Will President Obama have the will power to make the tough spending cuts? The answer is clear. He will not, but he will be willing to promise that he will. The Democrats promised Ronald Reagan that they would cut 3 dollars for every 1 dollar of tax increase, but it never happened.
If the GOP is really serious about winning back the presidency, they need to win the deficit debate. The government of these United States is broke — flat broke — and if the nation is to survive as the prosperous nation it has long been, Republicans must restore fiscal sanity and call a halt to spending money we don’t have!
That’s what the Republicans promised us they would do last November, and largely on the strength of that pledge we let them take back the House. After all, it’s obvious that we can’t trust the Democrats to spend the public’s money wisely and well.
President Obama is promising to seek $3 in spending cuts for every $1 of new taxes, exactly as my father Ronald Reagan sought to do. When he passed away in 2004 he was still waiting for that $3. Barack Obama can expect the same dismal outcome.
Ask the first President George Bush how it worked out when he cut a deal with the Democrats in 1991 to reduce the deficit by $500 billion. All he had to do was go back a little on his “Read my lips — NO NEW TAXES” pledge and raise taxes just a little bit.
The Democrats promised not to use the tax issue in the 1992 elections. They promptly hung President Bush with it. So I say to the Republican leadership, as Margaret Thatcher once said to GHW Bush, “Now is not the time to go wobbly.” Stick to your guns and call a halt to spending nonexistent dollars.
Unlike the Democrats, who have long been able to win elections by buying votes with lavish government programs paid for with phantom dollars, Republicans have for the most part demanded that fiscal sanity play a large part in determining the wisdom of enacting new programs or financing existing ones.
Democrats have no problem with spending what I like to call “tomorrow money,” big bucks stolen from future generations, who aren’t around to protest having enormous debt loads placed on their shoulders even before many of them have even been born.
Tragically, we have now reached the point where it’s time for Peter –that’s this generation — to pay Paul, yet unborn, by paying for the cost of government programs with today’s dollars. That would require that we stop spending tomorrow’s dollars. Of course, in that case Democrats would start losing elections.
In this era of the Obama recession, Republicans had better stiffen their spines, stand erect and challenge Obamanomics before the president drags us over an economic cliff.
As I said, for the GOP, this is no time to go wobbly.
Ronald Reagan did nothing. Barack Obama saved the nation from total collapse.
How else to explain the absence of jobless pitchfork-wielding Americans storming the White House? How else to explain the contrast between the explosive Reagan Recovery and the dud on our hands right now? Fortunately, the left is up to the task.
“The secret of the long climb after 1982 was the economic plunge that preceded it. By the end of 1982 the U.S. economy was deeply depressed, with the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression. So there was plenty of room to grow before the economy returned to anything like full employment,” said left-wing economist, Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in 2004. Oh.
An economy that is “deeply depressed,” Krugman insists, or at least he did seven years ago, naturally comes back strong. To what principal factor did Krugman point to in calling the 1982 economy “deeply depressed”? Unemployment. It peaked in the early ’80s at 10.8 percent, even higher than during “The Great Recession” (aka the economy “inherited” by President Barack Obama). In 2010, the unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent, which means the early ’80s still holds the record for the “worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression.”
What most people care about are jobs. By that standard, Reagan faced an even tougher economy. Throw in a higher rate of inflation — 1980’s 13.5 percent average vs. 2011’s 2.6 percent — and much higher prime interest rates — 20 percent vs. 3.25 percent — and the early ’80s looked even grimmer than The Great Recession.
Krugman gives no credit to the Reagan policies of lower taxes, deregulation and a slowdown in the rate of government spending. He believes Reagan’s policies (SET ITAL) harmed (END ITAL) the economy. Krugman approvingly quotes Bill Clinton, who, as a presidential candidate, said: “The Reagan-Bush years have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.”
Enter President Barack “Hope and Change” Obama, with a Democratic majority in the House and a supermajority filibuster-proof Senate. Out went policies like reductions in income taxes, corporate taxes, capital gains and dividends. In came transfers of money from one pocket to another to “spread the wealth.”
Under ObamaCare, the Democrats placed the entire health care system under the command and control of the federal government. Through a nearly $1 billion “stimulus” package, Democrats spent money on “shovel-ready” projects with a promise to “save or create” 3.5 million jobs. To rein in “greed” and to fight “climate change,” the Obama administration imposed billions of dollars’ worth of new regulations on businesses. Through “quantitative easting,” the Federal Reserve effectively printed money to keep interest rates low, a widely disputed policy designed to encourage banks to lend and businesses to borrow.
So where is it? When do we see the massive bounce-back from this “deeply depressed” economy, at minimum the kind of bounce-back that occurred in the ’80s in spite of the allegedly harmful policies of Reagan?
