Category Archives: Ronald Reagan

Obama wants to raise taxes on job creators

September 16, 2011 – 7:42 am

Uploaded by on Aug 6, 2010

Cenk Uygur (host of The Young Turks) filling in for Chris Jansing on MSNBC talks to Dan Mitchell of the Cato institute to compare Reaganomics to Obamanomics.

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What should we do when we are caught in a slow economy? What did Reagan do in 1981? He lowered taxes to stimulate the economy. However, President Obama wants to raise taxes.

Obama’s Jobs Plan: Permanent Tax Hikes on Job Creators

By Curtis Dubay
September 15, 2011

When President Obama unveiled his much-hyped American Jobs Act to a joint session of Congress last week, he promised that the increased spending and temporary tax cuts the plan entails would be fully “paid for.” He did not specify in that speech the details of how he would offset the costs of his plan other than he would charge the “super committee” with this responsibility.

This week, he released his own proposals to pay for the plan. To no one’s surprise, the plan would offset the costs of its jobs policies solely with tax hikes and not one penny of spending reductions.

The tax increases the President proposes are the same old hodgepodge of tax hikes he has proposed often since taking office, and they have been rejected by Democratic and Republican Congresses alike each time he’s pushed for them. In the end, the tax hikes would be permanent while the jobs policies temporary; thus, the proposal is really a tax hike plan rather than a jobs plan.

Tax Hike on Job Creators

Almost all of the $447 billion in increased revenue called for by President Obama would come from raising taxes on job creators,[1] the same job creators whom President Obama wants to hire more workers to reduce the unemployment rate.

The plan would raise taxes on job creators by capping the deductions that families and businesses earning more than $250,000 a year could claim. It would reduce the deductions of these families and businesses to the amount they could claim had they only earned enough to qualify for the 28 percent tax bracket instead of the higher tax brackets (33 percent and 35 percent) they face now.

For example, under the current tax code, $100,000 of deductions for a family that pays the 35 percent rate reduces its tax bill by $35,000. Under the plan’s tax hike, this family’s deductions could only reduce its tax bill by $28,000, or what it would have been under the 28 percent rate. The tax hike would be bigger as the family’s deductions increase.

This tax hike would be on top of the 3.8 percent surtax on investment income (passed as part of Obamacare) that these same families and businesses will pay beginning in 2013 and the higher marginal income tax rates they will pay if President Obama gets his way and the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2012. If marginal income tax rates rise, the tax increase from limiting deductions would increase as well.

The families that would pay these higher taxes are the investors that the economy needs to provide capital to businesses and entrepreneurs so they can expand and start new operations that would employ new workers. A recent study from President Obama’s own Treasury Department shows that 90 percent of businesses that pay their taxes through the individual income tax code and employ workers would pay the higher taxes under the President’s plan.[2]

This tax hike would negate any benefits of the President’s jobs policies. Capping deductions as President Obama’s plan does would raise the marginal effective tax rate of these important job creators and therefore reduce their incentives to invest and take on new risk—permanently. Less investment and less risk-taking means fewer new jobs created.

Since it is likely President Obama’s job proposals would create few, if any permanent, positions, taken together with the tax hike on job creators, his plan would likely reduce employment in the long term.[3]

Industry Specific Tax Hikes

The rest of the tax hikes in President Obama’s plan specifically target the oil industry and jet manufacturers. He would mostly raise their taxes by limiting their ability to “expense” (or deduct at the time of acquisition) their purchases of capital equipment.

The President’s desire to strip these targeted industries of the ability to deduct their capital purchases faster than current depreciation schedules allow is at odds with his own position on expensing. The President insisted that the 2010 tax deal to extend the Bush tax cuts include 100 percent expensing for all capital purchases for all businesses for one year. This latest jobs bill—which oil and jet tax hikes are supposed to help pay for—includes an extension of that expensing policy.

