Next year is the 100th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s birth and I get on the computer today and read an article published today on the National Review Online and it quotes Milton Friedman.
Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and coauthor of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.
If you are looking for a single statement that defines the essence of the modern welfare state, look no further than Secretary of Energy Steven Chu’s defense of the administration’s efforts to ban incandescent light bulbs. “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money,” Chu said, quite satisfied with government’s efforts to protect Americans from their own choices.
Contrast this with Milton Friedman’s view that
those of us who believe in freedom must believe also in the freedom of individuals to make their own mistakes. If a man knowingly prefers to live for today, to use his resources for current enjoyment, deliberately choosing a penurious old age, by what right do we prevent him from doing so? We may argue with him, seek to persuade him that he is wrong, but are we entitled to use coercion to prevent him from doing what he chooses to do? Is there not always the possibility that he is right and we are wrong? Humility is the distinguishing characteristic of the believer in freedom, arrogance of the paternalist.
For too long, both liberals and too many conservatives have attempted to impose on people the government’s standards of what is best for them rather than leaving them to their own decisions, merely because those decisions may be mistaken. That is the real legacy of the welfare state as expanded by President Obama and as it has been practiced on a bipartisan basis for the last half century or more: We are, quite simply, less free.
Once you accept the paternalistic premise, there is no end to government interference.
In some cases, the restrictions on liberty are tangible and easily seen. As the economy becomes more and more socialized, so too do the consequences of individuals’ behavior. This, in turn, creates an incentive for the state to control that behavior. After all, if individual decisions impose a collective cost, it is only rational for those bearing that cost to demand input on those decisions. Thus, the nanny state seeks to restrict all manner of private consensual activity, whether it is eating fast foods and smoking or having consensual sex or driving without a seat belt.
But there are other equally important, if less obvious, ways that the welfare state restricts liberty. Government-run health-care systems, for example, impose a minimum amount that you must spend on health care, either through taxes or through insurance mandates, as with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. They determine which medical conditions and eventualities you must insure against, even if you would prefer not to cover such conditions. Thus, they turn individual moral decisions, such as whether to buy insurance that covers abortion, contraception, or drug-abuse treatment, into political questions. And in some government-run systems they deny people the right to purchase the health care they want even with their own money.
By the same token, government-run anti-poverty programs limit your ability to support the charity of your choice. Money you pay in taxes to support government charity is money that you cannot donate to private charity. Yet the charitable activities chosen by the government may not be the ones that you would have chosen, or even the ones most needed. Indeed, the government’s charitable decisions are likely to be driven by politics, favoring those constituencies with the greatest voting power or those causes that capture the public imagination because they are on television or in the newspapers.
Government-run schools automatically pit the values of one group of parents against the values of other groups. How many textbook controversies or debates about what to teach about homosexuality, whether students may pray, or phonics versus whole language could be avoided if parents could choose the school their child attended?
Social Security may or may not be a Ponzi scheme, but it prevents people — especially poor people — from saving and investing for their own retirement in ways that would allow them to build real, inheritable wealth.
Beyond the programs themselves, there is the simple fact that every dollar that the welfare state consumes to pay for itself is one fewer dollar that individuals have to spend the way that they want to, however that may be. As the French economist Frederic Bastiat put it in his parable of the shopkeeper with the broken window, “He would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library.” Or to put it in today’s context, he might have purchased health care, saved for his retirement, or donated to charity. He might have started a business and hired workers. Or he might have spent it entirely on pleasure or frivolities. He might even have bought energy-inefficient light bulbs.
Whatever he might have done, he is now deprived of that choice. He is, in fact, less free.
Once paternalism is accepted in principle, there is no limit to the actions that government may take in controlling our lives and restricting liberty. The ultimate result, as Friedman writes, is “dictatorship, benevolent and maybe majoritarian, but dictatorship nonetheless.”
As we debate the ever-expanding welfare state and all its consequences — joblessness, a crushing debt burden on our children and grandchildren, and the loss of opportunity for the neediest among us — let us not forget the other casualty of big government: freedom.
Sooner or later, there will be a giant battle in Washington over the value-added tax. The people who want bigger government (and the people who are willing to surrender to big government) understand that a new source of tax revenue is needed to turn the United States into a European-style social welfare state. But that’s exactly why the VAT is a terrible idea.
I explain why in a column for Reuters. The entire thing is worth reading, but here’s an excerpt of some key points.