Krugman’s analysis of the Reagan recovery — a deep recession equals sharp recovery — tells us that the economy should be storming ahead, especially given Obama’s enlightened leadership. But in the seven quarters following the end of this recession, gross domestic product growth has averaged 2.8 percent. In the seven quarters following the Reagan recession, GDP growth averaged 7.1 percent.
Forecasters are now lowering expectations for economic growth. Ominously, “core inflation,” which excludes “volatile” categories of food and fuel, is up. Unemployment, after dipping below 9 percent, is now back to 9.1 percent.
So how does the left explain this?
“This was a (SET ITAL) financial (END ITAL) (emphasis added) crisis,” explains Robert Shapiro, a Clinton administration economist, “and these take longer to recover from.” Does this explain why last spring the Obama administration confidently predicted a “Recovery Summer”? Does this explain why the Obama economic team predicted that the 2009 passage of “stimulus” would prevent unemployment, then at 7 percent, from reaching 8 percent? Krugman, of course, in refusing to credit Reagan policies for the Reagan Recovery, made no distinction between a “financial” and a regular old crisis.
It’s flat-out tough to explain how anti-Reagan policies are supposed to produce Reagan-like growth.
Here’s the real explanation. The top priority of the left isn’t “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Andy Stern, the former head of the Service Employees International Union and hero to the left, makes this clear: “Western Europe, as much as we used to make fun of it, has made different trade-offs which may have ended with a little more unemployment but a lot more equality.”
The goal of the leftist is social justice — using government to close the gap between the have and the have-nots, to secure the “right” to health care. Obama’s policies are therefore an acceptable trade-off even though they kill jobs — as long as it’s somebody else’s job that gets killed.
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
GUIDELINE #4: Terminate failed, outdated, and irrelevant programs.
President Ronald Reagan once pointed out that “a government bureau is the closest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on earth.” A large portion of the current federal bureaucracy was created during the 1900s, 1930s, and 1960s in attempts to solve the unique problems of those eras.
Instead of replacing the outdated programs of the past, however, each period of government activism has built new programs on top of them. Ford Motor Company would not waste money today by building outdated Model T’s alongside their current Mustangs and Explorers. However, in 2004, the federal government still refuses to close down old agencies such as the Rural Utilities Service (designed to bring phones to rural America) and the U.S. Geological Survey (created to explore and detail the nation’s geography).
Government must be made light and flexible, adaptable to the new challenges the country will face in the 21st century. Weeding out the failed and outdated bureaucracies of the past will free resources to modernize the government.
Status Quo Bias. Lawmakers often acknowledge that certain programs show no positive effects. Regrettably, they also refuse to terminate even the most irrelevant programs. The most obvious reason for this timidity is an aversion to fighting the special interests that refuse to let their pet programs end without a bloody fight.
A less obvious reason is that eliminating government programs seems reckless and bold to legislators who have never known a federal government without them. Although thousands of programs have come and gone in the nation’s 228-year history, virtually all current programs were created before most lawmakers came to Washington. For legislators who are charged with budgeting and implementing the same familiar programs year after year, a sense of permanency sets in, and termination seems unfathomable.7 No one even remembers when a non-government entity addressed the problems.
The Department of Energy, for example, has existed for just one-tenth of the country’s history, yet closing it down seems ridiculous to those who cannot remember the federal government before 1977 and for whom appropriating and overseeing the department has been an annual ritual for years. Lawmakers need a long-term perspective to assure them the sky does not fall when a program is terminated. For example, the Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, both closed in 1996, are barely remembered today.8
Instead of just assuming that whoever created the programs decades ago must have been filling some important need that probably exists today, lawmakers should focus on the future by asking themselves the following question: If this program did not exist, would I vote to create it? Because the answer for scores of programs would likely be “no,” Congress should:
Close down failed or outdated agencies, programs, and facilities, including:
The U.S. Geological Survey9 (2004 spending: $841 million, discretionary);10
The Maritime Administration ($633 million, discretionary);
The International Trade Commission ($61 million, discretionary);
The Economic Development Administration ($417 million, discretionary);
The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program ($1,892 million, discretionary);
The Technology Opportunities Program ($12 million, discretionary);
Obsolete military bases;
The Appalachian Regional Commission ($94 million, discretionary);
Obsolete Veterans Affairs facilities;
The Rural Utilities Service (-$1,493 million,11 mandatory); and
Repeal Public Law 480’s non-emergency international food programs ($127 million, discretionary)
Discretionary spending is the portion of the annual budget that Congress actually determines.
Since 2000, discretionary outlays surged 79 percent faster than inflation, to $1,408 billion. The “stimulus” is responsible for $111 billion of 2010 discretionary spending.
Between 1990 and 2000, $80 billion annually in new domestic spending was more than fully offset by a $100 billion cut in annual defense and homeland security spending, leaving (inflation-adjusted) discretionary spending slightly lower.
Since 2000, all types of discretionary spending have grown rapidly.
Overall, since 1990, domestic discretionary spending has risen 104 percent faster than inflation and defense/security discretionary spending has risen 51 percent.
