Governments know what they are doing these days?

 I really enjoyed this article below:

The Year of Governments Living Dangerously

The Fed’s low-interest policy is doing little to help banks and doing a lot to put public pension funds in jeopardy.

By GEORGE MELLOAN

What words could best describe the most baleful influence on the global economy in the year 2011? How about “governmental dysfunction?”

The European banking crisis that has threatened global finance is about nothing more or less than the failure of the governments of Greece, Italy, Portugal, et al., to control their budgets, raising doubts about the value of their bonds. Rather than trim their bloated public sectors, they have preferred to beg for bailouts.

The U.S. government has run deficits exceeding a trillion dollars for the last three fiscal years, forcing it to borrow heavily from the Federal Reserve, China and Japan. Despite warning signals from credit-rating agencies, Washington is doing no better than the Europeans in bringing spending under control.

Private banks in the U.S., Asia and Japan have been enlisted to help finance massive public deficits. As a Christmas present to beleaguered governments, the European Central Bank on Dec. 21 pumped $640 billion into European banks. French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested pointedly that they use it to buy sovereign debt. So much for the ECB’s one-time resolve to hold the line on sovereign-debt bailouts.

U.S. and Japanese banks, whose main business once was lending to the private sector, also are responding to various inducements to load up on government-issued paper. In simple terms, governments are increasingly plundering the private sector to raise cash. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s low-interest-rate monetary policy is doing little to help the banks and doing a lot to put public pension funds in jeopardy. Teachers, policemen, firemen and the like won’t be able to count on the benefits defined in their contracts if the funds continue to have extreme difficulty in getting a decent return on investments.

[melloan]Corbis

The Republican House and its budget chairman, Paul Ryan, have at least put the budget problem on the agenda. But hopes for big achievements have been disappointed. Congress finally passed the fiscal-year 2011 budget last April—six months late—but with only a minuscule cut in discretionary spending. Unsurprisingly, Congress once again missed its Sept. 30 deadline for passing a new budget.

The fiscal-year 2012 appropriation bills offer no hope of reform. According to a Heritage Foundation analysis, the drafts now moving through Congress spend more than the House Budget Resolution last spring—a resolution that called for only a $30 billion reduction from FY 2011 discretionary spending of $1.0498 trillion. Obsolete or ineffectual departments like Agriculture, Commerce, Labor and Education will still receive their accustomed share of taxpayer billions.

Budgetary stasis is unhappily only part of the problem of dysfunctional government. Federal regulatory agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency in particular, have gone out of control. Washington is still laboring under the hallucination that it can change the climate of the planet (they assume it needs to be changed) by writing rules and regulations. The latest EPA brainstorm will force the shutdown of enough coal-fired power plants to put the nation in danger of serious power shortages. Scare tactics, like posing a nonexistent threat of mercury poisoning, is part of the game.

And then there is Dodd-Frank, that massive law passed in 2010 to punish “Wall Street” for a 2008 financial meltdown that was mostly the fault of the bill’s two authors, Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank. They were the two main defenders in Congress of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored enterprises mainly responsible for poisoning the world securities market with toxic mortgage-backed securities.

Dodd-Frank left it to regulators to write the detailed rules for how banks and securities houses will henceforth run their businesses. And boy, do those guys know how to write rules. The proposed guideline for just one of the many strictures in Dodd-Frank runs 288 pages. It deals with the so-called “Volcker rule,” which will prohibit banks from trading securities for their own account. Former FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair, writing in Fortune, describes it as a “Rube Goldberg contraption of regulation,” noting that the Glass-Steagall Act, which applied something similar to the Volcker rule from 1933 until it was repealed in 1999, ran to only 32 pages.

The Pelosi-Reid Congresses from 2007 through 2010 were responsible for such effusions. There’s also ObamaCare, yet another massive bill that turns over the vital details to the federal bureaucracy. Businesses, doctors and hospital administrators can only await with fear what confusions and delusions the bureaucrats produce out of their efforts to mastermind the many millions of decisions that must be made daily in a vital and complex industry.