Many Washington insiders are claiming that America needs a value-added tax (VAT) to get rid of red ink. …And President Obama says that a VAT is “something that has worked for other countries.” Every single one of these assertions is demonstrably false. …One of the many problems with a VAT is that it is a hidden levy. …VATs are imposed at each stage of the production process and thus get embedded in the price of goods. And because the VAT is hidden from consumers, politicians find they are an easy source of new revenue – which is one reason why the average VAT rate in Europe is now more than 20 percent! …Western European nations first began imposing VATs about 40 years ago, and the result has been bigger government, permanent deficits and more debt. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, public debt is equal to 74 percent of GDP in Western Europe, compared to 64 percent of GDP in the United States (and the gap was much bigger before the Bush-Obama spending spree doubled America’s debt burden). The most important comparison is not debt, but rather the burden of government spending. …you don’t cure an alcoholic by giving him keys to a liquor store, you don’t promote fiscal responsibility by giving government a new source of revenue. …To be sure, we would have a better tax system if proponents got rid of the income tax and replaced it with a VAT. But that’s not what’s being discussed. At best, some proponents claim we could reduce other taxes in exchange for a VAT. Once again, though, the evidence from Europe shows this is a naive hope. The tax burden on personal and corporate income is much higher today than it was in the pre-VAT era. …When President Obama said the VAT is “something that has worked for other countries,” he should have specified that the tax is good for the politicians of those nations, but not for the people. The political elite got more money that they use to buy votes, and they got a new tax code, enabling them to auction off loopholes to special interest groups.
You can see some amusing — but also painfully accurate — cartoons about the VAT by clicking here, here, and here.
For further information on why the VAT is a horrible proposal, including lots of specific numbers and comparisons between the United States and Western Europe, here’s a video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
Among the most familiar passages in the Declaration of Independence is the section reading, “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.”
Matthew Pate
Who am I to dispute one of the key sentiments contained in the great foundational document of our republic?
Even so, I’m disputin’ it.
Namely, I have a problem with the idea that we are all created equal. Perhaps in some abstract sense of tabula rasa, we all emerge from the womb with approximately equal potential, but I am dubious of even that.
This said, Ireadily, wholly and unequivocally believe we should all be treated as though we were equal, but facts being what they are, we are not all equal.
As someone whose job requires the issuance of class grades, I can fully attest that not all snowflakes are special. They all may be unique and valuable, but some are bright white and some appear to have been visited by sled dogs. Like it or not, we are a people of standards, rankings and competitions.
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The answer to this question of what equality is can be found in the first part of the episode “Created Equal” in the film series FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman.
Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan
Liberals like President Obama (and John Brummett) want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present. This is a seven part series.
Created Equal [1/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)
In this program, Milton Friedman visits India, the U.S., and Britain, examining the question of equality. He points out that our society traditionally has embraced two kinds of equality: equality before God and equality of opportunity. The first of these implies that human beings enjoy a certain dignity simply because they are members of the human community. The second suggests societies should allow the talents and inclinations of individuals to unfold, free from arbitrary barriers. Both of these concepts of equality are consistent with the goal of personal freedom.
In recent years, there has been growing support for a third type of equality, which Dr. Friedman calls “equality of outcome.” This concept of equality assumes that justice demands a more equal distribution of the economic fruits of society. While admitting the good intentions of those supporting the idea of equality of outcome, Dr. Friedman points out that government policies undertaken in support of this objective are inconsistent with the ideal of personal freedom. Advocates of equality of outcome typically argue that consumers must be protected by government from the insensitivities of the free market place.
Dr. Friedman demonstrates that in countries where governments have pursued the goal of equality of outcome, the differences in wealth and well being between the top and the bottom are actually much greater than in countries that have relied on free markets to coordinate economic activity. Indeed, says Dr. Friedman, it is the ordinary citizen who benefits most from the free market system. Dr. Friedman concludes that any society that puts equality ahead of freedom will end up with neither. But the society that puts freedom before equality will end up with both greater freedom and great equality.
Friedman: From the Victorian novelists to modern reformers, a favorite device to stir our emotions is to contrast extremes of wealth and of poverty. We are expected to conclude that the rich are responsible for the deprivations of the poor __ that they are rich at the expense of the poor.
Whether it is in the slums of New Delhi or in the affluence of Las Vegas, it simply isn’t fair that there should be any losers. Life is unfair __ there is nothing fair about one man being born blind and another man being born with sight. There is nothing fair about one man being born of a wealthy parent and one of an indigenous parent. There is nothing fair about Mohammed Ali having been born with a skill that enables him to make millions of dollars one night. There is nothing fair about Marleena Detrich having great legs that we all want to watch. There is nothing fair about any of that. But on the other hand, don’t you think a lot of people who like to look at Marleena Detrich’s legs benefited from nature’s unfairness in producing a Marleena Detrich. What kind of a world would it be if everybody was an absolute identical duplicate of anybody else. You might as well destroy the whole world and just keep one specimen left for a museum. In the same way, it’s unfair that Muhammed Ali should be a great fighter and should be able to earn millions. But would it not be even more unfair to the people who like to watch him if you said that in the pursuit of some abstract idea of equality we’re not going to let Muhammed Ali get more for one nights fight than the lowest man on the totem pole can get for a days unskilled work on the docks. You can do that but the result of that would be to deny people the opportunity to watch Mohammad Ali. I doubt very much he would be willing to subject himself to the kind of fights he’s gone through if he were to get the pay of an unskilled docker.