On Wednesday, Right Wing Watch flagged a recent interview Barton gave with an evangelcial talk show, in which he argues that the Founding Fathers had explicitly rejected Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Yes, that Darwin. The one whose seminal work, On the Origin of Species, wasn’t even published until 1859. Barton declared, “As far as the Founding Fathers were concerned, they’d already had the entire debate over creation and evolution, and you get Thomas Paine, who is the least religious Founding Father, saying you’ve got to teach Creation science in the classroom. Scientific method demands that!” Paine died in 1809, the same year Darwin was born.
While uninformed laymen erroneously believe the theory of evolution to be a product of Charles Darwin in his first major work of 1859 (The Origin of Species), the historical records are exceedingly clear that the evolution-creation-intelligent design debate was largely formulated well before the birth of Christ. Numerous famous writings have appeared on the topic for almost two thousand years; in fact, our Founding Fathers were well-acquainted with these writings and therefore the principle theories and teachings of evolution – as well as the science and philosophy both for and against that thesis – well before Darwin synthesized those centuries-old teachings in his writings.
Nobel-Prize winner Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) explains: “The general idea of evolution is very old; it is already to be found in Anaximander (sixth century B.C.). . . . [and] Descartes [1596-1650], Kant [1724-1804], and Laplace [1749-1827] had advocated a gradual origin for the solar system in place of sudden creation.” 1 ( Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948), pp. 33-34.)..
John Adams
When I was in England from 1785 to 1788, I may say I was intimate with Dr. Price [Richard Price was a theologian and a strong British supporter of American rights and independence, with Congress bestowing on him an American citizenship in 1778]. I had much conversation with him at his own house, at my houses, and at the house and tables of many friends. In some of our most unreserved conversations when we have been alone, he has repeatedly said to me, “I am inclined to believe that the Universe is eternal and infinite. It seems to me that an eternal and infinite effect must necessarily flow from an eternal and infinite Cause; and an infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power that could have been induced to produce a Universe in time must have produced it from eternity.” “It seems to me, the effect must flow from the Cause”… It has been long – very long – a settled opinion in my mind that there is now, never will be, and never was but one Being who can understand the universe, and that it is not only vain but wicked for insects [like us] to pretend to comprehend it. 23
23. John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, Lester Cappon, editor (North Carolina: University of North Carolina, 1959) pp. 374-375, to Thomas Jefferson, September 14, 1813
Here are some other posts about David Barton’s word on the unconfirmed quotes that have been attributed to the Founding Father and Barton’s effort to stop the Righteous Right for using these quotes in the future:
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com Part 6 David Barton:Were the Founding Fathers Deists? In 1988 only 25% of Christians voted but that doubled in 1994. Christians are the salt of the world. The last few days I have been looking at this issue of unconfirmed quotes that people think that the Founding Fathers actually said and the historical evidence […]
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com Part 5 David Barton: Were the Founding Fathers Deists? First Bible printed in USA was printed by our founding fathers for use in the public schools. 20,000 Bibles. 10 commandments hanging in our courthouses. The last few days I have been looking at this issue of unconfirmed quotes that people think that the Founding […]
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com Part 4 David Barton: Were Founding Fathers Deists? Only 5% of the original 250 founding fathers were not Christians (Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen, Joe Barlow, Charles Lee, Henry Dearborn, ect) In the next few weeks I will be looking at this issue of unconfirmed quotes that people think […]
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com Part 3 David Barton: Were Founding Fathers Deists? American Bible Society filled with Founding Fathers Here is another in the series of unconfirmed quotes that people think that the Founding Fathers actually said and the historical evidence concerning them. David Barton has collected these quotes and tried to confirm them over the last 20 […]
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com Part 2 David Barton on Founding Fathers were they deists? Not James Wilson and William Samuel Johnson In the next few weeks I will be looking at this issue of unconfirmed quotes that people think that the Founding Fathers actually said and the historical evidence concerning them. David Barton has collected these quotes and […]
HALT: HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com Part 1 David Barton: Were the Founding Fathers Deists? Religious holidays, Court cases, punishing kids in school for praying in Jesus name In the next few weeks I will be looking at this issue of unconfirmed quotes that people think that the Founding Fathers actually said and the historical evidence concerning them. David […]
Halting Arkansas Liberals with Truth David Barton goes through American History and looks at some of the obscure names in our history and how prayer and Bible Study affected some of our founding fathers In the next few weeks I will be looking at this issue of unconfirmed quotes that people think that the Founding […]
HALT: Halting Arkansas Liberals with Truth ___ I wanted to thank Gene Lyons for bringing this issue of fake quotes of the Founding Fathers to our attention because it should be addressed. In April 8, 2010 article “Facts Drowning in Disinformation,” he rightly notes that Thomas Jefferson never said, “The democracy will cease to [
I love the movie “Midnight in Paris” by Woody Allen and I have been going through the characters referenced in the movie. Yesterday I spent time on a place (Versailles) and today I will do likewise. Silvia Beach ran a book store in the 1920’s that is featured in the movie. Below is some information on that store from Wikipedia:
Sylvia Beach, an American expatriate from New Jersey established Shakespeare and Company in 1919 on 8 rue Dupuytren. The store functioned as a lending library as well as a bookstore.[2] Beach moved to a larger location at 12 rue de l’Odéon in 1921, where the store remained until 1941. During this period, the store was considered the center of Anglo-American literary culture and modernism in Paris. Writers and artists of the “Lost Generation,” such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, George Antheil, Man Ray and James Joyce spent a great deal of time at Shakespeare and Company. The books were considered high quality and reflected Beach’s own literary taste. Shakespeare and Company, as well as its literary denizens, was mentioned in Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. Patrons could buy or borrow books like D. H. Lawrence’s controversial Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which had been banned in England and the United States.