Judging from opinion polls showing increasing public contempt for what goes on in Washington, voters are frustrated by their seeming inability to get the attention of the beast. The ups and downs in the polls of the Republican presidential candidates reflect an anxiety over whether any of them are up to the job.

Of course, there is a president now, Barack Obama. But he resigned from active duty last summer, preferring to spend most of his time giving speeches in his campaign for re-election. Like the Republicans, he too is running against the government. That’s a curious position to take, given that what he is running against is very much his creation.

Mr. Melloan, a former columnist and deputy editor of the Journal editorial page, is author of “The Great Money Binge: Spending Our Way to Socialism” (Simon & Schuster, 2009).

January 2, 2012 – 10:59 am Categories: Current Events, spending out of control | Post a comment

Max Brantley and Ark Times bloggers poke fun at Tebow after 3rd straight loss

undefined

Arkansas Times Blogger who goes by the name “Elwood” remarked (The New Year line | Arkansas Blog ):

I tuned in late to the KC v Denver Bronco game, just the last few minutes to see CBS giving adequate coverage to Tebow on his knees at his team’s bench in deep prayer. He seemed so isolated. Other players were watching the game intently or engaged with a coach. Tebow, head bowed, moving lips indicated he was talking to Jesus, just detached and removed as he could be from the game at hand. His last plays looked like that too. I agree, Jesus musta been busy with Iowa calls.

report8 of 9 people like this.   like  dislike
Posted by eLwood on January 1, 2012 at 8:08 PM
_______________________
This was in response to Max Brantley’s comment (The New Year line | Arkansas Blog ), ” I see God skipped the Broncos game again today. Lot of people on the horn from Iowa, I guess.” Continue reading →
January 2, 2012 – 10:28 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

Ron Paul on Mike Huckabee show

Ron Paul is pro-life:

AN EXPERIENCED PHYSICIAN

As an OB/GYN who delivered over 4,000 babies, Ron Paul knows firsthand how precious, fragile, and in need of protection life is.

Dr. Paul’s experience in science and medicine only reinforced his belief that life begins at conception, and he believes it would be inconsistent for him to champion personal liberty and a free society if he didn’t also advocate respecting the God-given right to life—for those born and unborn.

After being forced to witness an abortion being performed during his time in medical school, he knew from that moment on that his practice would focus on protecting life.  And during his years in medicine, never once did he find an abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.

As a physician, Ron Paul consistently put his beliefs into practice and saved lives by helping women seek options other than abortion, including adoption.  And as President, Ron Paul will continue to fight for the same pro-life solutions he has upheld in Congress, including:

* Immediately saving lives by effectively repealing Roe v. Wade and preventing activist judges from interfering with state decisions on life by removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction through legislation modeled after his “We the People Act.”

* Defining life as beginning at conception by passing a “Sanctity of Life Act.”

Because he agrees with Thomas Jefferson that it is “sinful and tyrannical” to “compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors,” Ron Paul will also protect the American people’s freedom of conscience by working to prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for abortions, Planned Parenthood, or any other so-called “family planning” program.

The strength of love for liberty in our society can be judged by how we treat the most innocent among us.  It’s time to elect a President with the courage and conviction to stand up for every American’s right to life.

January 2, 2012 – 7:54 am Categories: Mike Huckabee, Prolife | Post a comment

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 11)

It is apparent from this statement below that Senator Mark Pryor is against the Balanced Budget Amendment. He has voted against it over and over like his father did and now I will give reasons in this series why Senator Pryor will be defeated in his re-election bid in 2014. However, first I wanted to quote the statement Senator Pryor gave on December 14, 2011. This information below is from the Arkansas Times Blog on 12-14-11 and Max Brantley:

THREE CHEERS FOR MARK PRYOR: Our senator voted not once, but twice, today against one of the hoariest (and whoriest) of Republican gimmicks, a balanced budget amendment. Let’s quote him:

