Stimulus plans do not work but liberals like Brummett and Obama do not get it


John Brummett in his article, “Will we stimulate with schools, not roads?,” Arkansas News Bureau, September 5, 2011, suggested that the Republicans have several reasons for opposing President Obama’s latest idea to stimulate the economy. However, the real reason is that none of these stimulus programs has ever worked in the past.  Many years ago Frederic Bastiat explained the “broken window fallacy,” but people still go believing they can ignore this fallacy

Hurricane Irene as Economic Stimulus

Posted by David Boaz

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. No matter how many times economists debunk the broken window fallacy, not a natural disaster goes by that journalists don’t try to cheer us up by saying “at least it will stimulate economic growth.” This time it’s Josh Boak (no relation!), the economics reporter (!) at Politico, who was “educated at Princeton and Columbia.” And Sunday afternoon he posted this story:

Irene: An economic blow or boost?

The power outages and shuttered airports may stop the engines of commerce for several days, but Hurricane Irene might have provided some short-term economic stimulus asbillions of dollars will likely be spent to repair the damage to the East Coast over the weekend.

Cumberland Advisors Chairman David Kotok saw the storm as likely jolting employment in construction, an industry paralyzed by the bursting of the real estate bubble in 2008.

“We are now upping our estimate of fourth-quarter GDP in the U.S. economy,” he said in an email Sunday. “Billions will be spent on rebuilding and recovery. That will put some people back to work, at least temporarily.”

Kotok expects GDP growth — which limped along at less than a percentage point for the first half of the year — to exceed 2 percent in the last three months of the year and potentially reach 3 percent.

Mark Merritt, president of crisis-management consulting firm Witt Associates, said the hurricane should provide a bump in economic activity over the next few months.

“After a disaster, there’s always a definite short-term increase,” Merritt said. “There will be furniture bought, homes repaired, new carpet, new flooring, all the things affected by flooding.”

The story quotes no economist, who might have pointed out that the destruction of homes, businesses, and other property cannot actually be good for the economy. As economist Sandy Ikeda summed it up last year, the argument is that “paying $100 to replace a broken window somehow creates more prosperity than having an intact window and spending that $100 on something else.” He goes on to ask, as many economists have: If destruction is so good for an economy, why wait for a hurricane or a bombing raid? Why not just bomb your own cities?

As Frederic Bastiat explained the “broken window fallacy,” a boy breaks a shop window. Villagers gather around and deplore the boy’s vandalism. But then one of the more sophisticated townspeople, perhaps one who has been to college and read Keynes, says, “Maybe the boy isn’t so destructive after all. Now the shopkeeper will have to buy a new window. The glassmaker will then have money to buy a table. The furniture maker will be able to hire an assistant or buy a new suit. And so on. The boy has actually benefited our town!”

But as Bastiat noted, “Your theory stops at what is seen. It does not take account of what is not seen.” If the shopkeeper has to buy a new window, then he can’t hire a delivery boy or buy a new suit. Money is shuffled around, but it isn’t created. And indeed, wealth has been destroyed. The village now has one less window than it did, and it must spend resources to get back to the position it was in before the window broke. As Bastiat said, “Society loses the value of objects unnecessarily destroyed.”

In the comic strip “Pearls Before Swine,” the nefarious Rat used the destruction-as-stimulus argument to defend his client’s blowing up downtown:

But that’s a comic strip. Journalists should do better. Please, call one of these economists. They can tell you that destruction is destructive. When property is destroyed, people have less wealth. The money they had been saving for a new business or a new computer or a college education, now they have to spend it on rebuilding what they had. That is not “a bump in economic activity.”

September 5, 2011 – 11:44 pm Categories: Cato Institute, President Obama | Post a comment

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We need more school choice

Parents need more school choices and this article pushes the idea of tax credits:

 

More Benefits from Credits than Vouchers

by Adam B. Schaeffer

 

This article appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on September 2, 2011.

