printSen. Rand Paul is certainly showing his sclerotic Republican colleagues how it’s done. The son of Ron has proposed $500 billion in spending cuts to take effect in a year. A laid-back Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican Leader, showed some curiosity: “There is widespread interest in the Republican conference for spending cuts that pay more than lip service to reducing the debt.” (http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9L094PO1.htm)
How nice.
How will the Republican establishment grapple with Rand’s perfectly reasonable quest to limit the automatic grant of citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants, unless certain conditions are met. (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/28/senate-proposal-amend-constitution-restrict-birthright-citizenship/#ixzz1CUTO6zXN)
Limit? Now that’s a new concept. To stop the American Welfare State at the Rio Grande—now that would be mean. (Besides, Mitch doesn’t pay for it.)
ANN COULTER is often an ace on matters of law: “Democrats act as if the right to run across the border when you’re eight and a half months pregnant, give birth in a U.S. hospital and then immediately start collecting welfare was exactly what our forebears had in mind, a sacred constitutional right, as old as the 14th Amendment itself.”
… this alleged right derives only from a footnote slyly slipped into a Supreme Court opinion by Justice Brennan in 1982. You might say it sneaked in when no one was looking, and now we have to let it stay.
The 14th Amendment was added after the Civil War to overrule the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, which had held that black slaves were not citizens of the United States. …
The drafters of the 14th Amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S. …
I find Rev. Delahunty’s statement in the Business Week article to be MORALLY OBJECTIONABLE.
First: even in DC, chicken bologna costs $1 / pound which has enough protein and calories to feed a person for a day (OK – add 2 cents for vitamins) – so if there are 30 million poor x 365 days, one can probably feed all the starving masses of America for $ 11 Billion.
Second, it is morally objectionable to have forced altruism which is theft. If half the Catholic population of America gave $ 1 / day, it should feed everyone. So why does Rev. Delahunty insist on doing this by Internal Revenue Service gunpoint and by using Government bureaucrats instead of Catholic volunteers?
I’m happy that Rand Paul is proposing some real cuts instead of the usual Republican B.S. about “waste fraud and abuse” as if that was some spending line to be cut! Ethanol subsidies, the War on Drugs, HUD– even if these things were eliminated 25% / year over the next 4 years, it would establish the principle that (unconstitutional and financially ruinous) federal largesse need not be permanent. Obviously, the three enormous gorillas in the Terabudget are Social Security, Medicare, and “Defense”.
Palin sez
Now — Rand Paul — there are so many good libertarian and conservative ideas already out there. We’ve just got to start applying those with the political will that is needed in Washington
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/transcript/palin-obama039s-state-union-address-full-039wtf039-moments#ixzz1CUqLFKxl
“the Rev. Patrick Delahanty, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky.” I was unaware that the Catholic Conference was a (moral) branch of the US government. Learn something new everyday.
I for one am glad to hear Rand Paul is taking the bull by the horns. He is proposing policy alternatives that are based on:
1) common sense,
2) economic sense, and
3) the constitution.
Clearly Rand traveled to Washington with a clear set of ideas to move the country in a direction more in line with our founders and our history.
Palin and Obama – what a pair (of schnooks) with their own pseudohistory of “Sputnik”.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/transcript/palin-obama039s-state-union-address-full-039wtf039-moments#ixzz1CUqLFKxl
I just read Palin talking how putting a metal ball with a radio into orbit bankrupted the Soviet Union. Then you have Obama saying how we had to understand the basic science of how to get the moon after Sputnik took place. These two are both HISTORICAL and SCIENTIFIC idiots! You could probably find two more intelligent people at a Bowling Alley.
Yes, the Soviet cost of empire (far greater than the cost of launching a small projectile into orbit) and their idiotic command-economic-socialistic system bankrupted them. As for the basic physics of getting to the moon, Barack, try ISAAC NEWTON!
Such is the state of “education” in the USA.
Rand Paul’s proposal to begin seriously cutting the U.S. spending spree is long, long overdue. I recall that Nick Gillespie of Reason showed nicely that the U.S. could balance its budget merely by cutting 4.5% per year for the next 10 years. Of course, the obvious problem with Mr. Gillespie’s suggestion is that the U.S. would be borrowing money (or attempting to do so) every year for the next 10 years, thereby drastically increasing our debt!
Whenever someone proposes real spending cuts, there will be well-organized opposition, as such cuts will directly impact someone’s livelihood. For this reason such cuts are extremely difficult to accomplish.
Best of luck to Sen. Paul; he’s certainly going to need it.
Bowling Green DN sez
“A lot of politicians tell people what they want to hear, get elected, head to our nation’s capital and don’t follow through on those promises, but newly elected U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., doesn’t fit that mold.”
During the campaign, he often talked about balancing the federal budget, which is in dire need of being done, and Paul is following through with that pledge.
http://bgdailynews.com/articles/2011/01/30/opinion/our_opinion/opinion.txt
Is the message finally getting through to The District of Corruption ?
Myron: My understanding of the Sputnic matter was that the Russians used it to show Russian missile capability. The US had lots of German missile scientists; but, our priority was using B-52s as bomb carriers. The Russians showed the world that, missiles as delivery devices were cheaper and just as efficient. We had to shift gears from Strategic Air Command (SAC) to creating NASA and our missile systems. It wasn’t a matter of lack of knowledge, but common sense. Wasteful aircraft, efficient missiles; unfortunately, for both sides, they forgot the lessons of Sputnic and embraced inefficiency in just about every other endeavor.
Back on topic: On another blog, in view of the economic problems of the world and especially the world, the view was that we, the middle class, were going to go out without a whimper. No one noticed the TEA Party or dismissed it out of hand. From where I stand, the TEA Party has lasted two years now and is growing more each day while firming up internally. Good politicians like Ron and Rand Paul, Michele Buchmann and others are helping it grow. What it will grow into is anyone’s guess; but, it and Paul is moving.