As H.L. Mencken once said, “For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, clean, and wrong.” This quote describes the balanced budget amendment. While a balanced budget amendment makes for an easy talking point, it is an empty solution. Moreover, it’s a reckless choice that handcuffs our ability to respond to an economic downturn or national emergencies without massive tax increases or throwing everyone off Medicare, Social Security, or veteran’s care.There is a more responsible alternative to balance the budget. President Clinton led the way in turning deficits into record surpluses. We have that same opportunity today, using the blueprint provided by the debt commission as a starting point. We need to responsibly cut spending, reform our tax code and create job growth. This course requires hard choices over a number of years. However, it offers a more balanced approach over jeopardizing safety net programs and opportunity for robust economic growth.

____________________

Mark Pryor will not be re-elected in 2014 in part because he voted for a 900 billion stimulus bill in 2009. SENATOR PRYOR DOES NOT WANT THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT BECAUSE IT WOULD MAKE FUTURE STIMULUS BILLS UNLIKELY. BASICALLY PRYOR BELIEVES THAT GOVERNMENT IS THE SOLUTION TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS. WHY ELSE DID HE VOTE FOR THE FAILED STIMULUS IN 2009?

I have included an article below that makes a very good point about the Balanced Budget Amendment and the stimulus:

Lee believes there are several key components to a balanced budget amendment which he outlines in his book, including making tax increases contingent on a two-thirds vote in Congress so that the option to increase taxes is not the default maneuver to balance a budget. He believes the amendment should require Congress spends no more than it takes in, and in fact should cap the spending at a fixed percent of GDP (the proposal submitted in the Senate caps it at 18 percent of GDP, just about the historical average). There would also be a supermajority vote required to raise the debt ceiling.

And for those who argue that stimulus packages wouldn’t have been possible under the amendment, Lee sees little difficulty responding.

“That’s exibit A for why we ought to have it,” Lee said of the Obama stimulus package.

That is a very good point in favor of having a balanced budget amendment in my view. I have been critical of Pryor for supporting the stimulus in the past.

Lee Makes His Case for a Balanced Budget Amendment

By Elisabeth Meinecke

7/18/2011

As Washington spends the summer arguing over its spending addiction, GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has a solution to help prevent the same crisis for future generations: a balanced budget amendment.

The House made news last week when, in the heat of negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, they announced a vote on a balanced budget amendment this Wednesday. Though the Senate GOP introduced a one earlier this year, President Obama has stated emphatically otherwise, telling Americans last week during a press conference that the country does not need a balanced budget amendment.

“Yes, we do,” Lee told Townhall when asked to respond to the president, adding later when talking about simultaneously raising the debt ceiling and cutting spending, “We can’t bind what a future Congress will do. We can pass laws that will affect this year, but there will be a new Congress that takes power in January of 2013, and then another new one that will take power in January 2015. And they will make their own spending decisions then — we can’t bind them unless we amend the Constitution to do so.”

Lee points out that the American people support the idea of a balanced budget – 65 percent, according to a Sachs/Mason Dixon poll from this year – but politicians have been reluctant to wade into the debate.

“The fact that we’re in this debate, the fact that we’re sort of deadlocked, or we’ve reached a point of gridlock in the discussions, is indicative of the problem that we have,” Lee said.

In fact, Lee thinks a balanced budget amendment is so important to the future of the country that he’s written a book on it: The Freedom Agenda: Why a Balanced Budget Amendment Is Necessary to Restore Constitutional Government.

Lee even takes the argument a step beyond fiscal issues, saying a balanced budget amendment safeguards individual liberties.

““The more money it [Congress] has access to, whether it’s through borrowing or through taxation, either way, that’s going to fuel Congress’ expansion, and whenever government acts, it does so at the expanse of individual liberty,” Lee said. “We become less free every time government expands.”