More troubling is the President’s apparent lack of understanding of the actual impact that his policies would have. He frames the jet tax hike as a hike on the owners of corporate jets, but the burden of his policy would fall on the workers that manufacture the jets. The tax hike would raise the cost of jets, which would reduce the demand for them. Reduced demand would ultimately result in fewer jobs for the blue-collar workers who manufacture the planes.

This is not just theory. In 1990, a 10 percent tax on luxury yachts went into effect. Congress passed the measure assuming that the rich buyers of yachts would pay the burden. But when the price of yachts rose, orders dried up and the yacht-building industry dried up as well. As The New York Times chronicled then, it was the blue-collar workers who lost their jobs and ended up bearing the pain of the tax.[4] The situation was dire enough that Congress repealed the devastating tax in 1993.

Stop Digging

In the Administration’s poorly crafted and contradictory jobs package, the American people get permanent tax hikes that would enlarge the federal government to offset the cost of temporary jobs policies that would not create any jobs. In the long run, the tax hikes in this plan are more likely to destroy more jobs than the jobs policies create.

Unfortunately, President Obama will not consider policies that would actually create jobs by reducing the high level of uncertainty that persists in the economy today. This would include doing things such as:

  • Fundamental revenue-neutral tax reform that repairs the tax base and lowers marginal tax rates to improve the incentives for income production;
  • Reducing the crushing amount of regulations coming from various federal government agencies;
  • Repealing Obamacare and its onerous regulations and taxes;
  • Repealing the Dodd–Frank financial reform legislation; and
  • Stopping incessant calls for higher taxes.

American workers do not need policies that will further inhibit job creation and dig deeper the already-deep jobs hole that the President’s policies have created.

Curtis S. Dubay is a Senior Analyst in Tax Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

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

Will Congress ever learn about spending?

September 7, 2011 – 7:31 am

Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict

Congress will anything to keep its addiction habit going!! John Brummett was asked to say something nice ab out Ronald Reagan and he noted that he could work together with the Democrats more than the Republicans of today. Let’s see what happened in 1982 when he did just that.

Lessons for Today from Reagan’s 1982 Deficit Reduction Compromise

Mike Brownfield

July 25, 2011 at 2:04 pm

Want some perspective on the debt ceiling negotiations and calls for tax increases in exchange for spending cuts? You might want to consider a cautionary tale dating back to 1982 when President Ronald Reagan agreed to a deficit-reduction compromise—and a result he didn’t bargain for.

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who served under President Reagan, and Heritage Action for America’s Michael Needham write in today’s USA Today of the agreement Reagan struck in 1982 in hopes of tackling high deficits. He agreed to a modest increase in business taxes (which he didn’t like) in exchange for spending cuts (which he wanted). The higher taxes were enacted, but the spending cuts never arrived. Meese and Needham explain:

The president had no interest in increasing taxes, but he agreed to consider some kind of compromise with Congress. His representatives began meeting with members of House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s team to find some way to hammer out a deficit-reduction pact. So began what, in our opinion, became the “Debacle of 1982.”

From the outset, the basic idea of the GOP participants was to trade some kind of concessions on the tax front for a Democratic agreement on spending cutbacks. The negotiators knew that Ronald Reagan would be hard to sell on any tax hikes. So they included a ploy they felt might overcome his resistance: a large reduction in federal spending in return for a modest rise in business (but not individual) taxes.

The ratio in the final deal — the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) — was $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. It sounded persuasive at the time. Believing it to be the only way to get spending under control, most of the president’s colleagues signed on. He disliked the tax hikes, of course, but he agreed to it as well.

You don’t have to be a Washington veteran to predict what happened next. The tax increases were promptly enacted — Congress had no problem accepting that part of the deal — but the promised budget cuts never materialized. After the tax bill passed, some legislators of both parties even claimed that there had been no real commitment to the 3-to-1 ratio.