This beautiful estate, its manicured lawns, its trees, its shrubs, was built by men and women who were taken by force in Africa and sold as slaves in America. These kitchen gardens were planted and tended by them to furnish food for themselves and their master, Thomas Jefferson, the Squire of Monticello. It was Jefferson who wrote these words: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These words penned by Thomas Jefferson at the age of 33 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, have served to define a basic ideal of the United States throughout its history.
Much of our history has revolved about the definition and redefinition of the concept of equality, about the intent to translate it into practice. What did Thomas Jefferson mean by the words all men are created equal? He surely did not mean that they were equal and/or identical in what they could do and what they believed. After all, he was himself a most remarkable person. At the age of 26, he designed this beautiful house of Monticello, supervised its construction and indeed is said to have worked on it with his own hands. He was an inventor, a scholar, an author, a statesman, governor of Virginia, President of the United States, minister to France, he helped shape and create the United States. What he meant by the word “equal” can be seen in the phrase “endowed by their creator”. To Thomas Jefferson, all men are equal in the eyes of God. They all must be treated as individuals who have each separately a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Of course, practice did not conform to the ideals. In Jefferson’s life or in ours as a nation, he agonized repeatedly during his lifetime about the conflict between the institution of slavery and the fine words of the declaration. Yet, during his whole life, he was a slave owner.
This is the City Palace in Jaipur, the capitol of the Indian state of Rajasthan, is just one of the elegant houses that were built here 150 years ago by the prince who ruled this land. There are no more princes, no more Maharajas in India today. All titles were swept away by the government of India in its quest for equality. But as you can see, there are still some people here who live a very privileged life. The descendants of the Maharajas financed this kind of life partly by using other palaces as hotels for tourists __ tourists who come to India to see how the other half lives. This side of India, the exotic glamorous side, is still very real. Everywhere in the world there are gross inequalities of income and wealth. They offend most of us.
A myth has grown up that free market capitalism increases such inequalities, that the rich benefit at the expense of the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living never dreamed of before. Nowhere is the gap between rich and poor. Nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate, whether they be feudal societies where status determines position, or modern, centrally-planned economies where access to government determines position.
Central planning was introduced in India in considerable part in the name of equality. The tragedy is that after 30 years, it is hard to see any significant improvement in the lot of the ordinary person.
Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other […]
Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 2 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are […]
Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan Liberals like President Obama (and John Brummett) want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present. This is a seven part series. […]
Politico reports here that a group of celebrities, including former Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee, shouted a four-letter obscenity for cameras in a promotion to speak up against famine. Bleeps and labels to cover mouths obscure the actual word.
In the PSA, our celebrity supporters shout out one four letter word that the majority of viewers will find offensive, in order to shine a light on something only a minority seems to be offended by. I know the tone is a bit rough for ONE — that’s no accident. If it feels like a punch in the face, then good — mission accomplished. It’s time for a wakeup call and here’s the alarm. Love it? Great. Hate it? OK. Just don’t ignore it.
I’m not sure I believe Huck did precisely as described.
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One of the key parts of the solution is economic freedom. It is not the bailout, welfare approach of President Obama who Bono supported in 2008. Here is the second part of an excellent article from the Cato Institute:
Ending Mass Poverty
by Ian Vásquez
September 2001
Ian Vásquez is director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Global Economic Liberty. This essay originally appeared on the U.S. Department of State’s electronic journal, Economic Perspectives (September 2001).
Economic growth is the “only path to end mass poverty,” says economist Ian Vásquez, who argues that redistribution or traditional poverty reduction programs have done little to relieve poverty. Vásquez writes that the higher the degree of economic freedom — which consists of personal choice, protection of private property, and freedom of exchange — the greater the reduction in poverty. Extending the system of property rights protection to include the property of poor people would be one of the most important poverty reduction strategies a nation could take, he says.
The historical record is clear: the single, most effective way to reduce world poverty is economic growth. Western countries began discovering this around 1820 when they broke with the historical norm of low growth and initiated an era of dramatic advances in material well-being. Living standards tripled in Europe and quadrupled in the United States in that century, improving at an even faster pace in the next 100 years. Economic growth thus eliminated mass poverty in what is today considered the developed world. Taking the long view, growth has also reduced poverty in other parts of the world: in 1820, about 75 percent of humanity lived on less than a dollar per day; today about 20 percent live under that amount.
Even a short-term view confirms that the recent acceleration of growth in many developing countries has reduced poverty, measured the same way. In the past 10 years, the percentage of poor people in the developing world fell from 29 to 24 percent. Despite that progress, however, the number of poor people has remained stubbornly high at around 1,200 million. And geographically, reductions in poverty have been uneven.
This mixed performance has prompted many observers to ask what factors other than growth reduce poverty and if growth is enough to accomplish that goal. Market reforms themselves have been questioned as a way of helping the poor. After all, many developing countries have liberalized their economies to varying degrees in the past decade.
But it would be a colossal mistake to lose focus on market-based growth and concentrate instead on redistribution or traditional poverty reduction programs that have done little by comparison to relieve poverty. Keeping the right focus is important for three reasons — there is, in fact, a strong relationship between growth and poverty reduction, economic freedom causes growth, and most developing countries can still do much more in the way of policies and institutional reforms to help the poor…
The Importance of Economic Freedom
The West’s escape from poverty did not occur by chance. Sustained growth over long periods of time took place in an environment that generally encouraged free enterprise and the protection of private property. Today, developing countries have an advantage. By adopting liberal economic policies, poor countries can achieve within one generation the kind of economic progress that it took rich countries 100 years to achieve. High growth is possible because poor countries will be catching up to rich countries, rather than forging a new path. Studies by both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund confirm that countries such as China and others that have chosen to open their economies are indeed converging with the industrialized world.
The most comprehensive empirical study on the relationship between economic policies and prosperity is the Fraser Institute’s “Economic Freedom of the World” annual report. It looks at more than 20 components of economic freedom, ranging from size of government to monetary and trade policy, in 123 countries over a 25-year period. The study finds a strong relationship between economic freedom and prosperity. Divided by quintiles, the freest economies have an average per capita income of $19,800 compared with $2,210 in the least free quintile. Freer economies also grow faster than less free economies. Per capita growth in the 1990s was 2.27 percent in the most free quintile, while it was -1.45 percent in the least free countries.
The Fraser study also found that economic freedom is strongly related to poverty reduction and other indicators of progress. The United Nations’ Human Poverty Index is negatively correlated with the Fraser index of economic freedom. People living in the top 20 percent of countries in terms of economic freedom, moreover, tend to live about two decades longer than people in the bottom 20 percent. Lower infant mortality, higher literacy rates, lower corruption, and greater access to safe drinking water are also associated with increases in economic liberty. Indeed, the United Nations’ Human Development Index, which measures various aspects of standards of living, correlates positively with greater economic freedom.
The implications for the poor are impressive. Economists Steve Hanke and Stephen Walters examined the leading empirical studies on the relationship between economic freedom and prosperity and concluded that a 10 percent increase in economic freedom tends to increase per capita gross national product by 7.4 to 13.6 percent. Since developing countries can still increase their levels of economic freedom substantially, and some have by 100 percent or more in the past two decades, the payoff of enhanced liberty can be seen not only in terms of growth but also in terms of a range of human development indicators. Hanke and Walters found, for example, that an increase in per capita income from $500 to $1,000 produces a rise in life expectancy of about 6 percent. Indeed, high growth creates the wealth that makes it possible for countries to invest in health, education, and other human needs that are an essential part of continued growth. Nor are those benefits shared unequally. The Fraser study found that there is no correlation between economic freedom and inequality, while a World Bank study has found that the incomes of the poorest 20 percent of the population rise proportionately with the average rise in income.
Toward More Effective Poverty Reduction
Although the collapse of central planning forced many countries to abandon inward-looking economic policies in the 1990s, most of the developing world is still far from adopting a coherent set of policies consistent with economic freedom. Russia may have dumped communism, but in terms of economic freedom the Fraser Institute ranks the country 117 out of 123 nations. Even countries such as Argentina and Mexico that have done much to liberalize their economies have clung to policy remnants of the past, with devastating consequences for the poor. Mexico’s peso crisis of 1994-95, for example, resulted from monetary and fiscal policies during an election year that were thoroughly inconsistent with market economics.
Attention to market-oriented macroeconomic policies is well founded, particularly since they benefit the poor. That is especially so of two such policies — reducing inflation and the level of spending — which disproportionately favor the poor. Much less attention, however, has been paid to institutional reforms and the microeconomic environment. Three areas stand out: the rule of law, the level of bureaucratic regulation, and the private property rights of the poor.
A legal system capable of enforcing contracts and protecting persons and their property rights in an evenhanded manner is central to both economic freedom and progress. Indeed, the sustainability of a market economy — and of market reforms themselves — rests largely on the application of the rule of law. Yet the rule of law is conspicuously missing in much of the developing world. The 2001 “Economic Freedom of the World” report, which includes a more comprehensive index of economic freedom for 58 countries, takes this measure into account. It finds that Latin American countries rank especially low in this area. Also at the bottom of the list are transition countries such as Russia and Ukraine. Were reliable data available for African countries, they would no doubt receive low ratings as well.
