the SEIU, (the powerful service workers union) in now a member of one of the very agencies Green decried. Stern, who until he left his job to join the Administration was one of the most frequent guests to the White House is now a member of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Sigh.

Thankfully You Can't Fool All the People All the Time

2010-07-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

From The Heritage Foundation's "Morning Bell:"

"Today, President Barack Obama will attend a groundbreaking ceremony in Holland, Mich., for a South Korean-owned factory that will make batteries for electric cars. The purpose of the trip is to highlight the "success" of the President's $862 billion economic stimulus package which the White House claimed yesterday has already "saved or created" 3 million jobs. Specifically, this factory is being subsidized by $151 million of stimulus funds from an even larger $2 billion honey pot of stimulus money set aside for electric car battery investments. This one plant is expected to employ 300 workers. That works out to more than $500,000 per job created. $500,000 per job. This plant, in a nutshell, explains why the President's stimulus plan has been an objective failure.

The American people know the President's stimulus has failed. A new CBS poll out today shows that 74 percent of Americans believe the Obama stimulus either damaged the economy or had no effect. And a Washington Post poll released Tuesday again showed that a majority of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s handling of the economy. So how on earth can the White House claim they "saved or created" 3 million jobs? By rerunning the same economic models that predicted the stimulus would prevent unemployment from ever rising above 8%. That's right. The White House's 3 million jobs number is not based on any real world data."

The Heritage Foundation is right. Americans are no longer fooled, well at least 74% of them. The economy is getting worse. No matter how often this Administration says otherwise. Their claims and their logic are so flawed it is almost laughable.

From my November blog:

Dear Mr. President:

I was so happy to see that $16 billion of the $800+ billion. February stimulus package has been spent. And 30,383 jobs were created/saved. Wowie. That means that each job created/saved only cost $526,610.00. You guys sure must be working hard to spend all that money.

Not to be presumptuous or anything but I think I can help. While you all are writing checks I was wondering if you could make one out to me for $263,305.00 (that's half the amount you are spending to save/create a job in Washington) and I promise to create/save a job (maybe two!) in California. We're having a tough time out here. You see our unemployment rate is 12.2%, higher than the rest of the country because we have been spending much more than we take in for decades now.

Well, anyway, I sure could use some money and since my house needs cleaning it occurred to me that with a little stimulus money I could hire myself to clean my house. You know,if health care is a right and all, maybe in addition to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, I might be entitled to a clean house. Just a thought. And I am willing to save/create one job for half the price they're costing you. For just $263,305.00 I will hire myself to clean my house and save the government $263,305.00 in the process. One of those win wins, right?

Respectfully yours.

Almost as absurd of the pablum being dished out in DC.

Six Million Pigs

2010-07-12T07:27:00.000-07:00

In September 1933, the Agriculture Adjustment Administration in an effort to raise the prices of commodities slaughtered six million young pigs. With unemployment hovering at 22.9%, the homeless numbers rising each day, in the middle of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt's economic policy to drive up prices in order to help the farmer resulted in the slaughtering of six million pigs. Never mind that millions of Americans went to bed hungry each night, six million pigs were sacrificed to the economic experiment of FDR and his advisers. Not only did the poor and hungry not get to eat those pigs, but the policy had the desired effect and the price of pork soared until a single slice of bacon was prohibitively expensive.

FDR's policies were breathtakingly naive and their destructiveness, far reaching. The parallels to the policies being pursued by our current Administration are chilling though far less understandable. President Obama didn't inherit the disastrous economy FDR did, rather, he is hell-bent on creating one.

When FDR began manipulating the price of gold over breakfast in his White House bedroom in the fall of 1933, he had already vacillated so dramatically and capriciously on monetary policy, British and European financial and political leaders not to mention American businessmen were furious. His efforts failed to calm the markets instead, increased uncertainty. In the spring when he had ordered the Treasury to no longer honor its own gold clause in contracts (a political maneuver that effectively took the U.S. off the gold standard) there was no formal mechanism to set the price. FDR desired to do so and a willing Senate complied with an amendment providing the Executive with the power. Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma cheered the inflationary redistribution of wealth from the creditors (wealthy) to the debtors (those without wealth) by saying: "No issue in 6,000 years save the World War begins to compare with the possibilities embraced in the power conferred" by that action (Shlaes 158).

Yet Roosevelt confided to one of his advisers that he didn't know what his own policies might be at any given time. He was on "an hourly basis and the situation changes almost momentarily" (162). As Shlaes summarizes Roosevelt's behavior, "...the president was also inconsistent because he saw no cost to being inconsistent" (162).

But Roosevelt's arbitrary gold pricing program did not have the desired result. In January of 1934, FDR submitted a bill to return to the gold standard. Almost a year was wasted on his great gold experiment while one in four Americans remained unemployed, millions lost their homes and Hitler strengthened his grip on Germany. The cost of inconsistency was great.

History will reveal the cost of Obama's inconsistency and destructive economic policies. Millions have been and will be hurt irreparably. All of us will bear the scars. The slaughter of six million pigs by FDR's Administration in the face of unprecedented unemployment and suffering during the Great Depression was unconscionable. One wonders what will tip the scales for Obama?

Will it be Mr. Obama's reckless disregard for national security demonstrated by his Administration's lawsuit against Arizona, unwillingness to protect our borders, proposal to try terrorists as common criminals in New York City, and efforts to close Guantanamo? Or will it be the profligate spending of Trillions of dollars placed on the backs of future generations? Will Health Care--not just the policy but the way it was achieved--be the final straw for historians? Or his ineffective and incompetent management of the Gulf Oil Spill? Relations with Israel? Inconsistent execution of the war in Afghanistan? Or will it simply be that while unemployment rose this president shamelessly and relentlessly worked only on lowering his golf handicap?

Time and history will tell.

Time to Spread the Manure

2010-07-08T06:46:00.000-07:00

"Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow."

Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly!

It's true. Growth is good. Growth is what has distinguished America over the centuries. It is also true redistribution is bad. Redistribution is what defined the failed Soviet Union. Dividing up an increasingly smaller pie doesn't take you very far. Dolly Levi knew it. John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan knew it. So did ole Silent Cal Coolidge. Now would someone please tell Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi?

Mr. Obama's redistributionist tendencies were well documented during the campaign in his oft repeated interchange with Joe the Plumber where he confessed he wanted to "spread the wealth." Ms. Pelosi has made her tendencies clear with her recent statement regarding unemployment benefits: "It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name." She added that unemployment benefits have the "double benefit" of helping the jobless and serving as a "job creator" on the side.

Sounds marvelous. A win win, right? Wrong. Ms. Pelosi's incoherent logic and Mr. Obama's "spread the wealth" philosophy are not just bad economic policy they are dangerous to America's future. Read in its entirety, Dr. Arthur Laffer's op-ed piece in today's The Wall Street Journal entitled: "Unemployment Benefits Aren't Stimulus." No one can explain economic principles in a more common-sense, logical and entertaining way that Dr. Laffer. No one else can present the case so clearly as to why Washington's favorite policies simply won't work. History, of course, could short-cut the arguments but Laffer's analysis is much more accessible.

