Let's talk about what Elaine Marshall stands for

HT: Under The Dome.

Let's put the idiotic "Tax Cuts for the Rich" bleat into context

The problem is NOT "too little revenue, we can't afford the tax cuts". the problem CLEARLY is too much spending, whether "progressives" like it or not.

.....from Daniel Mitchell at Cato, who adds:

"Amazing how the problem becomes obvious when you look at real numbers and don’t get trapped into using “baseline” math..."

How the Dems could still steal the 2010 election

Anything is possible, as The Spectator points out.

Noteworthy:

"And now the aforementioned Justice Department, especially its Voting Rights Section, is as corrupt as anything this country has seen since John Mitchell carried Dick Nixon's water. Dead people and felons remain on the voter rolls. Some of them actually vote from their graveyards. Too many military personnel are disenfranchised. Minority voters are protected but white voters aren't. People vote in the name of Alzheimer's patients. Illegal aliens vote -- and, even after being busted for it, are still offered citizenship.

No conservative who goes to bed on Election Night with a tiny lead should rest safe. John Thune learned that against Tim Johnson in South Dakota in 2002. Dino Rossi actually was certified as the winner of Washington state's gubernatorial race in 2004 before having it snatched away. Norm Coleman was upended by Al Franken in Minnesota in 2008. And in Indiana's 'Bloody Eighth' district in 1984, Democrats swiped a seat for incumbent Frank McCloskey even after the official count showed Republican Rick McIntyre had won by hundreds of votes.

In short, conservatives can't just win; they need to win each race beyond a steal-able margin. Otherwise, Eric Holder's brigades will find a way to snatch elections away the way armed goons snatched Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives, at Holder's orders, in the dark of night."

"Night of the Living Debt"

(via Conservative NC)

Your Obama "stimulus" at work

"Unemployment Likely Increased to 9.7 Percent in September"

Imagine that!

Noteworthy:

"The amount of unemployment we’ve already got and the slowness of recovery lead to predictions that we could have 9-plus percent unemployment even through the next presidential election."




Things are not looking too peachy in Obamaland, are they?

"Bernanke : Defict threats are 'real and growing' "

Ya think?:

Still, Bernanke doesn't get it. He doesn't think Obamaland needs to stop the on-going crony capitalism spending campaign:

"Bernanke, in a speech prepared for delivery, reiterated his belief that the government shouldn't raise taxes or slash spending now because the economic recovery is still too fragile."

It could be worse. He could be advocating for massive tax increases (over and above the expiration of the Bush tax cuts), and massive increases in spending, as advocated by leftist agenda clowns who masquerade as economists, like Paul Krugman.

"Emancipation From What...Capitalism?"

Brian Wesbbury and Bob Stein:

" 'In the year 1000, the average infant could expect to live about 24 years. A third died in the first year of life. Hunger and epidemic disease ravaged the survivors. By 1820, life expectation had risen to 36 years in the west, with only marginal improvement elsewhere. After 1820, world development became much more dynamic. By 2003, income per head had risen nearly ten-fold, population six-fold. Per capita income rose by 1.2 per cent a year: 24 times as fast as in 1000-1820. Life expectation increased to 76 years in the west and 63 in the rest of the world.'

Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy.

To paraphrase - for 1800 years, progress was virtually non-existent; then it accelerated sharply. It takes a severe case of denial for someone to ignore these lessons of history. What they show is that when freedom prevails, the ingenuity and inventiveness of people creates incredible wealth. This is the true source of improvement in the human condition.

The US Constitution was crucial in the process of freedom. It established a new country with protected property rights. The Declaration of Independence declared the “unalienable Rights” of 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.' It also declared that 'whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government….'

Yes, the US has its history with slavery and women’s suffrage, but the Civil War, and 13th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution fixed those wrongs. It wasn’t easy, but the system worked. No system of social and economic organization has done more to lift living standards than the US system of 'free market capitalism.' No system of governance has improved the lives of so many people.

So, why is this system under attack? Have we uncovered problems with free market capitalism that are the equivalent of slavery and women’s suffrage?

President Obama thinks so. In a speech last week, he called belief in capitalism 'blind faith.'He said this philosophy, of letting people 'fend for themselves' has 'failed.' He added that “people are frustrated, they’re anxious, they’re scared about the future. [But] now is not the time to quit....We’ve been through worse.... It took time to free the slaves. It took time for women to get the vote.'

