Category Archives: President Obama

The real truth about the financial condition of Social Security can be seen on the www.thedailyhatch.org

July 28, 2012 – 4:30 am

Uploaded by on Jan 8, 2009

Professor Williams explains what’s ahead for Social Security

If you want to know the real truth about the financial condition of Social Security then check out these links below:

Ark Times reader says Social Security is not Ponzi Scheme

Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme but Blake who is a blogger said I was off base. Ark Times reader says Social Security is not Ponzi Scheme Social Security Disaster Walter E. Williams Columnist, Townhall.com Politicians who are principled enough to point out the fraud of Social Security, referring to it as a lie and […]

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that needs to be reformed

We got to do something soon about Social Security. The Case for Social Security Personal Accounts Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell There are two crises facing Social Security. First the program has a gigantic unfunded liability, largely caused by demographics. Second, the program is a very bad deal for younger workers, making them pay record […]

Senator Obama’s ideas on Social Security

Senator Obama’s Social Security Tax Plan Uploaded by afq2007 on Jul 23, 2008 In addition to several other tax increases, Senator Barack Obama wants to increase the Social Security payroll tax burden by imposing the tax on income above $250,000. This would be a sharp departure from current law, which only requires that the tax […]

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (part 13)

Saving Social Security with Personal Retirement Accounts Uploaded by afq2007 on Jan 10, 2011 There are two crises facing Social Security. First the program has a gigantic unfunded liability, largely thanks to demographics. Second, the program is a very bad deal for younger workers, making them pay record amounts of tax in exchange for comparatively meager benefits. This […]

What does the Heritage Foundation have to say about saving Social Security:Study released May 10, 2011 (Part 7)

“Saving the American Dream: The Heritage Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity,” Heritage Foundation, May 10, 2011 by  Stuart Butler, Ph.D. , Alison Acosta Fraser and William Beach is one of the finest papers I have ever read. Over the next few days I will post portions of this paper, but […]

Only difference between Ponzi scheme and Social Security is you can say no to Ponzi Scheme jh2d

Is Social Security  a Ponzi Scheme? I just started a series on this subject. In this article below you will see where the name “Ponzi scheme” came from and if it should be applied to the Social Security System. Ponzi! Ponzi! Ponzi! 9/14/2011 | Email John Stossel | Columnist’s Archive Ponzi! Ponzi! Ponzi! There, I […]

Social Security a Ponzi scheme?

Uploaded by LibertyPen on Jan 8, 2009 Professor Williams explains what’s ahead for Social Security Dan Mitchell on Social Security I have said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and sometimes you will hear someone in the public say the same thing. Yes, It Is a Ponzi Scheme by Michael D. Tanner Michael Tanner […]

Dan Mitchell on Social Security

 

 

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Social Security, spending out of control, Taxes | Tagged | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 117.3)

July 27, 2012 – 8:06 am

A Taxing Distinction for ObamaCare

Published on Jun 28, 2012 by

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/it-now-falls-congress
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/taxing-decision
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/supreme-court-unlawfully-rewrites-obamacare-to…
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/congress-its-not-a-tax-scotus-yes-it-is/

The Cato Institute’s Roger Pilon, Ilya Shapiro, Michael F. Cannon, Michael D. Tanner and Trevor Burrus evaluate today’s ruling on ObamaCare at the Supreme Court.

Video produced by Caleb O. Brown and Austin Bragg.

____________

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.

When I think about how Obamacare would work it turns my attention to how our federal government has run other things so far. When I think of an inner city youth and the opportunities he or her has at our fine public schools today it makes me proud of how our federal government has made such a great educational experience possible for this younger generation. (I guess you have picked up on how I am being very silly and trying to make you laugh.)

The sad truth is that a private voucher program would bring in competition and generate these results but the federal government would rather that does not happen because they want to keep their hand in everything.

We got to get a voucher system in place so inner city youth can have the educational opportunities they deserve.

What DC Schools Can Teach Us about Obamacare

Posted by Andrew J. Coulson

Thanks to today’s Supreme Court ruling, the federal government has gained broad new powers to control the nation’s health care system. This, we are told by the President and his fellow travelers, will save money, expand access, and improve quality. One way to gauge the chances of that is to see what benefits federal oversight has brought to education in the one district in the nation over which Congress has ultimate authority: the District of Columbia public schools.

As I wrote earlier this week, the Census Bureau has now confirmed my finding that DC public schools spend about $30,000 / pupil annually. That is more than double the national average of public schools. Access to schooling may be universal in the District, but access to a quality education is not. As Economist Mark Perry writes, despite its stratospheric spending, DC’s graduation rate of 58.6% is far lower than the national average of 75.5%. The academic performance of its students is also significantly below the national average, and also below the average for other big city districts–in both reading and mathematics. Its achievement gaps by race and socio-economic status are also larger than in other public school districts.

That is how the only public school district in the nation under the control of Congress performs. Nor have nationwide federal education programs shown promise, as the chart below illustrates.

If our experience with education is any guide, a bigger federal role in health care does not bode well.

Milton Friedman on school voucher system

Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times Blog reports today that Mitt Romney is for school vouchers. I am glad to hear that. Over and over we hear that the reason private schools are better is because they don’t have to keep the troubling making kids. It reminds me of this short film that I saw many […]

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

Brummett wants Charter schools to show public schools how to do it”Friedman Friday”

John Brummett (10-26-11, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette online edition) does not want charter schools to put public schools out of business but he wants them to show public schools how to do it. (Paywall) I seek in these matters a kind of Clintonian third-way finesse: I support charter schools only to the extent that they should be […]

Obama rule apply to vouchers?

