MADDOG10's Blog

The Ryan Vision: Let’s Get This Done

The Democrats and their mainstream media cheering section can huff and puff at Paul Ryan’s convention speech, but they can’t blow his house down. It was built on a solid foundation.

So powerful was the speech that the liberal establishment is reduced to wailing about alleged lies the speech contained — dishonest and easily refuted allegations. Ryan delivered a substantive indictment of the Obama administration’s failed record and a content-rich, realistic plan for putting this nation back on track to economic growth and fiscal recovery, a plan that includes “protecting and strengthening” Medicare, not “raiding” it.

Don’t listen to the naysayers. Ryan began with a humble acceptance of his “calling” and “duty” to help restore America. His message was positive. “I know we can do this,” he said, not dwelling on the malaise in which Obama’s disastrous policies have placed us but offering a specific blueprint to deliver us from this quicksand.

He carried forward this same theme throughout the speech: He said that when he accepted the nomination, he told Mitt Romney, “Let’s get this done”; and in closing the speech, he converted the slogan into a formal offer to the American people, promising that if elected, he and Romney would put America back on a path to fiscal redemption.

Ryan offered a succinct but irrefutable critique of Obama’s economic record: 23 million unemployed or underemployed, 1 in 6 Americans living in poverty and one-half of college graduates unable to find work they’ve studied for or any work at all.

More importantly, he emphasized that Obama has no new ideas to deliver us from this quagmire. Under a second Obama term, nothing would change — Obamanomics being but a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind.

Obama’s grandiose stimulus plan, involving “the largest one-time expenditure of the federal government,” not only didn’t work to create jobs but also took us into deeper debt. The money wasn’t “just spent and wasted; it was borrowed, spent and wasted.” Instead of giving us the jobs we needed, he forced Obamacare on us against our will, and he gave us Solyndra and its ilk — replete with corporate welfare, political patronage, cronyism and “make-believe markets.” Indeed.

Obama’s stimulus debacle was a microcosm — albeit a gargantuan one — of the ideas that Obama has advanced and that Romney and Ryan would reject in favor of America’s founding ideals. Ryan was eloquent in articulating the contrast. Under Obama, he said, the government has tried to divide up wealth. Under Romney and Ryan, Americans — not government — would (SET ITAL) create (END ITAL) wealth. Ryan expanded on the contrast, saying that Obama sees America as a place where everyone is stuck in some class or station in life, victims of circumstances beyond their control, with government there to help them cope with their fate.

The new administration, he assured us, would give us the exact opposite — a land where government is limited (to 20 percent of gross domestic product) and liberty is championed. He weaved in the story of his own family experiences and his mother — his “role model” — to personalize the point. He urged us not to buy Obama’s message and record of despair and to reject the stifling notion that we can’t do any better — ideas wholly inconsistent with Ryan’s personal experiences and the lessons his parents taught him.

Ryan said, in essence, “How dare you tell me and other Americans we have to accept whatever circumstances we find ourselves in and not try to improve our lots in life?” He said, “I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself and define happiness for myself.” In other words, in the America in which Ryan grew up and that he and Romney will try to restore, no government and no politician will predefine limits on economic growth and individual liberties — above all, the pursuit of happiness.

Ryan said that the American dream is grounded in freedom, not a planned economy in which equal outcomes are sought in lieu of equal opportunity. He underscored not simply that central planning doesn’t work but that it’s morally inferior, contrary to the claims and “sanctimony” of its leftist proponents.

Ryan promised that they would lead on the tough issues and be men of action — rather than of endless empty rhetoric — and would spend the next four years not blaming others but taking responsibility. They would immediately end the current administration’s practice of replacing our founding principles and begin to reapply those principles.

Obama tells us that Republicans want a smaller America, but as Ryan conclusively demonstrated in his speech, it is Obama who envisions a limited, anemic America with a finite pie, incapable of a robust economic future.

In Romney and Ryan’s America — as in Ronald Reagan’s, Jack Kemp’s and Condoleezza Rice’s — “it doesn’t matter where you came from; it matters where you’re going.”

The Five Best Quotes In Pics From The Republican National Convention On Wednesday (5 Pics)

The first hour and a half of the GOP convention was punishingly bad. It featured politician after politician giving dull, stilted, cliched speeches that would have been more appropriate for a small town Toastmasters meeting than a national convention. It was boring to watch, the crowd was dead, and it did little to help the GOP. It is hard to understand why the GOP would run so many terrible speakers in a row when they had solid speakers like Rand Paul on before prime time started. Happily, the GOP did bring its A-Game for the last hour and a half when the big names who were likely to draw the most eyeballs delivered great performances.