The absence of the rule of law is especially unfortunate for the poor, not only because they have fewer private resources to protect their rights, but also because the rule of law in itself is related to economic growth. Robert Barro created an index that measured the rule of law on a scale of 0 to 6 and found that a country’s growth rate increases by half a percentage point with each increment in his index. Because the rule of law provides essential protections for the poor, sustains a market exchange system, and promotes growth, it may well be the most important ingredient of economic prosperity.
Another much neglected area in need of reform is regulation. Here again the Fraser Institute’s comprehensive index found that the freedom to operate a business and compete in the market is circumscribed in much of the developing world. The same countries that ranked low in the rule of law area ranked low in this area. To have an idea of the bureaucratic burden with which people in the developing world must contend, consider the cases of Canada, Bolivia, and Hungary. According to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, it takes two days, two bureaucratic procedures, and $280 to open a business in Canada. By contrast, an entrepreneur in Bolivia must pay $2,696 in fees, wait 82 business days, and go through 20 procedures to do the same. In Hungary the same operation takes 53 business days, 10 procedures, and $3,647. Such costly barriers favor big firms at the expense of small enterprises, where most jobs are created, and push a large proportion of the developing world’s population into the informal economy.
The informal economy in the developing world is large due to another major factor. The private property rights of the poor are not legally recognized. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has documented how poor people around the world have no security in their assets because they lack legal title to their property. In rural Peru, for example, 70 percent of poor people’s property is not recognized by the state. The lack of such legal protection severely limits the wealth-creating potential that the poor would otherwise have were they allowed to participate within the legal framework of the market. Without secure private property rights, the poor cannot use collateral to get a loan, cannot take out insurance, and find it difficult to plan in the long term.
Ending what amounts to legal discrimination would permit poor people to benefit fully from the market system and allow the poor to use their considerable assets to create wealth. Indeed, as de Soto has shown, the poor are already asset rich. According to him, the assets of the poor are worth 40 times the value of all foreign aid since 1945. The wealth of Haiti’s poor, for example, is more than 150 times greater than all foreign investment in that country since its independence in 1804. In the limited places that poor people’s property has been registered, the results have been impressive. Where registration was done in Peru, new businesses were created, production increased, asset values rose 200 percent, and credit became available.
Extending the system of property rights protection to include the property of poor people is the most important social reform that developing countries can undertake. It is a reform that has been almost completely ignored around the world, yet it would directly affect the poor and produce dramatic results for literally thousands of millions of people.
Keeping the Right Focus
Countries have ended mass poverty only by following policies that encourage economic growth. But that growth must be self-sustaining to translate into enduring increases in wealth. Policies of forced industrialization or state-led development may produce high growth for a time, but history has shown that such episodes are followed by economic contraction. Economic freedom, by contrast, shows a strong relationship with prosperity and growth over time. Fortunately, many developing countries are following that path, producing high and rapid growth and showing that it is good for the poor. Their experience may create a demonstration effect for the majority of nations that are in many ways still economically unfree.
All developing nations can do more to increase growth. Establishing the rule of law, reducing barriers that hamper entrepreneurship and competition, and recognizing the property rights of the poor are three reforms that go beyond the liberalization measures that many countries have already introduced. Those reforms not only contribute to economic growth; they increase the effectiveness of growth in reducing poverty. Policy-makers in rich and poor countries alike should not lose focus on the promise of growth. It remains the only path to end mass poverty.
U2 performs Pride: In the name of Love, a song about Martin Luther King, at President-elect Barack Obama’s Inaugural concert on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Bono told the estimated 600,000 there that on Tuesday “that dream comes to pass.” Jan. 18, 2009
The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 7)
This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but from a liberal.
Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-Mo.) called the newly agreed-upon bipartisan compromise deal to raise the debt limit “a sugar-coated satan sandwich.”
“This deal is a sugar-coated satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see,” Clever tweeted on August 1, 2011.
Hunter Opposes Latest Debt Limit Proposal, Cites U.S. Security
For Immediate Release: August 1, 2011Washington DC—Today, U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter voted against the latest debt limit proposal due to the likelihood that the special committee created under the plan will fail to reach an agreement and therefore “trigger” $600 billion in defense budget cuts. Hunter voted in support of the previous two debt limit proposals originating in the House—The Cut, Cap and Balance Act and Speaker Boehner’s debt limit reduction plan.
“Right now, the U.S. military is facing large equipment shortfalls and growing reset burdens while engaged in three wars,” said Congressman Hunter, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “When we should be talking about what our military needs to keep us safe and prepare for future threats, there’s a misconception that security spending is what put the country in this fiscal sinkhole and the only way out is to cut national defense.
“The future of U.S. security should not be handed over to a 12-person super panel. Its decisions or inability to reach an agreement could ultimately break our military or bring it very close to that point.
“From a historical perspective, current defense spending is at dangerously low levels. Under President Kennedy, defense spending was at nine percent of Gross Domestic Product. It was six percent under President Reagan. Today, it’s below four percent and with $400 billion in additional cuts, military readiness will continue its steady decline.