Lee believes there are several key components to a balanced budget amendment which he outlines in his book, including making tax increases contingent on a two-thirds vote in Congress so that the option to increase taxes is not the default maneuver to balance a budget. He believes the amendment should require Congress spends no more than it takes in, and in fact should cap the spending at a fixed percent of GDP (the proposal submitted in the Senate caps it at 18 percent of GDP, just about the historical average). There would also be a supermajority vote required to raise the debt ceiling.

And for those who argue that stimulus packages wouldn’t have been possible under the amendment, Lee sees little difficulty responding.

“That’s exibit A for why we ought to have it,” Lee said of the Obama stimulus package.

Lee also pointed out that his balanced budget amendment includes an exception to the spending restriction in time of war – “not a blank check, but to the extent necessary.” Congress would also be able to supersede the amendment with a two-thirds vote.

“We wanted to make it difficult, but not impossible, for Congress to spend more than it had access to,” Lee said, citing as an example a massive or immediate crisis created by a national emergency or natural disaster. “What this is designed to do is to make it more difficult – to make it impossible – for Congress to just do this as a matter of course.”

Elisabeth Meinecke

Elisabeth Meinecke is Associate Editor with Townhall.com

January 2, 2012 – 12:34 am Categories: spending out of control | Post a comment

Tagged , , , , , , , , |

The Cato Institute: The state of the economy under Obama

The Cato Institute: The state of the economy under Obama

It is truly said how far to the left our country has gone.

Happy Fiscal New Year (with an Unhappy Obama Hangover)

Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell

Today, October 1, is the first day of the 2012 fiscal year.

And if you’re wondering why America’s economy seems to have a hangover (this cartoon is a perfect illustration), it’s because politicians had a huge party with our money in FY2011.

We don’t have final numbers for the fiscal year that just ended, but let’s look at the CBO Monthly Budget Report, the CBO Economic and Budget Update, and the OMB Historical Tables, and see whether there’s anything worth celebrating.

o The federal government spent about $3.6 trillion in FY2011, more money than any government has ever spent in a 12-month period in the history of the world.

o The FY2011 budget is nearly double the burden of federal spending just 10 years earlier, when federal outlays consumed “only” $1.86 trillion.

o The federal budget in FY2011 consumed about 24 percent of national output, up sharply compared to a spending burden in FY2001 of “just” 18.2 percent of GDP.

o Defense spending is too high, and has increased by about $400 billion since 2001, but the vast majority of the additional spending is for domestic spending programs.

o Federal tax revenue in FY2011 will be about $2.25 trillion, an increase of 7-8 percent over FY2010 levels.

o Economic stagnation has affected tax revenues, which are lower than the $2.6 trillion level from FY2007.

o Federal receipts amount to about 15.3 percent of GDP, below the long-run average of 18 percent of GDP.

o The Congressional Budget Office does predict that revenues will rise above the 18-percent average – without any tax increases – by the end of the decade.

o Record levels of government spending, combined with low revenues caused by a weak economy, will result in a $1.3 trillion deficit.

o This is the third consecutive deficit of more than $1 trillion.

o The publicly-held national debt (the amount borrowed from the private sector) is now more than $10 trillion.

With budget numbers like these, no wonder America has a fiscal hangover.

And let’s be blunt about assigning blame. Yes, Obama has been a reckless big spender, but he is merely continuing the irresponsible statist policies of his predecessor.

Fortunately, there is a solution. All we need to do is restrain the growth of federal spending, as explained in this video.

___________________

But we also know that it is difficult to convince politicians to do what’s right for the nation. And if they don’t change the course of fiscal policy, and we leave the federal government on autopilot, then America is doomed to become another Greece.

The combination of poorly designed entitlement programs (mostly Medicare and Medicaid) and an aging population will lead to America’s fiscal collapse.

January 1, 2012 – 1:46 pm Categories: Cato Institute | Post a comment

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 9

A Christian Manifesto Francis Schaeffer

Published on Dec 18, 2012

A video important to today. The man was very wise in the ways of God. And of government. Hope you enjoy a good solis teaching from the past. The truth never gets old.