A few excerpts:

The flaw in their logic is that when it comes to higher unemployment benefits or any other stimulus spending, the resources given to the unemployed have to be taken from someone else.
The government doesn't create resources. It redistributes them. For everyone who is given something there is someone who has that something taken away.
While the one person who is unemployed may "buy" more as a result of unemployment benefits, the other person from whom the unemployment sums are taken will "buy" less. There is no stimulus for the economy.

And that is the best way to think about government spending. Since the government produces nothing (unless you count grief and frustration) the best way to think about government revenues (in the form of taxes) is that they come at the expense of the production of private citizens. Any amount of tax paid is money I can't spend or save for retirement or invest in my business.

In February I wrote a blog entitled: "Superbowl of Government Spending--A Zero Sum Game" where I discussed James Payne's 1991 book, The Culture of Spending. In that book, Mr. Payne introduces the concept of the "bureaucratic rule of two."

He writes, "When the government purchases what people can buy for themselves, two additional costs are introduced: the cost of taxation, including the distortion of incentives governing production; and the cost of administration, including the distortion of incentives governing consumption. Calculating these costs is quite difficult but preliminary estimates suggest that for each dollar the federal government recycles through the taxation-subsidy system it wastes more than one additional dollar."

Citing research studies at the time on the taxation side of the equation (cost is about 60 cents for every dollar collected) and the disbursement side (50 cents for each dollar spent) Payne ,and we, can conclude that government production of a typical good or service in 1991 cost twice as much as the same items produced in the private sector. Hence, the "bureaucratic rule of two." Not only is the government sucking capital from the private sector which produces our food and clothing and iphones and the majority of our JOBS, but each dollar collected costs more to collect than the value of that dollar. Or as we like to say in the private sector (mostly when referring to government bureaucracy): it's a lose lose.

If the above argument isn't compelling enough, consider this final thought also from Dr. Laffer's op-ed: "Since late 2007 the federal government has spent somewhere around $3.6 trillion to stimulate the economy. That is a lot of money."

With very little to show for it.

Does Anyone Listen to Paul Krugman Anymore? Let's Hope Not!

2010-07-07T06:23:00.000-07:00

In a July 6th entry to his blog entitled, The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman cites Lincoln's statement to General McClellan that if McClellan wasn't going to use the army to engage in battle against the South, Lincoln would like to "borrow it for a while," as a springboard for his argument that the government must continue to stimulate the economy even if it means borrowing the money. (For those who have lost their way in the blizzard of Obama spending, we are referring here to more of the same $787B Stimulus Bill--recalculated by the CBO to actually cost $862B. The same Stimulus bill that Obama promised would ensure unemployment remain under 8%. 18 months after the Stimulus Bill was passed, unemployment--those who haven't yet given up on finding work--hovers at 9.5%. It is estimated the real unemployment rate or U-6* as the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls it, is more like 16.5%. Either way, a far cry from 8%, 862 billion dollars later.)

Yet Mr. Krugman still believes more spending will solve the problem. It seems, if one follows his logic, the only problem here is that we haven't spent enough. He (and others) observe that American corporations are holding large levels of cash and idle cash doesn't help anyone. Spending money will benefit the economy. You know, like the Obama Stimulus plan improved the unemployment picture. If $862B didn't make a dent, perhaps we should double down? For a Keynesian like Krugman, spending is always good. Borrowing to spend? Even better. I invite you to read the following excerpt from his blog: "So shouldn’t that be our response to all that idle corporate cash? We don’t literally have to borrow from the corporations; they’re parking their funds in the money market, and the feds would borrow from that market. But the end result would be to put some of that idle cash to work — and, ultimately, to give the corporations a reason to start investing, too, so that the deficit spending would crowd investment in, not out."

For my part, I don't understand how the government borrowing MORE money will "give the corporations a reason to start investing, too, so that the deficit spending would crowdinvestment in, not out." Because Mr. Krugman says so? Because Obama says so? Because Nancy Pelosi believes that Unemployment checks are the biggest single incentive-for- growth tool that the government has to utilize? Following their logic we should all quit working, collect unemployment and spend ourselves into prosperity.

Many years ago when Gray Davis was still the governor of California, I sold my company to a much larger one and became the CEO of the larger, somewhat troubled company. My predecessor was a generous man in Mr. Krugman's world. He liked to spend. So the company had an earnings problem. The State of California was suffering from the same malady. I was preparing a report for the Board of Directors to explain what steps we were taking to cut costs and grow revenues. About that time I heard Gray Davis answering a question from the press on the budget deficit California was facing. He said (and I paraphrase for I don't remember the exact words though I do remember the essence): It's not that our spending was too great, just that our revenues were too low. I would have liked to try that one on my Board. Just for laughs, you know.

Revenues are taxes. For bureaucrats there are never enough revenues and ever increasing, more revenues are good. Politicians don't view taxes as a burden on the working public, they view them as revenues. More revenues, more spending, more debt, more borrowing, more everything. Until tomorrow. Until they wake up and realize money comes from somewhere. Until they realize we have to pay it back. Or, until we kick them out of office.

*The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

The Immorality of Groups--read: Government

2010-07-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

"...groups are more immoral than individuals."

Martin Luther King

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Anyone with a modicum of common sense would acknowledge that mob rule is not a good thing. Our Founders understood it. They understood it to their very core. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely (Lord Acton). And, because they understood the effect power has on individuals and on large groups, particularly when those groups are in the ruling majority, they sought to limit the power of the government over the rights of the individual.

As early as the Declaration of Independence printed on July 4th, 1776, some 234 years ago, Jefferson wrote: That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. The Founders intended for government to gain their authority and legitimacy from the people. The intention was never to impose arbitrary policy onto the people. The purpose of the Declaration which led to the Revolutionary War, was to preserve the rights of the people and create a governmental system grounded in individual liberty and freedom of choice.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 15: Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons.

Stay with me. Just a few more lines of Federalist prose. Hamilton goes on: Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number, than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity.

Thomas Jefferson understood the capriciousness of rulers. The authors of the Constitution understood the nature of man and the nature of man in power. Senator Charles Sumner who championed the 14th Amendment understood the way men of power abused their authority. Despite the protections articulated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, he saw the States' unwillingness to grant those very rights to the population of recently emancipated Slaves so he sought an amendment to the Constitution to protect those rights from abuse by the States. Martin Luther King understood the immorality of groups in power as he wrote his defense from the Birmingham jail.

We live in tenuous times. Our rights are being infringed upon; our Constitution ignored at best, flagrantly flaunted at worst by a rogue government intent on increasing its collective power. This immoral group respects us, the people, so little they determine to tell us how much salt to put on our food, how much air to put in our tires, how much gas and electricity we should consume, how to conduct our health care, and how to spend our hard-earned money. This immoral group has set aside the lessons of history, the veracity of the Declaration and the Constitution and seek, rather, to obtain ever more power over an increasingly un-consenting population. They claim the moral high ground in all that they do. And they do not blush over their "improprieties and excesses."