Beach initially published Joyce’s book Ulysses in 1922, which was banned in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Subsequent editions of Ulysses were published under the Shakespeare and Company imprint in later years.[3]
The Shakespeare and Company store on rue de l’Odeon was closed in December 1941, due to the occupation of France by the Axis powers during World War II. It is alleged the store may have been ordered shut because Beach denied a German officer the last copy of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. The store at rue de l’Odéon never re-opened.
In 1951, another English-language bookstore was opened in Paris’s Left Bank by an American George Whitman, under the name of Le Mistral. Much like the original Shakespeare and Company, the store served as a focal point for literary culture in Bohemian, Left Bank Paris. Upon Sylvia Beach’s death, the store’s name was changed to Shakespeare and Company. In the 1950s, the shop served as a base for many of the writers of the Beat Generation, such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and William S. Burroughs. Whitman’s daughter, Sylvia, now runs the shop. The store continues to operate at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, near Place St. Michel and steps from the Seine River and Notre Dame and the Île de la Cité. The bookstore is located in a building that served as a monastery in the 16th century.[4]
George Whitman calls the bookstore “a socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore”. Customers have included the likes of Henry Miller and Richard Wright. The bookstore includes sleeping facilities, with 13 beds, and Whitman claims as many as 40,000 people have slept in the shop over the years.[5]
Regular activities that occur in the bookshop are Sunday tea, poetry readings and writers’ meetings.[6]
George Whitman’s daughter, Sylvia Whitman, has now taken over the day-to-day running of the shop, and continues to run the store in the same manner as her father allowing young writers to live and work in the shop.[7]
A tour of the landmarks of Paris in the 1920’s by Burton Holmes. Burton Holmes looks over boulevard from balcony, Avenue de Opera, Opera Garnier, traffic, Cafe de la Paix, restaurant, waiters, outdoor cafe, men strolling in straw hats, sailors, newstand, shoe shine, Porte St denis, Porte St. Martin, Bastille Day celebration, parade, policemen, WWI soldiers marching with rifles, horse cavalry, Lafayette statue, Parc Monceau, reflecting pool. For more about Burton Holmes visit http://www.burtonholmesarchive.com. For licensing information contact http://www.globalimageworks.com
I’ve always disclaimed being a fan of Woody Allen — not just because of his neurotic portrayals, but also his writing in Annie Halland Manhattan. I couldn’t relate and felt alienated from the New Yorker culture and mentality. In all fairness I’ll admit I thoroughly enjoyed several of his period pieces including Radio Days, The Purple Rose of Cairo and Bullets Over Broadway.
With an impending long-awaited vacation to Europe looming at the end of the month for me and my fiance, I was intrigued to get a preview via Allen of “The City of Light” in his latest movie, Midnight in Paris, which was the opening-night film at Cannes this year. Ironically, Allen’s ability to capture a subculture that not everyone can relate to is what I adore about this film — only instead the group is the “Lost Generation” of writers, painters and musicians who flocked to Paris in the 1920s for inspiration. Allen addresses his love letter to Paris with an extended opening sequence of Parisian monuments and locations including the River Seine, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Les Champs Elysees and the obligatory Eiffel Tower aglow at night.
Midnight in Paris centers around Gil (Owen Wilson), a successful Hollywood screenwriter who wants to move to Paris and write his great novel, inspired by his literary hero, Ernest Hemingway. Gil’s over-privileged fiance, Inez (Rachel McAdams), has different plans that include a house in Malibu, not a relocation to France. While on vacation in Paris with Inez’s parents John (Kurt Fuller) and Helen (Mimi Kennedy), the couple bicker over Gil’s romanticism. Inez’s snobbish academic friend Paul (Michael Sheen) pontificates, “Nostalgia is a denial of a painful present.”
Escaping from a stuffy dinner and conversation with the staunch Republican John and judgmental Helen, Gil takes a walk through the streets of Paris. On a dark street at the stroke of midnight, a vintage car pulls up alongside Gil and the occupants invite him to join them for festivities. On arriving at what would appear to be a costume party, Gil is introduced to the Fitzgeralds — F. Scott (Tom Hiddleston) and Zelda (Allison Pill) — while Cole Porter (Yves Heck) tickles the ivories and croons to the ladies.