Did the higher taxes help bring down the deficit? Nope. Meese and Needham write that “spending for fiscal year 1983 was some $48 billion higher than the budget targets, and no progress was made in lowering the deficit. Even tax receipts for that year went down — a lingering effect of the recession, which the additional business taxes did nothing to redress.”

As Congress considers which road to take on the debt ceiling, they ought to take a look at their history books and realize that in Washington, what you bargain for isn’t always what you get.

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

In 82 and 90 tax increases happened immediately but spending cuts never came

September 6, 2011 – 6:32 am

Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict

In 82 and 90 tax increases happened immediately but spending cuts never came. If you have ever dealt with a drug dealer then you would know that they will lie to you in order to get money out of you for drugs. Congress has lied in the past to keep their addiction to overspending going!!!

 

Tax Hikes a Foregone Conclusion Under Obama’s Tax-and-Spend Commission

Today, President Barack Obama signed an executive order announcing the creation of his “debt commission,” modeled after the infamous “Conrad-Gregg commission” plan the Senate voted down in January. The Administration has already announced that the panel will be headed up by former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton Erskine Bowles and former Republican Senate Whip Alan Simpson.

While a United States Senator, Simpson voted for two “bipartisan deals” which had real tax increases and phony spending cuts. The first was the 1982 “TEFRA” bill which promised $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. The second was the 1990 “Read My Lips” deal struck at Andrews Air Force Base, which promised $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. In both cases, every penny of the tax hikes went through. Also in each case, the spending restraint never materialized.

Says ATR President Grover Norquist:

Taxpayers have every reason to be concerned. Alan Simpson has a history of walking into a room with the stated goal of reform – and in both cases he voted for higher taxes and higher spending, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. There is no reason to believe that things would be different this time around – when you put everything on the table, including damaging tax hikes, taxpayers will more than likely be sold out.

Reform commission proposals that would not run the risk of being hijacked by tax increase proponents have been put forth in both the U.S. House and Senate. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) has sponsored the CARFA Act, which is modeled after the successful BRAC base closure commission, just like a similar bill, the FAPRAC Act sponsored by Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK) in the House. Both of these bills focus only on Federal spending and leave no room for tax increases. Rep. Patrick McHenry’s (R-NC) CORE Spending Act, while setting up a differently focused commission, protects taxpayers by incorporating a clear prohibition of tax increases or new taxes.

Norquist continues:

Rather than falling into the old “everything’s on the table” trap where tax increases are a foregone conclusion, Congress and the Administration should look to enact a BRAC-style spending reform-only commission or the CORE Spending Act all of which would take increases off the table. The BRAC process would not have worked if it had been tasked with either closing unnecessary bases or raising taxes to pay for unnecessary bases. It worked precisely because it had one job: to save taxpayer money by closing unnecessary bases, and along these lines, we should focus only on the real culprit of our fiscal problems – out-of-control spending.

Click here for a pdf of the press release.

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

Fool me once, shame on you. But fool me thrice? Congress addicted to overspending!

September 4, 2011 – 8:25 am

Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict

Have you ever been lied to by a drug addict? “I will stop taking drugs. I am clean now!!” That is the same straight and narrow path that Congress promised to take in 1982 and then again in 1990 when they promised future spending cuts to President Reagan and then to President Bush.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Fool me once, shame on you. But fool me thrice?

 
Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice shame on me.  Fool me thrice? Say it isn’t so!The current promises from President Obama to give future spending cuts in return for raising revenue now [read that as taxes] and the debt ceiling have been twice heard before.  So my skepticism is based on the fact that the Democrats have historically not been particularly good at dealing in good faith when it comes to following through on their promises of spending cuts.

The first promised deal was a $3 for $1
Following the Carter era of massive recession and taxation, President Regan sought and signed the largest tax reduction in history.  Thus beginning the turn around in the economy.  Then came the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, which agreed to tax hikes on the promise from Congress of a $3 reduction in spending for every $1 increase in taxes.  TEFRA was created in order to reduce the budget gap, from a short term fall in tax revenue, by generating revenue through closure of tax loopholes and introduction of tougher enforcement of tax rules, rather than changing marginal income tax rates. Does that sound familiar to our current discussion?  The tax increases were real and immediate. The “future” spending cuts never really materialized, especially since the house came under full Democrat control a couple of months later. 