As we reflect on the foundation and history of this great country, let us not forget how Alexander Hamilton referred to us in Federalist 16: they, as the natural guardians of the Constitution.

Get a copy of the Federalist Papers and read them. In these "times that try men's souls" you will find great comfort.

May God Bless America on this Independence Day.

Why the 14th Amendment and the McDonald Ruling Matter

2010-06-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

"It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is."

William Jefferson Clinton, 1998 testimony to the Grand Jury on the question of his relationship to Monica Lewinsky prior to his impeachment

It should not be lost on any of us that the recent Supreme Court decision in McDonald v. Chicago was more than a referendum on our right to bear arms, it was confirmation of the critical importance of the Fourteenth Amendment to the protection of our individual rights. In particular, the Privileges or Immunities Clause and the Due Process Clause.

In short the court held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects our right to bear arms against the State legislation to the contrary. Why is this important?

Consider that the opposing argument--the one that FOUR justices voted to support--argues that the Bill of Rights applies only to our national rights. That is that the Bill of Rights protects Americans against the Federal government usurping the rights protected under the B of R but not against the States. If this were true then the state in which we live could impose laws that deprive of us the rights enumerated in the B of R. Previous court rulings have safeguarded some of the rights against the states, but not all. And it was under the Due Process Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment that the court recently ruled affirmatively for McDonald--that is, against local and state bans of firearms.

More important than the verbal gymnastics the opponents engaged in and FOUR Supreme Court Justices supported in dissenting the Court's opinion is the very clear intention of the original sponsors of the Amendment in 1866 when it was introduced. From the Court's June 28, 2010 Opinion, footnote 9:

Senator Jacob Howard, who spoke on behalf of the Joint Committee of Reconstruction and sponsored the Amendment in the Senate, stated that the Amendment protected all of "the personal rights guarantied and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution" (14).

This understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment was widely understood at the time, published extensively and "not a single senator or representative disputed (the incorporationist) understanding" of the Fourteen Amendment during debates. How then could FOUR justices voted against McDonald?

Words matter. The meaning of words matter. If not then nothing matters. Without the veracity of Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers to guide our understanding, we are at the mercy of the very same arbitrary and capricious actions of the ruling class the Founders rejected when they declared independence from the King of England. Bill Clinton sat before a Grand Jury and dissected the meaning of the word "is." He did this with a straight face. He was impeached by the House of Representatives and disbarred. Yet he is still an influential leader of the Democrat party. If truth doesn't matter. Liberty is just a slippery slide away from extinction.

Our Supreme Court Hanging by a Vote

2010-06-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the Supreme Court overturned the previous judgments in McDonald v City of Chicago, a case brought in opposition to Chicago's ban against citizens' possessing handguns. The ruling was cheered by Second Amendment rights advocates and a collective sigh of relief was exhaled by all those who cherish the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

But there was bad news amidst the good. The ruling was 5-4.

According to the opinion published by the Court yesterday, Mr. McDonald, the petitioner argued that his "right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment... and that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause incorporates the Second Amendment right."

(The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War. The Republicans in Congress submitted the amendment to the States in the aftermath of the war to grant citizenship to all those born or naturalized in the United States (former slaves) and to ensure they received the rights of a citizen. The Amendment declared no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.")

The City of Chicago argued that the Bill of Rights (which includes the Second Amendment) applies to the States, in effect, only under certain, limited circumstances. And their reading of the Fourteenth Amendment is equally as limited when it comes to the Privileges or Immunities Clause. They argue that both the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment Privileges or Immunities Clause apply only to the Federal Government or those rights "which owe their existence to the Federal government," not the States.

But this argument is fundamentally flawed of our basic understanding of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Founders intentions. Allow me to quote from Our Documents, 100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives, a book I purchased in the bookstore of the National Archives. Following is the intro to the Bill of Rights:

During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the document would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Richard Henry Lee, for one, despaired at the absence of protection of "those essential rights of mankind without which liberty cannot exist...They demanded a "bill of rights," that would specify the immunities of individual citizens (emphasis mine).

The real news here is that FOUR Supreme Court justices voted against McDonald.

The Turn of The Screw

2010-06-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

Islamic terrorists hijacked our planes and flew them into the World Trade Center in the name of allah, killing thousands of our colleagues, friends and family and now, almost ten years later a $100 million, fifteen story mosque is poised to be built on the site of Ground Zero in NYC. A measly six hundred feet from where the Tower's once stood. Mayor Bloomberg (New York's three-term mayor) strongly supports the building of the mosque. His reasoning is incoherent. Each time he speaks I see Neville Chamberlain. And we know how that turned out for the British and for the world.

In May of this year, Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, was shot and killed by an illegal alien on his own property. The murder brought to national attention what Arizonan's already knew, the thousands (cumulating to millions) of illegals pouring across our southern borders are not just a national security and economic disaster, they are a potential danger to Arizona citizens. Governor Jan Brewer subsequently signed a bill into law which enforces the current Federal law the Feds aren't enforcing. Our president called the Arizona law "misguided" and the United States Government (joined by the Mexican government) is now suing Arizona. If the Federal government's actions weren't so reckless and frankly, ridiculous, the situation would make great late night comedy. It undoubtedly will anyway--that is until someone else gets killed.

There is a greater connection here it should be noted. Illegal aliens who happened to also be terrorists were responsible for the attacks on 9/11. An illegal alien murdered Mr. Krentz. Murder. Terrorism. Does the motive really matter? The result, as we know, is the same.

Despite an unprecedented level of disapproval Congress continues to pass legislation in the still of the night, increasing the burden of regulation and government invasion into our lives and especially our pocketbooks. The latest financial reform bill is characterized best by the Wall Street Journal:

Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, those Fannie Mae cheerleaders, played the largest role in writing the bill. Congressman Paul Kanjorski even offered a motion to memorialize it as the Dodd-Frank Act. It's as if Tony Hayward of BP were allowed to write new rules on deep water drilling.

The Federal Reserve, which promoted the housing mania and failed utterly in its core mission of monitoring Citigroup, will now have more power to regulate more financial institutions and more ability to dictate the allocation of credit.

View Full Image

Associated Press

Barney Frank (l.) and Chris Dodd

The Treasury, which bailed out institutions willy-nilly without consistent rules, will now lead the Financial Stability Oversight Council that will have the arbitrary power to define which financial companies pose a "systemic risk" and which can be shut down without recourse to bankruptcy. Willy-nilly will now be the law.

And the SEC, which created the credit-ratings oligopoly and missed Bernie Madoff, will get new powers to decide how easy it should be for union pension funds to get their candidates on corporate proxy ballots.

Oh, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? They aren't touched at all, even as they continue to lose billions of taxpayer dollars each quarter.