What happens next in Midnight in Paris can be compared to Allen’s A Midsummer’s Sex Comedy — Gil is led on a magical journey into the past as he becomes acquainted with of the icons of the Lost Generation, including Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody), and his hero, Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) who introduces him to Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). Much to Gil’s delight, Hemingway and Stein critique his novel. However, it is Pablo Picasso’s young mistress Adriana (Marion Cotillard) who captivates Gil with her beauty and soul. Will Gil give up his modern life to live in the age that he felt he should have been part of? Or will he return to the fiance he can’t agree with, and to hack rewrites?
To address the incredible performances of the stellar cast of Midnight in Paris would take more words than I could fit in this review. The casting of this film was phenomenal, and Allen’s direction brought out the best of so many familiar stars and lesser known actors. Wilson is the perfect choice to play a writer who has a dream come true and fumbles his way through making the best of a miracle. McAdams displays a wide range from the mildly supportive fiance to a shrewish, self-entitled brat. Mimi Kennedy and Kurt Fuller are picture-perfect Americans not understanding French culture and society, despite the fact John is doing business with the French. Bates, Brody and Stoll are endearing caricatures of the icons of a glorious age of Paris as well as literature and art, and Allison Pill is Zelda.
The lovely and talented French singer and former model Carla Bruni has a short yet memorable scene as a museum guide who is corrected by Sheen’s character on her French history facts — especially humorous since Bruni is the current First Lady of the French Republic. However, it’s Academy Award winner Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) who steals the spotlight whenever she is onscreen. Dewy-eyed and jaded, her character yearns for the Belle Epoque as Gil waxes nostalgic for her era.
The art design and production design of Midnight in Paris can be attributed to Anne Seibel (The Devil Wears Prada, Munich), who effectively captures both contemporary and 1920s Paris, from market booths in Montmartre to the Red-Light District of La Pigalle in the early 20th century. The costume design is also wondrous, whether Bates is wearing the masculine cut clothing of Gertrude Stein or Cotillard dons simple yet elegant straight-line shift dresses.
To enjoy Midnight in Paris you don’t have to be familiar with the writers and artists of the 1920s, but it certainly helps. I recognized dancer-singer Josephine Baker (Sonia Rolland) immediately, but a companion professed he didn’t know the significance of the Afro-French dancer. Hemingway was quoted as saying, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” Allen’s Midnight in Paris will stay with me as I walk the streets in search of Hemingway’s haunts, wistful for the magical moments brought to the screen.
Inconsistent with freeedom Unions certainly have free speech rights to voice their opinions about public policy. But collective bargaining gives unions the exclusive right to speak for covered workers, many of whom may disagree with the views of the monopoly union. Thus, collective bargaining is inconsistent with the right to freedom of association.
In states such as Virginia, teachers and other government workers may form voluntary associations and lobby the government, which is fine. But collective bargaining — or monopoly unionism — gives a privileged position in our democracy to government insiders who focus on expanding the public sector to own their personal benefit.
Wisconsin’s proposed union reforms are on the right track. But state governments should repeal collective bargaining in the public sector altogether, following the successful policies of Virginia, North Carolina, and other states. That would give policymakers the flexibility they need to make tough budget decisions on pensions and other fiscal challenges facing their states.
In case you missed it, Katie offers a fairly comprehensive recapof President Obama’s press conference below. As is often the case, his performance was rather frustrating to watch, and seemed interminable. A few initial reactions:
Debt Ceiling: The president called on Republicans to back off their “stubborn” refusal to compromise on their “sacred cow” (no tax hikes), asserting that everyone else at the table has displayed a willingness to do so. This is news to me, as Democrats have consistently refused to deal seriously with entitlements, and have shamelessly demagogued Republican reform efforts. One could also argue that Democrats’ true sacred cow in this debate is their insistence on raising taxes, a stance from which they have not backed down. Obama then employed one of his favorite rhetorical maneuvers, citing the “consensus” of unnamed economists from across the political spectrum (“every single observer…who’s not a politician”) that a “balanced approach” to deficit refuction (ie, tax increases) is required to accomplish that task. I can think of at least 150 economists who might beg to differ. NRO’s Daniel Foster dug up a useful video clip on this front. The president also mentioned his debt commission — which is rich, considering that he ignored all of its major recommendations in crafting his mammouth failure of a 2012 budget. Plus, would tax hikes really right the ship? Over to you, Jim Pethokoukis (once again).
In a ham-fisted class warfare gambit, Obama took aim at tax breaks for private jet owners. His point, presumably, was to highlight an unpopular tax provision Republicans are “protecting” through their blanket refusal to entertain any tax increases. Say, where’d those evil private jet-related tax breaks come from, anyway? Clue: The answer may involve an infamous bill that zero House Republicans supported, and that Barack Obama signed into law. Oops.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its long-term outlook for the federal budget. As expected, we are going broke slightly faster than we were a few months ago.