The second promised deal was a $2 for $1
Then as a reprise of the “grand deal”, an offer was made to George H. W. Bush in 1990 by House speaker Tom Foley (D., Wash.) and Senate majority leader George Mitchell (D., Me.) promising to cut spending by $274 billion in exchange for a $137 billion tax increase.  As before the tax increases were real, the spending cuts? Not so much.

The CBO analysis produced an analysis shown here.

“Not only did the $274 billion in promised baseline spending cuts never materialize–baseline spending was actually $22 billion higher than what CBO projected it would be before the deal.“

So with a track record like this, a “bird in the bush” spending deal lacks a lot of appeal.

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

Democrats lied about spending cuts in 1982 and 1990

August 21, 2011 – 7:53 am

Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict

What kind of intervention does Congress need to get it to spend with its spending addiction? Back in 1982 Reagan was promised $3 in cuts for every $1 in tax increases but the cuts never came. In 1990 Bush was promised 2 for 1 but they never came either. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR PEOPLE TO REALIZE THAT THE LIBERALS IN CONGRESS ARE ADDICTED TO SPENDING?

June 13, 2011 4:00 A.M.

‘Read My Lips’ Won’t Happen Again
Trading immediate tax hikes for promised spending cuts is a sucker’s bargain.

In 1990, Washington, D.C., was in a panic. The deficit would kill us all. The Japanese (the Chinese of the era) would eat our lunch. Foreign creditors would own America within a decade. Democrats and Republicans in Washington just had to do something, said the mainstream media. Wars, natural-disaster relief, and bailouts were handled without regard to looming entitlement crises. Tax increases were obviously on the table for anyone with half a brain. Sound familiar?

Back then, the solution was practical and obvious to Beltway types, who had been here before in 1982’s TEFRA (Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act) tax hike: Democrats would promise future spending cuts in exchange for Republicans’ agreeing to immediate tax increases.

That’s exactly what happened. In October of 1990, Pres. George H. W. Bush agreed to a five-year, $137 billion tax increase. In exchange, Housespeaker Tom Foley (D., Wash.) and Senate majority leader George Mitchell (D., Me.) promised to cut spending by $274 billion over the FY1991–1995 period. In total, this $2-for-$1 deal was supposed to cut the budget deficit by $411 billion over this budget window. Almost three-quarters of the House GOP conference — 126 representatives — voted against their president’s deal, citing the promise they had made to their constituents when they signed the then-new “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” maintained by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. It was not enough. Washington had won, and taxpayers had lost.

The deal turned out to be a disaster for President Bush. By breaking his “read my lips” promise at a summit with Congressional Democrats (famously held at Andrews Air Force Base), he lost his political support and likely the 1992 election. Undoing the seminal Tax Reform Act of 1986, he raised the top marginal income-tax rate from 28 percent to 31 percent — and also phased out some deductions and exemptions. He hiked Medicare payroll taxes. He raised excise taxes on gasoline, cigarettes, beer, wine, and other common goods. He famously added a 10 percent “luxury tax” on yachts, which had to be repealed three years later since all it served to do was put boat makers out of business, causing layoffs.

These tax hikes became a setup for the 1993 Clinton tax hikes, the cornerstone of which was raising the top individual rate to 39.6 percent, the level President Obama wants to return to after the 2012 elections. In many ways, the conservative movement is still paying the price for Papa Bush’s stupid mistake.

Surely, though, all those spending cuts must have done some good; after all, the deal promised twice as much in spending cuts as it delivered in tax increases. Think again. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected before the deal that 1991–1995 spending would total $7.07 trillion. In fact, total spending for this period was $7.09 trillion. In other words, in return for agreeing to tax hikes, Republicans got $22 billion in extra spending rather than the promised $274 billion in cuts. This was despite the fact that there was another “spending cut” deal in 1993 — the Clinton tax-increase budget.