The Roots of the Emergent Church by Francis Schaeffer

Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part1)

Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part 2)

Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part 3)

Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part 4)

Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part 5)

How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)

#02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer

10 Worldview and Truth

Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100

Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION

Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR

________________

T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce

I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought

II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads to Pessimism

Regarding a Meaning for Life and for Fixed Values

A. General acceptance of selfish values (personal peace and affluence) accompanied rejection of Christian consensus.

1. Personal peace means: I want to be left alone, and I don’t care what happens to the man across the street or across the world. I want my own life-style to be undisturbed regardless of what it will mean — even to my own children and grandchildren.

2. Affluence means things, things, things, always more things — and success is seen as an abundance of things.

B. Students wish to escape meaninglessness of much of adult society.

1. Watershed was Berkeley in 1964.

2. Drug Taking as an ideology: “turning on” the world.

3. Free Speech Movement on Sproul Plaza.

a) At first neither Left nor Right.

b) Soon became the New Left.

(1) Followed Marcuse.

(2) Paris riots.

4. Student analysis of problem was right, but solution wrong.

5. Woodstock, Altamont, and the end of innocence.

6. Drug taking survives the death of ideology but as an escape.

7. Demise of New Left: radical bombings.

8. Apathy supreme. The young accept values of the older generation: their own idea of personal peace and affluence, even though adopting a different life-style.

C. Marxism and Maoism as pseudo-ideals.

1. Vogue for idealistic communism which is another form of leap into the area of non-reason.

2. Solzhenitsyn: violence and expediency as norms of communism.

3. Communist repression in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

4. Communism has neither philosophic nor historic base for freedom. There is no base for “Communism with a human face.”

5. Utopian Marxism steals its talk of human dignity from Christianity.

6. But when it comes to power, the desire of majority has no meaning.

7. Two streams of communism.

a) Those who hold it as an idealistic leap.

b) Old-line communists who hold orthodox communist ideology and bureaucratic structure as it exists in Russia.

8. Many in West might accept communism if it seemed to give peace and affluence.

III. Legal and Political Results of Attempted Human Autonomy

A. Relativistic law.

1. Base for nonarbitrary law gone; only inertia allows a few principles to survive.

2. Holmes and sociological (variable) law.

3. Sociological law comes from failure of natural law (see evolution of existential from rationalistic theology).

4. Courts are now generating law.

5. Medical, legal, and historical arbitrariness of Supreme Court ruling on abortion and current abortion practice.

B. Sociological law opens door to racism, abrogation of freedoms,  euthanasia, and so on.

IV. Social Alternatives After Death of Christian Consensus

A. Hedonism? But might is right when pleasures conflict.

B. Without external absolute, majority vote is absolute. But this justifies a Hitler.

V. Conclusion

A. If there is no absolute by which to judge society, then society is absolute.

B. Humanist thinking—making the individual and mankind the center of all things (autonomous) — has led to death in our culture and in our political life.

Note: Social alternatives after the death of Christian consensus are continued in Episode Ten.

Questions

1. What was the basic cause of campus unrest in the sixties? What has happened to the campus scene since, and why?

2. What elements — in the life and thought of the communist and noncommunist world alike — suggest a possible base for world agreement?

3. “To prophesy doom about Western society is premature. We are, like all others who have lived in times of great change, too close to the details to see the broader picture. One thing we do know:

Society has always gone on, and the most wonderful epochs have followed the greatest depressions. To suggest that our day is the exception says more about our headache than it does about our head.” Debate.

4. As Dr. Schaeffer shows, many apparently isolated events and options gain new meaning when seen in the context of the whole. How far does your own involvement in business, law, financing, and so on reveal an acquiescence to current values?

Key Events and Persons

Oliver Wendell Holmes: 1841-1935

Herbert Marcuse: 1898-1979

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: 1917-

Hungarian Revolution: 1956

Free Speech Movement: 1964

Czechoslovakian repression: 1968

Woodstock and Altamont: 1969

Radical bombings: 1970

Supreme Court abortion ruling: 1973

Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago: 1973-74

Further Study

Keeping one’s eyes and ears open is the most useful study project: the prevalence of pornographic films and books, more and more suggestive advertising and TV shows, and signs of arbitrary absolutes.