No doubt the usual bigger-government types will use this news to repeat the mantra that we need to both cut spending and “enhance revenues” (a thinly veiled euphemism for tax hikes). Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner used this oft-repeated line just this week.
But their argument is exactly backwards. The CBO report actually once again proves that no tax hikes are necessary to fix our budget woes.
The CBO calculates that if Congress leaves the tax code as it is today—which would include permanently extending the 2001/2003 tax cuts for all taxpayers (even those greedy, job-producing rich folks and small businesses), patching the alternative minimum tax so it does not impact middle-income families, and continuing a host of other tax-reducing provisions that regularly expire—tax revenues would exceed their historical average of 18 percent of GDP in 2021. Revenue would continue growing thereafter absent any policy changes and soon surpass the all-time record high hit back in 2000 at the height of the Internet-tech boom.
Earlier CBO reports show (and this latest release confirms) that revenue would actually match the 18 percent of GDP mark by 2017 and could get there even sooner.
Renewed economic growth—once it finally takes hold—is the reason tax revenues will shoot up in the coming years. Faster growth means that taxpayers earn more income and move into higher tax brackets. Faster growth also means that there are more taxpayers than before.
The impending rebound in tax revenues seen in the CBO data also rebuts the argument that “taxes as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest levels since 1950.” It has been repeated most recently by Fareed Zakaria.
These low tax receipts have nothing to do with changes in policy, like lower tax rates, as those making this argument would have us believe. Tax revenues are low compared to their historical averages, but that has everything to do with a terrible recession and a worse-than-anemic recovery that has repressed incomes and driven millions to the unemployment lines.
Conveyors of the wrongheaded wisdom about the necessity of tax hikes are trying to convince the American people that there is just no way to lower the deficit with spending cuts alone, that some tax hikes are necessary in any “reasonable” plan.
Higher taxes are not a mathematical necessity. They are a choice Washington politicians would make to expand the size of government. After all, history has shown us that Congress rarely if ever uses revenue from tax hikes to lower the deficit. Rather, it uses the money on new or expanded big-government programs. And tax hikes now would further harm job creation.
The reality is that hikes are not necessary to fix the budget. If Congress restrained spending to its historical level of 20 percent of GDP (rather than the bloated 25 percent that President Obama’s budget aspires for), the deficit would fall to manageable levels as revenues climb, and the national debt would stabilize as a share of the economy.
It is all about the spending, and no amount of reiterating false claims about plunging tax revenue can change that. Washington has spent us into this budget hole and wants more of our money to fill the void they’ve created. It is time they realize they’ll be getting plenty of our money in the coming years, and the only way out of this mess is to cut spending.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its long-term outlook for the federal budget. As expected, we are going broke slightly faster than we were a few months ago.
No doubt the usual bigger-government types will use this news to repeat the mantra that we need to both cut spending and “enhance revenues” (a thinly veiled euphemism for tax hikes). Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner used this oft-repeated line just this week.
But their argument is exactly backwards. The CBO report actually once again proves that no tax hikes are necessary to fix our budget woes.
The CBO calculates that if Congress leaves the tax code as it is today—which would include permanently extending the 2001/2003 tax cuts for all taxpayers (even those greedy, job-producing rich folks and small businesses), patching the alternative minimum tax so it does not impact middle-income families, and continuing a host of other tax-reducing provisions that regularly expire—tax revenues would exceed their historical average of 18 percent of GDP in 2021. Revenue would continue growing thereafter absent any policy changes and soon surpass the all-time record high hit back in 2000 at the height of the Internet-tech boom.
Earlier CBO reports show (and this latest release confirms) that revenue would actually match the 18 percent of GDP mark by 2017 and could get there even sooner.
Renewed economic growth—once it finally takes hold—is the reason tax revenues will shoot up in the coming years. Faster growth means that taxpayers earn more income and move into higher tax brackets. Faster growth also means that there are more taxpayers than before.
The impending rebound in tax revenues seen in the CBO data also rebuts the argument that “taxes as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest levels since 1950.” It has been repeated most recently by Fareed Zakaria.
These low tax receipts have nothing to do with changes in policy, like lower tax rates, as those making this argument would have us believe. Tax revenues are low compared to their historical averages, but that has everything to do with a terrible recession and a worse-than-anemic recovery that has repressed incomes and driven millions to the unemployment lines.
Conveyors of the wrongheaded wisdom about the necessity of tax hikes are trying to convince the American people that there is just no way to lower the deficit with spending cuts alone, that some tax hikes are necessary in any “reasonable” plan.
Higher taxes are not a mathematical necessity. They are a choice Washington politicians would make to expand the size of government. After all, history has shown us that Congress rarely if ever uses revenue from tax hikes to lower the deficit. Rather, it uses the money on new or expanded big-government programs. And tax hikes now would further harm job creation.
