Category Archives: Welfare

UPDATED: Romney Went Wooing And Got Booed

Democrats, Elections, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Racism, Reason, Republicans, War, Welfare

Mitt Romney, rather bravely, went to court the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, at the NAACP’s annual convention. He got booed.

Thank CNN for its reliable, comprehensive transcripts. Here are those Romney remarks that angered the crowd at the NAACP Convention:

I’m going to reduce government spending. I hope everyone understands that high levels of debt slow down the rate of growth of the GDP, of the economy. And that means fewer jobs are created. If our goal is jobs, we have to stop spending over a trillion dollars than we take in every year. And so to do that I’m going to eliminate every nonessential expensive program that I can find. That includes Obama care and I’m going to work to reform and save –
(BOOING)

In reply to the frosty reception, Romney told Neil Cavuto of Fox News:

“I am going to give the same message to the NAACP that I give across the country which is that ObamaCare is killing jobs, and if jobs is the priority, then we’re going to have to replace ObamaCare with something that actually holds down health care costs,” he said.
He addressed the fact that in 2008, President Obama got 96 percent of the African-American vote, and said that he believes he’ll take some of that vote away because African Americans are disappointed with the president’s policies.
He added, “By the way, at the end of my speech, having a standing ovation was generous and hospitable on the part of the audience. And I believe that while we disagree on some issues like ObamaCare, on a lot of issues people see eye-to-eye. They want to get the economy going again.”

Every broadcaster knows, but will not say, why blacks vote Democratic almost exclusively: welfare. Free stuff.

Every broadcaster knows, but will not say, why blacks voted en masse for Obama: racial solidarity.

Romney’s changes to the welfariat will probably be minor—and any cuts in welfare will be used to justify waging wars.

Still, the mere hint that, under the too-white to like Romney, state-mediated distribution of the wealth of others would slow provokes black ire.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal editorializes that with his NAACP visit, Romeny was appealing to the wrong constituency: the black liberal establishment.

Well, if Romeny’s “mistake [was] thinking that the NAACP represents average black voters,” it’s an error one can understand. Voting records that lack nuance attest to it. Blacks, moreover, have never risen against their shakedown elites, because, as the community perceives them, race racketeers like “Reverend” Al Sharpton are doing the Lord’s work.

UPDATE IV: What’s One More Extra-Constitutional Power Grab? (‘Meanwhile, At The Border . . .’)

Barack Obama, Bush, Constitution, Democrats, English, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Private Property, Republicans, Welfare

As measured by the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, the president’s speeches are written at an eighth-grade level. (And we’re not talking simple as in straightforward, precise and concise; but simple as in laden with emotion, and full of hot air and appeals to feelings.)

Read his “Remarks on Immigration.”

As an example of Obama’s eighth-grade writing, take this run-on ramble—a paragraph with the most awful syntax. BHO just adds clauses as he goes. This man’s mind is every bit as disorganized as was Bush’s.

As I said in my speech on the economy yesterday, it makes no sense to expel talented young people, who, for all intents and purposes, are Americans — they’ve been raised as Americans; understand themselves to be part of this country — to expel these young people who want to staff our labs, or start new businesses, or defend our country simply because of the actions of their parents — or because of the inaction of politicians.

What a dreadful cur!

It is, of course, incongruous to profess libertarianism, while supporting free-for-all immigration, affirmative action, anti-private property Civil-Rights laws, and public education extended to all trespassers—these are policies that violate private property, which is the cornerstone of libertarianism.

Most illegal aliens do not come to the U.S. to wage war, but the reality is that, once in the country, almost all wage welfare. Would that the American Welfare State did not exist. But since it does and is, unfortunately, likely to persist for some time to come, it must stop at the Rio Grande.

UPDATE I: Van Esser at NumbersUSA writes the following:

Perhaps I’m missing something but I can’t find a provision of the US Constitution that authorizes a president to act because he/she just can’t wait for Congress. The Obama Administration must have found the language. Otherwise, the new administrative amnesty-in-place for illegal aliens under the age of 31 would be considered an extra-constitutional directive by fiat.

As far as his Orwellian overreach, Strongman Obama is no different than “The Decider” when it comes to flouting our Constitution. Republicans fuss a lot when Democrats sidestep a Constitution that has long been a dead-letter. Democrat do the same.

It’s a meaningless dance.

Big Man Obama gave the great, late, Democratic Senator, Robert Byrd, palpitations. Byrd, RIP, was “a stern constitutional scholar who always stood up for the legislative branch in its role in checking the power of the White House.” According to Politico.com, this old Southern gentleman, after whom Republicans were always chasing for his past indiscretions, warned about Obama’s executive-branch power grab. Chief Obama created a number of new, extra-constitutional White-House fiefdoms: one on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change.

AND now on immigration.

Ditto “The Decider.” He habitually sidestepped the chain of command in the military and winked at the Constitutional scheme. Under The Decider’s dictatorship, matters that ought to have been the business of the people or their representatives were routinely consigned to the executive branch.

So quit the posturing, Republicans. The Obama “Get-Out-Of-Deportation-Free-Card” is business as usual in the republic, RIP.

UPDATE II (June 17): BHO claimed that deportation of criminal aliens was up 80 percent. Bush did close to nothing to defend against the invasion from the south. Compared to that standard, it is probably true that Obama has bested Bush in enforcement. But when the numbers are so miniscule, percentage increases are huge. So, if Bush deported 50 illegal aliens, to exaggerate; then at 90, Obama can boast of kicking out 80 percent more.

UPDATE III: DAVID FRUM via VDARE.COM:

Every serious economic study of immigration has found that the net benefits of present policy are exceedingly small. But that small net is an aggregate of very large effects that cancel each other out. The immigrants get higher wages than they would have earned in their former country. The affluent gain lower prices for in-person services. Lower-skilled native-born Americans face downward wage pressure. In any other policy area, people who consider themselves progressive might be expected to revile a policy whose benefits went to foreigners and the rich, and whose costs were born by the American poor. Immigration policy baffles that expectation.

UPDATE IV (June 18): ‘Meanwhile, At The Border . . .’ via The Center for Immigration Studies:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency charged with guarding the U.S. borders, has written a secret draft policy that would let its agents catch and release low-priority illegal immigrants rather than bring them in for processing and prosecution. The policy, which has not been signed off on, would be the latest move by the Obama administration to set new priorities for the nation’s immigration services, and would bring CBP in line with other Homeland Security Department agencies that already use such “prosecutorial discretion.”
The policy was detailed in an internal memo obtained by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and reviewed by The Washington Times, which confirmed the document.
According to the memo, the draft policy “provides circumstances when to pursue enforcement actions … and includes detailed discussion of several factors CBP personnel should consider when exercising discretion.”
Opponents say it amounts to another “backdoor amnesty” for illegal immigrants and could give the administration a tool to pressure Border Patrol agents not to pursue some people.

To continue the theme of this blog post, how is this different from policy under Bush? On this front it isn’t.

…the underlying reason why America’s deportation system remains inexplicably paralyzed by federal litigation and rigged in favor of relief from removal:
Internationalists in the Bush and Clinton Administrations have decided to confine immigration enforcement only to the U.S. borderlands…until there’s no enforcement at all, because the U.S., Mexico and Canada will have been merged into one unit behind a new “North American security perimeter.”
This shared Canada-U.S-Mexico “security perimeter” is exactly what the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America has in mind for America someday.

[VDARE.COM]

UPDATE II: Tug Of War In Wisconsin Over (Rust-Belt Revolt?)

Elections, IlanaMercer.com, Labor, The State, Welfare

Citing a January poll, George Will observed that policy differences, not criminal behavior, drove the recall campaign against Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

“In the tug of war witnessed in Wisconsin, I wrote in February, of 2011, “the ‘Takers’ (tax consumers), organized by the likes of the AFL-CIO, Andy Stern’s Service Employees International Union, and the national and local teachers unions, want the ‘Makers’ (the so-called rich who fund their existence) to support overgenerous pay and pensions in perpetuity. To grant them their wish, these organized interests are accustomed to turning to the Über-parasites: politicians. This time, a politician in the person of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has refused to facilitate the smooth transfer of wealth from those who create it to those who consume it with no thought for the morrow. (“Public Enemy No. 1: Government Unions”)

Rejoices Guy Benson of TownHall.com: “For the second time in two years, the people of Wisconsin have elected Scott Walker. He is, and will remain, the state’s governor. This outcome is a triumph for Badger State conservatives, the Tea Party movement, and fiscal sanity generally. Though the Left will spin this defeat furiously, make no mistake: They are crestfallen tonight. Their bete noir has prevailed.”

“NBC, CNN, and Fox News have all called this race,” he confirms.

In “The Whine From Wisconsin,” George Will provides the backdrop to what has become a “socialist sandbox of childish pleasure”:

This state, the first to let government employees unionize, was an incubator of progressivism and gave birth (in 1932 in Madison, the precursor of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) to its emblematic institution, the government employees union — government organized as a special interest to lobby itself to expand itself. But Wisconsin progressivism is in a dark Peter Pan phase; it is childish without being winsome.

UPDATE (June 6): RUST-BELT REVOLT? National Journal pinpoints the Walker victory as “a sign of the cultural divide between national Democrats and blue-collar whites.” Especially telling is the fact that the governor “carried 38 percent of union households.” From “Red Flags All Over for Obama in Wisconsin”:

President Obama wasn’t on the ballot in Wisconsin, but Gov. Scott Walker’s decisive victory in last night’s gubernatorial recall is a stinging blow to his prospects for a second term. The re-election was a telltale sign that the conservative base is as energized as ever, that the Democratic GOTV efforts may not be as stellar as advertised, and that the Democratic-leaning “blue wall” Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania will be very much in play this November.
Walker won by a bigger margin than he did in 2010, and with more overall votes. He carried 38 percent of union households – a slight improvement from his 2010 midterm tally — a strikingly strong number given how he’s been cast as the villain of labor. It’s a sign of the cultural divide between national Democrats and blue-collar whites, one that is particularly acute for the president.
Obama’s team is taking consolation in the fact that exit polling showed him leading Mitt Romney, 51 to 44 percent. But that’s hardly good news: with near-presidential level turnout (and notably higher level of union turnout), Obama is running five points behind his 2008 performance. Replicate that dropoff across the board, and all the key swing states flip to Mitt Romney.

MORE.

Personal Notice: The Mercer Articles Archive is out of whack, missing enormous sections, as a result, probably, of a server data-base error. A ticket has been submitted. I hope to have the problem resolved as soon as possible. If you want to read the latest Mercer Articles, or search the articles database, go to the Return to Reason archives on WND.

RESOLVED.

UPDATE II: I don’t know whether, as Ann Coulter puts it, “Walker’s victory Tuesday night was an amazing, miraculous, transformative event in the history of the nation.” But she makes a point previously made in this space too, (minus the respectful references to FDR):

“There’s a reason both FDR and labor leader George Meany said it would be insane to ever allow government employees to unionize. People who work for the government don’t have a hard-driving capitalist boss on the other side of the bargaining table demanding more work for less pay.
No one is worried about the profit margin because there is no profit – it’s government! Rather, the only people on the other side of the table are the unions’ co-conspirators: Democratic politicians willing to spend the public treasury on union members, who will repay the politicians by mobilizing voters.”

From Bagram In Bondage

Barack Obama, Foreign Aid, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, War, Welfare

Windy and insubstantial is the kindest thing an honest newsman might say about the gimmick that is the Strategic Partnership Agreement, signed today by Barack Obama in Afghanistan. The president snuck into that US satrapy in secret. Had his intended “benevolence” toward the poor Pashtuns of Afghanistan been made public—the same people would have tried to blow Air Force One out of the sky.

“Afghanistan has a friend and a partner in the United States,” Obama said before he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement outlining cooperation between their countries once the U.S.-led international force withdraws in 2014. … “There will be difficult days ahead, but as we move forward in our transition, I’m confident that Afghan forces will grow stronger; the Afghan people will take control of their future,” Obama said.

(CNN)

Blah, blah, blah.

Stripped of the baffle-gab, the agreement from Bagram amounts to this: Even when U.S. forces in Afghanistan are reduced considerably, they will still maintain the necessary meaty presence.

Oops, I meant to say the “enduring partnership,” which would, ostensibly, “prevent the Taliban from waiting until the U.S. withdrawal to try to regain power.”

Essentially we’re paying to keep in power the authoritarian protectorate we’ve helped establish, headed by the puppet we appoint, all of whom are hated by the Pashtun majority.

Afghanistan was the war Obama could call his own. He increased America’s presence there from 30,000 troops to 90,000, and thus earned his commander-in-chief credentials. Electability in fin de siècle America hinges on projecting strength around the world—an American leader has to aspire to protect borders and people not his own. Obama needed a war he could call his own. Afghanistan served his purposes.

And he intends on keeping Afghanistan on America’s welfare rolls. Afghanistan’s GDP approximates the foreign aid it receives annually, and you know who supplies the lion’s share of that “GDP”? Counterfeiter-in Chief, Ben Bernanke and the US printing press.

At the expense of the American taxpayer.

It goes without saying that Republicans like Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, the three blind neoconservative mice, are elated about the signing of the “Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) with President Karzai,” as it “will allow the United States military to operate in Afghanistan, though without permanent bases.”

(BAB’s moderated Comments Section will be closed until next week. Please comment on the Facebook Wall and beyond.)