Pennsylvania endured a bruising battle over education vouchers in the last legislative session, and the next round seems to be in the offing. But a recent court injunction halting a Colorado program should give pause to voucher promoters in the Keystone State.

Part of the reason Colorado’s voucher program was stopped in its tracks is a state constitutional provision that reads:

“No appropriation shall be made for charitable, industrial, educational, or benevolent purposes to any person, corporation, or community not under the absolute control of the state, nor to any denominational or sectarian institution or association.”

Pennsylvanians shouldn’t roll the dice on vouchers, and they don’t need to.

Pennsylvania’s constitution has a nearly identical provision, though it makes an explicit exception for higher education, stating that:

“No appropriation shall be made for charitable, educational, or benevolent purposes to any person or community nor to any denominational and sectarian institution, corporation, or association: Provided, that appropriations may be made for … loans for higher educational purposes….”

This exception, of course, would not apply to K-12 vouchers. As a result, any voucher program enacted in the commonwealth will face the same daunting legal hurdles that are likely to kill the Colorado program.

A court in Indiana recently denied an injunction against that state’s new voucher law, but the Hoosier State lacks the restrictive constitutional language found in Colorado and Pennsylvania. Unless the Pennsylvania legislature intends to enact a voucher program in Indiana, what happens there is irrelevant.

Fortunately, the existing Education Investment Tax Credit Program (EITC), which opens access to good private schools by allowing businesses to claim a tax credit for donations to scholarship funds for low-income children, has the potential to offer even freer educational choice than a voucher program. The EITC has gone unchallenged for more than a decade, is popular, uncontroversial, and ripe for a huge expansion.

Unlike vouchers, education tax-credit programs have withstood every state and federal challenge advanced against them over the last two decades. Major credit programs in Indiana, Florida, Georgia, and Pennsylvania — to name a few — have yet to be challenged. And for good reason; they are on solid constitutional ground at both the state and federal level.

Why? Vouchers are grants of government funds, while tax credits are private funds. The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn highlights the vital importance of this distinction.

The court held that money spent and claimed as a credit against one’s taxes is private money, not government spending like education vouchers. Other taxpayers aren’t harmed by the choice of those claiming credits because the government isn’t spending collective tax revenue.

As Justice Anthony M. Kennedy explained: “A dissenter whose tax dollars are ‘extracted and spent’ knows that he has in some small measure been made to contribute to an establishment in violation of conscience…. [By contrast] awarding some citizens a tax credit allows other citizens to retain control over their own funds in accordance with their own consciences.”

Adam Schaeffer is an education policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and author of “They Spend WHAT? The Real Cost of Public Schools.”

More by Adam B. Schaeffer

The challenge to this education tax-credit program failed because only private funds are involved. A taxpayer challenging a voucher program would have standing under this decision. The composition of the U.S. Supreme Court and its precedent on school choice make it unlikely that a voucher program would be overturned on federal constitutional grounds, but at the state level, there are many constitutional threats to voucher programs. Colorado’s court ruling, for instance, identified five separate legal problems with the Douglas County voucher program.

However, the most recent and bracing conclusion comes, again, from Arizona. In 2009, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in Caine v. Horne that voucher programs for disabled and foster children violated a state constitutional ban on aid to private schools because it was an expenditure of government funds. That same court previously upheld a state tax-credit program on the grounds that the credits did not constitute an expenditure of government funds. The status of vouchers as government funds was key to the decisions overturning Colorado’s earlier voucher program in 2004 and Florida’s in 2006.

Pennsylvanians shouldn’t roll the dice on vouchers, and they don’t need to. Expanding the Education Investment Tax Credit program is the most pragmatic, principled, and certain means of expanding school choice and educational freedom.

September 5, 2011 – 12:48 am Categories: Vouchers | Post a comment

Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 33)

Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 33)

This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but from a liberal.

Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-Mo.) called the newly agreed-upon bipartisan compromise deal to raise the  debt limit “a sugar-coated satan sandwich.”

“This deal is a sugar-coated satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see,” Clever tweeted on August 1, 2011.