5) Rob Portman: He sounded competent, had good energy, and put on a respectable, but not outstanding performance.

4) Tim Pawlenty: He told jokes, machine-gun-style to open up his speech. On the one hand, many of them weren’t that funny. On the other hand, TPaw got in a few good lines, made a few points worth making, and was at least entertaining.

3) Condoleeza Rice: Condi had the crowd in the palm of her hand and she delivered a very strong speech. It didn’t have a lot of red meat or one-liners in it, but she came across as a grown-up offering the sort of mature, responsible leadership you want in charge. It was an absolutely outstanding speech.

2) Mike Huckabee: Huck has great delivery, a good sense of comedic timing, and he managed to artfully talk about social issues without coming across as preachy. He was probably the best pure speaker on the podium.

1) Paul Ryan: The crowd went NUTS for Ryan and he was everything they hoped he would be. He came across as warm, likable, extremely knowledgable, concerned about the country, and he had so much gravitas that you wondered how the stage could hold him up without splitting asunder. He also did a great job of building up Mitt and hammering the Obama Administration. After watching that speech, I came to the conclusion that I had underrated Ryan’s talent as a speaker.

Now, here are the five best quotes of the night.

New York Times Fact Checkers: Bed Rest Is Work!

Poor Mickey Kaus. He’s the liberal intellectual (not an oxymoron — he’s the last known living “liberal intellectual”) lefties on TV are usually stealing from, but now that this welfare reform maven has concluded that Romney’s welfare ad is basically correct, liberals refuse to acknowledge his existence.

The non-Fox media have formed a solid front in denouncing Romney’s welfare ad for daring to point out that Obama has gutted the work requirements of the 1996 welfare reform bill.

The New York Times claims that Romney’s ad “falsely” charges Obama with eliminating work requirements. CNN rates the ad “false.” Underemployed hack Howard Fineman says Romney’s ad “is just flat out wrong on the facts” and “that every fair analyst, every fact checker” has said it’s “just factually wrong.”

When a campaign ad induces this much hysteria, you know Romney has struck gold. On closer examination, it turns out that by “every fair analyst,” Fineman means a bunch of liberals quoting one another.

This is how the media’s “fact checkers” operate when it comes to a Republican campaign ad. One not very well-informed person (or a heavily biased person) announces that Romney’s welfare ad is false, and the rest of the herd quote him, without anyone ever bothering to examine the facts, much less citing anyone who knows what he’s talking about.

It is striking that everyone who actually knows something about the 1996 welfare reform law says that Romney’s ad is accurate.

One of the principal authors of the 1996 welfare reform, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, and Douglas Besharov, who advised Hillary Clinton on the 1996 welfare reform law, say Romney’s ad is accurate.

Andrew Grossman, also of Heritage, produced something the MSM “fact checkers” avoid: a specific and detailed explanation of how the new waivers will allow states to evade the work requirements.

Even Ron Haskins, one of the reform bill’s authors now at the liberal Brookings Institution — cited far and wide for “blasting” Romney’s ad — doesn’t deny the Obama administration plans to waive the work requirements. He just says he supports waivers for “job training.” That’s not disputing the accuracy of Romney’s ads.

A lot of Americans don’t support waiving the work requirements, even for “job training.” Mitt Romney thinks they should know that that’s what Obama is doing.

And liberal Kaus — whom liberal hacks are usually plagiarizing from — has written a series of blog posts explaining in detail why the Times is wrong and Romney’s ad is not incorrect. True, he says the ad is “oversimplified,” but I think most people grasp that a 30-second ad will not provide the lush analytical detail of a Kausfiles blog posting.

We know liberals are reading Kausfiles; why aren’t they stealing from him this time?

As Kaus explains, HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius has interpreted the welfare law to allow her to waive work requirements “subject only to her opinion” as to what will serve the purposes of the law.

By viewing the work requirements as optional, subject to her waiver, Kaus says, the law has been “altered dramatically”: “Old system: Congress writes the requirements, which are … requirements. New system: Sebelius does what she wants — but, hey, you can trust her!”

Sebelius is not a laid-back, third-way neoliberal who can be expected to interpret her waiver authority honestly. She’s the doctrinaire feminist loon who “interpreted” Obamacare to require every insurance policy in the country to provide full coverage for birth control.