The foxes are guarding the hen house. And though this drama is rich in irony, complete with the necessary ingredients of mystery and intrigue, corruption and mind-bending injustice, this drama is not fiction. It is our future and grand history mushed into one majestically, tragic plot with a collection of B and C-movie actors turning the screws. On us, the people.
I've read the book and I, for one, don't like the way it turns out.

Can't Say it Any Better--Obama lacks the L Word

2010-06-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

06/23/2010

Obama's Leadership Vacuum

More than two years ago, then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton launched a campaign ad that took direct aim at Senator Barack Obama's inexperience. It painted the picture of a telephone ringing in the White House at 3 a.m. and asked the question, when there is a crisis in the world and your children are safe and asleep, "Who do you want answering the phone?"

Now, two years later, there are several crises confronting America, that telephone is ringing, and President Obama isn't quite sure what to do about it.

The first crisis is the War in Afghanistan, a lynchpin in the War on Terror and a key to ensuring U.S. security. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, reportedlytendered his resignation yesterday following a Rolling Stone article that portrayed him and senior aides on his team as dismissive of top Obama administration officials. Apart for being an embarrassing moment for both President Obama and Gen. McChrystal, the story revealed a larger problem for the president -- festering, internal dissension regarding his administration's Afghanistan strategy. As Politico reports, there are divisions among Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Vice President Biden, Gen. David Petraeus, Richard Holbrooke and others.

Those divisions are of Obama's own making, stemming from his lack of leadership and failure to make a firm commitment to victory in Afghanistan. It took the president 10 months to decide on an Afghanistan strategy, he took a middle road in only committing 30,000 additional troops to the mission, many fewer than Gen. McChrystal had requested, and he imposed an artificial timeline for withdrawal that sent mixed signals to the country, the military, our allies and our enemies about America's resolve to win the war. Now, as the president contemplates Gen. McChrystal's potential resignation, it appears he is reaping the bitter harvest of his failure to take decisive action.

There's another crisis spewing from deep in the Gulf of Mexico, where the environmental and economic repercussions of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill continue to spread, 64 days later. Even after President Obama addressed the nation on the government's oil spill response, 59 percent of Americans do not believe he has a clear plan for tackling the crisis.

Is it any wonder? Yesterday, a federal judge struck down the president’s six-month ban on oil drilling, concluding that plaintiffs likely could show "the Administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing the moratorium."

The ruling followed protests from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and 19 Gulf lawmakers, including Democrat Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA), who complained that the ban would pile on even more economic hardship to the embattled Gulf region. Despite the ruling, the protests, the economic consequences, and a poll showing that 56 percent of Americans believe offshore drilling is necessary for U.S. energy security, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he will issue a new order re-imposing the moratorium on deepwater drilling.

The Heritage Foundation's Hans von Spakovsky writes that the ban is just one example of the Obama administration’s oil spill failures:

From the unjustified 24-hour ban imposed by the Coast Guard on the barges that were pumping oil out of the water to check on whether they had fire extinguishers and life vests on board to the Army Corps of Engineers' delays in allowing Louisiana to build berms and sand barriers to protect its wetlands, the administration has acted more like the Keystone Cops than a competent and effective government.

And then there's the budget. President Obama's administration has been marked by a spend-now, cut-later (or never) mantra that has featured the largest single-year increase in domestic spending since World War II and a trillion-dollar health care plan. Recognizing that all that spending might cause a public relations problem, the president appointed the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to study ways to improve America’s fiscal future. Why make a decision when others can do it for you?

Taking a cue from their leader, House Democrats announced yesterday that they won't pass a budget this year. Even though that's never been done in the history of the modern budgetary process, they want to wait until the president's commission issues its report in December before making any moves.

Following President Obama's Oval Office address on the oil spill last week, MSNBC commentators Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman, three of the president's most ardent media cheerleaders, roundly criticized the president's speech. Fineman said "Obama should be acting like a 'commander-in-chief.'" Olbermann complained the president "wasn’t specific enough." Matthews observed, "I don’t sense executive command." Each of those observations comes down to one thing: leadership. And these days, the man picking up the White House phone at 3 a.m. doesn't seem to have it.

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The Good News Is, We've Been Here Before

2010-06-19T08:29:00.001-07:00

The bad news is, it will likely get worse before it gets better.

The parallels between the current economic situation and the economic crisis in the 1930's is remarkable. Also noteworthy is the similarity between the strategies employed by president elect and then president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Barack Obama.

All of the following examples are cited from Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man.

The routine of targeting class enemies in the name of reform would become Roosevelt's hallmark (Shlaes 133).
Roosevelt reminded his listeners of the importance of the fact that "our last frontier" had long since been reached...growth would not provide for the poor; only redistribution (135).
On the matter of Roosevelt's election: Among the most pleased were the Soviet leaders. "Russians Hopeful of 'a New Deal,' ran the headline...from (the) New York Times (140).
In response to Hoover's appeal to president elect Roosevelt for cooperation on the banking crisis: But Roosevelt was not interested in cooperation. We will never know all of his motives, but it was clear that a crisis now could only strengthen his mandate for action come inauguration in March (142).
Comments from Tugwell, one of Roosevelt's adviser's on what the new administration's plans were: "Drastically higher income and inheritance taxes," among other sweeping changes (143).
The country indeed saw Roosevelt as a savior (145).
After a failed assassination attempt: "I have never in my life seen anything more magnificent than Roosevelt's calm," an investigator wrote later (146).

Hope ran high after Roosevelt's election and inauguration. The market's rallied.

Eventually reality set in.

And you thought THIS economy was bad

2010-06-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

Just wait until next year.

The Bush tax cuts are scheduled to sunset on December 31st of 2010. That means, if Congress does nothing--which is their specialty--the highest marginal tax rate will rise to 39.6% from 35%. Taxation of dividend income will rise to 39.6% from 15%. The estate tax rate will shoot up to 55%--55%!--from zero. And then there are the state income taxes and sales taxes and property taxes and energy taxes, bridge tolls, dog licenses, auto license fees, and after all of these taxes don't forget the taxes to be imposed to fund Obamacare and Cap and Trade.

So let's do the math. I earn $1,000 and for the sake of argument let us allow that earning that $1,000 puts me in the top federal bracket. In short, I am rich. I immediately pay Uncle Sam $396, then I pay my portion of social security, state disability tax and state income tax which in California tops out at 11%. So let's be generous and estimate only another $150 in taxes. I will then, take home $454 from my earnings of $1000. Now because I am rich, I put that $454 in trust for my heirs.

Worked to the bone, stressed to the max, I suddenly die and my heirs settle up with Uncle Sam who takes 55% of the $454. They are left with $204 from my earnings of $1000.

Clearly this example is meant to be illustrative. I have not accounted for capital gains nor dividends. But I have also not accounted for taxes paid on capital gains and dividends. Most of the other insidious taxes imposed on Americans each day were also left out of my example.