Congressman Davis Votes Against Debt Ceiling Increase

Washington, Aug 1 -Congressman Geoff Davis made the following statement after voting against S. 365, the Budget Control Act of 2011.  The bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 269 to 161.

“I commend our Leadership for their tireless efforts throughout this process.  This bill makes a number of positive steps toward beginning to address our fiscal problems and also averts default, but I chose to vote against it for two main reasons.  

“First, unlike the original House version of the Budget Control Act, this bill decouples the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment with the second portion of the debt limit increase.  This was an important component of the original bill and making the second debt limit increase contingent on its passage would have a lasting impact on getting spending in check.

“Second, while there is certainly room for cuts and efficiency improvements in every federal agency and program, I have concerns about the method by which cuts would take place if the Joint Select Committee did not work as intended.  For the sake of our country, I hope the Committee is successful and reports to Congress a deficit reduction package that addresses the true cost drivers.  However, in the event that does not happen, the sequester mechanism could be devastating to defense during a time of war and to Medicare when health care providers are already facing cuts thanks to President Obama’s health care law.

“The fight to ensure our country is on sound fiscal footing in the future for our children and grandchildren does not end with this vote.  Over the course of the past year, House Republicans have been successful in changing the debate in Washington from whether to cut spending to how much to cut.  The magnitude of our fiscal woes cannot be resolved overnight and I look forward to continuing to work for a better and more sustainable path forward.”

September 5, 2011 – 12:27 am Categories: spending out of control | Post a comment

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 111)

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

On May 11, 2011,  I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:

Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner.  I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.

I just did. I went to the Senator’s website and sent this below:

Department of Health and Human Services

Proposed Spending Cuts

by Chris Edwards

September 2010

The Department of Health and Human Services encompasses a giant and sprawling collection of agencies and programs. Its 2010 budget of $869 billion represents almost one-quarter of total federal spending. The department operates more than 400 different subsidy programs, including the massive and fast-growing Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The projected growth in Medicare and Medicaid will create a national fiscal disaster in coming decades unless the programs are restructured and cut. Unfortunately, the 2010 health care law expanded federal health spending and will likely make America’s looming fiscal crisis worse.1

Eventually, policymakers will have to control rising federal debt, and that means they will have to downsize HHS programs. Medicare should be converted to a system based on individual vouchers and competitive coverage options. Medicaid should be turned into a state block grant with a fixed level of federal funding. The 2010 health care law should be repealed and other HHS programs should be terminated, as listed below.

Medicare and Medicaid

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proposed a detailed plan to convert Medicare and Medicaid into consumer-directed health systems by replacing current programs with tax credits and vouchers.2 Rather than the government reimbursing doctors and hospitals, the government would provide payments directly to individuals, who would purchase health insurance in private markets. The Ryan plan incorporates refundable tax credits for all Americans under age 65 and vouchers for the elderly and low-income populations. The budget effects of the proposal were examined by the Congressional Budget Office, and so the plan provides a useful illustration of the cost savings possible from market-oriented health reforms.3

The Ryan plan would repeal the current tax exclusion for employer-provided health insurance and replace it with a refundable tax credit of $2,300 per adult, $1,700 per child, and a maximum of $5,700 per family. The tax credit would be used to cover the costs of either individual or employer-based health insurance for people under age 65.

Individuals age 65 and over would purchase private health insurance with the aid of a federal voucher. Individuals with lower incomes would purchase private health insurance with the aid of the federal tax credit and a voucher. The reforms would essentially convert Medicare and Medicaid from defined benefit to defined contribution plans. That would allow policymakers to directly restrain program costs without having the government ration health care services.

If individuals receiving tax credits and vouchers purchased health insurance costing less than the federal payment, they would put the excess in a tax-free medical savings account. If individuals purchased an insurance plan costing more than the federal payment, they would chip in the extra. Either way, individuals would be encouraged to make efficient purchasing decisions.