Kaus points out that the HHS memo announcing that Sebelius could allow waivers from work for “job training,” “job search” or “pursuing a credential” unquestionably constitutes “a weakening of the work requirement.” He adds that it’s also “unfair to the poor suckers who just go to work without ever going on welfare — they don’t get subsidized while they’re ‘pursuing a credential.’”

In a follow-up post, Kaus pointed out that the Times’ own editorial denouncing the Romney ad inadvertently revealed that Sebelius was proposing a lot more than “job search” exemptions from the work requirement.

Both the Times and an HHS memo cheerfully propose allowing hard-to-employ “families” — which are never actual families, by the way — to be “exempted from the work requirements for six months.” Or more than six months. It’s up to Sebelius: “Exempted.”

The work requirements were one of two central features of the 1996 welfare reform law, along with time limits. They were heatedly opposed by the Democrats’ left-wing base at the time, and have been met with massive resistance in some of our more Greece-like states ever since.

A 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office found that some states were accepting such non-work substitutes from welfare recipients as “bed rest,” “personal journaling,” “motivational reading,” “exercise at home,” “smoking cessation,” “weight loss,” and “helping a friend or relative with household tasks and errands.”

(Under Sebelius, the work requirement will also be satisfied with “playing Xbox and eating Doritos.”)

Many liberals, such as those who write for The New York Times, agree that “bed rest” and “personal journaling” should count as a work substitute for welfare recipients. But that’s not what the law says. And it’s certainly not what liberals tell us when they proclaim Romney’s ad “false.”

What “every fair analyst” and “every fact checker” means when they call Romney’s ad “false” is: We, the media, don’t consider exempting welfare recipients from the requirement of having to work “gutting” the work requirements.

“Thoroughly debunked” is the new liberal code for “blindingly accurate.”

Obama’s Sneaky, Deadly, Costly Car Tax

The Quest For A Reason To Re-Elect The President

Have you heard the latest from the Obama re-election team?

Mitt Romney doesn’t have enough of his money taken from him in taxes. Paul Ryan wants to give rich people a tax “break.” Mitt Romney cut jobs when he was an executive at a private equity firm. Paul Ryan wants to cut school lunches for needy children.

You’ve probably seen and heard it all before. Romney and Ryan are scary, “extreme,” and out of touch, according to Team Obama. The President, Vice President, and all their operatives and surrogates are committed to getting the word out.

But while the President and his friends are adept at making rhetorical attacks on Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, it’s an infrequent occurrence when they offer any reasons why the President should be re-elected. So what, really, is the case foran Obama re-election victory? We know why the President dislikes the Romney-Ryan ticket (and Republicans, generally). But why do we need another four years of Barack Obama as our President? “Because Mitt Romney is terrible,” seems to be the implied answer.

Try searching for remarks from the President about what he intends to do in a second term, and you won’t find much. This is because he hasn’t said much on the topic. Most of the President’s comments these days are disparaging remarks about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and not about his agenda - although he did note in an Associated Press interview on August 25^th that if he is elected to a second term, he believes there are Republicans in the House and Senate who will compromise and work with him to “get things done” for the country.

I did, however, receive a recent email update from the Obama campaign, a portion of which read like this: “President Obama believes the only way to create an economy built to last is to build it from the middle out and not from the top down. His economic plan is to restore middle-class security by paying down our debt in a balanced way that ensures everyone pays their fair share. Yet the President also wants to still invest in things we need to create jobs and grow our economy over the long term, things like education, energy, innovation, and infrastructure.”

This little blurb should raise some big questions. First, we should all ask “who is seeking a ‘top-down’ approach to the economy?” The answer, of course, is the President himself.

Within less than two years of taking office, President Obama successfully put in to place a system of tremendous governmental control over the otherwise private economy. By the middle of 2010, the President had become a de-facto C.E.O. over huge chunks of the economy, with the power to hire and fire executives, establish compensation limits for executive management, and to determine what products and services are produced. Insurance companies, car manufacturers, lending institutions and energy producers – President Obama has successfully forced his will upon them all.

So has all this governmental control created an economy that is “built to last?” We should also ask the Obama campaign emailers “how does the extra $6 trillion in U.S. government debt (roughly the amount of federal debt increase since the President’s first day in office) help pay down the debt?” And what about the $813 billion stimulus bill of 2009 – that was supposed to be an “investment” in innovation, infrastructure and education – where did that money go? Wasn’t that supposed to be “invested” in important things? And what happened to “shovel ready jobs” – were there any “created?”