A little known fact of the Obamacare Law (among many other unpleasant surprises in the fine print you can be sure) is a 3.8% tax to be imposed when you sell your home--most people's greatest or only asset. 3.8% to Uncle Sam right off the bat. So how will that tax impact those who are involved in distress sales, who are underwater on their homes?

Any way you cut it, the picture is grim. If people have the choice, as most small businesses or the self-employed do, to accelerate earnings into this year to avoid next year's draconian tax increases, they will do so without a second thought. This will most certainly cause the economy to contract next year "unexpectedly." And once the cap gains tax increase and the dividend increase and the home sale tax are implemented expect liquidity to evaporate from the marketplace. Both the stock market and real estate market.

And you thought things were grim now. Just wait until you see with the Obama Brain Trust has in store for you next year.

For the whole story read Dr. Arthur Laffer's editorial in the WSJ: Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse. June 6th.

American Exceptionalism--A History of Defending Choice

2010-06-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

"In politics, the names of things are more important than what they are."

Gustave Le Bon

Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist whose speciality was the study of crowd psychology. So powerful were his theories that Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini studied his work. These political leaders understood that controlling the psychology of the masses was critical to their acquisition and maintenance of power.

Le Bon articulated what most politicians understand instinctively. It's all about the messaging. If we call a horrendous $787 billion dollar spending bill a Stimulus bill, people will be, if not happy, mollified. If we set out to Reform health care, the task moves out of the political and into the noble. Reform implies there is a problem and it will be fixed.

Which brings me to Choice. Choice represents everything great about America. We have heretofore lived in a land where liberty is honored and cherished. We can choose where we live, what we study, what occupation or business venture we want to pursue, who we vote for, what car we drive, in short, Americans are given the freedom to choose.

So why is it then that the pro-Choice movement with all their empathy for a women's right to choose, demonstrates absolutely no regard for the human life under discussion. Where else in our society do we argue for one person's rights without even the slightest consideration for an other's? Animals have rights. Criminals have rights. Terrorists now have rights. Why is it that the human life conceived by and carried by a woman has no rights?

The only way this argument has become palatable is because the destruction of an innocent life is not called Murder, it is called Choice.

But words mean something and I have become increasingly troubled by the willingness of many to ignore the true meaning of the word Choice while repeating the politicized meaning, the mantra if you will: "Choice? Yes, I am for Choice, absolutely. Choice is good."

Good for whom I wonder?

The Genius Terrible

2010-06-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

Throughout Mr. Obama's run for the presidency and after his election we heard it oft repeated that he has a great intellect, that he is, perhaps, the smartest man ever to occupy the Oval Office. The pundits and media repeated the statement so frequently it became a "fact." Despite the actual fact there is no evidence to support the claim. Mr. Obama's transcripts and college records are sealed.

Sealed and shielded from public scrutiny. This genius of a president has made sure his records are buried. How this is done, I have no clue. It must take a great deal of complicity.

George Bush on the other hand was a bumbling idiot. For crying out loud, he got C's at Yale. What a moron.

And yet...

This president has repeatedly lied to the American people, repeatedly employed economic policies that have tripled our debt in his short tenure, increased unemployment catastrophically and full-stopped growth--all in one fell swoop. He forced through a health care bill with shady tactics and against a large majority of Americans further increasing our debt. He has exacerbated each crisis and then pointed his ever wagging finger in our faces and told us to put air in our tires or eat less salt or use less energy. Less. No. No more. Our best days are behind us. That is the legacy of this administration.

So who is the moron? We will let history decide. But I'll tell you this much. At least George Bush had the good sense and class to cut out the golf after 9/11 while this president parties and hits the links for almost two months as our fellow citizens in the Gulf drown in oil.

Can you say, "Let them eat cake," Mr. Obama?

It's Not Different This Time, Mr. Obama et al...

2010-06-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

During the twenty or so years I invested money for large corporations and wealthy individuals, the pundits would frequently look at some piece of economic data or a particular company's earnings and declare doomsday claiming, "it's different this time." In the early 1990's, an influential economist friend of mine made a widely received and compelling argument that America's best days were behind it and the most we could expect was 1-2% growth in perpetuity. He was upbeat though his prognosis was glum. What more could we expect? We'd had a good run.

A few short years later the economy re-accelerated into strong growth and productivity increased dramatically. The stock market followed suit and continued the bull market ignited by the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980's.

What my economist friend viewed as a permanent problem was solved in the capital markets in ways that he could not have predicted at that time. The Reagan tax cuts continued to fuel private sector growth. Innovation and investment were rewarded. Money that had been poured into the no-growth public sector was freed up to create jobs in the private sector. The economic growth that temporarily stalled in the early 90's causing the experts to predict America's decline, was merely a pause in one of longest periods of prosperity in modern American history. Private industry was regrouping, recalibrating and on the verge of another surge in growth. Technology had improved productivity so dramatically the downturn was merely a breather before another strong acceleration.

In short: It wasn't different this time. America, when left to her own devices, should never be counted out.

President Obama is fond of predicting our decline. He uses words like unsustainable and redistribution and fair share. He does not speak of growth or innovation. Rather, he shares a philosophy, long since proven wrong, that was espoused by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a speech he gave in San Francisco in 1932 when he declared, " our last frontier" had long since been reached. It was time for the "princes of property," the wealthy, to share their resources. Growth would not provide for the poor; only redistribution could (Shlaes 135).

Like FDR, Obama who has no experience building or growing anything other than government, cannot believe in the private sector. Cannot acknowledge that American ingenuity has always, and when left unfettered will again, solve problems and create wealth.

Our last frontier was not reached in 1932 nor has it been reached today. Make no mistake, Obama's economic policies have and will continue to inflict great damage. But that great American spirit will eventually dig us out and set us on the right track again.

The Co-opting of Greed

2010-06-10T07:10:00.000-07:00

The little history I was taught in grade school characterized Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a benign, fatherly figure sitting in his wheelchair, snuggled under a lap rug and in his familiar, folksy voice speaking confidentially to his fellow citizens during his famous fireside chats. As close to royal rule as America ever came, four terms--12 years and 82 days--Roosevelt, instead of leading America through a difficult time, politicized it. And many, who study history and economics would argue, prolonged the suffering of the American people.

Yet the image stands.

In fact, Roosevelt, in his effort to seek election to the presidency in 1933 created a theme of Americans as the forgotten man. The average American oppressed by the wealthy elite. Enter class demagoguery into the political process. FDR argued that he (government) would defend the "forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid" (Shlaes, 128). A member of the wealthy class from birth, Roosevelt had no compunction about demonizing the very class he was a member of. So vicious were his attacks, fellow democrat Al Smith, whose family was so poor he had to drop of out school at 14 years of age, denounced Roosevelt saying, "We seem to seek negative victory rather than affirmative victory. I will take off my coat and fight to the end against any candidate who persists in any demagogic appeal to the masses of the working people of this country to destroy themselves by setting class against class and rich against poor (128).

