Category Archives: Republicans

The Goldberg Variation*

Conservatism, Debt, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism, Republicans

This response, written by National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, arrived in my email In-Box. This is the first time I’ve received a mass mailing from Mr. Goldberg. It would appear that Jonah Goldberg was somewhat exercised about the reactions to his expected flippancy about the tea party’s “quixotic debt-ceiling showdown.”

Although he harps on the responses aimed at him on Twitter, those are not worth a straw. Pat Buchanan’s veiled allusion to Mr. Goldberg’s ilk, on the other hand, is likely a different matter. In “The ‘We Can’t Win’ Wimps Caucus,” Pat writes the following:

“We told you you would lose!” wail the beltway bundlers of the Republican establishment.

“We told you you would lose!” moan neoconservative columnists from their privileged perches on the op-ed pages of the beltway press.

“Look at what Ted Cruz and these tea-party people did to us,” wails the GOP establishment. “Look what has happened to our brand.” And 2014 was looking wonderful.

What a basket of wimps.

My column, of course, mentions names:

Media conservatives and liberals were agreed. The Republican brand, as National Review’s Jonah Goldberg put it, had been damaged by the debt-ceiling standoff.

Chuckie Krauthammer, another phony conservative, concurred. After badmouthing tea-party Republicans for attempting to leverage a partial government shut-down and debt-ceiling deadline to dilute ObamaCare, Krauthammer scolded “the media” for its biased coverage of the quixotic showdown.

Pot. Kettle. Krauthammer

Read “What If The Media Were Moral?” on Economic Policy Journal, the preeminent libertarian website.

*****

* “The Goldberg Variations”: “‘The Goldberg Variations’ is the last of a series of [sublime] keyboard music Bach published under the title of Clavierübung …”

UPDATED: The Senate Sucks, The President Lies: Just Another Day In The USA

Democrats, Healthcare, Intelligence, Republicans, Ron Paul

He made the statement brilliantly. Nevertheless, it is a sad statement Ted Cruz made, to the effect that Congress was “a profile in courage” for attempting to carry out the will of millions of Americans, and roll back the calamitous ObamaCare.

Sen. Cruz is extremely bright, better able to distill politicking into principle than the son of Ron Paul.

WATCH:

UPDATE: Via Newsmax:

Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, who has led the tea party wing of Republicans in Congress in their effort to defund Obamacare, is an intelligent and principled debater, says his old Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.

Appearing Tuesday on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live,” Dershowitz called the Texas Republican “one of the sharpest students I had, in terms of analytic skills. I’ve had 10,000 students over my 50 years at Harvard . . . He has to qualify among the brightest of the students.”

When Obeying Law Becomes a Political Bargaining Chip

Democrats, Healthcare, Law, Republicans

Nothing in the GOP budget proposal are the Democrats willing to accept, except for “one minor change sought by Republicans: setting new procedures to verify the incomes of some people receiving government subsidies for health-insurance costs.” (WSJ)

John Hayward at RedState.com puts this “concession” in context:

One of the “concessions” Democrats are supposedly offering to Republicans is a pledge to obey the parts of ObamaCare that require income verification for those who receive welfare subsidies through the tax code – a requirement they would otherwise feel free to ignore.
… it’s increasingly clear that the powerful feel no compulsion to obey the law. … We’re only talking about a shutdown because the Ruling Class freely disobeys the laws – and they are laws – requiring Congress to prepare a budget for the federal government. The President and his party are fighting to protect ObamaCare, which they never tire of reminding us is the “settled law of the land,” as if that’s supposed to quash all dissent… but they ignore portions of that law as they please. …In return, Democrats demand the repeal of sequestration, the only remaining shred of a law called the Budget Control Act of 2011.
…Many of President Obama’s Shutdown Theater antics have involved violations of the law. …But even as the aristocracy luxuriates in the highest level of power – the ability to not only pass laws, but ignore them – demands for compliance and obedience from the rest of us grow more strident. …

No doubt, the U.S. is mired in moral decay. A question for RedState.com: Where were you lot when Bush was flouting The Law?

Debt-Addled America

Debt, Democrats, Economy, Government, Republicans

“Like father, like son” goes a saying about the similarities between the behavior of a child and his parents. In the case of the nation, infantile America mirrors its squandering government with respect to debt carried.

Is there any wonder the American people, happliy gulled by the moron media, disapprove of Republicans for entertaining the idea of not raising the debt ceiling?

“American companies and consumers are embracing [debt], running up record amounts in 2013,” reports CNBC.

Total household debt, according to the Fed’s flow of funds report, is at $13 trillion, nearly back to its pre-crisis level in 2007 and a shade below government debt of $15 trillion. … The debt deluge doesn’t end there, either, with lots of loans being taken out as well by companies. U.S. loan volume alone totaled $1.53 trillion through the first three quarters, a gaudy 25 percent higher than the same period in 2012. …
…Consumer credit, for instance, surged past the $3 trillion mark in the second quarter of 2013 and continues on an upward trajectory, according to the most recent numbers from the Federal Reserve.
At $3.04 trillion, the total is up 22 percent over the past three years. Student loans are up a whopping 61 percent.

Warns financier Peter Schiff:

The belief that deficits add to the economy, and that debt can be dealt with in an imaginary future (that never seems to arrive) is the foundation upon which the President can chastise the Republicans as irresponsible suicide bombers. Using this logic, he can argue (with a straight face) that borrowing is the equivalent of paying. That the President can make this delusional argument is not so surprising (no lie too great for the typical politician to attempt). What is alarming is that the media and the public have swallowed it so willingly. As they call for limitless increases in borrowing, Democrats have offered no plan to reduce the current debt and they are unwilling to negotiate with Republicans on that topic. Yet somehow they have been perceived as the party of fiscal responsibility. …
… According to modern economists, an elimination of deficit spending will immediately cause a dollar for dollar decrease in GDP. For example, if the government stopped sending food stamp payments to poor people, then grocery stores would lose business, employees would be laid off, and the economy would contract. But this one dimensional view fails to appreciate that the purchasing power of the food stamps had to come from somewhere. The government can’t create something from nothing. Taxation transfers purchasing power from people living in the present to other people living in the present. In contrast, borrowing transfers purchasing power from people living in the future to people living in the present. The good news for politicians is that future people don’t vote in current elections (and current voters don’t seem to appreciate the cost to their future selves of current policy).