The following books will repay careful reading, and Solzhenitsyn, though long and horrifying, should not be skipped.

Os Guinness, The Dust of Death (1973).

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: Parts I-II (1973), Parts III-IV (1974).

R

elated posts:

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 1 0   Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 8 “The Age of Fragmentation” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 7 “The Age of Non-Reason” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 6 “The Scientific Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 5 “The Revolutionary Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 4 “The Reformation” (Schaeffer Sundays)

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]

“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance”

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 2 “The Middle Ages” (Schaeffer Sundays)

  Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 1 “The Roman Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE   Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]

Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY

The opening song at the beginning of this episode is very insightful. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices […]

Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE

It is not possible to know where the pro-life evangelicals are coming from unless you look at the work of the person who inspired them the most. That person was Francis Schaeffer.  I do care about economic issues but the pro-life issue is the most important to me. Several years ago Adrian Rogers (past president of […]

By Everette Hatcher III, on January 8, 2012 at 12:54 am, under Francis Schaeffer. Tags: , , , , . No Comments
Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. Edit
January 1, 2012 – 12:51 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

Tagged , , , , |

Goalkeeper is lucky sometimes (Soccer Saturday)

Vegalta Sendai were up 1-0 in the first half of their J-League match against defending champions Nagoya Grampus Eight when the losing home side’s keeper, Yoshinari Takagi, came out of his area to collect the ball. He took too long to clear it., allowing Atsushi Yanagisawa to take the ball off him for a seemingly easy chance at a wide-open net. But, Yanagisawa decided to shoot from outside the box instead of going in a bit closer and ended up putting his shot wide of the far post.

Yanagisawa fell over in shock, while Takagi quickly resumed play in the hopes that no one would remember his goof-up to start the series of goof-ups. In the end, the combination of flubs didn’t matter, though, and Vegalta held on to win 1-0.

December 31, 2011 – 12:32 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

Tagged , , , |

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 10)

It is apparent from this statement below that Senator Mark Pryor is against the Balanced Budget Amendment. He has voted against it over and over like his father did and now I will give reasons in this series why Senator Pryor will be defeated in his re-election bid in 2014. However, first I wanted to quote the statement Senator Pryor gave on December 14, 2011. This information below is from the Arkansas Times Blog on 12-14-11 and Max Brantley:

THREE CHEERS FOR MARK PRYOR: Our senator voted not once, but twice, today against one of the hoariest (and whoriest) of Republican gimmicks, a balanced budget amendment. Let’s quote him:

As H.L. Mencken once said, “For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, clean, and wrong.” This quote describes the balanced budget amendment. While a balanced budget amendment makes for an easy talking point, it is an empty solution. Moreover, it’s a reckless choice that handcuffs our ability to respond to an economic downturn or national emergencies without massive tax increases or throwing everyone off Medicare, Social Security, or veteran’s care.There is a more responsible alternative to balance the budget. President Clinton led the way in turning deficits into record surpluses. We have that same opportunity today, using the blueprint provided by the debt commission as a starting point. We need to responsibly cut spending, reform our tax code and create job growth. This course requires hard choices over a number of years. However, it offers a more balanced approach over jeopardizing safety net programs and opportunity for robust economic growth.

____________________

Senator Mark Pryor will lose his bid for re-election in 2014 BECAUSE HE IS AFRAID TO TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT ENTITLEMENTS AND THEN TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEIR FUTURE WHICH WILL BANKRUPT THIS NATION IF LEFT ALONE ANY LONGER.