“And we cannot overlook what a $400 billion cut in defense means for jobs. It’s estimated that every billion in defense spending supports 8,000 jobs nationwide. Any sizeable cut in the defense budget would mean more lost jobs at a time when job growth is almost non-existent and a record number of Americans remain out of work.
“There’s no substitute for a strong national defense. America’s fiscal outlook is serious, but we know what’s straining the budget and it’s not defense.”
Obama’s Budget Would Send Federal Debt to Levels Not Seen Since World War II
Everyone wants to know more about the budget and here is some key information with a chart from the Heritage Foundation and a video from the Cato Institute.
In 2008, publicly held debt as a percentage of the economy (GDP) was 40.3 percent, nearly four points below the postwar average. Since then, the debt has increased more than 50 percent, and the President’s FY 2012 budget would more than double it to 87.4 percent by 2021.
DEBT AS A PERCENTAGE OF GDP
Download
Source: Congressional Budget Office and White House Office of Management and Budget.
The charts in this book are based primarily on data available as of March 2011 from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The charts using OMB data display the historical growth of the federal government to 2010 while the charts using CBO data display both historical and projected growth from as early as 1940 to 2084. Projections based on OMB data are taken from the White House Fiscal Year 2012 budget. The charts provide data on an annual basis except… Read More
Authors
Emily GoffResearch Assistant
Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy StudiesKathryn NixPolicy Analyst
Center for Health Policy StudiesJohn FlemingSenior Data Graphics Editor
He talks about “rebuilding America,” but his ideas will do nothing of the sort.
Last night, Van Jones launched what he’s calling the “American Dream Movement.” Jones, as you may remember, was President Obama’s Green Czar before he resigned amidst controversy. He was hired last year by Princeton University as a visiting lecturer in the Center for African American Studies.
In his almost two-hour, live-streamed event launch—which was heavily promoted by the liberal group MoveOn.org—Jones laid out the liberal vision for America. He called the simple truth that our country has a major debt and deficit problem “a dangerous lie” and led the crowd in chants of “America is not broke!”
In one particularly shocking part of his speech, Jones seemed to compare conservatives to terrorists, saying, “Paul Ryan’s budget would knock out more critical American infrastructure than our sworn enemies ever dreamed of knocking out.” This is specially dangerous territory for one such as Jones, who has found himself in trouble before for signing a petition suggesting that America was at fault on 9/11 or complicit in al-Qaeda’s attacks on our nation—the so-called truther movement.
Jones ended by questioning the patriotism of the Tea Party movement. With a nod to Vice President Joe Biden, he discussed the patriotism of paying higher taxes and took to calling his fellow progressives the “deeper patriots,” as if patriotism is determined by how much of other people’s money you can spend.
But perhaps the major conceit in Jones’s address was the notion that the economy is a zero-sum game where the success of one person hinders your ability to succeed. If you’re not doing well, it’s because someone else is getting ahead at your expense. “We’re not broke,” Jones said early on in his presentation, “We’ve been robbed.”
As Rachel Weiner over at The Washington Postnotes, this isn’t the first attempt at a sort of anti–Tea Party, and not even the first attempt by Jones:
A coalition of liberal and civil-rights groups united under the “One Nation” banner last year and held a rally on the National Mall in October. After the election, the group—in which Van Jones was involved—fizzled.
We will see in the coming weeks whether this newest movement fares any better. But ultimately, it’s doomed to fail. There’s a reason the Tea Party movement wasn’t launched with a slick website or a webcast. The Tea Party was the result of a growing feeling in this country that things aren’t on the right track, that we weren’t being told the truth by our leaders.
The Tea Party is the small business owner struggling under the weight of more and more regulations, the senior citizen wondering how the government can possibly afford to keep its promises, the parents concerned that their child will be worse off than they. In short, the Tea Party is a selfless movement driven by the desire to save our country before it’s too late.
This new effort by Van Jones is something else entirely. It’s supported by those who, like AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, know they have a vested interest in keeping government big and are trying to convince the rest of us that we do, too. This “American Dream Movement” is about fostering jealously and class warfare to justify expansive social programs and bigger government in order to, as President Obama explained, “fundamentally [transform] the United States of America.”
There are two important lessons from Jones’s presentation for conservatives.
First, conservatives need to keep educating the public, because we have real solutions to the nation’s most pressing issues. The left knows they have to do something because, as Charles Krauthammer explained earlier this year, “they’ve lost the American people” and are struggling with serious Tea Party envy. After all, liberals control the Senate. They control the White House. But they know they’re losing the public.
Secondly, while we explain the importance of reducing government and righting our fiscal house, we can’t forget to explain the other half of our message—how taking these steps not only keeps us from going off the cliff but can help stimulate growth and create jobs. In one of the videos played during the event, a woman says, “The American dream is worth fighting for.” Heritage agrees, which is why we launched an actual plan to preserve that dream and ensure that it exists for future generations. We call it “Saving the American Dream,” and you can learn about it here.
