Category Archives: President Obama

Open letter to President Obama (Part 139)

September 12, 2012 – 1:18 am

Milton Friedman – The Proper Role of Government

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

I am very unhappy that the federal government is spending 24.8% of GDP. I think that is because you think the government best knows how to spend our money. That takes away our freedom. Many people don’t realize how rare and precious freedom is. Milton Friedman once said:

“Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. The nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the Western world stand out as striking exceptions to the general trend of historical development. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the development of capitalist institutions. So also did political freedom in the golden age of Greece and in the early days of the Roman era.”

___________

Milton Friedman did a great job of explaining things in a simple way.

Capitalism and Freedom(1962)

  • To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them.He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.
    • Introduction
  • The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather “What can I and my compatriots do through government” to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp.
    • Introduction
  • There is enormous inertia—a tyranny of the status quo—in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.
    • Preface (1982 edition), p. ix
  • Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. The nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the Western world stand out as striking exceptions to the general trend of historical development. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the development of capitalist institutions. So also did political freedom in the golden age of Greece and in the early days of the Roman era.
    History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.

    • Ch. 1 “The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom”, 2002 edition, page 10
  • Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority.The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.
    • Ch. 1 “The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom”
  • The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the “rule of the game” and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.
    • Ch. 1 “The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom”, 2002 edition, page 15
  • A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it … gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
    • Ch. 1 “The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom”, 2002 edition, page 15
  • With respect to teachers’ salaries …. Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority.
    • Ch. 6 “The Role of Government in Education”
    • ___________

    • Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

      Sincerely,

      Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 138 B)

September 11, 2012 – 4:10 pm

Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients in NYC

Published on Mar 18, 2012 by

Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients

__________

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

Liberals like the idea of the welfare state while conservatives suggest charity through private organizations serve the poor better. I FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT PRIVATE CHARITIES WORK MUCH BETTER THAN GOVERNMENT WELFARE PROGRAMS. I ran across this attitude on the Arkansas Times Blog. The person using the username “Elwood” noted:

Indeed the Bible teaches us a lot about where our concerns should be:

Proverbs 29:7) The righteous is concerned with the poor: but the wicked regardeth them not.

Seeking the Welfare of the City

By
May 1, 2012

 

Conservatives are often portrayed as selfish scrooges who only care about their own bottom lines. But when it comes to truly meeting people’s needs, they’re the leaders of the pack.

Star Parker knew poverty personally. As a young drug addict in southern California, she lacked money, employment and hope. At one point, she was arrested for helping to rob a liquor store, and over the span of a few years, she had four abortions—all paid for by the government. Parker survived on welfare checks and free medical-care stickers, which she would sell to purchase illegal drugs.

The scriptural call to care for people such as Parker is clear: Loving our neighbor entails helping those in dire straits and working for the common good of their community.

In the biblical sense, seeking welfare has to do with promoting circumstances that allow people to flourish. It means helping people thrive in their homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, economies and political communities. This goal characterizes a true conservative political framework.

Now the president of a social policy research center focused on poverty issues, Parker testifies that a biblical view of human flourishing is at home in a conservative agenda—one focused on basic human dignity, strong families, a vibrant civil society, prosperous free markets and limited government.

Who Cares?

Many conservatives—and especially those motivated by faith—are on the front lines of caring for the poor. They’re the “street saints” who work quietly but tirelessly in the trenches, providing critical services in education, health, drug rehabilitation, prisoner re-entry, job training and disaster relief.

In fact, research shows conservatives actually give more to the poor than liberals. Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks compiled this body of research in his 2006 book Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism. Brooks found that conservative-headed households tend to give about 30 percent more money to charity than liberal-headed households, even though liberal families earn an average of 6 percent more each year than conservative families. Conservatives also tend to volunteer more time and give more blood than do liberals.

Despite such data, conventional wisdom portrays liberals as being the ones intent on fighting poverty and conservatives as selfish scrooges. Sadly, the promotion of free markets and limited government is often mistakenly equated with a disregard for people in need. Meanwhile, support for government redistribution programs functions as a kind of litmus test for genuine care and compassion. (Never mind the paradoxical fact that, according to Brooks, Americans who favor income-redistribution policies are significantly less likely to behave charitably than those who do not.)

True compassion, though, isn’t measured by how much money the federal government spends. The real question is which approach actually helps people escape poverty and flourish over the long-run. Conservatives tend to answer that question differently than liberals, although they both share the goal of “seeking the welfare of the city.”

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 138)

September 11, 2012 – 1:03 am

Milton Friedman – Public Housing

Uploaded by on May 6, 2011

Professor Friedman looks at the destination of another road paved with good intentions.

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President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

I have a difference of opinion with you concerning how to best get out of this government deficit problem. You think the government best knows how to spend our money while I think more control should be given back to the people and less money should be taken from them. Milton Friedman put it best:

“Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.”

10 great quotes from Milton Friedman below:

Nov 29, 2011

10 Of The Best Economics Quotes From Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman was an extraordinary Nobel Prize-winning economist whose ideas helped underpin modern conservative economic theory. His contributions to economics and the conservative movement cannot be underestimated. Sadly, Milton Friedman passed away a little more than five years ago at the ripe old age of 94. Although Friedman is no longer with us, his words, his ideas, and his legacy live on. In honor of Friedman, here are some of his best quotations.

10) “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

9) “I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.”

8) “The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.”

7) “When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union — like public housing in the United States — look decrepit within a year or two of their construction…”

6) “There is all the difference in the world, however, between two kinds of assistance through government that seem superficially similar: first, 90 percent of us agreeing to impose taxes on ourselves in order to help the bottom 10 percent, and second, 80 percent voting to impose taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 percent — William Graham Sumner’s famous example of B and C decided what D shall do for A. The first may be wise or unwise, an effective or ineffective way to help the disadvantaged — but it is consistent with belief in both equality of opportunity and liberty. The second seeks equality of outcome and is entirely antithetical to liberty.”

5) “When the United States was formed in 1776, it took 19 people on the farm to produce enough food for 20 people. So most of the people had to spend their time and efforts on growing food. Today, it’s down to 1% or 2% to produce that food. Now just consider the vast amount of supposed unemployment that was produced by that. But there wasn’t really any unemployment produced. What happened was that people who had formerly been tied up working in agriculture were freed by technological developments and improvements to do something else. That enabled us to have a better standard of living and a more extensive range of products.”

4) “Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.”

3) “Inflation is taxation without legislation.”

2) “The great danger to the consumer is the monopoly — whether private or governmental. His most effective protection is free competition at home and free trade throughout the world. The consumer is protected from being exploited by one seller by the existence of another seller from whom he can buy and who is eager to sell to him. Alternative sources of supply protect the consumer far more effectively than all the Ralph Naders of the world.”

1) “(T)he supporters of tariffs treat it as self-evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number — for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs — jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume

__________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, spending out of control, Taxes | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 137 B)

September 10, 2012 – 6:20 am
U.S. President Barack Obama waves as French President Francois Hollande looks on following their bilateral meeting at the White House in Washington
U.S. President Barack Obama (R) waves as French President Francois Hollande looks on following their bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington May 18, 2012. Hollande is in the United States to join other leaders of the major industrial economies and meet for a G8 Summit at Camp David this weekend to try to head off a full-blown financial crisis in Europe. REUTERS/Eric Feferberg/Pool(UNITED STATES – Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

You do not want to cut spending and you only want more stimulus even though it has resulted in failure in the last three years in the USA. Now you are bragging about the results and telling your socialist friends in Europe to do the same.

Obama’s Pro-Growth Illusion

Barack Obama claims to be pro-growth. So does Greece, Spain, and almost everyone else. Why? Because admitting preference for the alternative—crushing, heavy-handed government interference that kills initiative and destroys wealth—is not attractive to any citizen of any country.

The problem lies in the meaning of “pro-growth”. As an unabashed capitalist, and as a supporter of free markets, I believe “pro-growth” means less government interference and more individual accountability where private sector businesses create the jobs and government pretty much stays out of the equation. But it’s increasingly clear that our president has a much different idea and defines “pro-growth” far differently.

Of course, Barack Obama often says he is “pro-growth”—but the question to ask is: growth of what?

After three years in office, it seems rather clear that Obama believes in the growth of government. At the core of all of his policies is a belief that government can allocate resources more efficiently than can the private sector.

According to Obama, only the government can make wise “investments”. According to Obama’s view, private money and private investors are simply not as capable or as wise as is government in choosing the kinds of investments that will lead to growth and job expansion.

Not too surprisingly, Obama’s strange definition of “growth” is actually a call for a growth of government, growth of debt, growth of bureaucracy, growth of taxes and growth of government regulations. Barack Obama simply believes that taxpayers should be required (or compelled) to send more money to Washington where the political class can then decide how best to “invest” the money.

The “growth” that Barack Obama seeks, ultimately, is growth in government’s control over the lives of all Americans. As we have already learned from three years of watching our president try to apply this tragic economic theory, we have seen our economy stagnate as entrepreneurs and small businesses get squeezed. The only “growth” in Obama’s economy has been the growth of economically harmful and dangerous trends.

Obama has overseen a growth in the price of gas at the pump, growth in the nation’s dependency on foreign oil, growth in unemployment, growth in the number of people receiving and the amount of dollars allocated to entitlements, growth in the number of Czars designed to evade oversight from congress, even growth in the number of foreclosures.

In general, after three and a half years of the Obama administration’s “pro-growth” efforts, Americans are poorer and more dependent on the federal government.

Is this really what Americans are endorsing when they hear the term “pro-growth”? This is certainly not what the Founding Fathers envisioned.

Under Obama federal spending has grown from $1 trillion dollars in 2008 to almost $4 trillion dollars in just three years, without any growth in the economy, without any reduction in unemployment and without any significant improvement in the quality of life or opportunities for the future of Americans.

Under Obama, the public debt has grown to the point where it exceeds our nation’s annual GDP. Nowhere and at no time has this kind of equation ever been a recipe for economic growth.

LUnder Obama, the number of regulations affecting all aspects of American lives has grown. In 2011, the Obama administration put into place over 2000 different rules, statues or regulations affecting everything from the environment to the kinds of paper used for filing federal reports.

Under Obama, the number of czars has increased, even as the number of senate-confirmed leaders has dwindled. Coinciding with the increase in czars comes an increase in the bureaucracy, and an increase in the staff to support the czars, all paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Under Obama there has been growth in the number of unemployed, with minorities and teens hit the hardest.

Under Obama, the regulations affecting small businesses has created an environment of uncertainty and increased cost which discourages, rather than encourages, job creation.

Under Obama, Americans have seen an increase in the frequency of fear-mongering and race-baiting as a Democrat political strategy, designed to intimidate anyone who questions or criticizes Democrats’ flawed policies.

There has been growth under Obama—it’s just the wrong kind of growth. Lots of fine sounding rhetoric that fosters the illusion of growth. One thing seems clear–while we all seem to be speaking the same language the meaning varies greatly between what Obama says and what Americans understand.

When Barack Obama talks about his “pro-growth” agenda, Americans should start to ask just exactly what Obama hopes to “grow”.

______________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

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Europe has a bleak future because they don’t want austerity

The medicine for the sickness of spending is real budget cuts but no one in liberal europe wants to hear that. Sadly we are on the same road in the USA. Liberals (like my blogger opponent “the Outlier” and others) love to say that austerity has been tried in Europe and it doesn’t work but the truth […]

Brantley and his liberal friends don’t want budget cuts but taxes raised on rich!!!!

Over and over in the past Max Brantley and his liberal friends have said that they don’t want budget cuts but they want taxes raised on the rich. In France their recipe for success is about to be tried and we will see how it works out. The Arkansas Times blogger going by the username […]

Stimulus programs never work

The stimulus did not work for the USA and it has never worked. Doubling Down on Failure: Former Obama Official Calls for U.S.-Financed Keynesian Spending Binge in Europe April 30, 2012 by Dan Mitchell There’s an old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. This certainly is a […]

Balancing the budget possible with socialist solutions?

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By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

Who will win:Obama or Romney?

September 8, 2012 – 9:14 am

It is my view that President Obama’s path to victory is to steal Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida or Ohio from Romney. However, it will be a challenge to do so. Virginia only gave Obama 52.6% of the vote in 2008 and a lot of jobs have been lost since 2008. The same is true about Ohio with 51.5% of the vote for Obama in 2008 and Florida with 51%.

With such a bad jobs record it just doesn’t seem possible for Obama to steal any of those three states. His only chance may be Wisconsin which seems to always go Democratic but now with Paul Ryan on the ticket Wisconsin will also probably go Republican.

I just don’t see any other way to get over 262 electorial votes for Obama without these states. I also see problems for him in Pennsylvania too.

Below are the opinions of Dan Mitchell who I highly respect.

Three months ago, I predicted that Obama would win reelection with 297 electoral votes, 27 more than needed.

Back in July, I shifted Virginia to Romney’s column and predicted Obama would still win, but with 284 votes.

Last month, I predicted things were moving even farther in the GOP direction. By moving Colorado to the Republican side, I guessed the outcome would be 275-263 for Obama.

Romney partisans will be disappointed to learn, though, that their candidate has fallen a bit further behind in my new prediction for the 2012 election.

The big change is that I moved Florida to the “leaning Obama” category and those 29 electoral votes more than offset the impact of shifting Iowa and Wisconsin to the “leaning Romney” column.

Why these changes? Well, I suspect that the demagoguery on Social Security and Medicare will hurt in Florida, even though the GOP platform on entitlement reform is that people over age 55 are exempt.

I’m shifting Wisconsin because of Paul Ryan. As for Iowa, I’m going by nothing but gut instinct.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Current Events | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 137)

September 8, 2012 – 7:36 am

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

Instead of putting all your faith in the federal government to solve our problems, you need to look more to the private market.

Milton Friedman’s illustration of a pencil makes the point in a clear way.

Milton Friedman – Lesson of the Pencil

Uploaded by on Nov 13, 2009

Milton Friedman uses a pencil to illustrate how the free market price system promotes cooperation and harmony among those with no common interest.

_____________

November 21, 2006

Milton Friedman 1912-2006

Milton Friedman’s book “Free to Choose”, co-authored with his wife Rose, was among the first tracts I’ve read on the topic. I don’t remember exactly when I read it, probably in college. I would not be able to explain well the intracacies of monetarist policies and its alternatives, but Friedman’s simple message about free markets has always stuck with me.

He summed up the workings and the benefits of free markets with a simple idea: a pencil. Here is Friedman in his own words, taken from a transcript of a TV version of “Free to Choose”:

“Look at this lead pencil, there is not a single person in the world who could make this pencil. Remarkable statement? Not at all. The wood from which it’s made, for all I know, comes from a tree that was cut down in the State of Washington. To cut down that tree, it took a saw. To make the saw, it took steel. To make the steel, it took iron ore.

“This black center, we call it lead but it’s really compressed graphite, I am not sure where it comes from but I think it comes from some mines in South America. This red top up here, the eraser, a bit of rubber, probably comes from Malaya, where the rubber tree isn’t even native. It was imported from South America by some businessman with the help of the British government. This brass feral – I haven’t the slightest idea where it came from or the yellow paint or the paint that made the black lines – or the glue that holds it together.

“Literally thousands of people cooperated to make this pencil. People who don’t speak the same language; who practice different religions; who might hate one another if they ever met. When you go down to the store and buy this pencil, you are, in effect, trading a few minutes of your time for a few seconds of the time of all of those thousands of people. What brought them together and induced them to cooperate to make this pencil? There was no Commissar sending out orders from some central office. It was the magic of the price system – the impersonal operation of prices that brought them together and got them to cooperate to make this pencil so that you could have it for a trifling sum.

“That is why the operation of the free market is so essential. Not only to promote productive efficiency, but even more, to foster harmony and peace among the peoples of the world.”

___________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 136 B)

September 8, 2012 – 7:30 am

Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients in NYC

Published on Mar 18, 2012 by

Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients

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President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

It is truly sad to me that we have got to such a low point in our country that you have attempted to get votes by giving away things for votes.  How else do you describe what is going on here?

________________

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had an excellent aricle on this on May 20, 2012:

Government takes care of us

By Bradley R. Gitz

This article was published May 20, 2012 at 3:09 a.m

LITTLE ROCK — The Democratic Party campaign video “The Life of Julia” performs a public service by informing the public of the Obama administration’s vision of the ideal society.

It is not a pretty picture.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, the video traces the life of a fictional “Julia” from birth all the way into retirement, with government providing for her care and comfort (even her contraceptives) each step along the way.

As National Review’s Rich Lowry puts it, “Julia’s central relationship is to the state. It is her educator, banker, health-care provider, venture capitalist and retirement fund. And she is, fundamentally, a taker. Every benefit she gets is cut-rate or free. She apparently doesn’t worry about paying taxes.” The end result is a pathetic creature more closely resembling a whining infant in its cradle than a free, adult human being.

Implicit in this “cradle to grave” view of government is the goal of creating, in Lowry’s words, “a nation of Julias,” dependent, needy and forever being succored by the nanny state. The more people depend upon government for their sustenance, and the more extreme the level of typical dependence, the closer we will have moved toward the ideal political order.

Charles Krauthammer calls this “free-lunch egalitarianism.” Mitt Romney has referred to it as “the entitlement society.” By whatever term, it represents a radical shift in Americans’ understanding of the role of government in their lives.

Barack Obama may claim that these are “American values,” but they most certainly aren’t the values of our Founding Fathers; indeed, it might be difficult to identify any ideas further removed from those that influenced the delegates at Philadelphia back in1787.

Perhaps never before has an American political party more nakedly offered up a life on the dole as a morally desirable condition for able-bodied citizens.

Implicit in the “Julia Nation” is a number of sub-themes-that Americans have lost any sense of self reliance and can’t fend for themselves in even the most trivial ways; that government should always grow bigger because of this incapacity; and that there are no adverse social or fiscal consequences flowing from, or even logical limits to, the growth of government spending.

For those of us with an interest in political ideology, the cradle-to grave concept explicit in Julia’s life also represents the final extinguishing of any remaining differences between American “progressivism” and European social democracy.

Cradle-to-grave security has, of course, been the abiding promise of European social democratic parties since at least the end of World War II. A term first coined by British Labor Party leader Clement Attlee, “cradle to grave” would represent the fulfillment of the European socialist movement without all of the nasty “dictatorship of the proletariat” and violent revolutionary stuff. It was the logical ideological descendent of Eduard Bernstein and the Fabians, if not Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

By so openly embracing this concept, American Democrats have now removed any doubt that they have become and have actually long been such a party.

Those who take umbrage at such claims are free to identify for the rest of us any fundamental differences between the program and aspirations of American Democrats and those of the British Labor Party, the German Social Democratic Party, or Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party in France.

Irrefutable logic tells us that, if the American Democratic Party is a social democratic party, and social democracy has long been understood as a strain of socialism, then the American Democratic Party, and its titular leader, President Obama, are clearly socialists of at least some sort, too.

They just won’t, until now-until “Julia”-admit it.

What this also means is that what we call American liberalism has come to have scant relation to the classical liberalism of America’s founding. The central tenet of liberalism historically is restraints upon the size and power of the state for the sake of individual liberty; the central tenet of both American progressivism and European social democracy is the creation of a huge and powerful state for the purpose of providing cradle-to-grave security. Understood properly, liberalism and socialism are antithetical, not complementary, propositions.

So we should thank Democrats for the “Life of Julia.” They might not have intended to be, but they are now finally being honest with the American people about what ideology they subscribe to and where they wish to take the nation under the slogan “forward.”

Thus, the central question that Obama’s re-election bid poses is whether we want the transformation of America into a full-fledged European-style social democracy to continue. It is that issue, not the Romney family dog, women’s contraceptive tab, or Obama’s “evolution” on gay marriage that matters most.

There was, once upon a time, not even all that long ago, something disgraceful about able-bodied citizens living off the labor of others (“going on the dole”). Obama and his party now unapologetically and enthusiastically invite all of us to do so.

———◊-

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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 136)

September 7, 2012 – 12:33 am

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

No other issue is more misunderstood today than equality. You have used class warfare over and over the last few months and according to you equality at the finish line is the equality that we should all be talking about. However, socialism has never worked and it has always killed incentive to produce more. Milton Friedman expressed the conversative’s best and I am glad that I had the chance to be studying his work for over 30 years now.

In 1980 when I first sat down and read the book “Free to Choose” I was involved in Ronald Reagan’s campaign for president and excited about the race. Milton Friedman’s books and film series really helped form my conservative views. Take a look at one of my favorite films of his:

Created Equal [1/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

Uploaded by on May 30, 2010

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.

___________________________

Great article on equality below:

David Weinberger

April 20, 2012 at 10:52 am

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently steamed about the lack of equal opportunity in America. In his view, “government falls down on the job of creating equal opportunity.” He’s also huffed that:

When you hear conservatives talk about how our goal should be equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes, your first response should be that if they really believe in equality of opportunity, they must be in favor of radical changes in American society.

This begs the question: What is equal opportunity? It’s certainly an idea claimed by both the right and the left, so why is it that the right insists it exists while the left stridently claims it has yet to be achieved?

The answer has to do with the two sides’ differing concepts of equality of opportunity.

Conservatives maintain that all humans possess inherently equal rights and should therefore be treated equally before the law. They do, however, recognize that people are unequal in many other regards: People are born into different situations and with different talents and abilities. But no one should face interference or legal obstacles in cultivating his talents and industry.

The great Frederick Douglass eloquently advanced this idea:

If men were born in need of crutches, instead of having legs, the fact would be otherwise. We should then be in need of help, and would require outside aide; but according to the wiser and better arrangement of nature, our duty is done better by not hindering than by helping our fellow-men; or, in other words, the best way to help them is just to let them help themselves.

The left has transformed this traditional understanding of equal opportunity into one where it is not enough that people possess equal inherent rights and receive equal treatment before the law. People must all be given the same opportunities—no one may have more opportunities than someone else. Under this belief, when one is born in a city where some people have more opportunities than others, it is the duty of government to equalize them, by taking resources from the well-off and giving them to the less well-off. As founder Nathaniel Chipman wrote, this violates justice twice:

To exclude the meritorious from riches and honors, and to perpetuate either to the undeserving, are equally injurious to the rights of man in society. In both it is to counteract the laws of nature, which have, by the connection of cause and effect, annexed the proper rewards and punishments to the actions of men. Wealth, or at least, a competency, is the reward, provided by the laws of nature, for prudent industry; want, the punishment of idleness and profligacy.

Utilizing government to equalize groups contradicts the proposition that everyone is equal before the law and possesses equal rights: How can resources be directed toward those with less without implying that they’re different before the law and in the rights they possess?

This worldview by definition cannot ever be satisfied, because, short of socialism, there will always be individuals who own and command more resources than the rest.

Furthermore, equality of opportunity encompasses much more than mere economic condition. Consider natural athletic talent, intelligence, work ethic—are we going to handicap the most talented athletes, dumb down the most intelligent people, and restrain the hardest workers?

The debate about equality is not merely between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. It’s also about the meaning of equality of opportunity. For the left, it means government must manufacture an equalized starting point in life. Short of socialism, this is impossible. Even so, an equal economic start would be no guarantor of equal opportunity, for that would also require controlling natural talents, abilities, and work ethics, which start on different levels. For the right, equal opportunity is about clearing obstacles and removing legal impediments to moving ahead in life. The difference explains why both sides can claim the mantle of equal opportunity yet be talking right past one another.

________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman | Comments (0)

Senator Mark Pryor responds to my email

September 6, 2012 – 4:25 pm

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending and I sent them to him but he didn’t take any of my suggestions.

However, he did take time to get back to me today, but I am not too impressed with Senator Pryor’s response. I gave him hundreds of ideas about how to cut spending and as far as I can tell he has taken none of my suggestions. You can find some of my suggestions here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, and  here, and they all were emailed to him. In fact, I have written 13 posts pointing out reasons why I believe Senator Pryor’s re-election attempt will be unsuccessful.

Here is his response:

September 6, 2012

Dear Mr. Hatcher,

Thank you for contacting me regarding across-the-board cuts to federal programs scheduled to take effect in 2013. I appreciate hearing from you. 

On August, 2, 2011, Congress passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 (Public Law 112-25), which made nearly $1 trillion in initial spending cuts. To achieve additional, long-term savings, the law created a bipartisan select committee to make recommendations to reduce deficits by an additional $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. The law also created an enforcement mechanism to automatically sequester $1.2 trillion from federal spending if the select committee failed to agree on a deficit reduction package. 

I am disappointed that the members of the select committee could not reach an agreement. As a result, $1.2 trillion in spending cuts will automatically take effect in January 2013. Cuts will come from both defense and non-defense programs, though Social Security, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits and healthcare, and certain programs for low-income families will be exempted. Further, cuts to Medicare are limited to 2% and only apply to provider payments.

It was my sincere hope that the select committee would recommend a balanced deficit reduction package to put our country on a fiscally sustainable path. I am very concerned that the indiscriminate cuts from the sequester will be disproportionately harmful to rural states like Arkansas, to senior citizens, and to our military’s ability to respond to threats. 

Along with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I have been working and will continue to work on solving our nation’s fiscal challenges. I believe Congress can pass a bipartisan, balanced long-term budget plan that reduces our national debt while protecting our most vulnerable citizens. Hearing from Arkansans such as yourself helps me make better decisions, and I will be sure to keep your specific comments in mind as the Senate addresses this issue. 

Again, thank you for contacting me. I value your input. Please do not hesitate to contact me or my office regarding this or any other matter of concern to you.

 
Sincerely,

Mark Pryor
United States Senate

Save money at the pump by taking the Drive Smarter Challenge: www.drivesmarterchallenge.org

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.

___________

Below is an excellent plan to balance the budget through spending cuts from Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute written in April of 2011. I sent this to Senator Pryor too but it was ignored too. 

A Plan to Cut Spending and Balance the Federal Budget

by Chris Edwards, Cato Institute

Introduction
Reducing Spending over 10 Years
Spending Cut Details
Subsidies to Individuals and Businesses
Aid to State and Local Governments
Military Expenses
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security
Privatization
Conclusions

Spending Cut Details

Table 1 lists the proposed annual cuts for the balanced budget plan. By 2021, these include $150 billion in defense cuts and $490 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the 2010 health care law. The table also includes other discretionary and entitlement cuts valued at $445 billion in 2011. With the assumed revenues, all these spending cuts would be saving the government $260 billion in annual interest costs by 2021.7 All in all, total spending in 2021 under this plan would be about $1.4 trillion lower than under either the CBO baseline or the president’s budget.

As a technical note, most of the figures in Table 1 are outlays for fiscal 2011 from President Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget.8 These cuts are expressed in 2011 dollars, but I’ve assumed that the value of these cuts would grow over time at the same rate as discretionary spending in the CBO baseline. The cuts in Table 1 marked with an asterisk are expressed in 2021 dollars and are generally based on CBO estimates.

The reforms listed in the table are deeper than the “duplication” and “waste” items often mentioned by federal policymakers, such as earmarks. The reality is that the nation faces a fiscal emergency, and we need to cut hundreds of billions of dollars of “meat” from federal departments, not just the obvious “fat.” If the activities to be cut are useful to society, then state governments or private groups should fund them, and those entities would probably be more efficient at doing so.

The cuts in Table 1 are illustrative of how to begin getting the federal budget under control. Further reforms are needed in addition to these cuts, particularly structural changes to Medicare. But the important thing is to start cutting right away because the longer we wait, the deeper the pile of debt we will have to dig out from.

Table 1 includes cuts to individual and business subsidies, cuts to state aid, cuts to military expenses, cuts to the growth in entitlement programs, and privatization of federal activities. The sections following the table discuss these various types of cuts, and further analysis of the cuts is available at www.DownsizingGovernment.org.

Table 1
Proposed Federal Budget Cuts
Agency and Activity   Annual Savings
     
$ billion
Department of Agriculture    
  End farm subsidies   29.5
  Cut food subsidies by 50 percent   52.7
  End rural subsidies   4.2
  Total cuts   86.4
Department of Commerce    
  End telecom subsidies   2.3
  End economic development subsidies   0.6
  Total cuts   2.9
Department of Defense    
  Enact Preble/Friedman reforms**   150.0
Department of Education    
  End K-12 education subsidies   52.7
  End student aid and all other programs   33.1
  Total cuts (terminate the department)   85.8
Department of Energy    
  End subsidies for energy efficiency   10.2
  End subsidies for vehicle technologies   5.2
  End the technology loan program   1.2
  End electricity research subsidies   2.0
  End fossil energy research   1.1
  Privatize the power marketing administrations   0.5
  End nuclear energy subsidies   0.6
  Total cuts   20.8
Department of Health and Human Services    
  Block grant Medicaid and freeze spending**   226.0
  Repeal 2010 health care law**   87.0
  Increase Medicare premiums**   39.8
  Cut non-Medicaid state/local grants by 50%   37.7
  Cut Medicare payment error rate by 50%   28.6
  Increase Medicare deductibles**   12.6
  Tort reform   10.0
  Total cuts   441.7
Department of Housing and Urban Development    
  End rental assistance   28.6
  End community development subsidies   15.0
  End public housing subsidies   8.9
  End housing finance and all other programs   8.3
  Total cuts (terminate the department)   60.8
Department of Justice    
  End state and local grants   5.0
Department of Labor    
  End employment and training services   4.8
  End Job Corps   1.7
  End Community Service for Seniors   0.8
  End trade adjustment assistance   1.3
  Total cuts   8.6
Social Security    
  Price index initial benefits**   41.1
  Raise the normal retirement age**   31.4
  Cut Social Security disability program by 10%   13.2
  Total cuts   85.7
Department of Transportation    
  End urban transit grants (federal fund savings)   5.8
  Privatize air traffic control (federal fund savings)   5.8
  Privatize Amtrak and end rail subsidies   2.9
  Total cuts   14.5
Department of the Treasury    
  Cut earned income tax credit by 50%   22.5
  End refundable part of child tax credit   22.9
  Total cuts   45.4
Other Savings    
  Cut federal civilian compensation costs 10%   29.6
  Cut foreign development aid by 50%   5.2
  Cut NASA spending by 50%   9.8
  Privatize the Corps of Engineers (Civil Works)   10.6
  Repeal Davis-Bacon labor rules   9.0
  End EPA state and local grants   6.5
  End foreign military financing   5.4
  End subsidies for the Corp. for Nat. Comm. Srv.   0.6
  End subsidies to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting   0.5
  End the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp.   0.2
  Total cuts   77.4
Grand total annual spending cuts   $1,084.9
Note: Data items are outlays for fiscal 2011, but items with ** refer to the value of savings in 2021.

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By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 135 B)

September 6, 2012 – 6:27 am

1,000 Days Without A Budget

Uploaded by on Jan 24, 2012

http://blog.heritage.org | Today marks the 1,000th day since the United States Senate has passed a budget. While the House has put forth (and passed) its own budget, the Senate has failed to do the same. To help illustrate how extraordinary this failure has been, our new video highlights a few of impressive feats in history that have been accomplished in less time.

________________

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

It seems ironic to me that we have not had a budget passed by the Senate for over three years yet you are bragging to the G-8 audience that you made a lot of progress getting measures passed that have helped the U.S. economy. Don’t you think that the other world leaders can see through all of this bragging of yours?

Mike Brownfield

May 21, 2012 at 3:39 pm

Europe is in bad shape, there’s no doubt about it. The sovereign debt crisis continues to roil the continent, Greece may leave the euro, Spain may have to revise its budget deficit upward for the second time because of bad loans, and France has a new socialist president pledging more spending instead of austerity. So when the G8 leaders met last week, President Obama had some words of advice to offer — “Look at me and learn from my stellar example!”

OK, that’s a paraphrase, but his actual words aren’t all that much different. No joke, the president who has presided over a downgraded credit rating, three years without a budget, an exploding deficit, an entitlement system desperately in need of reform, and an unemployment rate still over 8 percent has painted himself as a model for others to follow.

Quite remarkably, the president bragged that he has worked to “bring down our deficits and debt over the longer term” while staying “focused on growing the economy and creating jobs in the immediate term.” Though he acknowledges that “Of course, we still have a lot of work to do,” he says that now there’s “room to take a balanced approach to reducing our deficit and debt, while preserving our investments in the drivers of growth and job creation over the long term — education, innovation, and infrastructure for the 21st century.”

In other words, because of his supposed successes, America can afford to spend even more money on stimulus.

It’s hard to say whether the president’s intended audience was the leaders of the G8 or the American electorate, but regardless of who it was, there’s not much for Obama to brag about.

In the past four years, unemployment has gone up, more people are unemployed longer, gas prices are higher, the cost of health care insurance has increased, the national debt is higher, federal spending has increased, more Americans are on food stamps, regulatory costs are higher, home values have declined, America’s economic recovery is historically slow, and while federal spending on education has increased, results remain flat. You can see for yourself just how bad America’s fiscal outlook is in Heritage’s 2012 edition of the Federal Budget in Pictures.

Though Europe needs solutions, they certainly shouldn’t be looking at President Obama for the answers.

__________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Current Events, spending out of control | Comments (0)