To restructure Medicare, the Ryan plan would provide retirees with a voucher averaging $11,000, which is the current average Medicare spending per beneficiary. The reform would only affect people who are age 55 and younger today. When those individuals start reaching age 65 after 2020, they would receive the Medicare voucher instead of benefits under the current program structure.

The Medicare voucher would grow in value after 2010 based on the average growth rate of general inflation and medical inflation. The dollar values of the vouchers would be adjusted to reflect the age of a beneficiary, income level, and health status. Poorer and sicker persons would receive higher subsidies. The low-income elderly under the Ryan plan would receive an additional payment to their medical savings accounts to cover out-of-pocket health expenses.4

To restructure Medicaid, the Ryan plan would provide low-income individuals with both a refundable tax credit and a voucher to purchase private health insurance. People below the poverty line would receive a $5,000 voucher, while those with incomes between the poverty line and twice the poverty line would receive a smaller voucher amount. State taxpayers—who currently pay a portion of the costs of Medicaid—would pay a portion of the costs of the new Medicaid vouchers.

An alternative approach to reforming Medicaid would be to convert it to a block grant for the states. The states would receive a fixed grant from the federal government with few strings attached, allowing them to experiment with more efficient ways of delivering health subsidies to low-income families. This approach is probably preferable to the Ryan voucher approach because it would likely result in less federal micromanagement of state health care markets and more state innovation.

However, both the voucher and block-grant approaches to reforming Medicaid would create strong incentives to improve efficiency in health care markets, and both reform approaches would allow federal policymakers to directly clamp down on explosive Medicaid spending growth.

Other HHS Spending

Aside from Medicare and Medicaid, HHS operates a huge array of health and nonhealth programs. Essays on this website describe the problems with some of these programs and the advantages of terminating them. As Medicare and Medicaid spending expand, taxpayers will be less able to afford funding all the other HHS subsidy programs.

Table 1 lists HHS programs aside from Medicare and Medicaid that could be terminated. These programs have one thing in common: they are all state grant programs. The federal government raises the money from taxpayers who live in the 50 states and then dispenses it back to the states to administer these programs. That roundabout way of financing government programs makes no sense. Why don’t the states just fund their own programs and cut out the inefficient middleman in Washington?

Elsewhere I have examined why federal grants to state governments are an ineffective and bureaucratic way to try and solve society’s problems.5 For example, an authoritative HHS report on Head Start in 2010 conceded that the program produced few if any long-term benefits to participating children.6 The HHS activities listed in Table 1 that are worthwhile would be better handled by state and local governments or the private sector.

The proposed terminations in Table 1 would save taxpayers $81 billion annually. Even with these cuts, HHS would still spend about $61 billion annually aside from Medicare and Medicaid. Remaining HHS activities would include the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration. These agencies could probably use reforms as well, and thus the cuts in Table 1 are not the only possible reforms to the HHS budget.

Table 1. Proposed Spending Cuts
to HHS Programs Other Than Medicare and Medicaid
Program
  
Spending in 2010
   
($ million)
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families   $17,754
Children’s Health Insurance Program   $8,903
Foster care grants   $7,403
Head Start   $7,235
Low income energy assistance   $4,993
Child support grants   $4,710
Child care development grant   $3,394
Substance abuse   $3,349
Child care entitlement   $2,925
Social services grant   $2,118
Administration on Aging   $1,600
Other state grant programs   $16,961
Total proposed cuts   $81,345
HHS outlays (excluding Medicare/Medicaid) $142,379
Source: Author, based on estimated fiscal year outlays from the Budget of the U.S. Government, FY2011.
September 5, 2011 – 12:00 am Categories: spending out of control | Post a comment

Marco Rubio hates big government about as much as I do

Marco Rubio hates big government about as much as I do.

Star Parker

Star Parker

Marco Rubio’s Courageous Speech

Florida’s young Republican Senator Marco Rubio gave an important speech at the Reagan Presidential Library in California that has set off the liberal talking head universe.