Sadly, this wasn’t even the first time this happened. Back in 1982, President Reagan agreed to $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. Inflation projections make the analysis difficult, but it seems clear (and President Reagan believed) that almost none of the promised spending cuts materialized in real terms.

There is a clear lesson from these budget deals: Tax increases are real — they become law immediately — but promised spending cuts are illusory. There is always an S&L bailout, a Hurricane Andrew, or a Gulf War — or a financial meltdown, a string of tornadoes, and a three-front War on Terror. After a while, the spending-cut promises are forgotten, and all that remains is higher taxes on the American people.

This should be obvious to anyone who knows the history, including thinking Republicans in Washington. For the most part, it is. All but six of the 239 Republican representatives — including Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and the rest of the House GOP leadership — have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, in which they rule out net tax hikes. Even in the more moderate Senate, 40 out of 47 GOP senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.), have taken the pledge.

Yet there are several GOP senators who don’t quite get it. Formerly known as the “Gang of Six” (now known as “Five Guys” because Tom Coburn left), this group includes Sens. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and Mike Crapo (Idaho) — both pledge signers. The point of this group was to put legislative meat on the bones of President Obama’s “Simpson-Bowles” debt commission. Bragging of at least a $3-to-$1 spending-cuts-to-tax-hikes ratio (sound familiar?), this plan was a ten-year net tax hike of either $1 trillion (the commission estimate), $2 trillion (House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan’s estimate), or $3 trillion (the Heritage Foundation’s estimate). The political strategy of the Democrats is to get GOP fingerprints on a tax hike, and ultimately to do a repeat of 1982 and 1990 — real tax hikes coupled with spending-cut promises that don’t come to fruition.

Official Washington is shocked that the old playbook isn’t working this time. For all but a few Republican senators, the reason is obvious: “I promised my constituents that I would not raise their taxes, and I’m honoring that promise.” Lucy has pulled the football away from Charlie Brown twice already, but congressional Republicans have finally gotten the message that tax hikes are a sucker’s bet.

— Ryan Ellis is tax-policy director of Americans for Tax Reform.

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

Do you believe Obama’s promise to cut spending?

August 14, 2011 – 7:36 am

Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict

Did you notice in President Obama’s speech on July 31, 2011 that he said cuts would be made in a 10 yr period but because of our sensitive economy we would spared in the near future? Will cuts ever come or is the government addicted to spending too much?

Reagan’s Error

 

In making his case for tax increases last night, President Obama described past deals in which Democrats promised spending cuts in return for tax increases, and said:
The first time a deal passed, a predecessor of mine made the case for a balanced approach by saying this: “Would you rather reduce deficits and interest rates by raising revenue from those who are not now paying their fair share, or would you rather accept larger budget deficits, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment? And I think I know your answer.” Those words were spoken by Ronald Reagan. But today, many Republicans in the House refuse to consider this kind of balanced approach.
Well, yes, those words were spoken by Ronald Reagan (in August of 1982) in reference to TEFRA—the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act—which congressional Democrats promised would involve a ratio of $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases (which they said would consist only of closing loopholes). TEFRA passed later that year, and the tax increases certainly happened but, as Reagan later put it in his autobiography, “the Democrats reneged on their pledge and we never got those cuts.”
 
TEFRA was one of Reagan’s great regrets about his time in the White House, and should serve as a warning to Republicans contemplating similar grand bargains. Obama’s reference to it only highlights the fact that he tried to pull off something much like TEFRA. Luckily, he appears to have failed.
By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in President Obama, spending out of control | Comments (0)

Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract (Part 100)

August 11, 2011 – 6:50 am

A Ronald Reagan radio address from 1975 addresses the topics of abortion and adoption. This comes from a collection of audio commentaries titled “Reagan in His Own Voice.”