The reality is that hikes are not necessary to fix the budget. If Congress restrained spending to its historical level of 20 percent of GDP (rather than the bloated 25 percent that President Obama’s budget aspires for), the deficit would fall to manageable levels as revenues climb, and the national debt would stabilize as a share of the economy.
It is all about the spending, and no amount of reiterating false claims about plunging tax revenue can change that. Washington has spent us into this budget hole and wants more of our money to fill the void they’ve created. It is time they realize they’ll be getting plenty of our money in the coming years, and the only way out of this mess is to cut spending.
The article was written by Diana biographer and Newsweek’s Editor-in-Chief, Tina Brown, who doesn’t think the cover is the least bit offensive. “We wanted to bring the memory of Diana alive in a vivid image that transcends time and reflects my piece,” Brown said in a statement Tuesday.
The cover story about the late Princess highlights her imagined Facebook page, what her life might look like now, and includes a slideshow comparing the chic fashion styles of Diana and Kate.
Diana died in a single car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997, which also her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul. She was 36.
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Charles, Prince of Wales leave Clarence House to travel to Buckingham Palace for the evening celebrations. (John Stillwell/WPA Pool/Getty Images) I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are […]
Britain’s Prince William, center left, and his wife Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, center right, pose for a photograph with, clockwise from bottom right, Margarita Armstrong-Jones, Eliza Lopes, Grace van Cutsem, Lady Louise Windsor, Tom Pettifer, and William Lowther-Pinkerton in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace, following their wedding at Westminster Abbey, London, on Friday, April […]
Michael Middleton lifts Catherine’s veil Michael Middleton lifts Catherine’s bridal veil at the altar of Westminster [2011] The Royal Wedding – MARRIAGE part 1 The Archbishop: “I pronounce that they be man and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” . They’re now man and […]
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge walk hand in hand from Buckingham Palace in London Saturday April 30 2011, the day after their wedding. (John Stillwell/AP Photo) Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced […]
The Official Royal Wedding photographs The Royal Wedding Group in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace on 29th April 2011 with the Bride and Groom, TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in the centre. Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Love Story In this video clip mentions that Kate and William lived together in college. […]
The Official Royal Wedding photographs The Royal Wedding at Buckingham Palace on 29th April 2011: The Bride and Groom, TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in the Throne Room. Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would […]
For almost three months I have been thinking a lot about the issue of fatherhood and marriage. I have started two new series which have been very popular. The first series deals with Kate Middleton and Prince William and the second series has been concerning Arnold and Maria. I will post some links to past […]
Britain’s Prince William, center left, and his wife Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, center right, pose for a photograph with, clockwise from bottom right, Margarita Armstrong-Jones, Eliza Lopes, Grace van Cutsem, Lady Louise Windsor, Tom Pettifer, and William Lowther-Pinkerton in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace, following their wedding at Westminster Abbey, London, on Friday, April […]
The Royal Wedding Ceremony of William and Kate Live part 3/4 I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best […]
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Bachmann to defend that comment, given the fact that the U.S. founders helped enshrine slavery in the Constitution and allowed it to continue as an institution until the Civil War.
Bachmann responded by pointing to the career of John Quincy Adams, the abolitionist president who was not yet 9 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed.
“If you look at one of our founding fathers, John Quincy Adams, that’s absolutely true,” Bachmann said. “He was a very young boy, but he was with his father, serving essentially as his father’s secretary. He tirelessly worked throughout his life to make sure that we did, in fact, one day eradicate slavery from our nation, and I’m so grateful for that work.”
Stephanopoulos responded: “He wasn’t one of the founding fathers. He was a president, he was a secretary of state. As a member of Congress, you’re right, he did work to end slavery decades later. But — so you’re standing by this comment that the founding fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery?”
“Well John Quincy Adams most certainly was part of the Revolutionary War era,” Bachmann said. “He was a young boy but he was actively involved.”
However, what Jeff omits is that during the Stephanopoulos interview, Michele Bachmann identified John Quincy Adams as a Founding Father. The Declaration of Independence was adopted a week shy of his ninth birthday. Now Bachmann is correct in saying that John Quincy Adams was actively involved during the Revolutionary War Era. In fact, he was given his first diplomatic posting in Europe at the tender age of ten. It would have been more accurate for Bachmann to describe John Quincy Adams as a Son of the American Revolution
In 1837, when
he was 69 years old, he delivered a Fourth of July speech at Newburyport,
Massachusetts. He began that address with a question: “Why is it, friends and
fellow citizens, that you are here assembled? Why is it that entering on the
62nd year of our national existence you have honored [me] with an invitation to
address you. . . ?”
The answer
was easy: they had asked him to address them because he was old enough to
remember what went on; they wanted an eye-witness to tell them of it! He next
asked them: “Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world,
your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of
July]?”
An
interesting question: why is it that in America the Fourth of July and Christmas
were our two top holidays? Note his answer: “Is it not that, in the chain of
human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the
birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the
Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first
organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon
earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts
of Christianity?”
According to
John Quincy Adams, Christmas and the Fourth of July were intrinsically
connected. On the Fourth of July, the Founders
simply took the precepts of Christ which came into the world through His birth
(Christmas) and incorporated those principles into civil government.
Have you ever
considered what it meant for those 56 men – an eclectic group of ministers,
business men, teachers, university professors, sailors, captains, farmers – to
sign the Declaration of Independence? This was a contract that began with the
reasons for the separation from Great Britain and closed in the final paragraph
stating “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our
fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
SIXTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES; DIPLOMAT; SECRETARY OF STATE; U.
S. SENATOR; U. S. REPRESENTATIVE; “OLD MAN ELOQUENT”; “HELL-HOUND OF ABOLITION”
My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I
cannot cavil or quibble away [evade or object to]. . . . the whole tenor of His
conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances
[permits] His disciples in asserting that He was God.7
The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in
the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of
Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the
world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they
appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the
Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made “bare His holy arm in
the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the
salvation of our God” [Isaiah 52:10].8
In the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly
linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the
cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.9
The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a
moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal
application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which
have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.
(Source: John Quincy Adams, Letters of John
Quincy Adams, to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings (Auburn: James M.
Alden, 1850), p. 61.)
There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the
foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the
immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and
punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three
articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other
law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains
or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or
happy.
(Source: John Quincy Adams, Letters of John
Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings (Auburn: James M.
Alden, 1850), pp. 22-23.)
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
GUIDELINE #3: Privatize activities that could be performed better by the private sector.
Over the past two decades, nations across the globe have reaped the benefits of privatization, which empowers the private sector to carry out functions that had been performed by government. In the 1980s, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher saved taxpayers billions of dollars and improved the British economy by privatizing utilities, telecommunications, and airports. More recently, the former Soviet republics and China have seen the promise of privatization. The United States, however, has been uncharacteristically timid in recent years.
There is little economic justification for the government to run businesses that the private sector can run itself. Even when there is a compelling reason for government to regulate or subsidize businesses, it can do so without seizing ownership of them. Government failures are often larger than market failures, and anyone who has dealt with the post office, lived in public housing, or visited a local department of motor vehicles understands how wasteful, inefficient, and unresponsive government can be.
Furthermore, government ownership crowds out private companies and encourages protected entities to take unnecessary risks. After promising profits, government-owned businesses frequently lose billions of dollars, leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill.
Entrenched opposition to privatization, which comes mostly from interest groups representing government monopolies, has been overcome elsewhere by (1) working with government unions and relevant interest groups to design privatization proposals, (2) offering low-cost stock options to current employees, and (3) ensuring a transparent, open bidding process.
Candidates for privatization are numerous.4 Congress should:
Sell the remaining Power Marketing Administrations through a stock offering (2004 spending: $155 million, discretionary);5
Require that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting fund itself as all other television networks do ($437 million, discretionary);
Privatize the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation ($14 million, discretionary);
Allow government agencies to accept bids on government printing jobs instead of having to use the Government Printing Office (GPO) ($130 million, discretionary);
Shift the National Agricultural Statistics Service to the private sector ($124 million, discretionary);
Sell Amtrak through a stock offering ($1,334 million, discretionary);
Privatize the next-generation high-speed rail program ($27 million, discretionary);
Turn over the foreign market development program to the assisted industries ($24 million, mandatory);
Privatize ineffective applied research programs for energy conversation research, fossil fuels, and solar and renewable energy ($1,640 million, discretionary);
Sell many of the federal government’s 1,200 civilian aircraft and 380,000 non-tactical, non-postal vehicles;
Shift the Energy Information Agency’s duties to the private sector ($78 million, discretionary);
Privatize the Architect of the Capitol ($534 million, discretionary); and
Privatize-commercialize air traffic control operations and fully fund with user fees.
Government-owned enterprises are not the only candidates for privatization. In 2003, taxpayers were on the hook for the federal government’s $249 billion in outstanding direct loans and $1,184 billion in outstanding guaranteed loans. Government loans typically undercut the financial services industry, which has sufficient resources to provide loans to businesses and
individuals.
Even worse, government often serves as a lender of last resort to organizations that private banks do not consider qualified for loans, and the low-cost nature of government loans encourages recipients to take unnecessary risks with their federal dollars. Consequently, a high percentage of federal loans are in default, and taxpayers were saddled with $17 billion in direct loan write-offs and guaranteed loan terminations in 2003.6
Therefore, Congress should:
Begin selling government direct loan programs and create new agency loan guarantees such as those of the Rural Utilities Service, Small Business Administration, Export-Import Bank, and Rural Housing Service.
The Daily Hatch 