He had the temerity to suggest that the huge growth in government’s role in American life over the last century “actually weakened us as a people.”

The resulting onslaught from liberal blogs and cable hosts comes as no surprise because Rubio directly took on the idol at which liberals worship – Big Government.

But his analysis was courageous and profound.

Eighty percent of Americans are not happy with the direction of the country. And, new Gallup polling shows that only 17 percent are positively disposed toward the federal government.

Americans want answers.

Senator Rubio, in this speech, stepped up to the plate to provide answers.

If liberals disagree, they are going to have to get equally serious. They’ve certainly got to do better than MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, calling Rubio “a political hack” who wants “to get rid of social safety nets.”

Our fiscal crisis is undeniable. The trillions in debt we’ve taken on to finance massive government spending has resulted in the unthinkable downgrading in rating of our government’s bonds.

But Senator Rubio took a bold step beyond looking at our problems just as an accountant.

He suggested that we cannot separate our budget from our culture. The culture of government has displaced the culture of personal responsibility.

I have been making the point for years regarding what the welfare state culture has done in our black communities. How it has created a permanent underclass, defined by family breakdown, sexual promiscuity, disease, and crime.

American culture has changed profoundly over these years that Americans have come to increasingly believe that government social engineering can solve life’s problems and challenges.

A snapshot of today’s American family shows how much things have changed, even compared to 1981 when President Reagan took office.

Since 1980, the percentage of babies in America born to unwed mothers has doubled, from 20 percent to 40 percent.

Fifty two percent of Americans over the age of 18 are married today, compared to 72 percent in 1960.

Among blacks, 44% of the population over 18 has never been married, compared to 17% in 1960.

Sixty four percent of American children today live in a home with two married parents, compared with 75 percent in 1980 and 87 percent in 1960.

And, according to the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of those between ages of 18 to 29 “agree marriage is becoming obsolete.”

We used to be a nation, as Senator Rubio pointed out, where parents raised and cared for children, then those children cared for their aging parents. Where neighbors cared for neighbors.

We might note that the welfare state idea is not an American invention but an import from Europe. We also might note that about 20 percent of Europeans attend church regularly, half that of Americans.

Europe is characterized today by low birth rates – so low that they are not replacing themselves – and high unemployment rates. The unemployment rate in France has hovered between 8 and 11 percent over the last 25 years.

We must wonder if even we can take on our fiscal problems, if traditional American family life can be restored, and if we believe it even matters.

It is to Senator Rubio’s considerable credit that he has stood up to argue that we must look at the picture of our nation in its entirety. That we cannot separate our budget matters and our attitude toward government from our overall culture and our personal behavior.

What is before us today is not a battle of competing numbers but a battle of competing visions.

Is America to continue in the direction of welfare state materialism? Or will this be a free nation under God?

September 4, 2011 – 11:17 pm Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

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2012 Presidential Republican Primary Debate In Iowa pt.10

2012 Presidential Republican Primary Debate In Iowa pt.10

Story below by Robert Costa on debate:

Cain: ‘We’re Not Going Anywhere’

By Robert Costa      

Ames, Iowa — Following last night’s debate, Herman Cain greeted reporters inside Iowa State’s basketball arena, talking up his performance and his chances. He told National Review Online that regardless of where he finished in Ames, he would stay in the race. “The naysayers are reading the wrong tea leaves,” he said. “We had already decided that based upon the momentum we had coming into this debate, the debate and the straw poll, we’re not going anywhere. People need to get off this stuff, trying to pronounce us dead and out of the race.”

In the final hours before Iowans pile into tents, Cain downplayed the straw poll’s significance. “Our objective at the straw poll is more to measure our supporters’ intensity more so than to win the straw poll,” he said. “We also put a lot of stock into the national polls that still show that I have the highest positive intensity of all of the candidates for eleven straight weeks.” The naysayers, he emphasized, are “not looking at the right metrics. We’re looking at those metrics which is encouraging us to keep going with the campaign.”