Yet, beyond the demagoguery, there was another problem. Roosevelt co-opted the quote about the "forgotten man." The statement was made by William Graham Sumner of Yale University in 1883 to characterize the man who worked and paid and was never considered, not the man who took from others' labor via government handouts.

"I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of...

He works, he votes, generally he prays--but he always pays..."

We are told by the current administration the rich are greedy. But I ask you, how would you characterize a man who takes without earning? Who assumes a right to others' property through the money laundering machine of government? Where is greed in working hard and keeping the fruit of your labor? No, to me the "rich" are industrious, hard-working people and the greedy are those in government who steal their labor to reallocate it to those who can't or won't work. They do this not because they are altruistic but because doing so increases their power. They are the greedy.

And hard working Americans are the The Forgotten Men and Women of the 21st century.

Sarah Palin's 'Mama Grizzlies'

2010-05-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Daily Beast

Elizabeth Emken is running for Congress in California's 11th District. She recently got this plug: listed as one of Sarah Palin's 11 top prospects.

Hope you will check out the article.

Standing Firm with Israel

2010-05-21T14:44:00.001-07:00

America has a long tradition of supporting those on the side of democracy

By, Elizabeth Emken

Republican Candidate for Congress, California’s 11th District

Since 1948, the State of Israel has stood tall as a bulwark for democracy in the Middle East and has been one of America’s staunchest allies. No matter which party occupied the White House, United States foreign policy reflected the importance of our strong relationship with Israel and our understanding that a secure Israel is vital to our own national security interests. The U. S. has always stood strong in support of Israel in its sovereign right to protect itself from the existential threat of Islamic radicalism. President Obama is the first American president to break with that longstanding policy. I support efforts underway to urge the State Department to affirm the United States’ unique and historic relationship with Israel and to conduct relations in a manner that befits longstanding strategic allies.

A bi-partisan group of Members of Congress recently sent a letter to the Obama Administration calling for crippling sanctions against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. I support their effort. Nuclear weapons in the hands of a terrorist-sponsoring regime, such as Iran, pose a threat to Israel’s very existence and to our own security and national interests as well. History is replete with nations ignoring the threats of radical regimes and consequently enduring the tragic consequences. To avoid this fate, I believe we must do more than just support sanctions as an end to themselves. These sanctions must be accompanied by a measurable assessment of whether they are stopping Iran’s determined march toward nuclear weapons. There is strong evidence that Iran will use its strategic alliance with Venezuela and others to circumvent any sanctions. This must be prevented at all costs. Finally, U.S. foreign policy must be driven by the priority of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and not by our investment in the U.N. process.

It is incumbent on the U.S. and Israel together to develop a comprehensive approach to dealing with the threats facing both countries. The web of terrorist organizations sponsored by Iran and its allies are the greatest impediment to the peace process. I share the vision of peace in the Middle East with Israel and an independent Palestine living side-by-side. However, it can only be accomplished through the explicit recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state in her historic homeland and through the abdication and renunciation of terrorist tactics to achieve opposing political goals. States that refuse to renounce terrorism as a solution to this conflict should not influence our foreign policy of supporting Israel, nor receive our support. I endorse legislation that will require the recognition of Israel’s right to exist and the renouncement of terrorism as a pre-condition to receiving US foreign aid.

Finally, let us not fall into the trap of minimizing the importance of Israel’s and the United States’ investment in a modern and robust national defense. We must continue to support the unique defense budget burden Israel is forced to carry because of the threats to her in the region. The United States spending on national defense is shrinking as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) according to the Congressional Budget Office and the White House Office of Management and Budget. Their numbers show that since 1962 defense spending has declined from 9.0% of GDP to an estimated 4.7% in 2009, a declining trend that is forecast to accelerate further under the current Administration. Yet the threats to our national security and to that of our ally, Israel, have not subsided. It is time to engage our leaders in a national debate. The first and foremost responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. Our proud tradition as a nation is to stand firmly on the side of our allies. Let us return to that tradition and ensure a safe America and a safe Israel for future generations.

A Pleasant Man Who Wanted to Be President

2010-05-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

I am always leery of those who seek power. Reluctant leaders are the most trustworthy in my experience. The ones who would rather be home with their families attending Little League games and barbecuing in the back yard. But the guy who is more comfortable wearing a suit on the weekends, attending a Rotary meeting or a City Council meeting, that guy scares me.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a movie star. Who didn't? I wanted to be famous, I wanted to inspire, I wanted to make people laugh. Long before reality TV shows made any schmo a star I watched Maureen O'Hara stand toe to toe with John Wayne in The Quiet Man, take a swing at him and finally melt in his arms. I wanted to be her. I watched Lucille Ball convince Vivian Vance to go along with another of her harebrained schemes and I laughed and thought it would be great fun to be a comedienne, like Lucy. Problem was, I wasn't a good actress like Maureen O'Hara and I wasn't funny like Lucille Ball. I wasn't qualified. No Hollywood producer would hire me simply because I wanted to be a star.

So can someone explain to me why we vote for people simply because they want to be our president or congressperson? Why don't we delve into their backgrounds, check their qualifications? Why don't we subject them to the kind of scrutiny, at least, as a contestant on American Idol?

Our president has claimed to be many things. He has said he was a college professor but now we learn he was a lecturer; big difference. We were told he is the smartest president ever to sit in the Oval Office, but for some reason his academic records are sealed, off limits to the public. Populism goes only so far these days. He promised his policies ($787 billion in stimulus courtesy of the taxpayers to begin with) would create jobs but unemployment seemed to accelerate almost as soon as those policies were put in place. We were offered Hope and Change by this president but the only thing that has Changed is that we no longer seem to have any Hope.

He is a pleasant man we are told. He is trim and athletic. And he really really likes being President. He has given more speeches, made more appearances and commanded more of the airwaves than any president in my lifetime. He has opinions on anything and everything and is not one bit shy about sharing them. Or twisting arms to turn them into law.

He reminds me of FDR. The four term president. The one whose policies extended the Great Depression and launched the Big Government thinking so popular today. Read what Walter Lippman wrote of FDR: "a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be president."

There are many parallels between Obama and Roosevelt and between the economic climate then and now. That is not meant to be a compliment. Rather it is a warning. A warning that it is time for each of us to wake up, to join forces for Liberty and economic freedom and take our country back. It is not too late, there is still time.

And one of the first places we can start is by supporting citizen candidates who simply want to fix this mess and then return home to their families and businesses. Who are reluctant leaders and wary of power. Who respect the hard work of their fellow citizens. And feel a responsibility to future generations not to spend their legacy recklessly and irresponsibly.

Pleasant men and women who simply want to do the right thing.

A Nation Founded and Built by Immigrant Families

2010-05-05T07:13:00.000-07:00

Legal immigrants have made the U.S. the greatest nation in history

By, Elizabeth Emken

Candidate for Congress, California’s 11th District

Most every American can proudly claim they are children, grandchildren or great grandchildren of immigrants. We are a nation founded and built by immigrant families who came to our country legally, seeking American citizenship and the opportunity for a better life. It takes exceptional people to meet the requirements of American citizenship which is as it should be--we are an exceptional country.

Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution charges Congress to “establish a uniform rule of Naturalization.” Yet, Nancy Pelosi’s Democrat controlled Congress has shamelessly politicized the immigration debate with amnesty as their ultimate goal. In the wake of Arizona’s much discussed and much distorted immigration bill signed into law this past week, it is important to keep the rights of U.S. citizens, legal immigrants and the need for a secure border front and center. The current obfuscation by the left is designed to upend uniformity and punish the efforts of honest, law abiding immigrants who have followed the rules of the United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) to become legal citizens.

In California, illegal immigration is adding enormous costs to an already deficit burdened state. According to a 2004 study conducted by the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR) a non-partisan, national public interest organization, illegal aliens cost the state of California approximately $10.5 billion per year. At the end of 2004 when the study was completed, FAIR estimated the annual cost to each California household was $1,183 to educate, incarcerate and provide health care to illegal aliens. Imagine the cost in 2010.

Some have said that illegal aliens are willing to do jobs that California’s won’t. With over 12% of the state’s population unemployed, that argument withers. Others have argued it is impossible to verify citizenship. Or that we simply can’t stop the flow through our porous borders. I emphatically disagree. My good friend, Congressman Ed Royce (CA-40) was a co-sponsor of the Secure Fence Act that would establish double fencing in the areas of highest border traffic. The bill passed by overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate. Subsequent bills passed by Nancy Pelosi’s Democrat controlled Congress have undermined the Secure Fence Act and put up numerous bureaucratic and legal hurdles to prohibit completion of the fence.

According to Rasmussen Reports, 67% of voters believe illegal aliens are a significant strain on the U.S. budget. And 68% say “gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers already living in the United States.” Yet Nancy Pelosi and her gang refuse to listen to the people. Once again.

Of the four candidates running in the Republican primary (June 8th) for California’s 11th District, I offer the strongest stand on immigration policy. As your member of Congress I will take targeted steps to deal with the crisis at the border including reinstating funding for the Secure Fence Act and advocating a military presence until the border is secure. I will advocate increased usage of the E-Verify program by employers, and enhanced prosecution of those employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. I will fight to remove the incentives--free education and health care--for illegal aliens and assist them in returning home. I will stand by my oath to establish a uniform rule of Naturalization according to the Constitution. And I will continue to support and encourage all those seeking a better life in the United States to follow the legal immigration process.

Oh yes, and there is one more thing I promise to do if elected: help take back the gavel from Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Health Care "Reform"--Obama's Smoot Hawley

2010-04-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

Students of economics know that the Great Depression was not caused by stock market speculation or free market excesses it was caused by the severely protectionist legislation of the Hoover Administration manifested in the Smoot Hawley tariff. Hoover, despite objections from over 1,000 economists and hundreds of corporate executives, encouraged the lawmakers to pass the legislation. Smoot Hawley was a knee jerk response to a troubled U.S. economy, troubled in part because of economic policies put in place by Hoover.

In short Smoot Hawley was the wrong legislation for the wrong reason at exactly the wrong time.

Herbert Hoover was a brilliant and accomplished man. He studied geology and engineering at Stanford, worked in mining all over the world, was appointed by Wilson during WWI as U.S. Food Administrator, served as Commerce Secretary under Harding and Coolidge. He was so accomplished that according to Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man, prior to turning thirty, "the newspapers reported he was the best-paid man of his generation (29)."

He had a fine mind, but he his instincts were wrong on economic policy and he didn't listen to the experts. He was supremely confident in his abilities. He was described by novelist Sherwood Anderson as having the face of a man who "had never known failure." A dangerous dangerous confidence. The kind of confidence that pushes aside self doubt, that places too much value on oneself, the kind of confidence that is unable to walk away from the precipice.

And that kind of confidence caused the Great Depression, the greatest economic disaster in modern history.

Fast forward to health care "reform" in 2010. President Obama is no Hoover. For one thing he hasn't a single, tangible accomplishment to point to. He is not experienced in business, we know nothing of his education background, and rather than having a face that "had never known failure," his face reflects petulance, arrogance and a stubborn determination to get his way despite the limits of the Constitution and will of the American people. But even more disturbing, this president's policies will be disastrous. Deficit spending unrivaled by any president in our history. Tax rates scheduled to sky rocket in 2011 with already sustainably high unemployment and a moribund economy. A massive redistribution of wealth that will not only not create wealth, but will disable the private sector for a generation.

This Administration knows at the core their policies won't work. That is why they lie about them. They simply refuse to face the facts. Obama is convinced if he says so, it will be so. As misguided as Hoover's Smoot Hawley policy, as potentially devastating, is health care "reform" and every major policy Obama is championing.

Including cap-and-trade and immigration. These policies are wrong-headed. They will cause economic hardship on millions of Americans. But mostly, they are simply un-American.

Holden on Health Care, I'm Not Kidding

2010-04-09T07:23:00.000-07:00

In J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, old Holden Caulfied, after pulling one over on an elevator boy, and all, confesses, "It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to."

Old Holden may have had something there. I'm not kidding.

Enter the Democrats and their absolutely clear-as-a-bell health care bill. No really, just ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who explained to a crowd last night that the bill wasn't even mandatory. You knew that right? I mean that was clear to you and all, to quote my friend, Holden.

Let me help clarify. Obama tells us not to worry because we can keep our health care. He also tells us that abortion will not be part of the bill. Nancy Pelosi tells us if we don't comply with the bill we will go to jail. Then she tells us we have to pass the bill to find out what's in the bill. That woman kills me.

Bart Stupak won't vote for the bill with abortion funding in it, then votes for it. I hate when people do that. When they tell you they won't do something and then do it anyway, he gives me a royal pain.

The CBO tells us by spending about one trillion dollars we will actually reduce the deficit. I am not as smart as these Washington intellectuals, I'm just not, so I'll just take their word for it. Except I recently heard that the calculation was based on ten years of increased taxes and only about 7 years of "benefits." That depresses me it really does.

The president tells us 47 million Americans are uninsured, then he corrects it to 42 million then the number moves to 30 something million until we settle on 30 million and honestly I don't know what number they're using any more. He is lying like a madman, I am not kidding. But it doesn't really matter because we are adding coverage for everyone without any decline in service. I'll just take their word since it's way above my head and I am getting depressed just thinking about it.

I am one of those people that just can't keep track of all the details. I'm not smart like that. They got me so confused, I'm running in circles like a madman. I guess I am just going to do what they tell me. Or maybe I won't. These guys give me a pain.

I am not kidding.

They Just Don't Like Us, The Media Elite, I Mean

2010-04-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

In high school, I had a gym teacher who didn't like me (imagine that) and whenever she would reprimand me for talking she would say, "I can always hear your voice above all the others." I don't have a particularly loud voice or even a distinguishable voice, but because she didn't like me she heard everything I said. She could pick my voice out of a crowd because I irritated her, I made her crazy. She once told me I was too happy, I am guessing she was a democrat...but I digress.

The First Amendment to the Constitution (you remember the Constitution even if the President and Congress don't) guarantees freedom of the press. So would someone please tell the press? Tell them they are free to pursue the truth, tell them they don't have to carry the water for Nancy Pelosi and Harry and Reid and Barry Soetoro or whatever name he goes by now...In fact, that is a good idea, why not tell them we would like to know a little more about the man who sits in the Oval Office and rejects our Constitution in pursuit of his leftist agenda.

In an Administration filled with scandal, starting with Tim Geithner's tax evasion and Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings past promotion of homosexuality in schools--why not spelling and arithmetic, I wonder--to self-proclaimed communist Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones to Vice President (really?) Joe Biden who, when he isn't plagiarizing says the darnedest things: No Joe, it is not Vice Presidential to drop the F-bomb over the microphone. Or anywhere for that matter. Why is it then that all I could find yesterday on CNN was discussion over whether or not Head of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele should resign over a subordinate's expense reimbursement for a provocative and highly inappropriate outing?

Why? Because the media, like my high school gym teacher didn't like me, doesn't like Republicans. Especially black ones.

Don't get me wrong, I am not defending Michael Steele, I am arguing against a media that so is partisan, so invested in the Left's agenda, they have compromised our freedom.

The Founder's counted on a free press to keep government honest by keeping the people informed. Someone needs to tell the media it is not about who you like, it's about presenting the facts--on BOTH sides--and letting the people decide.

Killing the Golden Goose Part Two--The Economy

2010-03-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), President Obama's FY 2011 budget will create almost $10 trillion in cumulative deficits over the next ten years. That is $1.2 trillion more than the Administration projected. Oops.

Oh yeah, I want these folks running my health care.

By 2020 the federal debt will reach 90% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP is the sum total of our national output). 90%. Imagine if your personal debt totaled 90% of your annual income--you would not be able to feed and house and clothe your family and meet the monthly debt service, never mind ever reducing the 90% debt burden. Your debt to income predicament would be unsustainable. As is the country's.

When Mr. Obama brought his hope and change to the presidency the federal debt hovered at a little over $6 trillion. That is equal to $56,000 per household. One year later the debt stands at $8.2 trillion ($72,000 per household) and is headed to over $20 trillion by 2020. In other words, in 2020 each household's share of the debt will be $170,000. That's change all right. Change to the tune of a 200+% increase in the national debt.

Government estimates are notoriously optimistic--often undershooting reality by over 100%--and there is no reason to think these projections will be any different. The process is fraught with potential surprises and inevitable spending increases. And the problem with the CBO's estimate is that health care has not yet been factored in. And by that I mean that though the actual expense of health care will be exorbitant to be sure, the greatest cost to American society may in fact be the number of people who will no longer be around to pay taxes thanks to Obama"Care."

The reckless immaturity of this Administration is stunning. Time to repeal Pelosi's Puppet Congress and get down to the real business of the people, like defense and national security. The primary purpose of government our Founders intended. We've got a great deal of work to do but so many before us have done so much more. It is indeed during these times we find what we are made of--the times that try men's souls.

Killing the Golden Goose Part One--Pharmaceutical Companies

2010-03-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Dr. Arthur Laffer, one of the great economic minds of our generation recently published a piece whose title he adapted from a quote by Steven Landsburg: "Economics Can Be Summarized In Four Words: People Respond to Incentives."

Companies are just like people.

In the early 1990's when BillaryCare was on the table, the Clinton Administration decided they needed a villain (sound familiar?) so they began a vicious attack on the pharmaceutical industry. The only problem was, the pharmaceutical companies were busy developing drugs like Lipitor that prevent costly and serious health problems such as strokes and heart disease. BillaryCare failed and the drug companies continued to invest billions in Research and Development.

Victims of cancer and diabetes, AIDS, epilepsy, leukemia, high cholesterol, even impotence are healthier and happier for it. A prescription that prevents surgery (or death!) is certainly a good trade from an economic viewpoint but also from a humanitarian perspective. Tax credits for R&D and trademark protection from generic competition for a period of time allows the companies to recoup the billions of dollars in investment required to develop efficacious drugs that benefit you and me. And reinvest those profits to develop future drugs.

Imagine a world where incentives to invest and discover new drugs is replaced by a world that penalizes the same and you peak into our future under ObamaCare.

Karl Rove sheds some light on that scenario in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal: "Drug companies will start raising prices to pay billions in new taxes they will have to pay starting next year. New taxes on medical devices and insurance companies will show up in higher prices and premiums before long."

In other words, when these companies are penalized with higher taxes, for example, we can kiss innovation and discovery good-bye. People and companies respond to incentives. Not onerous penalty after onerous penalty.

When Roger Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union first went to Russia in the late 1920's, he wrote home to his mother (according to Amity Shlaes in The Forgotten Man) "Everybody is poor together. There is much discontent, much regulation of life, but not much terrorism or repression except of the old upper classes."(71)

Allow me to translate. What he is saying is, "Let's all be poor together and while we may not enjoy it, we'll make sure the ones who aren't poor don't enjoy one minute of their lives either. If they do, we'll terrorize them."

This, my friends, is Obama Care on parade. Slay the Golden Goose. Then gloat about it and pat yourself on the back, all the while.

It's "Go Time" for Health Care--Let's Go!

2010-03-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

American history is filled with near misses, twists of fate, daring feats of courage and victory in the face of insurmountable odds. Our Founders stared tyranny in the face and said "no thank you" then launched a bold Revolution and one of the greatest experiments in government the world has seen: The United States Constitution. America has been a force for good through two World Wars and countless natural disasters and man-made crises.

We come through. We do the right thing. We right the port shift...in other words, we can be counted on in the end.

Our liberty is under attack again. I suppose we were naive to think the covetous Marxists would remain at bay for long. They can't help themselves. They want what we have and they are the kind of people who will do whatever it takes to get it. Everything except work hard, create value and boatloads of money.

So despite our good nature, our tolerance and "live and let live" approach to life we will have to draw some boundary lines, dig some trenches and go to war with the left. The people who want to take our liberty. Like the Marxists and Nazis who precede them in history they have not hesitated to use propaganda and lies and trickery to impose their agenda. They have already shown a willingness to do whatever it takes and call it something else.

And so we must win in the arena of ideas as we have these past months. We must win at the ballot box in the fall and produce appealing candidates that espouse conservative values and we must be willing to get down in the muck and mire and match them blow for blow or trade the best country in the world for a failed European Socialist experiment in the name of political correctness.

So friends this is not a time for faintness of heart. This is a time for bold action. For conviction. And for endurance.

It's a point of pride. I can't let people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, not to mention the Boy Wonder, get the best of me. Nor the American people.