I just wanted to share with you one of the finest prolife papers I have ever read, and it is by President Ronald Wilson Reagan.

I have a son named Wilson Daniel Hatcher and he is named after two of the most respected men I have ever read about : Daniel from the Old Testament and Ronald Wilson Reagan. I have studied that book of Daniel for years and have come to respect that author who was a saint who worked in two pagan governments but he never compromised. My favorite record was the album “No Compromise” by Keith Green and on the cover was a picture from the Book of Daniel.

One of the thrills of my life was getting to hear President Reagan speak in the beginning of November of 1984 at the State House Convention Center in Little Rock.  Immediately after that program I was standing outside on Markham with my girlfriend Jill Sawyer (now wife of 25 years) and we were alone on a corner and President was driven by and he waved at us and we waved back.

My former pastor from Memphis, Adrian Rogers, got the opportunity to visit with President Ronald Reagan on several occasions.

Take time to read this below and comment below and let me know what you thought of his words.

June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.

The 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislators — not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973 is a good time for us to pause and reflect. But the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973, more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars.

Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a “right” so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled.

As an act of “raw judicial power” (to use Justice White’s biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority inRoev. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead,Roe v. Wadehas become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.

Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: “. . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life. We saw tragic proof of this truism last year when the Indiana courts allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” in Bloomington because the child had Down’s Syndrome.

Many of our fellow citizens grieve over the loss of life that has followed Roe v. Wade. Margaret Heckler, soon after being nominated to head the largest department of our government, Health and Human Services, told an audience that she believed abortion to be the greatest moral crisis facing our country today. And the revered Mother Teresa, who works in the streets of Calcutta ministering to dying people in her world-famous mission of mercy, has said that “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”

Over the first two years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion — efforts of Congressmen, Senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.

Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.

What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother? I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.

________________________________________________

I remember when President Carter and candidate Reagan debated in 1980 and the subject of abortion came up. Reagan said that if you were on a dusty area and you found someone laying down would you bury him without knowing for sure if he is alive or not? It is the same with the case of abortion.

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

A portion of Radio Address to the Nation on the Economy by Reagan

August 11, 2011 – 6:40 am

Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict

We should learn what Reagan learned late in his presidency. Congress will lie about cutting spending because they are addicted to it.

Radio Address to the Nation on the Economy and Soviet-United States Relations 

October 24, 1987 

My fellow Americans: 

Let’s also remember a critical reason for this expansion was our decision to reduce taxes in 1981. I’m sure many of you know it was very difficult getting this through the Congress, although with your help we achieved it. And despite all the predictions of high inflation from our opponents, our tax cuts not only fueled our expansion, they had a benefit that surprised some people: Far from reducing the amount of money the Federal Government collected in tax revenues, over the long run, those collections actually increased due to the economic activity sparked by the tax cuts. In fact, tax revenues from 1981 to 1987 actually went up $255 billion. Of course, this meant we had enough to pay for our defense buildup and some left over to help get our deficit spending problems under control. But instead of using new revenues to cut the deficit, the Congress decided to spend even more. 

In 1982, for example, TEFRA, as it was called, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, raised taxes by $131 billion over 4 years, with Congress pledging to slash spending by $3 for every dollar of increased revenue. Instead, 4 years later, taxes had gone up the expected $131 billion, but spending over this same period had risen by $244 billion. In fact, every dollar in increased revenue since 1980 had been matched by $1.25 of increased spending. 

Now, 3 days ago, I called on the congressional leaders to meet with me early next week to outline our deficit reduction plans. And as we move toward a budget settlement, it’s good to remember that there’s a fundamental difference here inWashingtonon one critical issue. I’m proud that since 1913 my party has reduced taxes 10 times and increased them only once. And that’s why I hope members of the Democratic Party will follow President Kennedy’s lead of some years ago and remember that lower taxes mean higher growth. 