For a bit of fun, I asked Cain about his campaign’s straw-poll menu. He told me he will be serving Godfather’s Pizza and Coke. As the former chief executive of that Midwestern chain and a Georgia native, those choices make perfect sense. “If people act right, they can have a slice,” he chuckled. “A little slice of heaven.”

 

September 4, 2011 – 7:48 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

A Christian Manifesto by Francis Schaeffer (Part 1) Schaeffer Sunday

A Christian Manifesto by Francis Schaeffer (Part 1)

Below is a summary of “A Christian Manifesto” which is a very important book written by Francis Schaeffer just a couple of years before his death in 1984.

A Christian Manifesto
by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer

This address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title. 

Christians, in the last 80 years or so, have only been seeing things as bits and pieces which have gradually begun to trouble them and others, instead of understanding that they are the natural outcome of a change from a Christian World View to a Humanistic one; things such as overpermissiveness, pornography, the problem of the public schools, the breakdown of the family, abortion, infanticide (the killing of newborn babies), increased emphasis upon the euthanasia of the old and many, many other things.

All of these things and many more are only the results. We may be troubled with the individual thing, but in reality we are missing the whole thing if we do not see each of these things and many more as only symptoms of the deeper problem. And that is the change in our society, a change in our country, a change in the Western world from a Judeo-Christian consensus to a Humanistic one. That is, instead of the final reality that exists being the infinite creator God; instead of that which is the basis of all reality being such a creator God, now largely, all else is seen as only material or energy which has existed forever in some form, shaped into its present complex form only by pure chance.

I want to say to you, those of you who are Christians or even if you are not a Christian and you are troubled about the direction that our society is going in, that we must not concentrate merely on the bits and pieces. But we must understand that all of these dilemmas come on the basis of moving from the Judeo-Christian world view — that the final reality is an infinite creator God — over into this other reality which is that the final reality is only energy or material in some mixture or form which has existed forever and which has taken its present shape by pure chance.

The word Humanism should be carefully defined. We should not just use it as a flag, or what younger people might call a “buzz” word. We must understand what we are talking about when we use the word Humanism. Humanism means that the man is the measure of all things. Man is the measure of all things. If this other final reality of material or energy shaped by pure chance is the final reality, it gives no meaning to life. It gives no value system. It gives no basis for law, and therefore, in this case, man must be the measure of all things. So, Humanism properly defined, in contrast, let us say, to the humanities or humanitarianism, (which is something entirely different and which Christians should be in favor of) being the measure of all things, comes naturally, mathematically, inevitably, certainly. If indeed the final reality is silent about these values, then man must generate them from himself.

So, Humanism is the absolute certain result, if we choose this other final reality and say that is what it is. You must realize that when we speak of man being the measure of all things under the Humanist label, the first thing is that man has only knowledge from himself. That he, being finite, limited, very faulty in his observation of many things, yet nevertheless, has no possible source of knowledge except what man, beginning from himself, can find out from his own observation. Specifically, in this view, there is no place for any knowledge from God.

But it is not only that man must start from himself in the area of knowledge and learning, but any value system must come arbitrarily from man himself by arbitrary choice. More frightening still, in our country, at our own moment of history, is the fact that any basis of law then becomes arbitrary — merely certain people making decisions as to what is for the good of society at the given moment.

Now this is the real reason for the breakdown in morals in our country. It’s the real reason for the breakdown in values in our country, and it is the reason that our Supreme Court now functions so thoroughly upon the fact of arbitrary law. They have no basis for law that is fixed, therefore, like the young person who decides to live hedonistically upon their own chosen arbitrary values, society is now doing the same thing legally. Certain few people come together and decide what they arbitrarily believe is for the good of society at the given moment, and that becomes law.

The world view that the final reality is only material or energy shaped by pure chance, inevitably, (that’s the next word I would bring to you ) mathematically — with mathematical certainty — brings forth all these other results which are in our country and in our society which have led to the breakdown in the country — in society — and which are its present sorrows. So, if you hold this other world view, you must realize that it is inevitable that we will come to the very sorrows of relativity and all these other things that are so represented in our country at this moment of history.