A quick check of Democrats.org, the national party’s website, also reveals a list of other specific policy ideas that the President allegedly supports, yet he isn’t talking about them these days. One such policy has to do with energy independence, as the Democrats claim that “President Obama knows we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” and that President Obama is focused on “developing all of America’s natural resources...”

Of course, the President himself said late last year and earlier this year that he is committed to an “all of the above” approach to energy policy, implying that he’s okay with petroleum-based energy, along with the alternative energy development that he’s promoted.

This sounded great- but the President isn’t saying this anymore. This is probably because an “all of the above” approach to energy, we now know, means “anything except Big Oil” within the Obama worldview – hence the President’s veto on the Keystone XL Pipeline project that could have reduced America’s reliance on oil from other continents and could have created jobs from the Canadian border all the way down to Texas. The President and his friends would prefer to ignore this here within the last ten weeks of the election cycle, so they simply don’t talk about it – better to remind everyone about the scary and terrible Romney and Ryan.

Barack Hussein Obama:

• Voted three times to allow a child who survived an abortion to die on a gurney.
• Allowed the trafficking of guns into the hands of Mexican drug lords via Operation Fast and Furious, knowing they would be utilized in the commission of crimes and murders, sending hundreds of people to their deaths, including U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry.
• Forced Catholic and other Christian institutions to violate their consciencesby attempting to force them to fund birth control and abortifacients.
• Imprisoned a Marine for speaking his mind on Facebook
• Shut down hundreds (1000s?) of GM dealerships and put thousands out of work.
• Prevented tens of thousands of United States workers from finding gainful employment during the worst recession since the Great Depression- by blocking the Keystone Pipeline Project.
• Is the consummate narcissist, assigning credit to no one but himself, assigning blame to EVERYONE but himself.

Obama Disses America’s Pope, Cardinal Timothy Dolan

If Obama were wise he would really ramp up his misinformation machine. He should start giving away free weed, beer, hookers, tanks of gas, kazoos, Vaseline, stretch pants, whirly hats, Flowbees and ShamWows to anyone who promises to vote for him because he just ticked off stacks of Catholics even further by dissing Cardinal Dolan for the DNC.

Say “buh-bye” to a big ol’ voting block, Mr. Anti-Catholic-In-Chief.

Just like I can’t imagine any evangelical who can read and who remotely takes their faith seriously ever voting for BHO, I can’t imagine a sober Catholic giving this anti-biblical, anti-Constitution president the time of day.

Obama’s admin rages against pretty much everything Christians hold sacred. Stevie Wonder can see that.

But some of you will say, “But Obama loves the poor!” Oh, that’s why he’s created so many more of them in the last three and a half years. Garsh, I wondered what he was doing.

Look, I’m not a Catholic, but I sure dig Dolan’s chutzpah. It’s about time you guys got a U.S.-based prophetic butt-kicker who’s not beholden to big government but rather to a bigger God.

I wish to God more prissy evangelical leaders would call Obama out like Dolan has done. What a bunch of nutless wonders evangelicalism is littered with. Can we recall petrified pastors like the car industry recalls crappy vehicles, such as the Chevy Volt?

I will give one protestant wild man mad props, however: I’m talking about Bishop E. W. Jackson who said, from a biblical standpoint, that the Democratic Party is virulently anti-Christian, and if you take God and His Word seriously you need to flee from said party like a bootlegger out of Alabama on a Saturday night (my paraphrase).

Yes, the former candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia points to what he calls the Democratic Party’s “cult-like devotion” to abortion; the rejection of the traditional biblical model of family; the hostility hurled at those who express a Christian viewpoint, such as Chick-fil-A president and Chief Operating Officer Dan Cathy; the actions of organizations such as the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation in suing cities and towns for displaying crosses at memorials or mentioning the name of Jesus in prayer at official events. How does a serious Christian square that stuff with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Oh, I forgot … you can’t. You can, however, merge the aforementioned with John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Back to Dolan.

In all honesty, after Dolan’s bold outspokenness against Obama over a health care law requiring employers to provide abortion coverage and the subsequent lawsuit Dolan and others filed against the rule—claiming it forces church-related groups to act against their conscience—I get why BHO said “heck no” to Mr. D speaking at the DNC.

Peasants and monks scream, “Give up the funk!”

Romney Reminds People About Obama’s Greek Columns

…and for a good reason. Though, somehow, it’s probably raaaaacist

(Washington Times) Mitt Romney, routinely dismissed as a bit stiff and humorless on the stump, is suddenly cracking up his campaign trail crowds.