Introducing the ‘Obama Rule’ Posted by Neal McCluskey In his latest weekly radio address, President Obama featured what will no doubt be a mainstay of his reelection campaign: the “Buffett Rule,” which says that rich people should pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class folks. It’s named after mega-investor Warren Buffett, who famously declared […]

Listing of transcripts and videos of Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” on www.theDailyHatch.org

Everywhere school vouchers have been tried they have been met with great success. Why do you think President Obama got rid of them in Washington D.C.? It was a political disaster for him because the school unions had always opposed them and their success made Obama’s allies look bad. In 1980 when I first sat […]

HERITAGE FOUNDATION VIDEO:What is School Choice?

What is School Choice? Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Aug 2, 2011 School choice offers families the opportunity to select schools that meet their child’s needs. Watch the video from Heritage Foundation explaining school choice, how it benefits parents and children and why school choice is needed.

Girl Likens Public School Failure to Ban on Teaching Slaves to Read

  Why have blacks that live in bad areas been condemned to inferior schools? A young lady floated an idea out there and was severly punished for her thoughts: Girl Likens Public School Failure to Ban on Teaching Slaves to Read Posted by Andrew J. Coulson A 13-year-old black girl from Rochester likens the pedagogical […]

Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 6 of transcript and video)

Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 6 of 6.   Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: FRIEDMAN: But I personally think it’s a good thing. But I don’t see that any reason whatsoever why I shouldn’t have been required […]

Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 5 of transcript and video)

Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 5 of 6.   Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Are your voucher schools  going to accept these tough children? COONS: You bet they are. (Several talking at once.) COONS: May I answer […]

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 4 of transcript and video)

Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 4 of 6.   Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: It seems to me that if one is truly interested in liberty, which I think is the ultimate value that Milton Friedman talks […]

Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 3 of transcript and video)

Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 3 of 6.   Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: If it […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Healthcare, Vouchers | Comments (0)

“Feedback Friday” Letter to White House generated form letter response July 16,2012 on small businesses (part 13)

July 27, 2012 – 7:58 am

I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet.  (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on July 16, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have linked several of the letters I sent to him below with the email that I received. However, I think it was probably this one below:

Government Spending Doesn’t Create Jobs

Uploaded by on Sep 7, 2011

Share this on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/qnjkn9 Tweet it: http://tiny.cc/o9v9t

In the debate of job creation and how best to pursue it as a policy goal, one point is forgotten: Government doesn’t create jobs. Government only diverts resources from one use to another, which doesn’t create new employment.

Video produced by Caleb Brown and Austin Bragg.

___________________________

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 don’t understand why people think that big government is the answer for everything when what the federal government should do is get out of the way. Cutting taxes and regulations would help us get out of the recession!!

Obama Has Tried All the Wrong Policies

by Daniel J. Mitchell (Also carried on his blog.)

Daniel J. Mitchell is a top expert on tax reform and supply-side tax policy at the Cato Institute.

Added to cato.org on March 13, 2012

This article appeared in U.S. News & World Report on March 13, 2012

The Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank has a very useful interactive website that allows anybody to compare recessions and recoveries during the post-World War II era. It takes only a couple of clicks to complete the exercise, and does not reflect well on the current occupant of the White House—as you can see at this link.

This does not mean that Obama caused the economic downturn. That was the result of policies that were implemented during the Bush years (though the current president was a big supporter of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac subsidies that played such a big role in the financial crisis). Indeed, the recession officially began in December 2007, more than one year before Obama’s inauguration.

Taking money out of the economy’s productive sector and letting politicians engage in a spending spree is the opposite of prudent policy.

But we can hold the president at least partially responsible for an extraordinarily weak and slow recovery. It’s been nearly three years since the recession officially ended in June 2009, yet jobs are still well below their pre-recession levels. And overall economic output, or gross domestic product, has just now finally gotten back to where it was when the downturn began.

This is an anemic record. Especially since an economy normally enjoys a strong bounce when coming out of a deep recession.

Daniel J. Mitchell is a top expert on tax reform and supply-side tax policy at the Cato Institute.

 

More by Daniel J. Mitchell

The problem is that Obama has tried all the wrong policies. He tried a big-spending Keynesian package that was supposed to be a “stimulus,” butthat’s the same failed approach that Bush tried in 2008, the same failed approach that Japan tried in the 1990s, and the same failed approach that Hoover and Roosevelt tried in the 1930s. Taking money out of the economy’s productive sector and letting politicians engage in a spending spree is the opposite of prudent policy.

The president also has continuously expanded subsidies for unemployment, even though academic scholars (and even left-wing economists) all agree that such policies cause more joblessness.

And now he’s demanding higher tax rates, holding a Sword of Damocles over entrepreneurs, investors, and small business owners.

The nation recently endured eight years of a big-spending interventionist in the White House. The problem with Obama is that he promised hope and change, but he’s continuing the failed statist policies of his predecessor.

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

The White House, Washington
 

 

July 16, 2012

Dear Everette:

Thank you for writing.  I have heard from men and women across our country about America’s small businesses, and I am committed to creating an environment where these engines of job creation can grow and prosper.

When credit markets froze before I took office in 2008, small businesses felt the combined effects of diminished access to capital and falling sales.  Over the past few years, we have seen extremely difficult conditions for small businesses and the American families that depend on them.

Providing small businesses with the capital they need to grow remains a priority for keeping our recovery on track, as small businesses create two-thirds of new private sector jobs in the United States.  In September of 2010, I signed into law the Small Business Jobs Act—the most significant small business legislation in over a decade.  Through new programs like the Small Business Lending Fund and the State Small Business Credit Initiative, we are working with community banks and state capital support programs to help better serve small businesses.  In 2011, loans supported by the Small Business Administration (SBA) hit an all-time high of $30 billion, largely due to loan enhancements enacted through the Small Business Jobs Act.  And we have expanded support for Community Development Financial Institutions and micro-lending programs.

The Affordable Care Act also plays an important role in supporting small business owners and employees.  It makes small businesses with fewer than 25 employees eligible for tax credits up to 35 percent of their premium contributions for employee coverage.  Now, they no longer have to choose between hiring and health care.  In 2014, the credit will increase to up to 50 percent.  Also in 2014, small businesses with up to 100 employees will have access to state-based Small Business Health Options Program Exchanges where they can purchase affordable, quality insurance, giving them the same purchasing power as large companies.

In January 2012, on the one-year anniversary of both the White House Startup America Initiative and the private-sector Startup America Partnership, I sent a Startup America Legislative Agenda to Congress.  The Agenda will expand tax relief and unlock capital for startups and small businesses that are creating jobs.  It will also institute visa reforms that remove undue obstacles for high-skilled immigrants and recent graduates that contribute to our economic competitiveness.  To learn more, I encourage you to visit www.WhiteHouse.gov/economy/business/startup-america.

Additionally, I have asked Congress to reinstate the authority that past presidents have had to streamline the Executive Branch and create a leaner, more efficient Federal Government.  Instead of forcing small businesses to navigate the six departments and agencies that focus on business and trade, I am proposing one department, with one website, one phone number, and one mission:  helping American businesses succeed.  With this authority, we could help small businesses grow, save businesses time, and save taxpayer dollars.  In the meantime, I have elevated the SBA to a Cabinet-level agency and announced a new website called BusinessUSA—a platform that consolidates information and services from across the government into a single, integrated network for American business owners and entrepreneurs.  To learn more, please visit www.BusinessUSA.gov.

I have also called on Congress to pass more tax cuts—in addition to the 17 small business tax cuts I have already signed into law—that put money back in the hands of working families and provide a boost to goods and services purchased from small businesses.  But I will not wait for Congress to act to help out small employers.  The SBA is moving forward with a $1 billion Early Stage Innovation Fund targeting early-stage small businesses seeking capital.  Moreover, the SBA is working closely with the private sector on the Supplier Connection initiative, which links small businesses with commercial supply chain opportunities—15 companies with $300 billion in purchasing power have already committed.

To ensure our economy is built to last while upholding our commitment to our Nation’s heroes, I have expanded entrepreneurship training opportunities for service members and veterans who want to start businesses.  In August 2011, my Administration established a 2-day course in entrepreneurship, and the SBA also offers an 8-week online training program that teaches the fundamentals of small business ownership to more than 10,000 veterans every year.

I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure America remains the best place on earth to turn a great idea into a successful business.  I encourage you to take advantage of the on-the-ground counseling resources available through SBA District Offices, a local Small Business Development Center, or Women’s Business Center.  We have provided funding for those organizations to help businesses connect with the resources they need.  You can also learn more about assistance available in your area or securing Government loans or grants by calling the SBA at 1-800-827-5722, or by visiting www.SBA.gov. 

Thank you, again, for writing.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Visit WhiteHouse.gov

Related posts:

Open letter to President Obama (Part 105)

Obama on Ryan Plan: “It’s Laughable. It Is a Trojan Horse. It’s Thinly-Veiled Social Darwinism.” 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 […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 104)

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Open letter to President Obama (Part 103)

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 personally […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 102)

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 see […]

“Feedback Friday” Letter to White House generated form letter response July 6, 2012 (part 10)

I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet.  (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email July 6,  2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response, but if I had […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 101)

John Stossel report “Myth: Gun Control Reduces Crime 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 […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 100)

Government Spending Doesn’t Create Jobs Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Sep 7, 2011 Share this on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/qnjkn9 Tweet it: http://tiny.cc/o9v9t In the debate of job creation and how best to pursue it as a policy goal, one point is forgotten: Government doesn’t create jobs. Government only diverts resources from one use to another, which doesn’t […]

Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (“Thirsty Thursday”, Open letter to Senator Pryor)

Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced  Budget amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my blog http://www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 99)

The Flat Tax: How it Works and Why it is Good for America Uploaded by afq2007 on Mar 29, 2010 This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video shows how the flat tax would benefit families and businesses, and also explains how this simple and fair system would boost economic growth and eliminate the special-interest […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 98)

Keynesian Catastrophe: Big Money, Big Government & Big Lies Uploaded by Pajamasmedia on Jan 19, 2012 The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell explains why Obama’s stimulus was a flop! With Glenn Reynolds. See more at http://www.pjtv.com and http://www.cato.org ___________________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

Dan Mitchell’s blog tells the story of the little red hen and President Obama

July 27, 2012 – 7:52 am

Uploaded by on May 29, 2009

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/18/James_Bartholomew_The_Welfare_State_Were_In

Author James Bartholomew argues that welfare benefits actually increase government handouts by ‘ruining’ ambition. He compares welfare to a humane mousetrap.

—–

In the controversial book The Welfare State We’re In, James Bartholomew argues that the welfare state in Britain has resulted in a generation of badly educated and dependent citizens, leading to lives of deprivation for thousands and undermining the original intent behind its creation in the 1940s.

Has the welfare state really led to more harm than good? What does this imply for the ever-expanding welfare state in the United States? – Cato Institute

James Bartholomew trained as a banker in the City of London before moving into journalism with the Financial Times and the Far Eastern Economic Review, for whom he worked in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Returning to England on the Trans-Siberian Railway through communist China and the Soviet Union an experience which influenced his political outlook he subsequently became a leader writer on The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

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Productivity should be rewarded and those who do not wish to work should not be rewarded like those who are working.

In previous posts, I’ve shared the PC version of the story about the ant and the grasshopper, as well as the modern fable about bureaucracy, featuring an ant and a lion. And I’ve also posted a revised version of Green Eggs and Ham.

Now we have a nursery rhyme about the little red hen. But not the old-fashioned version. Here’s the modernized version the President reads to his kids.

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“Who will help me plant my wheat?” asked the little red hen.
“Not I,” said the cow.
“Not I,” said the duck.
“Not I,” said the pig.
“Not I,” said the goose.
“Then I will do it by myself.” She planted her crop and the wheat grew and ripened.

“Who will help me reap my wheat?” asked the little red hen.
“I’m on disability,” said the duck.
“Out of my classification,” said the pig.
“I’d lose my seniority,” said the cow.
“I’d lose my unemployment compensation,” said the goose.
“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did.

“Who will help me bake the bread?” asked the little red hen.
“That would be overtime for me,” said the cow.
“I’d lose my welfare benefits,” said the duck.
“I’m a dropout and never learned how,” said the pig.
“If I’m to be the only helper, that’s discrimination,” said the goose.
“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did.

The smell of fresh-baked bread attracted all her neighbors. They saw the bread and wanted some. In fact, they demanded a share.

But the little red hen said, “No, I shall eat all the loaves.”

“Excess profits!” cried the cow.
“Capitalist leech!” screamed the duck.
“I demand equal rights!” yelled the goose.
“Share with the 99 percent,” grunted the pig.
And they all painted ‘Unfair!’ picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.

Then the farmer came He said to the little red hen, “You must not be so greedy.”

“But I earned the bread,” said the little red hen.

“Exactly,” said the farmer. “That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are idle.”

And they all lived happily ever after.

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But only in the President’s fairy tale. In a real-world version, the little red hen never again baked bread and the farmyard suffered Greek-style chaos when the animals riding in the wagon suddenly discovered there was nobody left to pull the wagon.

If this fable seems familiar, you may be thinking about the post that used beer to explain the tax system. And if you prefer your irony on the 5th-grade level instead of the 3rd-grade level, here’s a post using two cows to explain various economic and political systems.

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

Open letter to President Obama (Part 117.2)

July 27, 2012 – 7:45 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.

 
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) 
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Roger Ebert called this flick one of Allen’s best. The director, pictured with cinematographer Sven Nykvist on set, was nominated for three Academy Awards, including best director and writing. “Who else but Woody Allen could make a movie in which virtue is punished, evildoing is rewarded and there is a lot of laughter – even subversive laughter at the most shocking times?” wrote the famous reviewer.

_____________

The founding fathers believed that it benefitted the government for it’s leaders to believe in God and with that would come the view that evil will be punished and good will be rewarded in the afterlife. John Quincy Adams said: 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,

This point of view is not held by many today. I noticed in Woody Allen’s film “Crimes and Misdemeanors” you can see how Allen’s agnostic worldview permits him to allow the lead character to have his mistress killed when she threatens to call the cops. Judah noted, “God is a luxery I can not afford.” Earlier in the film Judah is terrified when he thinks there is a living God that will punish him in an afterlife, but only after he convinces himself there is no God is he at peace with his decision to have this troublesome lady killed. Check out this movie on Netflix and you will see what I mean about this potential moral problem that atheists can not answer. (I have looked this question many times in my previous posts.)

David Barton is a Christian historian and he has quoted many of the founders concerning their views of the afterlife and how their views impact what is done while leading the nation:

James Iredell, a ratifier of the Constitution and a U. S. Supreme Court justice appointed by George Washington, also confirmed:

According to the modern definition [1788] of an oath, it is considered a “solemn appeal to the Supreme Being for the truth of what is said by a person who believes in the existence of a Supreme Being and in a future state of rewards and punishments according to that form which would bind his conscience most.” 9

 David Barton noted in his article, “Importance of Morality and Religion in Government,”:
01/2000
 

John Quincy Adams

Sixth President of the United States

 

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.)

 

 

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Signer of the Declaration of Independence

Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, [and] which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and [which] insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.

(Source: Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907), p. 475. In a letter from Charles Carroll to James McHenry of November 4, 1800.)

James McHenry

Signer of the Constitution

[P]ublic utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.

(Source: Bernard C. Steiner, One Hundred and Ten Years of Bible Society Work in Maryland, 1810-1920 (Maryland Bible Society, 1921), p. 14.)

 

 

 

Benjamin Rush

Signer of the Declaration of Independence

Remember that national crimes require national punishments, and without declaring what punishment awaits this evil, you may venture to assure them that it cannot pass with impunity, unless God shall cease to be just or merciful.

(Source: Benjamin Rush, An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America Upon Slave-Keeping (Boston: John Boyles, 1773), p. 30.)

 

Joseph Story

Supreme Court Justice

Indeed, the right of a society or government to [participate] in matters of religion will hardly be contested by any persons who believe that piety, religion, and morality are intimately connected with the well being of the state and indispensable to the administrations of civil justice. The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion—the being, and attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to Him for all our actions, founded upon moral accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues—these never can be a matter of indifference in any well-ordered community. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive how any civilized society can well exist without them.

(Source: Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1847), p. 260, §442.)

__________

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 Founding Fathers | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 117.1)

July 26, 2012 – 7:19 am

Glenn Beck Presents: F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” (Part 2)

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 can see how wise this man was and you could benefit by reading his books. He shows that socialism will always fail and we should rely more on the free market.

Happy Birthday, F. A. Hayek

Posted by David Boaz

Today is the 113th anniversary of the birth of F. A. Hayek, perhaps the most subtle social thinker of the 20th century.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974. He met with President Reagan at the White House, and Margaret Thatcher banged The Constitution of Liberty on the table at Conservative headquarters and declared “This is what we believe.” Milton Friedman described him as “the most important social thinker of the 20th century,” and Lawrence H. Summers called him the author of “the single most important thing to learn from an economics course today.”

He is the hero of The Commanding Heights, the book and PBS series by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. His most popular book, The Road to Serfdom, has never gone out of print and sold 125,000 copies last year. John Cassidy wrote in the New Yorker that “on the biggest issue of all, the vitality of capitalism, he was vindicated to such an extent that it is hardly an exaggeration to refer to the 20th century as the Hayek century.”

Last year the Cato Institute invited Bruce Caldwell, Richard Epstein, and George Soros to discuss the new edition of The Constitution of Liberty, edited by Ronald Hamowy. In a report on that session, I concluded:

Hayek was not just an economist. He also published impressive works on political theory and psychology.

He’s like Marx, only right.

Cato published two original interviews with Hayek, in 1983 and 1984.

Find more on Hayek, including an original video lecture, at Libertarianism.org.

 
_______________

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 | Comments (0)

If converted to cash and simply given to the recipients welfare check would be $44,000 per family of four

July 25, 2012 – 7:10 am

Milton Friedman came up with the idea of eliminating all welfare programs and putting in a negative income tax that would eliminate the welfare trap. However, our federal government just doesn’t listen to reason.

Robert Rector

July 17, 2012 at 4:13 pm

Last Thursday, the Obama Administration quietly issued new bureaucratic rules that overturned the popular welfare reform law of 1996. This was an illegal move, and it completely undoes years of progress that helped millions of Americans.

What Welfare Reform Accomplished

The 1996 reform replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with a new program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). At the core of the TANF program were new federal work standards that required able-bodied welfare recipients to work, prepare for work, or at least look for work as a condition for receiving aid. Welfare reform turned “welfare” into “workfare.”

Under the old, pre-reform AFDC program, welfare was a one-way handout: Government mailed checks to recipients who did nothing in return. Reform changed that. The new TANF program was based on fairness and reciprocal responsibility: Taxpayers continued to provide aid, but beneficiaries were required, in exchange, to engage in constructive behavior to increase self-sufficiency and reduce dependence.

The TANF work requirements were not onerous. Under the law, some 40 percent of adult TANF recipients in a state were required to engage in “work activities,” which is defined as unsubsidized employment, subsidized employment, on-the-job training, attending high school or a GED program, vocational education, community service work, job search, or job readiness training. Participation was part-time, 20 hours per week for mothers with children under six and 30 hours for mothers with older children.

This drove liberals to apoplexy. They denounced the reform as an “awful” policy that would do “serious injury to American children.” According to them, reform was “blaming the victim” and workfare was “slavefare.”

Prior to welfare reform, the AFDC caseload had not declined significantly at any time since World War II.After welfare reform, the caseload promptly dropped by 50 percent. As the caseloads plummeted, employment and earnings experienced an unprecedented surge upward.

As welfare dependence fell and employment increased,child poverty among the affected groups fell dramatically. For a quarter century before the reform, poverty among black children and single mothers had remained frozen at high levels. Immediately after the reform, poverty for both groups experienced dramatic and unprecedented drops, quickly reaching all-time lows.

None of this reduced the left’s antipathy for welfare reform. The left had strongly opposed work requirements in welfare in 1996. When TANF faced reauthorization in 2001, they again aggressively sought to repeal federal work standards; they repeated the attack in 2006. For the most part, they lost those battles. But they were not done.

The Obama Administration Rewinds Progress

Having lost repeated legislative battles to abolish workfare, the left has now gone backdoor, using an arcane bureaucratic device called a section 1115 waiver to declare the actual work standards written in the TANF law null and void and grant federal bureaucrats carte blanche authority to devise new replacement standards.

This legal maneuver clearly violates the letter and intent of the TANF law. The Administration cannot use a section 1115 waiver to modify or weaken TANF’s work requirements.

How will this power grab be used? In the past, state welfare bureaucrats have attempted to define “personal care activities,” “massage,” “motivational reading,” “journaling,” attending Weight Watchers, and “helping a friend or relative with household tasks” as work activities. Expect far more of this in the future as one-way handouts again displace workfare.

Clearly, the real welfare-to-work provisions of the TANF law should be restored. But we should also remember that TANF is only one small program in a much larger welfare state. The federal government operates more than 80 means-tested welfare programs to provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to poor and low-income people. At the beginning of last week, only two of these programs had active work requirements. With Obama’s latest order, the list is down to one.

Obama has increased federal means-tested welfare spending by a third since taking office. Last year, combined federal and state spending on means-tested welfare hit $927 billion. (Social Security and Medicare are not included in this total.)

Welfare spending amounts to $9,040 per year for each lower-income American. If converted to cash and simply given to the recipients, this spending would be more than sufficient to bring the income of every lower-income American household to 200 percent of the federal poverty level (roughly $44,000 per year for a family of four).

Remarkably, Obama plans to increase spending on means-tested welfare spending further after the current recession ends, spreading the wealth through a dramatic, permanent expansion of the welfare state. The President’s own budget calls for a permanent increase in annual means-tested spending from 4.5 percent to 6 percent of gross domestic product. Combined annual federal and state spending would reach $1.56 trillion in 2022. Overall, President Obama plans to spend $12.7 trillion on means-tested welfare over the next decade.

Our nation should take the opposite course. Welfare-to-work requirements should be restored in the TANF program. Similar work requirements should be established in parallel programs such as food stamps and public housing. Finally, when the recession ends, total welfare spending should be rolled back to pre-recession levels.

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

Listing of transcripts and videos of “Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave on www.theDailyHatch.org

July 25, 2012 – 4:52 am

In the last few years the number of people receiving Food Stamps has skyrocketed. President Obama has not cut any federal welfare programs but has increased them, and he  has used class warfare over and over the last few months and according to him 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 shows in this film series below how so many people get caught in the “Welfare Trap.” Friedman also gives a great solution to this problem in the “negative income tax.” 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:

Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7)

Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave
Abstract:

Since the Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous expansion of governmental efforts to provide for people’s welfare. First, there was a tremendous expansion of public works. The Social Security Act followed close behind. Soon other efforts extended governmental activities in all areas of the welfare sector. Growth of governmental welfare activity continued unabated, and today it has reached truly staggering proportions. Travelling in both Britain and the U.S., Milton Friedman points out that though many government welfare programs are well intentioned, they tend to have pernicious side effects. In Dr. Friedman’s view, perhaps the most serious shortcoming of governmental welfare activities is their tendency to strip away individual independence and dignity. This is because bureaucrats in welfare agencies are placed in positions of tremendous power over welfare recipients, exercising great influence over their lives. Because people never spend someone else’s money as carefully as they spend their own, inefficiency, waste, abuse, theft, and corruption are inevitable. In addition, welfare programs tend to be self-perpetuating because they destroy work incentives. Indeed, it is often in the welfare recipients’ best interests to remain unemployed. Dr. Friedman suggests a negative income tax as a way of helping the poor. The government would pay money to people falling below a certain income level. As they obtained jobs and earned money, they would continue to receive some payments from the government until their outside income reached a certain ceiling. This system would make people better off who sought work and earned income. This contrasts with many of today’s programs where one dollar earned means nearly one dollar lost in welfare payments.

Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave
Transcript:
Friedman: After the 2nd World War, New York City authorities retained rent control supposedly to help their poorer citizens. The intentions were good. This in the Bronx was one result.
By the 50’s the same authorities were taxing their citizens. Including those who lived in the Bronx and other devastated areas beyond the East River to subsidize public housing. Another idea with good intentions yet poor people are paying for this, subsidized apartments for the well-to-do. When government at city or federal level spends our money to help us, strange things happen.
The idea that government had to protect us came to be accepted during the terrible years of the Depression. Capitalism was said to have failed. And politicians were looking for a new approach.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a candidate for the presidency. He was governor of New York State. At the governor’s mansion in Albany, he met repeatedly with friends and colleagues to try to find some way out of the Depression. The problems of the day were to be solved by government action and government spending. The measures that FDR and his associates discussed here derived from a long line of past experience. Some of the roots of these measures go back to Bismark’s Germany at the end of the 19th Century. The first modern state to institute old age pensions and other similar measures on the part of government. In the early 20th Century Great Britain followed suit under Lloyd George and Churchill. It too instituted old age pensions and similar plans.
These precursors of the modern welfare state had little effect on practice in the United States. But they did have a very great effect on the intellectuals on the campus like those who gathered here with FDR. The people who met here had little personal experience of the horrors of the Depression but they were confident that they had the solution. In their long discussions as they sat around this fireplace trying to design programs to meet the problems raised by the worst Depression in the history of the United States, they quite naturally drew upon the ideas that were prevalent at the time. The intellectual climate had become one in which it was taken for granted that government had to play a major role in solving the problems in providing what came later to be called Security from Cradle to Grave.
Roosevelt’s first priority after his election was to deal with massive unemployment. A Public Works program was started. The government financed projects to build highways, bridges and dams. The National Recovery Administration was set up to revitalize industry. Roosevelt wanted to see America move into a new era. The Social Security Act was passed and other measures followed. Unemployment benefits, welfare payments, distribution of surplus food. With these measures, of course, came rules, regulations and red tape as familiar today as they were novel then. The government bureaucracy began to grow and it’s been growing ever since.
This is just a small part of the Social Security empire today. Their headquarters in Baltimore has 16 rooms this size. All these people are dispensing our money with the best possible intentions. But at what cost?
In the 50 years since the Albany meetings, we have given government more and more control over our lives and our income. In New York State alone, these government buildings house 11,000 bureaucrats. Administering government programs that cost New York taxpayers 22 billion dollars. At the federal level, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare alone has a budget larger than any government in the world except only Russia and the United States.
Yet these government measures often do not help the people they are supposed to. Richard Brown’s daughter, Helema, needs constant medical attention. She has a throat defect and has to be connected to a breathing machine so that she’ll survive the nights. It’s expensive treatment and you might expect the family to qualify for a Medicaid grant.
Richard Brown: No, I don’t get it, cause I’m not eligible for it. I make a few dollars too much and the salary that I make I can’t afford to really live and to save anything is out of the question. And I mean, I live, we live from payday to payday. I mean literally from payday to payday.
Friedman: His struggle isn’t made any easier by the fact that Mr. Brown knows that if he gave up his job as an orderly at the Harlem Hospital, he would qualify for a government handout. And he’d be better off financially.
Hospital Worker: Mr. Brown, do me a favor please? There is a section patient.
Friedman: It’s a terrible pressure on him. But he is proud of the work that he does here and he’s strong enough to resist the pressure.
Richard Brown: I’m Mr. Brown. Your fully dilated and I’m here to take you to the delivery. Try not to push, please. We want to have a nice sterile delivery.
Friedman: Mr. Brown has found out the hard way that welfare programs destroy an individual’s independence.
Richard Brown: We’ve considered welfare. We went to see, to apply for welfare but, we were told that we were only eligible for $5.00 a month. And, to receive this $5.00 we would have to cash in our son’s savings bonds. And that’s not even worth it. I don’t believe in something for nothing anyway.
Mrs. Brown: I think a lot of people are capable of working and are willing to work, but it’s just the way it is set up. It, the mother and the children are better off if the husband isn’t working or if the husband isn’t there. And this breaks up so many poor families.
Friedman: One of the saddest things is that many of the children whose parents are on welfare will in their turn end up in the welfare trap when they grow up. In this public housing project in the Bronx, New York, 3/4’s of the families are now receiving welfare payments.
Well Mr. Brown wanted to keep away from this kind of thing for a very good reason. The people who get on welfare lose their human independence and feeling of dignity. They become subject to the dictates and whims of their welfare supervisor who can tell them whether they can live here or there, whether they may put in a telephone, what they may do with their lives. They are treated like children, not like responsible adults and they are trapped in the system. Maybe a job comes up which looks better than welfare but they are afraid to take it because if they lose it after a few months it maybe six months or nine months before they can get back onto welfare. And as a result, this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle rather than simply a temporary state of affairs.
Things have gone even further elsewhere. This is a huge mistake. A public housing project in Manchester, England.
Well we’re 3,000 miles away from the Bronx here but you’d never know it just by looking around. It looks as if we are at the same place. It’s the same kind of flats, the same kind of massive housing units, decrepit even though they were only built 7 or 8 years ago. Vandalism, graffiti, the same feeling about the place. Of people who don’t have a great deal of drive and energy because somebody else is taking care of their day to day needs because the state has deprived them of an incentive to find jobs to become responsible people to be the real support for themselves and their families.

Other segments:

Milton Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 7 of 7)

I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. TEMIN: We don’t think the big capital arose before the government did? VON HOFFMAN: Listen, what are we doing here? I mean __ defending big government is like defending death and taxes. […]

Milton Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 6 of 7)

I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen worked pretty well for a whole generation. Now anything that works well for a whole generation isn’t entirely bad. From the fact __ from that fact, and the undeniable fact that things […]

Milton Friedman discusses Reagan and Reagan discusses Friedman

Uploaded by YAFTV on Aug 19, 2009 Nobel Laureate Dr. Milton Friedman discusses the principles of Ronald Reagan during this talk for students at Young America’s Foundation’s 25th annual National Conservative Student Conference MILTON FRIEDMAN ON RONALD REAGAN In Friday’s WSJ, Milton Friedman reflectedon Ronald Reagan’s legacy. (The link should work for a few more […]

Milton Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 5 of 7)

 I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 5 of 7 MCKENZIE: Ah, well, that’s not on our agenda actually. (Laughter) VOICE OFF SCREEN: Why not? MCKENZIE: I boldly repeat the question, though, the expectation having been __ having […]

War on poverty is a failure in USA

Milton Friedman’s solution to limiting poverty Liberals just don’t get it. They should listen to Milton Friedman (who is quoted in this video below concerning the best way to limit poverty). New Video Shows the War on Poverty Is a Failure Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell The Center for Freedom and Prosperity has released another […]

Milton Friedman Friday: (“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 4 of 7)

 I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 4 of 7 The massive growth of central government that started after the depression has continued ever since. If anything, it has even speeded up in recent years. Each year there […]

Milton Friedman Friday: (“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 3 of 7)

 I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 3 OF 7 Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside […]

 

Milton Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 2 of 7)

 I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. For the past 7 years Maureen Ramsey has had to buy food and clothes for her family out of a government handout. For the whole of that time, her husband, Steve, hasn’t […]

Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7)

Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7) Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave Abstract: Since the Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous expansion of governmental efforts to provide for people’s welfare. First, there was a tremendous expansion of public works. The Social Security Act […]

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

Open letter to President Obama (Part 116.9)

July 24, 2012 – 9:54 am

Published on Apr 19, 2012 by

Cam Edwards talks to Katie Pavlich from Townhall about her new book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up – NRA News – April 18, 2012.

_______________

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. 

What really happened with this?

Katie Pavlich

Rob Bluey

April 28, 2012 at 9:32 am

(3)

Katie Pavlich’s new book, “Fast and Furious,” assembles the devastating evidence that implicates the Obama administration for its ill-advised gun-walking operation and ensuing scandal to mislead Congress and the American people.

Few journalists have devoted as much time reporting on Fast and Furious as Pavlich. As the news editor of Townhall, she has asked questions the mainstream media ignored. Now her book pieces the story together for a complete picture of how a government-run operation turned deadly. 

Operation Fast and Furious began in 2009 as an effort to eliminate high-level arms trafficking networks. Guns were allowed to “walk,” and rather than arresting straw purchasers and cartel buyers, hundreds were used to commit crimes in the United States and Mexico. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed with one in 2010 and an estimated 1,400 guns remain missing.

The book details President Obama’s lifelong mission to subvert the Second Amendment, long before he was seeking federal office. Pavlich also documents how Fast and Furious plays into his administration’s anti-gun agenda. She cites a Washington Post story from Dec. 15, 2010, before details of Fast and Furious had emerged, in which federal authorities attempt to blame the rise in gun violence on U.S. gun shops.

The podcast runs about eight minutes. It was produced with the help of Hannah Sternberg. Listen to previous interviews on Scribecast or subscribe to future episodes. Photo by Don Irvine

___________

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 | Comments (0)

Tax increases are not the way to go

July 24, 2012 – 12:36 am

Tax increases are not the way to go

President Obama just does not get it.

Liberals love tax increases.

Seven Reasons Why Tax Increases Are the Wrong Approach

Uploaded by on May 3, 2011

This Economics 101 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity gives seven reasons why the political elite are wrong to push for more taxes. If allowed to succeed, the hopelessly misguided pushing to raise taxes would only worsen our fiscal mess while harming the economy.

The seven reasons provided by the video against this approach are as follows:

1) Tax increases are not needed;
2) Tax increases encourage more spending;
3) Tax increases harm economic performance;
4) Tax increases foment social discord;
5) Tax increases almost never raise as much revenue as projected;
6) Tax increases encourage more loopholes; and,
7) Tax increases undermine competitiveness

________________________

The Real Budget Problem

by Michael D. Tanner

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and coauthor of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.

Added to cato.org on June 15, 2011

This article appeared on National Review (Online) on June 15, 2011.

If you listen to the discussion of the deficit in the mainstream media or the talking points from leading Democrats on the Hill (but I repeat myself), the refrain is that tax increases must be part of any deficit fix.

There is a superficial moderation to that appeal, a sort of splitting the difference between Republicans who want to cut spending and Democrats who want to pay for popular programs. And, frankly, some tax breaks and loopholes should be eliminated — ethanol subsidies, for example — not as revenue raisers, but because they are such bad economic policies.

But raising taxes to reduce the deficit would be bad policy for several reasons:

There’s not really a revenue problem. Democrats correctly point out that federal tax revenues are now just 16.5 percent of GDP, well below the post–World War II average of roughly 18 percent. This would have meant a bigger budget deficit than usual even if spending hadn’t exploded in recent years. But much of that decline is due to the economic slowdown, not to the Bush tax cuts or other policy changes. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that as economic growth returns, federal tax revenues will grow by an average of 7.3 percent annually over the next ten years. By the end of the decade, taxes will have pushed back through the 18 percent level, and be headed toward 20 percent — all without any changes in tax policy.

Government is too big, too intrusive, and too expensive. It doesn’t take more taxes to fix that.

There is a spending problem. Focusing on taxes implies that the problem is how to pay for spending — taxes or debt — not the spending itself. But, as Milton Friedman constantly pointed out, the real cost of government is the size of government. According to the CBO, the federal government is on track to consume 42 percent of GDP by 2050. (State and local governments will consume another 10 to 15 percent of GDP.) Would we really be better off if we raised taxes enough to pay for all that spending?

You can’t tax enough. The president keeps talking about solving our deficit problems by taxing millionaires and billionaires. Congressional Democrats throw in oil companies. But you could confiscate — not tax, confiscate — every penny belonging to every millionaire in America and cover barely one-tenth of our government’s total indebtedness (including the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare). Meanwhile the tax breaks for oil and gas companies amount to about $1.4 billion annually. Those tax breaks may or may not be defensible, but they amount to less than 1 percent of this year’s budget deficit.

Bait and switch.  If you look at most of the deficit-cutting proposals, including the president’s, they call for tax increases today in exchange for spending cuts somewhere in the future. I think we’ve seen that movie before. In fact, the president’s proposal actually makes the bait-and-switch game worse. His proposal says that if Congress didn’t actually make those spending cuts, there would be additional tax increases. So Republicans would be agreeing to tax increases today in exchange for . . . more tax increases tomorrow.

Tax hikes are bad for the economy and for freedom. Of course it’s an exaggeration to suggest that all tax cuts pay for themselves, but there is no doubt that high taxes discourage the type of investment and risk-taking necessary to grow the economy and create jobs. Every dollar that the federal government takes in taxes is one less dollar that the private sector can save, invest, or spend as it sees fit. Unless you believe that the government knows better than the private sector what to do with that money, this exchange hurts the economy. And unless you believe that our money really belongs to the government, it means we are less free to make use of the fruits of our labor as we see fit.

Republicans should not fall into the trap of reflexively defending every special-interest loophole in the tax code. But neither should they be seduced by the argument that we need a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction that includes tax increases. Government is too big, too intrusive, and too expensive. It doesn’t take more taxes to fix that.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Taxes | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)