This is the Progressive’s mantra – 'Capitalism is unjust, unfair...A new system must be put in its place and this takes time.' There is only one problem with this logic. It’s not really progress and it has never, ever worked. Today’s progressives are the ones that ask for blind faith. They want people to believe that they have finally figured out how to do it right

But this is just wishful thinking. Every economic system, no matter how it is described, is a system that distributes resources among competing interests. In a Progressive system, government officials control this process. In a free market system, resources flow to those who use them best to improve the lives of others. The market votes every day on these products and services and the successful ones are given more resources. To prove how fluid this system is, more businesses fail each year than succeed.

This is not true of government. Once started, government programs rarely fail. The system perpetuates them with more money and more resources. The waste increases over time until it becomes so overwhelming that the entire system fails. The Roman Empire, the Soviet Union, Greece, California and Illinois are all the evidence needed.

The real problem with the economy these days it that we have moved too far away from free market capitalism. As government spending has increased, so has unemployment. This is not a mystery; the bigger the government, the smaller the private sector and the less dynamic the economy. If there is any emancipation needed these days it’s from the government, not from capitalism."

Here's some help for the undecided voter

Need help deciding on who to vote for this November?

Here's your guideline to help you make your decision:




Note: If you can't comprehend these difficult instructions, go to the polling place. Before you enter, find the nice Democrat election fraud enabler worker, and tell him or her that you need help.

"Cafeteria Constitutionalists", and the coming rejection of relativism

Lisa Fabrizio, at Intellectual Conservative:

" America is now experiencing this inclination of a large number of citizens to disregard the founding principles that underpin our nation in favor of their own ideas of what our government is and should do; all the while insisting that they support and defend our Constitution. It is at times like these that non-Catholics share with us our frustration when reading the opinions of our brethren who pick and choose which, if any, precepts of the Faith they might respect.

...Those who do not understand how liberals can claim to love America while disdaining the simple and direct strictures of the Constitution, need only look to so-called Christian sects that support and even employ as preachers, practicing homosexuals and others living in direct contravention of specific biblical admonitions against same. In the case of the Anglican Church, this fact alone is driving many true believers into the arms of Rome; in much the same way as the deliberate flaunting of our Constitution by the Obama Administration is fattening the membership of the Tea Parties with otherwise non-political Americans.

The reason is the same: there remain in this world people who cling to eternal principles as rock-solid and worthy of adherence, while there are others who proceed from the nauseating viewpoint that all progress is good and we must therefore change with the times. Contrary to the views expressed in the 1960s, this way of life is not liberating, but is every bit as stifling as the chains of any tyrant. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned shortly before his election as Vicar of Rome, 'We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires. '"

Indeed.

Read the whole thing.

Good policy, good politics

Michael Barone@NRO:GOP Battle Cry: Repeal Obamacare, Cut Spending:

"... the macroeconomy is in a very different place than it was during the Gingrich era. Then, we were well launched into an economic recovery, one aided by Republicans’ partial victories on budget and tax issues. Money didn’t seem scarce, and shutting down the government seemed extreme.

Today, we are in, if not an official recession, at least an agonizingly slow recovery. And if Democrats complain that it’s unfair for government and public employees to be limited to what they got in 2008, Republicans can reply that an awful lot of their constituents would be very happy to go back to the income levels and the housing equity and the 401(k) balances they had in 2008.

Everyone has been suffering. Why should government be exempt? Wouldn’t it function better if it went on a diet?"

Most of us are tired of hearing the Democrat whining--

"But the public LOVES health care reform when they are told about the individual provisions!"

"Tax cuts for the rich are eeeeeeeeeeevil!"

"The Stimulus worked, but we need more!"

"Millions of jobs saved or created! Unemployment numbers increase? What unemployment numbers increase?"

.....and on and on and on and on and on.

No, there are no good reasons to close our borders, right?

Small Business and Obamacare

As John Goodman describes it, these are stunning poll results

There's more of this sort of thing to come.

MUCH more.

November is coming. It's time to take political advantage of a crisis, just like the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives"/Sorosites/Unions/Media and every babbling hopey changey blogger did in 2008.

The only difference will be that we are not the ones who created this crisis in the first place. The afore-mentioned fools are STILL the culprits.

Why Obama's policies are counter-productive

Robert Samuelson, at The Locker Room:

"Confidence is crucial to stimulating consumer spending and business investment, and Obama constantly subverts confidence. In the past year, he’s undone some of the good of his first months. He loves to pick fights with Wall Street bankers, oil companies, multinational firms, health insurers, and others. He thinks that he can separate policies that claim to promote recovery from those that appeal to his liberal base, even when the partisan policies raise business costs, stymie job creation, or augment uncertainty—and, thereby, undermine recovery. His health-care “reform” makes hiring more expensive to employers by mandating insurance coverage; the moratorium on deepwater drilling kills jobs. No matter.

Obama’s proposal to increase taxes on personal incomes exceeding $250,000 ($200,000 for singles) is the latest example of his delusional approach. It satisfies the liberal itch to 'get the rich.' Well, the rich and most other taxpayers will ultimately have to pay higher taxes to help close budget deficits. But not now. Raising taxes in a weak economy doesn’t make sense. Just consider: these affluent households represent almost a quarter of all consumer spending, says Zandi. Richard Curtin, director of the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers, says his data suggest that uncertainty about the extension of the Bush tax cuts has already caused affluent buyers to cut their spending.

Some small businesses would also be affected, because many (sole proprietorships, partnerships, and subchapter S corporations) file their taxes on personal returns. Higher taxes would discourage hiring and expansion. No one knows by how much, but the Tax Policy Center estimates that higher business taxes would affect 725,000 returns with about $400 billion of business income. Some of these are partnerships of doctors, lawyers, and accountants. Others are contractors, restaurant owners, florists, and plumbers."
(Emphasis added)

But merrily Obama and cronies will roll along, indiscriminately killing jobs and dousing the sparks of economic recovery.

We can't say that we weren't warned about this throughout 2008.

Best campaign ad so far this season

Dennis may not win, but you've got to love his accurate description in this ad.

Sebelius threatens health insurers

Under the Obamanation, free speech only applies to those who support The Agenda (TM).

"President Barack Obama's top health official on Thursday warned the insurance industry that the administration won't tolerate blaming premium hikes on the new health overhaul law.

'There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases' Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter to the insurance lobby."

Captain Ed thinks that Obama and Sebelius are convinced that the Holy Obamacare scripture nullifies the 1st Amendment:

"Rarely have we heard a Cabinet official tell Americans to stay out of political debates at the risk of losing their businesses. It points out the danger in having government run industries and holding a position where politicians can actually destroy a business out of spite. It also demonstrates the thin skin of our current administration, where Hope and Change means keeping your mouth shut and pretending that everyone is happy while businesses slowly circle the drain.

Of course, maybe Sebelius won’t go as far as to lock them out of the state exchanges for disputing the Official Smiley-Face Rhetoric Enforcement Squad at HHS. Perhaps she’ll just send them to a re-education facility instead."

These agenda driven autocrat idiots never learn, do they?

A disaster of a mid term election will probably convince them to try their cram-down two minute warning drill to get even more of The Agenda (TM) into law.

"Economic Malpractice"

Our current malaise is a great example of the price we pay for putting agenda-driven economic amateurs in charge.

Noteworthy:

"How did they get it so wrong? It is because they have an economic theory, which did not and does not work in practice. If Team Obama had known American economic history, it would have known there was no case where a big increase in government spending — correctly measured as a percentage of gross domestic product — led to both higher private consumption and significant job growth (including World War II, when private consumption by necessity was severely restricted).

....To fund the stimulus spending, Team Obama is forced to sell an extra trillion dollars or so in government bonds. To whom does the government sell these bonds? The buyers are U.S. businesses and individuals (often through funds), and foreigners. When businesses and individuals buy these government bonds, they have less money for productive investment (government bonds primarily fund transfer payments, not productive investment) or private consumption. Less productive investment and/or private consumption means fewer private-sector jobs. Government can create government-sector jobs at the expense of private-sector jobs, but not at a higher real wage — which is one reason why a growing welfare state and/or a socialist economy always fail. Team Obama seems to have missed these basic historical lessons.....


....Team Obama persists in passing and implementing legislation and regulations that are obvious job-killers, yet it seems to be surprised when other countries that are not engaged in self-flagellation and economic malpractice are growing more rapidly and creating many new jobs."

A Labor Day notice to our American entrepreneurs from your helpful government

"I'd like to make you a business offer.

Seriously. This is a real offer. In fact, you really can't turn me down, as you'll come to understand in a moment...

Here's the deal. You're going to start a business or expand the one you've got now. It doesn't really matter what you do or what you're going to do. I'll partner with you no matter what business you're in - as long as it's legal.

But I can't give you any capital - you have to come up with that on your own. I won't give you any labor - that's definitely up to you. What I will do, however, is demand you follow all sorts of rules about what products and services you can offer, how much (and how often) you pay your employees, and where and when you're allowed to operate your business. That's my role in the affair: to tell you what to do.

Now in return for my rules, I'm going to take roughly half of whatever you make in the business each year. Half seems fair, doesn't it? I think so. Of course, that's half of your profits.

You're also going to have to pay me about 12 percent of whatever you decide to pay your employees because you've got to cover my expenses for promulgating all of the rules about who you can employ, when, where, and how. Come on, you're my partner. It's only "fair."

Now ... after you've put your hard-earned savings at risk to start this business, and after you've worked hard at it for a few decades (paying me my 50 percent or a bit more along the way each year), you might decide you'd like to cash out - to finally live the good life.

Whether or not this is 'fair' - some people never can afford to retire - is a different argument. As your partner, I'm happy for you to sell whenever you'd like ... because our agreement says, if you sell, you have to pay me an additional 20 percent of whatever the capitalized value of the business is at that time.

I know, I know. You put up all the original capital. You took all the risks. You put in all of the labor. That's all true. But I've done my part, too. I've collected 50 percent of the profits each year. And I've always come up with more rules for you to follow each year. Therefore, I deserve another, final 20 percent slice of the business.

Oh ... and one more thing.

Even after you've sold the business and paid all of my fees, I'd recommend buying lots of life insurance. You see, even after you've been retired for years, when you die, you'll have to pay me 50 percent of whatever your estate is worth.

After all, I've got lots of partners and not all of them are as successful as you and your family. We don't think it's 'fair' for your kids to have such a big advantage. But if you buy enough life insurance, you can finance this expense for your children.

All in all, if you're a very if you're one of the rare, lucky, and hard-working people who can create a new company, employ lots of people, and satisfy the public, you'll end up paying me more than 75 percent of your income over your life. Thanks so much.

I'm sure you'll think my offer is reasonable and happily partner with me, but it doesn't really matter how you feel about it because if you ever try to stiff me - or cheat me on any of my fees or rules - I'll break down your door in the middle of the night, threaten you and your family with heavy, automatic weapons, and throw you in jail.

That's how civil society is supposed to work, right? This is America, isn't it?"

That's the offer America gives its entrepreneurs. And the idiots in Washington (and in the "progressive" media and on the "progressive" blogs) wonder why there are no new jobs.

Did Obama say anything of note last night?

Apparently not. And no one is really surprised.

Charles Krauthammer:

"I thought the speech was both flat and odd."

Jennifer Rubins:

"Obama is still candidate Obama, never tiring of reminding us that he kept his campaign pledge and ever eager to push aside foreign policy challenges so he can get on with the business of remaking America. All in all, it was what we were promised it would not be — self-serving, disingenuous, ungracious, and unreassuring."

NRO:

"If we still don’t know how the Iraq war is going to end, an engaged, strategically far-sighted commander-in-chief is essential."

...which we most certainly do not currently have by ANY stretch of the imagination, in ANY area of national concern foreign or domestic.

We won't even begin to talk about the hypocrisy of candidate-turned President Obama on the entire Iraq issue.

Assessing the State of the Economic Union

For the Obamanation and its partisan enablers, the economic reality can't be denied any longer.

Noteworthy;

"There is an instinctive conclusion among the American public that President Obama's stimulus package has failed to create a sustained recovery. Unemployment has increased, not declined; consumers have retrenched; housing starts have crashed along with mortgage applications; and there is a fear that a double-dip recession may very well be in the pipeline. The public perception, reflected in Pew Research/National Journal polls, is that the measures to combat the Great Recession have mostly helped large banks and financial institutions, and that's a view common to Republicans (75 percent) and Democrats (73 percent). Only one third of either political leaning thinks government policies have done a great deal or a fair amount for the poor.

There is another instinctive conclusion among the American people. It is that the national deficit, and the debts we have accumulated, are of critical political importance. On the national debt, the money the government has spent without the tax revenues to pay for it has produced mind-numbing numbers so large as to be disconnected from reality. Zeros from here to infinity. The sums are hard to describe; it is hard to describe an elephant, but you know one when you see one. The public knows that, shuffle the numbers as you may, the level of debt is unsustainable.

....Obama must know that if he doesn't address this, he will be the president who drove us toward a debt crisis. And so too must Congress, for both have now participated in the most fiscally irresponsible government in American history."


It will be up to the Republicans to solve this mess. Let's hope they're up to the task.

The last resort for Dems this election season

Does anyone really think the Demagouges Democrats are not desperate enough to try this worn out tactic?

Key points:

"Now we know why the country has become 'ungovernable,' last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities -- often lopsided majorities -- oppose President Obama's social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.

What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card. When the Tea Party arose, a spontaneous, leaderless and perfectly natural (and traditionally American) reaction to the vast expansion of government intrinsic to the president's proudly proclaimed transformational agenda, the liberal commentariat cast it as a mob of angry white yahoos disguising their antipathy to a black president by cleverly speaking in economic terms."

Does that remind you of a particular group of people who comment on a particular local "progressive" blog?