I am a big Woody Allen fan. Not all his films can be recommended but he does look at some great issues and he causes the viewer to ask the right questions. My favorite is “Crimes and Misdemeanors” but the recent film “Midnight in Paris” was excellent too.
In the late ’60s, Woody Allen left the world of stand-up comedy behind for the movies. Since then, he’s become one of American cinema’s most celebrated filmmakers. Sure, he’s had his stinkers and his private life hasn’t been without controversy. But he’s also crafted some of Hollywood’s most thought-provoking comedies. Philosophical, self-deprecating and always more than a tad pessimistic, Allen adds another title to his oeuvre this Friday with Midnight in Paris. Whether it will be remembered as one of his greatest or another flop is too early to say, but its release gives us a chance to look back at some of his most indispensable works.
Love and Death (1975)
Allen’s Love and Death owes a lot to Tolstoy’s War and Peace and the films of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. Death himself even makes an appearance, recalling the existential dread of Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. But despite the movie’s many highbrow allusions, Allen is more concerned with simply having a good time. Gags and one-liners abound, making it, if not a comic masterpiece, a pretty good way to spend an hour and a half.
Annie Hall (1977)
Like Love and Death, this Oscar winner paired Allen and Diane Keaton as a couple. But unlike Love and Death, it’s less concerned with throw-away gags. Instead, Allen uses humor to explore the complicated nature of relationships and the difficulties of love and communication. And of course, there’s also his trademark pessimism. The film begins with a joke about two women on vacation in the Catskills. One says to the other, “Boy, the food in this place is terrible,” and the other replies, “Yeah I know, and such small portions.” Allen’s character, Alvy Singer, goes on to say, “That’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness—and it’s all over much too quickly.” In the end, Alvy’s salvation lies in art, for only there can he give life the happy ending it can’t have otherwise.
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Allen continues the art-as-salvation theme in Hannah and Her Sisters, an ensemble drama about family and infidelity. The film tells three stories, one of which stars Allen as a hypochondriac named Mickey. Terrified of death, Mickey begins a search for meaning that takes him first to Catholicism and then the Hare Krishna movement. But it’s in a darkened movie theater playing the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup that he finds all the meaning he needs to face life. From a Christian perspective, this is a far from ideal conclusion—and yet, it’s not without an element of truth. The bulk of the Bible is historical narrative, not a list of rules, and Christ often used stories to communicate His message. In this, and every other movie where Allen finds life’s ultimate answers in art, we can disagree—but only partly.
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Match Point (2005)
The sanctity of art plays a role in Crimes and Misdemeanors, but it’s a minor one compared to Allen’s interest in the human conscience. Does God exist, his characters wonder, and if He doesn’t, can there still be objective morality? His characters have asked these questions before, but never have the stakes been so high as when Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), a prominent New York ophthalmologist, finds his life turned upside by an act of violence he’s responsible for. In the aftermath, he’s plagued by guilt but still wonders if a guilty conscience is such a high price to pay for keeping his good name. His transformation as he struggles with this question is chilling to watch.
The same issue is at the heart of Match Point, Allen’s first movie set outside America. The particulars are different, but its trajectory is the same. When Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) commits murder to preserve his status and good reputation, we wait for him to be caught. But Allen subverts our expectations again, as in Crimes and Misdemeanors—not because he condones murder, but to illustrate his belief that, if there’s no God, life is a crap shoot. Maybe you’ll get caught, maybe you won’t, but either way you’ll have to live with what you’ve done. In both films, he shows more pointedly than most other American filmmakers what hell on earth must look like.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
The human conscience is also the focus of Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, though in a relatively smaller way. He’s also less concerned with the existence of God, but objective morality is still a question lingering in the back of his mind. As the two friends, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) consider their entanglement with the bohemian Spanish artist, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), they’re forced to re-examine the rules they each live by. Even though the movie unquestionably favors moral relativism, the character of Cristina, who was once so proud of her “liberated” spirit, comes away from her search for meaning with a more moral perspective. No longer content to live according to Juan Antonio’s eat-drink-and-be-merry philosophy, she ends her time in Spain determined to find “something else.” That something else isn’t likely to be conventional morality, but neither is it unrestrained passion. While still denying that life has any inherent meaning, Allen forces us to consider whether conventional morality is really so stifling after all.
Overall, Woody Allen can’t be called anything close to a Christian (or even a moral) filmmaker—his films often drip with pessimism (some would say nihilism). But most of his films also give viewers something to chew on, something all too rare at the movies.
Do you have a favorite Woody Allen movie?