It should be noticed that this new dominant world view is a view which is exactly opposite from that of the founding fathers of this country. Now, not all the founding fathers were individually, personally, Christians. That certainly is true.

September 4, 2011 – 7:00 pm Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

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2012 Presidential Republican Primary Debate In Iowa pt.9

2012 Presidential Republican Primary Debate In Iowa pt.9

JOHN PODHORETZ comments on the Republican debate below:

Republican debate: Time to get real

By JOHN PODHORETZ

Last Updated: 8:28 AM, August 12, 2011

Posted: 1:55 AM, August 12, 2011

Last night’s Fox News-Washington Examiner debate in Iowa was the most sheerly entertaining political event in decades — a rapid-fire, no-holds-barred multiplayer smackdown with the toughest set of questions ever posed to presidential candidates.The Republicans were challenged as candidates rarely are challenged, and by two journalistic organizations generally considered friendly to the GOP.The questioning was so sharp that Newt Gingrich was reduced to complaining about having to explain two contradictory quotes about Libya because Fox hadn’t included a third quote of his.Indeed, the debate ranged so widely and so quickly that several candidates rose and fell in the course of it.Take the breakout star of the first two debates, Michele Bachmann.She saw an opening when she was attacked by her fellow Minnesotan, ex-Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and proceeded to chew up him and spit him out.Advantage Bachmann.

But then she chewed on him and chewed on him and began looking mean.

Ten points taken from Bachmann.

Then she was asked a real doozy by Byron York of the Examiner about whether she actually believed a woman should “submit” to her husband — a view she has promulgated in the past — and answered quietly and with a profession of love and respect for her husband. Bachmann was back!

Then, 10 minutes later, she gave an answer on her opposition to raising the debt ceiling so incoherent that even those inclined to support her view must have been baffled and confused.

She claimed the Standard and Poor’s downgrade supported her view when S&P actually said the very fact that the need for a debt-ceiling increase had been in dispute helped cause the downgrade. Bad Bachmann.

Charting her performance in the debate would be like charting the Dow over the last week. Volatile would be the word for it, and volatility is not what Republicans are looking for in a candidate.

As for Pawlenty, rarely has a fluent and well-prepared candidate with a solid record of accomplishment and an ability to think and argue on his feet proved so . . . meh. His candidacy is a wet match, and last night probably marked its end.

Utah ex-Gov. Jon Huntsman’s baffling decision to run for president proved even more baffling when he began the debate by admitting he didn’t have an economic plan ready yet. Throughout, he looked as though he was in the middle of one of those school-anxiety dreams where you’re got to take a final exam on material you’ve never studied.

And then there was Rep. Ron Paul, who said it was fine with him if Iran got nukes and there should be no Federal Reserve Board and America should get off everybody’s lawn. His major combatant was ex-Sen. Rick Santorum, and the two of them sparred and scuffled for no particularly good reason, as neither of them has any business pretending he might be president.

What Republicans nationally are looking for in a candidate is someone who can win next year. And yet again, there was no question that the only plausible candidate on the stage fitting the description was Mitt Romney.

Romney is a weak frontrunner for all kinds of reasons, but standing on a stage next to seven other people who have no chance of being president, he looks like a Colossus.

So he won. Again. But his performance was sufficiently unmemorable that he is clearly vulnerable to a strong showing by the incoming Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Or just about anybody else serious who might want to get in.

This is a race Republicans can win. There’s still time. Romney’s got problems. Perry’s far from perfect. The next debate should be one that isn’t just fun, but that actually features a genuine argument between two or three people who might actually be president.

jpodhoretz@gmail.com

September 4, 2011 – 9:55 am Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

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

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.

September 4, 2011 – 8:25 am Categories: President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control | Post a comment

Goalkeeper is lucky sometimes (Soccer Saturday)

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.

September 4, 2011 – 12:37 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment