Category Archives: Democrats

BHO’s Never-Never Debt-Payment Plan (Comments Section Restored)

Barack Obama, Debt, Democrats, Economy, Government, Individual Rights, Military, Political Economy, Taxation, Welfare

When President Obama mouths off about a “free society,” you know that the tokenism will be followed by a list of “liberties” that takes the “vision thing” away from private individuals, and leaves it to souped-up civil servants and voracious bureaucrats. After BHO took great care to tether his “vision” of America to the size of state social programs, here is what the president’s vague, debt-reduction plans entail. A “more balanced approach,” he called it, of “$4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years.” Or, the Never-Never scheme. [Transcript]

It’s an approach that borrows from the recommendations of the bipartisan Fiscal Commission I appointed last year, and builds on the roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction I already proposed in my 2012 budget. It’s an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table, but one that protects the middle-class, our promise to seniors, and our investments in the future.
The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week – a step that will save us about $750 billion over twelve years. We will make the tough cuts necessary to achieve these savings, including in programs I care about, but I will not sacrifice the core investments we need to grow and create jobs. We’ll invest in medical research and clean energy technology. We’ll invest in new roads and airports and broadband access. We will invest in education and job training. We will do what we need to compete and we will win the future.

Meaningless so far.

Next in BHO’s noncommittal outline is a mention of the giant defense budget. No specifics are offered. And a centerpiece of the promise to get serious about such cuts is this cunning catch: cuts are in future spending.

As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than protecting our national security, and I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America’s interests around the world. But as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has said, the greatest long-term threat to America’s national security is America’s debt.
Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense. Over the last two years, Secretary Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending. I believe we can do that again. We need to not only eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness, but conduct a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world. I intend to work with Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs on this review, and I will make specific decisions about spending after it’s complete.

[SNIP]

Nothing ventured, a lot gained is the (mangled) maxim Obama follows.

You’ll buy BOH’s “third step,” which “is to further reduce health care spending in our budget,” if you were one of those people who bought the novel idea that an enormous entitlement program, as Obamacare is, will drastically reduce the deficit and debt. The poster person for this mathematical improbability was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Finally, “the fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code,” preached the president. By which he and his menagerie of morons mean not to shorten the tax code to one page, and both reduce and flatten individual and corporate rates—but to sock it to the rich.

Reduction of government debt, in Obama’s perverse moral universe, translates into an increase in state-sanctioned theft.

[My appreciation goes to the New York Times, one of the few outlets that provides transcripts of anything, these days.]

UPDATED: I’m sorry comment section was disabled. it was unintentional. It is restored. Thanks, IronGalt, for the alert.

‘Black Racism’: A Conversation With Erik Rush

Democrats, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Race, Racism, Republicans

This week, on WND.COM (HERE), I talk “Black Racism” with Erik Rush. “Black Racism” is the title of a chapter in the book under discussion, and is the first of a two-part conversation with Erik, who is a WND columnist, and the author of “Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal – America’s Racial Obsession.”

Do you know what Erik told an African-American reader who accused him of not being sufficiently concerned about “his people” who were dying all over the world? Besides assuring her that he was not a member of a racial tribe, Erik also informed the woman that blacks were indeed dying … in Africa, mainly, because they were killing each other. And he recommended that she decamp to that continent where she would be appreciated as a sex slave or as lunch.

More with The Rush in “‘Black Racism’: A Conversation With Erik Rush (Part 1),” now on WND.COM.

UPDATED: Public Enemy No. 1: Government Unions

Democrats, Education, Government, Labor, Political Economy, Politics, Private Property

The following is excerpted from “Public Enemy No. 1: Government Unions,” my new WND.COM column:

“For evidence of the power of the teachers unions acting out on the streets of Madison, Wis., look no further than your property taxes. Almost 50 percent of mine are garnished for ‘Local School Support.’ ‘Port, Fire, Hospital, Library’ constitute a miniscule 5 percent of the property-tax bill. Law enforcement is not even itemized. Other states confiscate even higher percentages from their propertied taxpayers in the service of government-employed teachers.

Yes, do use the term ‘government unions,’ won’t you, as ‘public sector’ or ‘public servants’ implies, incorrectly, that these people serve the public. Besides, have you seen these slackers? In his path-breaking book, ‘The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education,’ Peter Brimelow left us with a lasting mental image of our children’s over-sated role models, attending one of the National Education Association’s annual meetings. The same apparition is everywhere apparent in Madison, as teachers ‘wobble and waddle through the teeming crowds of [supporters] … thighs like tree trunks, bellies billowing, jowls jiggling.’

Over and above the property tax – the federal income tax claims from those who pay it more monies for the educational oink sector. Whether the taxpayer has children in the system or doesn’t, whether he chooses to homeschool his offspring or pays for a private school, whether he approves of the job government pedagogues are doing or doesn’t – he has to pay them, even go into hock for them.

To compound it all, America has a most progressive tax code. According to USA Today, the number of Americans who owe no federal income taxes, and do not share in the cost of government, stood at 47 percent in 2009, and is increasing. What has come to pass John C. Calhoun predicted in ‘A Disquisition on Government,’ where he described the devolution of a democracy in which all private property is, eventually, subjected to the vagaries of majority rule. …”

The complete column, “Public Enemy No. 1: Government Unions,” is now on WND.COM.

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UPDATE (Feb. 26): Tom DiLorenzo points out the power of the monopoly that is the government union:

The enormous power of government-employee unions effectively transfers the power to tax from voters to the unions. Because government-employee unions can so easily force elected officials to raise taxes to meet their “demands,” it is they, not the voters, who control the rate of taxation within a political jurisdiction. They are the beneficiaries of a particular form of taxation without representation (not that taxation with representation is much better). This is why some states have laws prohibiting strikes by government-employee unions. (The unions often strike anyway.)
Politicians are caught in a political bind by government-employee unions: if they cave in to their wage demands and raise taxes to finance them, then they increase the chances of being kicked out of office themselves in the next election. The “solution” to this dilemma has been to offer government-employee unions moderate wage increases but spectacular pension promises. This allows politicians to pander to the unions but defer the costs to the future, long after the panderers are retired from politics.
As taxpayers in California, Wisconsin, Indiana, and many other states are realizing, the future has arrived. The Wall Street Journal reports that state and local governments in the United States currently have $3.5 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities. They must either raise taxes dramatically to fund these liabilities, as some have already done, or drastically cut back or eliminate government-employee pensions.

Why Won’t Tea Party Congress Tackle The TSA?

Democrats, Homeland Security, Republicans, Terrorism

For a while, the natives were restless over being manhandled at the nation’s federally controlled airports. But American travelers (or reporters) seem to have relaxed. At least, one hardly hears much complaining about the home-grown terrorists of the TSA.

The triumphant Republican majority in Congress claims to have a new-found affinity for freedom. If this was so, their first order of business ought to have been the stopping of the en masse molestation at the country’s airports. So far nothing has been done about the ongoing violations of the individual’s constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches without probable cause.

Back on terra firma, the TSA riffraff continue to feel-up the cancer ravaged chests of women like Alaska State representative Sharon Cissna. “We will need to see and touch your prosthetic device, cast or support brace as part of the screening process,” a goon informed the poor woman. “Cissna, who had been in Seattle for medical treatment,” chose to return to Alaska via ferry.

Alas, she’s a Democrats, so she probably has even less of an incentive than the Republicans to act honestly and help tag, collar, and impound The Transportation Security Administration attack dogs.