Andrew Welch lives in Texas and has written for RELEVANT and Books & Culture.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s path to Congress is unlike many others. Representing the 18th congressional district of Florida, she has been one of Congress’ leading voices for democracy and human rights for nearly two decades, and as a political refugee herself from Cuba, it’s fitting that she now chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Born in communist Cuba, Ros-Lehtinen fled the regime with her parents when she was only eight years old and together they successfully made their way to America. After graduating college, she became a teacher before eventually entering politics. Her story is unusual, but as she explains, also classically American:
“It’s pretty incredible,” she says about her story, “and it says a lot—not about Ileana Ros-Lehtinen—it says a lot about the United States of America. That a refugee child could have come here at the age of eight and rise not only to become a member of Congress, but the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. … No matter where you are from, not matter what your background is, no matter what your socioeconomic status is, every person can achieve his or her dreams. Because this is the land of opportunity—it really is.
When asked why we ought to concern ourselves with the affairs of Latin America when our own country is in the midst of one of the worst economic recessions in recent history, Chairman Ros-Lehtinen correctly asserted that a freer, more stable and more prosperous Latin America is in an investment for peace and security in our Western Hemisphere.
“In the end it’s a good investment for America to be involved in helping people get democratic governance—not to take over their country—but to help people be free. And that is an investment that will pay off in the future.”
Don’t miss this interview with a truly remarkable and tireless advocate for freedom and liberty in our own country, the western hemisphere and around the world.
Gene had a lot to deal with this in the opening. Gene had to commit to Shannon that he will be faithful and he did finally get around to making that verbal commitment. 30 years ago Gene should have stepped up and been faithful to Shannon or join the “he-man woman-haters club.” There is no middle ground.
Excuse me a moment while I flail on the floor in uproarious laughter. Call me a skeptic, but there’s just no way Gene Simmons will be able to cease his extra curricular activities; a wedding ring doesn’t make a man magically stop cheating. With their 22-year-old son Nick serving as best man and 19-year-old daughter Sophie standing as maid of honor, the KISS frontman and girlfriend of 28 years exchanged self-written vows in front of 400 guests. And yes, the wedding will be a part of the family’s reality TV show, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, airing on A&E October 18th. Image…
Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed Gene, 61, and Shannon, 54, have been together for 27 years and have two children, Nicholas, 22, and Sophie, 19. The ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’ hitmaker has previously made his views on marriage very clear, saying in 2007: “The problem with marriage is somebody else has a right to […]
I have known Jerry and Sally Johnson since 1983 and they are some great people. Here is an article in today’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about them. RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE God, Uncle Sam in sync when plotting their future By KIMBERLY DISHONGH SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE LITTLE ROCK — Jerry Johnson joined the Army hoping for a […]
Some will find this next story hard to believe: Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed have tied the knot in a lavish Beverly Hills ceremony. The wacky KISS rocker and his girlfriend of 28 years, Shannon Tweed, finally said “I do” Saturday night in front of friends and family at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The happy couple – who have their […]
Gene, 61, and Shannon, 54, have been together for 27 years and have two children, Nicholas, 22, and Sophie, 19. The ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’ hitmaker has previously made his views on marriage very clear, saying in 2007: “I don’t believe man is designed to be married. Marriage means nothing to me. Happiness means […]
Take a look above at this clip. In his article “Class Warfare versus Pay it forward,” Sept 26, 2011, Arkansas News Bureau, John Brummett tries to make the case that Obama is not involved in class warefare. He quotes Elizabeth Warren to prove his point. Unfortunately, logically this argument fails because although we all benefit […]
Gene Simmons and his son Nick (Refer to end of post for more on Nick and Gene) 28 July 2011 Gene Simmons has proposed to long-term girlfriend Shannon Tweed. The Kiss bassist – who claims to have slept with over 2,000 women and has for a long time vowed never to marry – popped the question […]
David Barton on Glenn Beck – Part 1 of 5 Uploaded by ToRenewAmerica on Apr 9, 2010 Wallbuilders’ Founder and President David Barton joins Glenn Beck on the Fox News Channel for the full hour to discuss our Godly heritage and how faith was the foundational principle upon which America was built. ___________ David Barton did […]
Nick is Gene and Shannon’s son and he appears often on Gene Simmons Family Jewels show. Gene Simmons has been guilty of having affairs while on tour for years. On July 19th episode of Gene Simmons Family Jewels he told his tour manager that he was not going to the after party. Then […]
Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed John McArthur The Truth About Divorce, #2 (Mark 10:1-12) On the show Gene Simmons has been arguing the point that he admits that he is selfish, but he still feels he has the right to be selfish. In the conclusion of the final episode of the year on July 24th […]
I thought this day would never arrive. Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed have a date to get married — finally. The KISS singer and the former Playmate have been together for 28 years and have two children. Invitations to the Oct. 1 wedding, sent out under the kids’ names, contain art by Nick, 22, and […]
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The Daily Hatch 