Balanced Budget Amendment: Cut Spending Later, Cut Spending Now

March 31, 2011

 

Two key principles should govern congressional consideration of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that requires the federal government to balance its budget:

  • First Principle: A Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) is important to help bring long-term fiscal responsibility to America’s future when the BBA takes effect after ratification by three-quarters of the state legislatures; it is equally important for Congress to cut spending nowto address the current overspending crisis.
  • Second Principle: An effective BBA will include three elements to: (a) control spending, taxation, and borrowing, (b) ensure the defense of America, and (c) enforce the requirement to balance the budget.

Cuts for the Future, Cuts for the Present

Federal spending is out of control—both obligations for the future and spending right now.

Congress must get spending under control in the long term. America cannot raise taxes to continue overspending, because tax hikes shrink our economy and grow our government. America cannot borrow more to continue overspending, because borrowing puts an enormous financial burden on the American children of tomorrow. A BBA will help address this long-term problem because, after the multi-year process for securing ratification of the BBA by three-quarters of the states, the BBA will keep federal spending under control in subsequent years.

Congress also must get spending under control in the short term. Federal overspending is not simply about the future, but also about the present. Under the President’s Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Submission, measured by the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government will spend $1.2 trillion more than it will take in, a gargantuan burden of additional debt forced on future generations to pay current bills.

Thus, America needs both a Balanced Budget Amendment for the long term and deep cuts in federal spending starting right now, without waiting for a BBA to take effect. As Congress considers budget resolutions, appropriations bills, appropriations continuing resolutions, and debt limit bills, Congress should take every opportunity now to cut federal spending, including for the biggest overspending problem: the ever-growing entitlement programs.

Congress should recognize that the best way to encourage state legislatures to ratify a BBA is to demonstrate, through consistent congressional cuts in spending, that the American people have the will to accept spending cuts to balance the budget.

Elements of a Successful Balanced Budget Amendment

A successful BBA will:

  • Control spending, taxing, and borrowing through a requirement to balance the budget.The BBA should cap annual spending at a level not exceeding either: (a) a specified percentage of the value of goods and services the economy produces in a year (known as gross domestic product, or GDP), or (b) the level of revenues. To ensure that Congress cannot simply balance the budget by continually raising taxes instead of cutting overspending, the BBA should require Congress to act by supermajority votes if Members wish to raise taxes. Any authority the BBA grants Congress to deal with economic slowdowns, by waiving temporarily the requirement that spending not exceed the GDP percentage or revenue level, should specify the amount of above-revenue spending allowed and require supermajority votes.
  • Defend America. The BBA should allow Congress by supermajority votes to waive temporarily compliance with the balanced budget requirement when waiver is essential to pay for the defense of Americans from attack.
  • Enforce the balanced budget requirement. The BBA should provide for its own enforcement, but must specifically exclude courts from any enforcement of the BBA, so unelected judges do not make policy decisions such as determining the appropriate level of funding for federal programs. A government that spends money in excess of its revenues must borrow to cover the difference. Therefore, to enforce the requirement to balance the budget, the BBA should prohibit government issuance of debt, except when necessary to finance a temporary deficit resulting from congressional supermajority votes discussed above.

America is in a fiscal crisis. Our government spends too much. Overspending must stop immediately. Overspending will stop only if Congress cuts spending now, including with respect to the ever-expanding entitlement programs. For the future, Congress and three-quarters of state legislatures can adopt and ratify a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to anchor the American willingness to live within a balanced budget.

David S. Addington is Vice President for Domestic and Economic Policy, and J. D. Foster, Ph.D., is Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

December 31, 2011 – 12:26 am Categories: spending out of control | Comments (1)

Tagged , , , , , , , , |

Ron Paul has made his position on healthcare clear in the past

Ron Paul has made his position on healthcare clear in the past

Ron Paul sets the liberals straight on the solution for our healthcare problem in this video clip above during one of the presidential debates.

Despite Flaws, U.S. Health Care the Best

by Michael D. Tanner

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, and the co-author of Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.

Added to cato.org on October 18, 2011

This article appeared in USA Today on October 18, 2011.

Similarly, when Canadian Human Resources Minister Belinda Stronach needed treatment for breast cancer, she had it done at a California hospital. And, when then-Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams needed to have a leaky heart valve repaired, he had it done at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Florida.