But the simple fact is that all sides must contribute to this process if it is to succeed and if a package is to be developed that keeps taxes and spending as low as possible. This effort must also address the flipside of our twin deficit problem. I mean, here, our trade deficit, a problem that would only be worsened by protectionist legislation. So, let’s keep the stock market healthy and sound, and let’s do it by avoiding protectionist legislation and by keeping taxes and spending down so we can keep interest rates and inflation rates low. 

Until next week, thanks for listening, and God bless you. 

Note: The President spoke at 12:06 p.m. from Camp David, MD.

 

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

Ronald Wilson Reagan (Part 99 B)

August 4, 2011 – 6:59 am

The centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth earlier this year brought an unusual sight: a round of press reports noting President Obama’s admiration for his predecessor, including one he penned for this newspaper.

Despite their stark differences on policy, Obama praised Reagan for how he led the nation “through an extremely difficult period, with economic hardship at home and very real threats beyond our borders.” And, lo and behold, many pundits are now comparing what they call Reagan’s willingness to compromise on taxes to what they say is the intransigence of today’s GOP.

A cautionary tale

Leading the nation through hard times wasn’t easy. We’d like to suggest that President Obama take a closer look at how President Reagan dealt with that “economic hardship,” and how he steered the nation toward what would turn into its longest peacetime economic expansion. It’s a cautionary tale — one that involves the greatest domestic error of his administration.

In 1981, President Reagan’s plan for revitalizing the economy was a four-fold one:

1) Reduce tax rates across the board.

2) Decrease unnecessary regulations.

3) Work with the Federal Reserve to maintain stable monetary policy.

4) Slow the growth of federal spending.

President Reagan got his tax-rate cuts through Congress later that year. But because they were being phased in gradually, the economic pain they were designed to alleviate lingered well into 1982. High deficits persisted, and he faced enormous pressure to raise taxes.

The president had no interest in increasing taxes, but he agreed to consider some kind of compromise with Congress. His representatives began meeting with members of House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s team to find some way to hammer out a deficit-reduction pact. So began what, in our opinion, became the “Debacle of 1982.”

From the outset, the basic idea of the GOP participants was to trade some kind of concessions on the tax front for a Democratic agreement on spending cutbacks. The negotiators knew that Ronald Reagan would be hard to sell on any tax hikes. So they included a ploy they felt might overcome his resistance: a large reduction in federal spending in return for a modest rise in business (but not individual) taxes.

The ratio in the final deal — the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) — was $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. It sounded persuasive at the time. Believing it to be the only way to get spending under control, most of the president’s colleagues signed on. He disliked the tax hikes, of course, but he agreed to it as well.

The cuts never came

You don’t have to be a Washington veteran to predict what happened next. The tax increases were promptly enacted — Congress had no problem accepting that part of the deal — but the promised budget cuts never materialized. After the tax bill passed, some legislators of both parties even claimed that there had been no real commitment to the 3-to-1 ratio.

In fact, spending for fiscal year 1983 was some $48 billion higher than the budget targets, and no progress was made in lowering the deficit. Even tax receipts for that year went down — a lingering effect of the recession, which the additional business taxes did nothing to redress.

Fortunately, the individual income tax-rate reductions that had been passed the year before remained intact. And as they took effect, the economy began its remarkable turnaround. The recovery of 1983-84 was strong enough that it paved the way for President Reagan’s landslide election to a second term.

More than two years into President Obama’s presidency, however, the prospects of Reagan-style recovery seem remote, to say the least. Rather than learning pro-growth lessons from President Reagan, he is creating another 1982 moment, seeking to lure Republicans into accepting another tax increase for illusory spending cuts.

Taxing our way to prosperity isn’t the answer. It never has been. If our children and grandchildren are to live in a free and prosperous America, congressional Republicans must not negotiate and accept a deal that raises taxes. That’s why The Heritage Foundation last year created Heritage Action for America — to ensure that members of Congress fight for the advance of freedom and are held to account.

President Reagan “had faith in the American promise,” President Obama notes. Reagan demonstrated that faith by trusting the American people to do the right thing, not by confiscating their wealth and subjecting them to myriad rules and regulations that stifle their creativity and sap their innovation.

“He recognized that each of us has the power — as individuals and as a nation — to shape our own destiny,” President Obama wrote this past January. That destiny, however, can be realized only in an atmosphere of freedom. Will the current president learn from the lessons of 1982?

 

Former U.S. attorney general Edwin Meese III holds the Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Michael Needham is chief executive officer of Heritage Action for America.

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

Brummett:”Political dysfunction” caused by Fox News?

August 1, 2011 – 7:29 am

Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict

Fox News is the number one by far because it does not take the liberal bias that everyone is sick of. However, liberals just can’t stand that Fox News has risen to the top.

John Brummett in his article Who to blame? Here’s the answer, August 1,  2011, Arkansas News Bureau observed:

People will try to tell you that all politicians are equally to blame for this political dysfunction by which our nation has flirted with downgraded credit, debt default and global economic turmoil.

They merely will be providing insulation for those really mostly to blame.

So let us peel away such insulation. Let us lay it out in order of blame:

1. Tea party extremists in the Congress, who are penny wise and pound foolish

2. Mainstream Republicans in the Congress, because they could have fallen in behind Speaker John Boehner’s twice-aborted adult discussions with President Obama. Instead they cowered and tucked tail as soon as the kook caucus on the right fringe invoked the specter of primary opposition from the strident extreme.

3. All of us in the great American apolitical center, “independents” who go one way in one election and the other in the next.

4. Fox News, because it exacerbates the above.

Why no blame for Democrats? I ran out of space. The strident leftists, moveon.org and the talking heads on MSNBC, would surely be coming up shortly.

I think that Brummett is looking at the wrong issue. The problem is overspending by Congress and we should be addressing that. I do think we have “political dysfunction” but I believe it is because the liberals in Congress are addicted to spending like a drug addict is addicted to his drugs. I think that his point number 3 is very good, but point number 4 is dead wrong. Fox News is doing everything they can to expose the liberals’ addiction to overspending which is the root of our problem.

In the clip above Reagan promises to cut the size of government, but look what Congress did to him a few years later.

___________________

President Reagan got his tax-rate cuts through Congress later that year (1981).  But because they were being phased in gradually, the economic pain they were designed to alleviate lingered well into 1982. High deficits persisted, and he faced enormous pressure to raise taxes.

The president had no interest in increasing taxes, but he agreed to consider some kind of compromise with Congress. His representatives began meeting with members of House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s team to find some way to hammer out a deficit-reduction pact. So began what, in our opinion, became the “Debacle of 1982.”

From the outset, the basic idea of the GOP participants was to trade some kind of concessions on the tax front for a Democratic agreement on spending cutbacks. The negotiators knew that Ronald Reagan would be hard to sell on any tax hikes. So they included a ploy they felt might overcome his resistance: a large reduction in federal spending in return for a modest rise in business (but not individual) taxes.

The ratio in the final deal — the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) — was $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. It sounded persuasive at the time. Believing it to be the only way to get spending under control, most of the president’s colleagues signed on. He disliked the tax hikes, of course, but he agreed to it as well.

The cuts never came

You don’t have to be a Washington veteran to predict what happened next. The tax increases were promptly enacted — Congress had no problem accepting that part of the deal — but the promised budget cuts never materialized. After the tax bill passed, some legislators of both parties even claimed that there had been no real commitment to the 3-to-1 ratio.

In fact, spending for fiscal year 1983 was some $48 billion higher than the budget targets, and no progress was made in lowering the deficit. Even tax receipts for that year went down — a lingering effect of the recession, which the additional business taxes did nothing to redress.

_________________________

Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict because they are both addicted. A drug addict is addicted to his drugs and Washington is addicted to spending.

By Everette Hatcher III | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)