On Saturday, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate delighted supporters at a rally in Powell, Ohio, with a Greek-themed jibe at President Obama.

After hearing some pro-Obama hecklers in the audience, the former Massachusetts governor fired back:

“This is kinda like the Greek chorus in the background,” he said, referring to the protesters.

“It reminds me of Obama’s address four years ago in Denver. Remember, he was speaking in front of those Greek columns? … Everything they do reminds us of Greece and we’re not going back Greece, we’re going to get America back to being America,” he said as the crowd roared its approval.

Oh, come on, Mitt, we’re not that bad. 8.3% unemployment nationally, only 3 states with a real unemployment rate under 10%, $5+ trillion in new debt, $220 trillion in liabilities, housing still in the toilet, wages and savings way down…..hmm, maybe we are pretty close. Fortunately, Obama has a plan for this. He won’t really lay it out, but we’ve watched it for well over 3 years. It’s called “Spend Other People’s Money To Reward Campaign Donors And Liberal Support Groups.”

He wants to add “tax the hell out of people” to the mix, so he can spend even more to achieve….8.3% unemployment, people abandoning the jobs market in despair, more trillion dollar + deficits, and, really, you should just bask in Obama’s greatness instead of whining about all your own misery, you darned raaaaacists.

By Barry Rubin

"And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there." --Francis Scott Key, "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Well, is it still there? Is it? Or has it been lowered over Fort McHenry? Has Baltimore and other American cities surrendered to blight, to an irreversible downward spiral? Is American going to go cheering into decline, praising itself for its environmental purity, high-mileage autos, pristine multicultural manners?

A few years ago I was on a book tour in Baltimore. They put me at a nice downtown hotel and I had some time before the evening event. So I decided to eat something at the coffee shop in the lobby. But it was a bit cool so I went upstairs to put on a jacket. When the elevator opened on the lobby the door was blocked by a gurney. Medics were wheeling out a dead body. Police guarded the entrance of the coffee shop, not letting anyone go in. Someone had been shot dead.

I went on to the bookstore and begged a sandwich there. Well, that’s not fair to Baltimore, of course. But it’s a true story. It is a wonderful city and fond to me for two reasons.

First, growing up in the artificial, tax-payer funded paradise—well, no, but that’s another story—of Washington DC, for me Baltimore was the real America. A harbor, a real baseball team (postpone discussion of Washington Senators); industry and real workers, people who actually did something productive for a living. Not to mention Fort McHenry; and later the aquarium; the science museum; and the USS Torsk, a World War Two submarine that played a very important part in my life (that story for another time); the USS Constitution and the USS Constellation.

Second, I fell in love with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and industrial history. The B&O was American first railroad. Its task of crossing the mountains was so daunting that the history of the B&O is called Impossible Challenge. It was at the center of the Civil War and to this day I am editor of the Sentinel, the B&O Historical Society journal.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT. This article is my very angry equivalent of an indictment on contemporary “Progressive” “liberalism” and the greedy SOBs who are wrecking America as they sip <snip>tails like so many pre-revolutionary French aristocrats and sneer at the peasantry.

Al-Jazira, the revolutionary Islamist, anti-American, pro-terrorist television network (praised by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton!) has made a documentary on Baltimore. I haven’t seen the documentary but I’ve been Baltimore.

__________________________________________________

Barry Rubin, Israel: An Introduction (Yale University Press) is the first comprehensive book providing a well-rounded introduction to Israel, a definitive account of the nation's past, its often controversial present, and much more. It presents a clear and detailed view of the country’s land, people, history, society, politics, economics, and culture. This book is written for general readers and students who may have little knowledge but even well-informed readers tell us they’ve learned new things.Please click on the picture of the book on the right column of this site to purchase and/or get more information on the book.
___________________________________________________

The theme is basically this: You Americans are a hypocritical joke. Your society is a wreck; you’re going down and you dare preach to us about liberty and democracy! Look at Baltimore! Its industry is gone; its buildings are decaying; its street corners are full of African-American unemployed men with nothing to do with their lives.

And you dare preach to us?

You know what? Al-Jazira is right.

And what is America’s first black president, a phony “community organizer” doing about it? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Hire more teachers and even more important more useless administrators. Save obscure fish. Make <snip> sure nobody explores for oil off the coast. Build high-speed rail nobody needs.

And what about rebuilding the cities? What about creating job? What about putting America back together again: Detroit, South Los Angeles, East St. Louis, and the list goes on. Here are the great heroes of the poor and downtrodden, with their John Kerry tax-cheating yachts; their Harry Reid corrupt land deals; their Nancy Pelosi multi-million-dollar vineyards; their destruction of the American auto industry, and the energy industry.

These people are not liberal heroes. They are reactionaries in disguise. They don’t give a <snip> about the American people, including the poor, especially the poor. They are not lifting a finger to rebuild America, to save the country.

Now here are two novel ideas. First, this is not about liberals versus conservatives. That’s all outdated. This is about those who want to build a productive America that can rebuild the cities and create jobs and have decade schools and those who profit from looting the productive sector until the camel’s back breaks.

We are not talking about rich, fat-cat, greedy, arrogant and elitist conservatives. We are talking about rich, fat-cat, greedy, arrogant, and elitist radicals pretending to be liberals who care about the average American.

And I have a name for them: DINOs, Democrats in name only, and you can note the similarity to the word dinosaur.

Do you know what's really happened in America? Under the banner of humanitarisnism it is an alliance of the worst political elements: the corrupt big city do-nothing, steal-,money political machines; the corrupted old-style good-government upper middle class movements; the do nothing in exchange for welfare lobby )with Obama having unilaterally eliminated workfare), and the crony capitalists who cannot make money on their own so have to loot it from the public trough.
And what is their solution to Baltimore and Detroit and the other urban blight? Not to increase productivity but to loot the suburbs to lower the entire country to a more minimal level. And this is what passes for compassionate liberalism?

Second, here’s a novel idea for you. If you are looking for courageous “liberal” reformers, forget about this crew of poseurs and think of a couple of guys named Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. If you are a Democrat, if you are a liberal, if you really care about saving America from a long slow decline then think a moment: what’s needed is real change, not phony slogans. People who know how to get things done; not how to tell pretty lies.

Think about it. This is going to be the most important political decision you ever make. Do it so there’s some home for change in Baltimore and everywhere else.

Ideas and Consequences | Lawrence W. Reed

September 2009 • Volume: 59 • Issue: 7 • Print This Post • 37 comments

“Thank God we had the federal government last week to bail out the private sector!”  That is what a rather statist friend of mine declared a year ago as the economy tanked, almost gleeful that the financial crisis seemed to be proving how much we all need a massive federal establishment to both regulate and rescue us.

Never mind the federal government’s own indispensable role as an enabler in the crisis, from its reckless monetary policy to its jawboning banks into making dubious mortgage loans. Never mind the long-term danger of its assumption of colossal new obligations and the moral hazard in the message its intervention sends. My response to my friend was of a more narrow focus. “Thank God we have the private sector to bail out the federal government not just last week, but every week!” I exclaimed.

Think about it. Taxes on the private sector pay a majority of the federal government’s bills. For most of the rest, the government borrows by selling its debt obligations, mostly to private-sector entities–including banks, insurance companies, and individuals.

The federal government is the world’s biggest taxer and the world’s biggest debtor. If those of us in the private sector didn’t pay our taxes or didn’t buy Washington’s paper, the feds would have gone belly-up decades ago. We’ve rescued Washington to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars over the years. A big difference between Washington’s bailing out the private sector and the private sector’s bailing out Washington is that the private sector has to work, invest, employ people, and produce goods to come up with the cash. It can’t create it out of thin air like Ben Bernanke can.

Our friends in Washington have blessed us with future burdens almost too astronomical to comprehend.  In the name of taking care of us in our old age, we are saddled with no less than $6 trillion in Social Security payouts over the next 75 years–for which there are no presently earmarked funding streams. According to Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, the unfunded obligations for the new federal prescription drug program, enacted under President Bush, total another $8 trillion.

On and on it goes. The private sector has an awful lot of bailing out to do in the coming decades. I shudder to think how deeply we taxpayers will have to dig in the not-too-distant future to pay the bills of our benevolent, compassionate, and forward-thinking government.

Since Barack Obama took office in January 2009, the federal government has spent a full billion dollars every single hour. Before his term is half over, federal spending will have doubled in just a decade. The deficit in one year’s budget is now as large as the entire budget in George W. Bush’s first year as president, 2001–and I thought not very long ago that the spending spree he and the Republicans gave us would be tough to beat! The flood of red ink is now adding to the national debt to the tune of about $4 billion every day. At well over $11 trillion, that debt amounts to $37,000 for every living American.

Too Big to Succeed?

We’re told by the wise planners in Washington that certain private firms are “too big to fail.” So we’re handing big chunks of them over to the government.

The question we all should be asking ourselves is this: Are we trusting our economy and our lives to a government that is too big to succeed?

Once upon a time in America, most citizens expected government to keep the peace and otherwise leave them alone. We built a vibrant, self-reliant, entrepreneurial culture with strong families and solid values. We respected property and largely kept the spirit of the Eighth and Tenth Commandments against coveting and stealing. We understood that government didn’t have anything to give anybody except what it first took from somebody and that a government big enough to give us everything we want would be big enough to take away everything we’ve got. We practiced fiscal discipline in our personal lives and expected nothing less from the people in the government we elected, or we threw them out.

But somewhere along the way we lost our moral compass. And just like the Roman Republic that rose on integrity and collapsed in turpitude, we thought the “bread and circuses” the government could provide us would buy us comfort and security.

We gave the government the responsibility to educate our children, though government can never be counted on to teach well the main ingredients of a free society–liberty and character–or just about anything else, for that matter. We asked the government to give us health care, welfare, pensions, college education, and farm subsidies, and now our politicians are bankrupting the country to pay the bills. This welfare state of ours has become one big circle of 305 million people, each with his hand in the next fellow’s pocket.

This is a government whose reach even before the financial crisis scarcely left an aspect of American life untouched, from the cradle to the grave and the volume of our toilet-bowl water in between. As a portion of our personal income, its tax and regulatory burden consumes at least five times what it did just a century ago. But to the majority on the Potomac, government is nowhere yet big enough. This is madness writ large.

Stick to the Knitting

Remember In Search of Excellence, the 1982 best-selling management book by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman? One of its salient points is that an organization gets off track when it no longer “sticks to the knitting.” When it allows its mission to blur and stretch far beyond its founding design, when it becomes distracted by endless and dubious new responsibilities, its core competency evaporates. It will fail to do what it is supposed to do, because it’s doing too much of what it’s not supposed to do.

It may come as a surprise to those who see aspirin made in Washington as the cure for every ailment, but the federal government is not God. It can’t even be a good Santa Claus. It’s no Mother Teresa either, because on those occasions when it does some good it usually costs an arm and a leg and sends a big part of the bill to generations yet unborn. The fact is, the bigger government gets, the more it starts to look like Moe, Larry, and Curly.

Accentuating the madness of the present day, the cover of Newsweek declared last March, “We are all socialists now.” Pardon me, but I’m not about to sign on to a proven flop.

America Needs a New Sheriff

The American labor market showed few signs of new life in the latest jobs report.   First time filings for unemployment benefits rose again last week to a one-month high.  Claims rose for a second week, by 4,000 for the period ended Aug. 18.  After economists had predicted 365,000 new claims, the number climbed to 372,000.

The administration continues to cite the European debt crisis and economic slowdowns in Asia as deterrents to investment.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-23/jobless-claims-in-u-s-climb-for-second-week-to-one-month-high.html

It is far easier to blame the global economy than to admit that this administration’s energy policies are killing jobs in America.  That  this administration poked their thumbs into the eyes of millions of unemployed Americans when they laughed about “shovel-ready” projects not being as “shovel-ready” as advertised.  It is not the least bit funny to Americans when they discover that this administration does not know what they are doing, especially after they spent trillions of taxpayer dollars on plans that did not work and redistributed hundreds of billions of the taxpayer’s wealth to rich “progressive” bundlers for the administration’s campaign machine.

Across the country, Americans have had enough of this administration’s policies, starting with those that kill jobs; like the healthcare reform law that levies huge tax hikes on all Americans and imposes additional burdens on businesses.  Americans are done with the policies that are killing America’s energy industry, like stifling EPA regulations that make it impossible to build new petroleum refineries or use coal powered energy.  Americans can no longer tolerate a lack of policy; a lack that precludes any hope for recovery in the housing market.  Many small businesses will find it difficult if not impossible to exist, much less expand and hire while banking regulations imposed during this administration make it virtually impossible for banks to loan them money.

Why does America continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on foreign energy rather than developing the abundant energy in its own country? Why not keep those hundreds of billions of dollars at home in its own sluggish, cash strapped economy?

At a time when tens of millions of Americans are struggling to find work and its economy is starving for liquid capital, why does this administration refuse to take advantage of America’s wealth of natural resources? Why does this administration continue to prevent drilling for oil and natural gas or mining for coal? Why not put Americans back to work building refineries and power plants? Why not have Americans delivering gas, coal and natural gas to American consumers?

How many peripheral jobs will be created by that process?

For every new oil well, power plant, refinery or mine there will be new roads built, followed by restaurants, stores, housing, schools and places of worship. All generated by the only force capable of powering America’s economic recovery: the private sector.

The key to economic recovery in America is a shift in policy.  The only way for that shift to happen is to alter the governing philosophy.  For that alteration to take place, America must elect a new sheriff and new deputies.

Surprise! Obama Dumps Precedent To Try And Ruin RNC

Gee, Team Obama being rude and doing things differently? Who’d have guessed? Last go around, Obama broke precedent, and his promise, and refused to take the public funding for the general election. This go around

(The Hill) Bucking protocol, President Obama and the Democrats are planning a full-scale assault on Republicans next week during their convention.

Presidential candidates have traditionally kept a low profile during their opponent’s nominating celebration, but Democrats are throwing those rules out the window in an attempt to spoil Mitt Romney’s coronation as the GOP nominee.

President Obama, Vice President Biden and leading congressional Democrats have all scheduled high-profile events next week to counter-program the Republican gathering in Tampa.

Even first lady Michelle Obama is in on the act, scheduling an appearance on the “David Letterman Show” smack in the middle of Romney’s nominating bash.

I think we can officially declare “Hope and Change” dead, now we’re moving “Forward” into the era of being a jerk. Yes, I did just call Obama a jerk. The term fits. At least in keeping the post at a PG level.

Political historians say the high stakes of this year’s elections — combined with the rise of today’s 24/7 media culture — has forced leaders on both sides of the aisle to get more aggressive.

Both sides? Both sides? Nowhere within the article does it mention the Romney campaign and/or Republicans having any plans to disrupt the DNC in Charlotte. I doubt they will, but, if they do, you can bet that Romney will be called rude and provide teeth gnashing for the liberal media, who will conveniently forget about what the Dems did at the RNC.

On the bright side, it’ll give Joe Biden the chance to say something monumentally rude and stupid. Again.

The Greatest Threat to our Democracy

The American system of democracy is under threat. It’s under threat from an Obama campaign that seeks to polarize Americans along race and class lines. It’s under threat from a Democratic Party that seeks to pit those who pay taxes against those who don’t.

But most of all, it’s under attack from America’s public sector unions.

Mallory Factor explains in his new book, “Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind,” just how the unions pervert the political system. They demonstrate how our government has become subject to the demands of an ever-more-powerful minority — and how that level of control breeds national bankruptcy.

In essence, government worker unions run the Democratic Party. Franklin D. Roosevelt long opposed the notion that government workers should be allowed to unionize; he recognized that the ultimate power of unions is the ability to strike, and that government workers striking would be acting against the interests of the dispersed taxpayers. That was unacceptable.

But over time, FDR’s clarity of vision fell away. In 1962, JFK, recognizing the increasing power of private unions, realized that government employees who unionized could build the path to permanent Democratic governance. Here’s how the scheme would work. The government would insist on bargaining with unions; employees would have to join unions in order to work and receive representation. Unions would be able to exact dues from their members, and they would use those dues to elect their favored politicians. Those politicians would then strike cushy deals for the unions. The winners: politicians, unions and working union members. The losers: taxpayers, who would subsidize both union salaries and Democratic campaigns.

Democrats across the country quickly adopted this strategy. The system of forced dues now rules larges swaths of the United States, destroying the fundamental freedom of labor that should be an American birthright. In certain states, private individuals have been forced into unions — and more importantly, into paying union dues — simply for caring for their disabled children.

But the unions have now become the masters of the Democrats rather than vice versa. As Factor writes, “Democrats live in fear of the people that really impact their reelection campaigns — the union Shadowbosses. … Open Secrets reported that of the top ten Congressional candidates whom labor spent money to defeat in 2008, all lost their races.”

The cost of union domination has been economic stagnation and widespread bankruptcy. As Factor writes, “Over the last ten years, the federal government has subsidized more and more state government spending, covering 34.1 percent of all state spending in 2011, up from 25.7 percent ten years before.” Overall, as Factor points out, “Lightly unionized states do much better than highly unionized states.” The average real personal income growth from 2000 to 2010 in the seven most unionized states averaged 7.8 percent; in the seven least unionized states, that average was a whopping 24.9 percent. Government workers’ unions impoverish Americans.

There’s only one solution to taking back our country. It starts by taking control of our tax dollars by booting out of office those who are in bed with the public employee unions. Only when the corrupt cycle between the Democratic Party and their public-employee union shadowbosses is broken can American democracy be restored in full.