These high-profile patients were following in the footsteps of tens of thousands of patients from around the world who come to the United States for treatment every year.

We aren’t perfect, but if you’re sick, the United States is still the place you want to be.

They come here because they know that despite its flaws, the U.S. health care system still provides the highest quality care in the world. Whether the disease is cancer, pneumonia, heart disease or AIDS, the chances of a patient surviving are far higher in the U.S. than in other countries.

According to a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, the U.S. is at the top of the charts when it comes to surviving cancer. For example, more than two-thirds of women diagnosed with cancer will survive for at least five years in the U.S. That’s 6 percentage points better than the next best country, Sweden.

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, and the co-author of Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.

 

More by Michael D. Tanner

Moreover, the U.S. drives much of the innovation and research on health care worldwide. Eighteen of the last 25 winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine are either U.S. citizens or work here. U.S. companies have developed more than half of all new major medicines introduced worldwide over the past 20 years. And Americans played a key role in 80% of the most important non-pharmaceutical medical advances of the past 40 years.

Does U.S. health care cost too much? Sure. But on a year-to-year basis, the cost in other countries is rising about as fast. Do we need to expand coverage? Certainly. But at least we’ve avoided the government-imposed rationing that afflicts so many countries. We aren’t perfect, but if you’re sick, the United States is still the place you want to be.

December 30, 2011 – 11:09 am Categories: Cato Institute, Current Events, Healthcare | Post a comment

Tagged , , , , |

Ron Paul on Jay Leno (part 2)

I saw Ron Paul on Jay Leno’s show the other day and here is some of the things he talked about:

 

PROVEN LEADERSHIP

“Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country.” – Ronald Reagan

A PRO-AMERICA FOREIGN POLICY

 

As an Air Force veteran, Ron Paul believes national defense is the single most important responsibility the Constitution entrusts to the federal government.

In Congress, Ron Paul voted to authorize military force to hunt down Osama bin Laden and authored legislation to specifically target terrorist leaders and bring them to justice.

Today, however, hundreds of thousands of our fighting men and women have been stretched thin all across the globe in over 135 countries – often without a clear mission, any sense of what defines victory, or the knowledge of when they’ll be permanently reunited with their families.

Acting as the world’s policeman and nation-building weakens our country, puts our troops in harm’s way, and sends precious resources to other nations in the midst of an historic economic crisis.

Taxpayers are forced to spend billions of dollars each year to protect the borders of other countries, while Washington refuses to deal with our own border security needs.

Congress has been rendered virtually irrelevant in foreign policy decisions and regularly cedes authority to an executive branch that refuses to be held accountable for its actions.

Far from defeating the enemy, our current policies provide incentive for more to take up arms against us.

That’s why, as Commander-in-Chief, Dr. Paul will lead the fight to:

* Make securing our borders the top national security priority.

* Avoid long and expensive land wars that bankrupt our country by using constitutional means to capture or kill terrorist leaders who helped attack the U.S. and continue to plot further attacks.

* Guarantee our intelligence community’s efforts are directed toward legitimate threats and not spying on innocent Americans through unconstitutional power grabs like the Patriot Act.

* End the nation-building that is draining troop morale, increasing our debt, and sacrificing lives with no end in sight.

* Follow the Constitution by asking Congress to declare war before one is waged.

* Only send our military into conflict with a clear mission and all the tools they need to complete the job – and then bring them home.

* Ensure our veterans receive the care, benefits, and honors they have earned when they return.

* Revitalize the military for the 21st century by eliminating waste in a trillion-dollar military budget.

* Prevent the TSA from forcing Americans to either be groped or ogled just to travel on an airplane and ultimately abolish the unconstitutional agency.

* Stop taking money from the middle class and the poor to give to rich dictators through foreign aid.

As President, Ron Paul’s national defense policy will ensure that the greatest nation in human history is strong, secure, and respected.

December 30, 2011 – 7:48 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment