Lexington Libertarian

Oklahoma Trying To Repeal State Income Tax

2012-01-30T20:40:00.000-08:00

SOMEBODY IS LISTENING! The Lexington Libertarian has authored many articles on the migration from high tax, high unemployment Democrat controlled states to low tax, lower unemployment, Republican controlled states. For instance Illinois that has increased taxes and who has a budget out of control is losing business and individuals to nearby Indiana who has a controlled, spending, low tax haven. Maryland slapped a hefty tax on millionaires only to have many of them disappear.

Indiana is thinking of becoming a Right To Work state. That's a step in the right direction.
But Oklahoma's decision to repeal its state income tax is historic. There is no doubt that it is America's heartland that is leading the way for expansion and jobs.

When Ron Paul talks about repealing the income tax and replacing it with nothing, most people think it can’t be done. But at least on the state level, it can. In fact, there are nine states, including Paul’s home state of Texas, that don’t levy income taxes. Those states have far outperformed high-income-tax states on every measure of economic success. Now Oklahoma is poised to fully repeal its income tax and join the ranks of non-income-tax states. While Oklahoma is already a relatively business-friendly, low-tax state, income-tax repeal would launch it into the top tier of the most economically competitive states and the best places to live and work.

The Oklahoma income-tax repeal plan was developed by supply-side guru Art Laffer’s econometric firm, in partnership with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, the state’s free-market think tank. Their study found that phasing out the state income tax would more than double personal-income growth, boost the size of Oklahoma’s economy by more than 20 percent, and create an additional 312,000 jobs over the next decade.

The record is clear. Over the past decade, non-income-tax states have seen 59 percent economic growth, versus just 38 percent for high-income-tax states. Job growth has been 4.7 percent in the non-income-tax states, while high-income-tax states actually lost 2.9 percent of their jobs. Population growth is the same story, up 12.3 percent in the non-income-tax states and just 3.8 percent in the high-income-tax states. Perhaps most interestingly, non-income-tax states are seeing more rapid growth in state and local tax revenue, as the high-income-tax states are undermining economic performance and, as a consequence, depressing revenues.

Oklahoma has been strong economically over the past decade, but has lagged behind Texas in every measure. And while Oklahoma is business-friendly, Texas — with no income tax — is an attractive option for Oklahoma companies looking to relocate.

The Laffer-OCPA plan starts by replacing the existing Oklahoma income tax, a progressive tax with a top rate of 5.25 percent, with a flat tax that eliminates all deductions, credits, and loopholes. According to the Oklahoma Tax Commission, such a flat tax would have to be set at 3 percent to replace current income-tax revenue levels, but the Laffer-OCPA plan cuts it to 2.25 percent in 2013, and then cuts it by an additional 0.25 percentage points each year, until the income tax is fully repealed in 2022.

These tax cuts would trigger an economic boom that would offset about half the lost revenue from the plan. It would also significantly increase local-government revenues and decrease spending pressures by reducing the number of people enrolled in state-run welfare programs, including Medicaid. While additional spending restraint would be needed to balance the budget during the phase-out period, overall state spending could continue to grow.

The plan already has broad legislative support. It was introduced with 23 cosponsors in the State House as HB 3038. “In the past decade, states without a personal income tax outpaced Oklahoma in economic growth and job creation,” said state representative David Brumbaugh, a principal author of the bill.

Wouldn’t it be great if all of our state governments competed with each other with pro-growth tax, spending, and regulatory policies to attract as much investment and create as much economic growth as possible? Oklahoma legislators are leading the way by putting this aggressive pro-growth proposal on the table.(1)

(1) Oklahoma Leads on Income-Tax Repeal
The state has proposed a radically pro-growth agenda. National Review Online- http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/289588/oklahoma-leads-income-tax-repeal-phil-kerpen

Occupiers Show Their Anti Semitic,Marxist, Hate America Roots

2012-01-30T20:21:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

“I pledge allegiance to a flag of the imperialistic, capitalistic dictatorship. And to the plutocracy for which it stands, privately owned central bank, under the Jews. With inequality and injustice for the 99.”

Occupiers show their Marxist, anti Semitic, hate America ideology. these people were encouraged by the Democrats and set up by Obama as an antidote to the Tea Party. They mirror the radical, anti America, socialist political party that the Democrat Party has become.

The Best State For Relocation Is...

2012-01-30T09:45:00.000-08:00

Table 2. State Business Tax Climate Index, 2011-2012
	FY 2012		FY 2011		Change From 2011 to 2012
State	Score	Rank	Score	Rank	Score	Rank
Alabama	5.31	20	5.35	20	-0.04	0
Alaska	7.36	4	7.44	3	-0.08	-1
Arizona	5.11	27	5.14	27	-0.03	0
Arkansas	4.94	31	4.94	32	0.00	1
California	3.71	48	3.61	48	0.10	0
Colorado	5.41	16	5.50	17	-0.10	1
Connecticut	4.56	40	4.53	40	0.03	0
Delaware	5.75	12	5.76	12	-0.01	0
Florida	6.90	5	6.84	5	0.06	0
Georgia	4.84	34	4.82	34	0.01	0
Hawaii	4.83	35	4.80	35	0.03	0
Idaho	5.23	21	5.21	22	0.02	1
Illinois	5.05	28	5.52	16	-0.47	-12
Indiana	5.99	11	5.99	11	0.00	0
Iowa	4.47	41	4.38	42	0.09	1
Kansas	5.13	25	5.14	26	-0.01	1
Kentucky	5.20	22	5.17	25	0.03	3
Louisiana	4.93	32	4.94	31	-0.01	-1
Maine	4.78	37	4.70	38	0.08	1
Maryland	4.43	42	4.21	44	0.22	2
Massachusetts	5.17	24	5.12	28	0.05	4
Michigan	5.37	18	5.37	19	-0.01	1
Minnesota	4.20	45	4.18	45	0.02	0
Mississippi	5.39	17	5.39	18	0.00	1
Missouri	5.47	15	5.63	14	-0.16	-1
Montana	6.25	8	6.30	7	-0.05	-1
Nebraska	4.95	30	4.99	30	-0.04	0
Nevada	7.45	3	7.42	4	0.03	1
New Hampshire	6.39	6	6.44	6	-0.05	0
New Jersey	3.33	50	3.34	50	-0.01	0
New Mexico	4.72	38	4.76	37	-0.04	-1
New York	3.59	49	3.60	49	-0.02	0
North Carolina	4.22	44	4.08	46	0.14	2
North Dakota	4.98	29	4.87	33	0.11	4
Ohio	4.56	39	4.54	39	0.03	0
Oklahoma	4.92	33	5.01	29	-0.09	-4
Oregon	5.62	13	5.61	15	0.01	2
Pennsylvania	5.32	19	5.33	21	-0.01	2
Rhode Island	4.18	46	3.88	47	0.30	1
South Carolina	4.82	36	4.77	36	0.05	0
South Dakota	7.54	2	7.57	2	-0.03	0
Tennessee	5.62	14	5.65	13	-0.03	-1
Texas	6.08	9	6.12	9	-0.03	0
Utah	6.04	10	6.09	10	-0.04	0
Vermont	4.17	47	4.23	43	-0.06	-4
Virginia	5.11	26	5.20	23	-0.08	-3
Washington	6.36	7	6.20	8	0.16	1
West Virginia	5.19	23	5.17	24	0.02	1
Wisconsin	4.38	43	4.40	41	-0.01	-2
Wyoming	7.67	1	7.63	1	0.04	0

DC	4.48		4.43		0.05

Note: The higher the score, the more favorable a state's tax system is for business. All scores are for fiscal years. Source: Tax Foundation

The 10 best states in this year’s Index are:

1. Wyoming

2. South Dakota

3. Nevada

4. Alaska

5. Florida

6. New Hampshire

7. Washington

8. Montana

9. Texas

10. Utah

It is obvious that the absence of a major tax is a dominant factor in vaulting many of these 10 states to the top of the rankings. Property taxes and unemployment insurance taxes are levied in every state, but there are several states that do without one or more of the major taxes: the corporate tax, the individual income tax, or the sales tax. Wyoming, Nevada and South Dakota have no corporate or individual income tax; Alaska has no individual income or state-level sales tax; Florida has no individual income tax; and New Hampshire and Montana have no sales tax.

The lesson is simple: a state that raises sufficient revenue without one of the major taxes will, all things being equal, have an advantage over those states that levy every tax in the state tax collector’s arsenal.

The 10 lowest ranked, or worst, states in this year’s Index are:

41. Iowa

42. Maryland

43. Wisconsin

44. North Carolina

45. Minnesota

46. Rhode Island

47. Vermont

48. California

49. New York

50. New Jersey

New Jersey scores at the bottom by having the third-worst individual income tax, the fifth-worst sales tax, the 13th-worst corporate tax, and the second-worst property tax. Rhode Island has improved from 47th to 46th by implementing a modest individual income tax reform, but still has the worst unemployment tax system and fifth-worst property tax system. Maryland improved from 44th to 42nd this year due mostly to the expiration of the state’s “millionaire’s tax” on high-income earners. The states in the bottom 10 suffer from the same afflictions: complex, non-neutral taxes with comparatively high rates.

Illinois moved most dramatically in its Index rank over the past year, falling twelve places (from 16th place in 2011 to 28th place in 2012).

The 2012 Index represents the tax climate of each state as of July 1, 2011, the first day of the standard 2012 state fiscal year.

Methodology

The Tax Foundation’s 2012 State Business Tax Climate Index is a hierarchical structure built from five components:

Corporate Tax
Individual Income Tax
Sales Tax
Property Tax
Unemployment Insurance Tax

Using the economic literature as our guide, we designed these five components to score each state’s business tax climate on a scale of zero (worst) to 10 (best). Each component is devoted to a major area of state taxation and includes numerous variables. Overall, there are 118 variables measured in this report.

The five components are not weighted equally, as they are in many indexes. Rather, each component is weighted based on the variability of the 50 states’ scores from the mean. The standard deviation of each component is calculated and a weight for each component is created from that measure. The result is a heavier weighting of those components with greater variability. The weighting of each of the five major components is:

33.1% — Individual Income Tax

21.4% — Sales Tax

20.3% — Corporate Tax

14.1% — Property Tax

11.1% — Unemployment Insurance Tax

This improves the explanatory power of the State Business Tax Climate Index as a whole because components with higher standard deviations are those areas of tax law where some states have significant competitive advantages. Businesses that are comparing states for new or expanded locations must give greater emphasis to tax climates when the differences are large. On the other hand, components in which the 50 state scores are clustered together, closely distributed around the mean, are those areas of tax law where businesses are more likely to de-emphasize tax factors in their location decisions. For example, Delaware is known to have a significant advantage in sales tax competition because its tax rate of zero attracts businesses and shoppers from all over the mid-Atlantic region. That advantage and its drawing power increase every time a state in the region raises its sales tax.

In contrast with this variability in state sales tax rates, unemployment insurance tax systems are similar around the nation, so a small change in one state’s law could change its component ranking dramatically.

Within each component are two equally weighted sub-indexes devoted to measuring the impact of the tax rates and the tax base. Each sub-index is composed of one or more variables. There are two types of variables: scalar variables and dummy variables. A scalar variable is one that can have any value between 0 and 10. If a sub-index is composed only of scalar variables, then they are weighted equally. A dummy variable is one that has only a value of 0 or 1. For example, a state either indexes its brackets for inflation or does not. Mixing scalar and dummy variables within a sub-index is problematic because the extreme valuation of a dummy can overly influence the results of the sub-index. To counter this effect, the Index weights scalar variables 80 percent and dummy variables 20 percent.

2012 State Business Tax Climate Index

by Mark Robyn, Tax Foundation - http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22658.html

Democrats Believe Forced Giving Beats Voluntary Giving

2012-01-27T16:22:00.000-08:00

"Charitable giving sheds some light on the rationale behind the Left's demands. Mitt Romney gave more than 19 percent of his income to various charities, including the Mormon Church, in 2011 -- that's more charitable giving than taxes paid. The Obamas, on the other hand, gave just 1 percent of their income to charity between 2000 and 2004, increasing that to 5 percent by 2007. Joe Biden gave $369 -- three hundred sixty-nine dollars -- the year before becoming VP, and just $5,350 in 2010. A reasonable conclusion is that because "liberals" are so miserly with their money, they think the only way to "spread the wealth" around is through forced taxation."

"Not only are these hypocrites stingy, but they don't even pay what they owe. The IRS reports that 36 of Obama's executive office staff owe some $833,970 in back taxes, and thousands of federal employees owe back taxes totaling $3.4 billion. Obama declared in his speech, "We need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes." Good thing his staff doesn't have to worry about that."

The Patriot Post

The Buffett Rule Would Mean A Capital Gains Tax Increase From 15% To 30%

2012-01-27T15:26:00.000-08:00

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Not only do we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world but if the United States would enact the Buffett rule on top of that we would see many more business move overseas. A GIANT JOB KILLER.

Once again The Lexington Libertarian has to point out that the Democrats do not know how to grow out economy. They want to spend, spend, spend and then tax, tax, tax. That's why we call them tax and spend Liberals.

The only true job growth that isn't paid for by the American taxpayer is growth in the private sector. You don't attract private business and thus more jobs by taxing them to death and taxing investments that provide business with the capital to start up or expand. That's why they call it CAPITALISM.

On top of that, as demonstrated in his SOTU address, Obama is waging class warfare on the nation and intends to let the Bush tax cuts run out. So here is the Obama plan for our economy: spend over $1 trillion more than you take in, keep corporate tax rates higher than the rest of the world, double the rate of capital gains taxes, let the Bush tax cuts expire, increased health care taxes, taxes on energy and carbon (Cap & Trade) and you name it.

THIS IS A PRESCRIPTION TO DESTROY THE ECONOMY

Remember the moment in 2008 when Charlie Gibson of ABC News asked Senator Barack Obama why he would support raising the capital gains tax even though "revenues from the tax increased" when the rate fell? Mr. Obama's famous reply: "I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness." Well, we were warned.

Here we are four years later, and President Obama on Tuesday night linked the term "fair" to U.S. tax and economic policy seven times. The U.S. economy is still hobbling out of recession, real family incomes are falling and 14 million Americans are unemployed, but Mr. Obama declared that his top priority is not to reform the tax code to promote growth and job creation. His overriding goal is redistributing income.
Mr. Obama endorsed the political ruse he calls the Buffett rule, which asserts as a matter of moral principle that millionaires should not pay a lower tax rate than middle-class wage earners. Specifically, Mr. Obama is proposing that anyone earning more than $1 million pay at least 30% of that income to Uncle Barack.

The White House says that if a millionaire household's effective tax rate falls below 30%, it would have to pay a surcharge—in essence a new Super Alternative Minimum Tax—to bring the tax liability to 30%. For those facing this new Super AMT, all deductions and exemptions would be eliminated except for charity.

The Buffett rule is rooted in the fairy tale that taxes on the wealthy are lower than on the middle class. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office notes that the effective income tax rate of the richest 1% is about 29.5% when including all federal taxes such as the distribution of corporate taxes, or about twice the 15.1% paid by middle-class families. (See "How Much the Rich Pay," January 23, 2012.)

This is because wealthy tax filers make most of their income from investments. Such income is taxed once at the corporate rate of 35% and again when it is passed through to the individual as a capital gain or dividend at 15%, for a highest marginal tax rate of about 44.75%.

This double taxation is one reason the U.S. has long had a differential tax rate for capital gains. Another reason is because while taxpayers must pay taxes on their gains, they aren't allowed to deduct capital losses (beyond $3,000 a year) except against gains in the current year. Capital gains also aren't indexed for inflation, so a lower rate is intended to offset the effect of inflated gains.

One implication of the Buffett rule is that all millionaire investment income would be taxed at the shareholder level at a minimum rate of 30%, up from 15% today. The tax rate on investment income from corporations would rise to 54.5% from 44.75%, a punitive tax on start-up or expanding businesses.

The new 30% capital gains rate would be the developed world's third highest behind only Denmark and Chile, according to the American Council for Capital Formation. This is on top of the 35% corporate rate that is already the second highest rate in the world after Japan. That giant sucking sound you hear come January 2013 would be hundreds of billions of investment dollars fleeing to China, India, Korea and other U.S. competitors. Lower capital investment in the U.S. means less wage growth, and so the people hurt most by this tax hike would be workers, according to a study by the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation.
Yet in a time of the highest deficits since World War II, Mr. Obama wants to double the capital gains tax rate even as he raises the top income-tax rate to 42% or so. Mr. Obama really is taking us back to the worst habits of the 1970s. And not because he thinks higher rates will raise revenue, but merely so he can score points against Mitt Romney and stick it to the successful.

This isn't tax fairness. It's tax folly.(1)

America Before President Obama Took Office and Now

Before

Now

Change

Number of Unemployed¹

12.0 Million

13.1 Million

+9%

Long-Term Unemployed²

2.7 Million

5.6 Million

+107%

Unemployment Rate³

7.8%

8.5%

+9%

“High Unemployment” States⁴

22

43

+95%

Misery Index⁵

7.83

11.46

+46%

Price of Gas⁶

$1.85

$3.39

+83%

“Typical” Monthly Family Food Cost⁷

$974

$1,013

+4%

Median Value of Single-Family Home⁸

$196,600

$169,100

-14%

Rate of Mortgage Delinquencies⁹

6.62%

10.23%

+55%

U.S. National Debt¹⁰

$10.6 Trillion

$15.2 Trillion

+43%

(1)

The Buffett Ruse, Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203806504577183250095478594.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

Energy Needs Fueling Tensions in the Arctic

2012-01-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

Image by Polar Cruises via Flickr

While today's energy concerns turn focus disproportionately toward the Middle East, international tension over the last decade suggests that tomorrow's battleground will be the far off Arctic Circle. With vast untapped reserves of natural gases and oil, the region has increasingly become a topic of discussion among the northernmost countries as national leaders vie for a larger share of its resources, says Alan Dowd, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic may hold 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- 30 percent of the world's undiscovered gas.
According to that same study, the region also contains 90 billion barrels of oil, which constitutes 13 percent of undiscovered reserves.
The large endowment of these natural resources is not a new discovery, but the price of these commodities has only recently risen high enough that extraction from the Arctic Circle would be cost efficient.
Furthermore, with forecasts from the Energy Information Agency estimating a 20 percent increase in daily world oil consumption by 2030, prices will continue to climb and the Arctic's resources will become more valuable.

Given this context, it is no surprise that the nations that line the Arctic Circle are increasingly searching for means to stake their claim to broad swathes of the territory. This is especially true of the United States and Russia: the United States cites Alaska and its proximity to the Arctic as substantive motive for involvement while Russia looks to an underwater ridge extending from its continental shelf. Their conflicting claims are a growing source of strife.

Russia claimed almost half the Arctic Circle in 2001, substantiating this claim in 2007 when it planted a flag below the North Pole.
In 2011, Russia announced plans to deploy two army brigades (10,000 troops) to defend its Arctic claims.

In order to make progress on this front and help ensure that Russia is not allowed to take advantage of its outsized claims, the United States will need to cooperate with its NATO allies who also have an interest in the region, including Canada and the Scandinavian countries. It should also consider ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to establish standards for negotiation.

Source: Alan Dowd, "The Big Chill: Energy Needs Fueling Tensions in the Arctic," Fraser Institute, December 1, 2011.

For text:

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/news/display.aspx?id=2147483979

Energy Needs Fueling Tensions in the Arctic, NCPA

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21526&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Wind and Solar Power Production

2012-01-27T14:35:00.000-08:00

Image by twicepix via Flickr

Though wind and solar energy have received enormous government subsidies for years, each remains relatively insignificant in terms of its contribution to aggregate energy production. The low market share of these forms of energy speaks to the fact that the necessary technology for efficient implementation does not yet exist, and that advocates are essentially swimming against the market current, says Benjamin Zycher, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Renewable electricity generation from all nonhydroelectric sources was only 3.6 percent of total U.S. generation in 2010.
Despite this small energy share, nonhydroelectric production received 53.5 percent of all federal financial support for the electric power.
Wind power alone, providing 2.3 percent of generation, received 42 percent of such support.

Wind and solar renewable energy have failed to take off despite government support because they face substantial market impediments. First, their energy production is relatively concentrated and requires as a result large amounts of land per unit of energy.

A wind farm with a theoretical generation capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW) and a generous generation capacity of 35 percent would require 144,000-192,000 acres.
The land requirement problem for solar thermal facilities is of sufficient importance because most analyses assume a maximum generation capacity of 50-100 MW, which, conservatively, would require approximately 1,250 acres.
In contrast, a 1,000 MW gas-fired plant requires about 10-15 acres; conventional coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants have capacity factors of 85-90 percent.

Wind and solar energy also face a broader geographic challenge. Because they're located primarily in the Midwest and the Southwest, respectively, they are far from the coasts where most electricity is consumed. This creates significant transmission costs. One survey of 40 transmission studies for wind projects conducted from 2001 to 2008 finds a median transmission cost of $15 per megawatt hour.

These forms of energy face additional market obstacles as well, such as challenges to industry-wide economies of scale and inconsistent production. For these reasons, the total market has not embraced wind and solar.

Source: Benjamin Zycher, "Wind and Solar Power, Part I: Uncooperative Reality," American Enterprise Institute January 17, 2012.

For text:

http://www.aei.org/outlook/energy-and-the-environment/alternative-energy/wind-and-solar-power-part-i-uncooperative-reality/

Wind and Solar Power Production, NCPA -

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21519&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

The Income-Inequality Myth

2012-01-27T14:26:00.000-08:00

Image by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr

Much reporting on income inequality in America has suggested that the incomes of the rich have been rising, while incomes for the rest of us have been stagnant or even declining. But that may represent a significant misreading of the data. Most studies of inequality, including the recent widely reported study by the Congressional Budget Office, rely on IRS-reported taxable income. This metric is inaccurate for numerous reasons, including that it fails to account for many forms of income that went unreported in earlier decades, says Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

As more businesses have switched from filing under the corporate tax to individual taxes, high-income earners have increased their taxable income.
Furthermore, the tendency for executives to switch from accepting stock options taxed as capital gains to nonqualified stock options taxed as salaries has the same effect.
Finally, the 1986 decrease in income tax rates saw greater income reporting that the aforementioned studies interpret incorrectly as an increase in wealth.

Additionally, studies that use taxable income as their measure of wealth do not take into account non-salary benefits and payments that the lower and middle classes have increasingly received in recent decades.

A recent study by Mark Warshawsky of the Social Security Advisory Board suggests that nearly all of the recent increase in earnings inequality is attributable to rising costs of benefits -- the new implementation of these benefits is most noticeable among the non-wealthy.
Similarly, many studies looking at low-income Americans fail to account for non-cash social-welfare benefits such as food stamps, housing subsidies and Medicaid.

When all of these inaccuracies are accounted for, it is likely that income inequality has not increased at all in recent decades. Furthermore, any increases that researchers do notice have a perfectly plausible explanation that has little to do with wealth-friendly public policy: a gradual transformation of the American economy from manufacturing to service-based industry. This drastic output change rewards workers with higher levels of education, causing them to earn more. Therefore, income inequality should not be attributed solely to government policies like the Bush-era tax cuts.

Finally, the presence of income inequality does not mean that someone must inherently earn less so that the wealthy can earn more. This defies the fact that prosperity is not a fixed value, and that all people have the potential to succeed.

Source: Michael Tanner, "The Income-Inequality Myth," National Review, January 10, 2012.

For text:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/287643/income-inequality-myth-michael-tanner

The Income-Inequality Myth, NCPA

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21494&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

A Step Backward for Economic Freedom in 2012

2012-01-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

The 2012 Index of Economic Freedom, published Thursday by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, documents a world in which economic freedom is contracting, hammered by excessive government regulations and stimulus spending that seems only to line the pockets of the politically well-connected, says Edwin J. Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation.

Most of the decline in economic freedom was in countries in North America and Europe.

Canada, the United States and Mexico all lost ground in the index, and 31 of the 43 countries in Europe suffered contractions.
Government spending rose on average to 35.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) from 33.5 percent last year as measured by the 2012 index.
The United States' economic freedom score dropped to 76.3 in 2012 from 81.2 in 2007 (on a scale of 0-100).
U.S. government expenditures have grown to a level equivalent to over 40 percent of GDP, and total public debt exceeds the size of the economy.

There are some bright spots.

Economic freedom has continued to increase in Asia and Africa.
In fact, four Asia-Pacific economies -- Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand -- top the Index of Economic Freedom this year.
Taiwan showed impressive gains, moving into the index's top 20.
Eleven of the 46 economies in sub-Saharan Africa gained at least a full point on the index's economic freedom scale, and Mauritius jumped into the top 10 with the highest ranking -- 8th place -- ever achieved by an African country.

The 2012 index results confirm again the vital linkage between advancing economic freedom and eradicating poverty. Countries that rank "mostly unfree" or "repressed" in the index have levels of poverty intensity, as measured by the United Nations' new Multidimensional Poverty Index, that are three times higher than those of countries with more economic freedom.

Positive measures of human development in areas such as health and education are highly correlated with high levels of economic freedom, and economically free countries do a much better job of protecting the environment than their more regulated competitors.

Source: Edwin J. Feulner, "A Step Backward for Economic Freedom in 2012," Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2012.

For text:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204257504577151241847335540.html

A Step Backward for Economic Freedom in 2012, NCPA

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21486&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

So you think you're free? Thanks to big government spending and exploding debt, the United States -- and indeed the world -- is less economically free today than it was a year ago, according to the 18th annual Index of Economic Freedom, released yesterday by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal.

Economic freedom -- the ability of individuals to control the fruits of their labor and pursue their dreams -- is central to prosperity around the world. Heritage and The Wall Street Journal measure economic freedom by studying its pillars: the rule of law, limited government, regulatory efficiency, and open markets. Things like property rights, freedom from corruption, government spending, free trade, labor policies, and one's ability to invest in and create businesses all factor in to a country's economic freedom.

Sadly, economic freedom declined worldwide in 2011 as many countries attempted -- without success -- to spend their way out of recession. The editors of the Index explain what has led to this troubling decline:
Rapid expansion of government, more than any market factor, appears to be responsible for flagging economic dynamism. Government spending has not only failed to arrest the economic crisis, but also--in many countries--seems to be prolonging it. The big-government approach has led to bloated public debt, turning an economic slowdown into a fiscal crisis with economic stagnation fueling long-term unemployment.

Though some might think that the United States -- the land of the free, the home of the brave -- is of course a leader in economic freedom, they would be wrong. The United States fell to 10th place in the world for economic freedom, and its score continues to drop. The U.S. ranked 6th in 2009, 8th in 2010 and 9th in 2011.

Heritage President Ed Feulner writes, "Under President Barack Obama, [the United States] has moved to the back of the band. Its economic freedom score has dropped to 76.3 in 2012 from 81.2 in 2007 (on a scale of 0-100)." The culprit? Government spending, which has grown to a level equivalent to over 40 percent of GDP, and total public debt, which exceeds the size of the economy.

Americans have been feeling the effects of the exploding government and resulting reduction in economic freedom. Some 13.1 million Americans are out of work, the unemployment rate has hovered between 8 and 9 percent, and the economy has merely been plodding along on the road to a very slow recovery. Though 200,000 jobs were added in December, Heritage's James Sherk and Rea Hederman Jr., write, "At that pace, the unemployment rate will not return to normal levels (or 5.2 percent) for four and a half years--not until September 2016."

America's job creators know that it's the policies emanating from Washington that are constraining their ability to create new jobs. According to a new survey of small businesses by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, more than 80 percent are very concerned about the prospect of new regulations, mandates, and higher taxes. There's another thing Americans should be worried about, as well: According to the Index, the United States has seen its "Freedom from Corruption" score drop, as well, due to the Obama Administration's pursuit of increased regulations. As Feulner writes, "Each new edict means a new government bureaucracy that individuals and businesses must navigate. Each new law opens the door for political graft and cronyism."

The United States isn't alone in the trend away from increased economic freedom. Canada and Mexico lost ground in the Index, and 31 of the 43 countries in Europe saw reduced freedom, as well. Given Europe's huge welfare programs and out-of-control social spending, that's unfortunately not surprising. As the world suffers the economic repercussions of Europe's debt crisis, the price of pursuing policies that constrict economic freedom should be clear.

For all the bad news that the Index uncovered, there is some good news for economic freedom around the world. Four Asia-Pacific economies--Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand--lead the Index with top scores this year, Taiwan has seen increased gains in economic freedom, and eleven of the 46 economies in sub-Saharan Africa gained at least a full point on the Index's economic freedom scale. And Mauritius eighth place score is the highest ever achieved by an African country.

Much of the world, though, isn't so lucky. While some countries have seen their economic freedoms increase, others such as India and China are constrained by government control and bureaucracy. Considering that areas like health and education are highly correlated with high levels of economic freedom, governments would serve their people well by pursuing the freedoms that many in the rest of the world enjoy.

Likewise, the United States would be best served by pursuing an agenda of economic freedom at home, too. The liberty to pursue happiness and profit from one's talents and abilities is central to the American ideal. The Land of the Free should work to ensure that ideal is not just a dream but a reality as it leads the world by example in the quest for greater economic freedom.

So, You Think You're Free?, Morning Bell, The Heritage Foundation - morningbell@heritage.org

America's Back?

2012-01-27T14:00:00.000-08:00

"America is back. Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about." Barrack Obama SOTU Address 2012

Inventory building contributed 1.9 percentage points (pp) to growth in Q4 2011 after subtracting 1.4pp in Q3. The measure of final sales, which is a “core” view of the economy that removes the effect of inventories, grew at an annual rate of just 0.8% in Q4 compared with 3.2% in Q3. Under this perspective, the US economy slowed sharply in the final quarter of the year. The choppiness in quarterly growth in the back half of 2011 is partially due to the rebound following the dampening effect on economic growth stemming from the Japan earthquake and tsunami that hit on 11 March. The second half rebound was front-loaded into Q3. The same pattern can be seen when looking at the industrial production data, which also tracks the broad economy. In Q3, industrial production rebounded to an annual growth rate of 6.3% (following 0.6% in Q2) followed by slower growth of 3.1% in Q4. To smooth the effect of the rebound from temporary factors, economic growth in H2 2011 advanced at an average annual rate of 2.2% compared with 0.8% in H1.

O'Reilly On Obama's SOTU Address

2012-01-26T10:07:00.000-08:00

Gingrich's Ethics Investigation

2012-01-26T09:58:00.000-08:00

Tax Cuts INCREASE Revenues; They Have ALWAYS Increased Revenues

2012-01-26T07:18:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaRecently I came across a wonderful blog - START THINKING RIGHT! - http://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/ The article that caught my attention was:

Tax Cuts INCREASE Revenues; They Have ALWAYS Increased Revenues

This is such an important topic and the fact that we have to publish and republish and reiterate information such as this demonstrates the failure of our educational system to teach economics and the workings of the system under which live - CAPITALISM!

Democrats, Liberals and Leftists have NO IDEA HOW TO GROW AN ECONOMY and nothing demonstrates this better than the current administration which is why we are still in sluggish growth and high unemployment. When Ronald Reagan inherited a similar mess from Carter it only took him about a year to start to see things turning around. Obama has made a bad situation worse.

And that is because our economy is not a zero sum game. It is always moving, ever growing, ever declining, up and down. Tax policy does have a huge effect on what decisions John Q. Citizen makes. But the Left misses all that and works from a model where the economy is stuck forever in its present size. That is why Liberals insist on income redistribution - dividing up the pie fairly - because the pie never changes, it's always the same size in their view. But we know that is not true. The approach of the Right is to make a bigger pie, to grow the economy bigger and bigger and a "rising tide will lift all boats."

Take a long look below at the thesis and explanation Start Thinking Right's author Michael Eden has developed. The words below are all his and we invite all my readers to visit his website.

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We keep seeing the same liberal argument being played over and over again. As the mainstream media seek to make their case to the American people that the Bush tax cuts should expire, one of the primary strategies being employed is to claim that Republicans are refusing to “pay for” their extension of the tax cuts. And that therefore the Republicans will hike the deficit. The problem is that it’s a false premise, based on a static conception of human behavior that refuses to take into account the fact that people’s behavior changes depending upon how much of their money they are allowed to keep, and how much of their money is seized from them in taxation.

As bizarre as it might seem, it is seen as perverse these days to suggest that allowing someone to keep more of the money he or she invests would stimulate people to take more risks by investing in businesses and products, and that such increased investment in business and products would in turn stimulate more economic growth. Common sense has become akin to rocket science these days.

Then again, liberals aren’t doing much for rocket science, either.

Let’s take a look at the current facts, and then examine the history of our greatest tax-cutting presidents.

The Falsehood That Democrats Are ‘Cutting’ Taxes

Democrats say they are cutting taxes on “95% of Americans, but argue that giving the same tax cut benefits to the remaining 5% would hike the deficit and be fiscally irresponsible.

Well, for one thing, the Democrats are flat-out lying when they say they are cutting taxes for 95% of Americans. That can’t possibly be true, because as a matter of simple fact a whopping 47% of American households pay no federal income taxes whatsoever.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it’s simply somebody else’s problem.

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That’s according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization. [...]

The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners — households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 — paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.

What Democrats are doing – deceitful liars that they are – is giving Americans “tax credits” and calling them “tax cuts.”

A tax cut is a reduction in the percentage or amount of taxes that is being imposed on a citizen. The government is cutting the amount it had been collecting from taxpayers. A government cannot “cut” a citizen’s taxes unless that citizen had been paying taxes in the first place.

A tax credit is when you give someone money that has been collected from another taxpayer. It is redistribution of wealth. It is what Karl Marx described as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Do you notice that “to” in the middle? It means, “transferring the wealth from one government-penalized group of people TO another government-privileged group of people.” It is what Obama described as “spreading the wealth around.”

What Obama and the Democrats in Congress propose is NOT a “tax cut.” And it is nothing but a lie to call it that. And every single journalist who has suggested that it is a tax cut is as much of a liar as the Democrats are.

That’s the first point. Democrats are advancing a central tenet of Marxism and deceitfully and even demagogically relabeling it as “capitalism.” And the media helps them get away with it.

The Falsehood That Cutting Taxes For the Rich – But NOT The Other Classes – Contributes To the Deficit

Next comes the idea Democrats argue that tax cuts for the rich contribute to the deficit.

Let’s say for the sake of argument (just for the moment; I’ll prove it’s wrong below) that tax cuts for the rich raise the deficit. Let me ask you one question: how then do tax cuts for the rest of us not ALSO raise the deficit???

Why wouldn’t raising taxes on the middle class and the poor not correspondingly lower the deficit? So why aren’t Democrats going after them?

Are Democrats too stupid to realize that there just aren’t enough rich people to pay off our deficit, especially when this president and this Congress have raised said deficit tenfold over the last Republican-passed budget deficit? The last budget produced by congressional Republicans was in 2007. That year, the deficit was approximately $160 billion; now under Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid it is $1.6 TRILLION a year as far as the eye can see.

Wouldn’t ANY tax cuts raise the deficit? And shouldn’t we therefore tax the bejeezus out of EVERYBODY to lower the deficit? Wouldn’t every single dollar collected reduce the deficit correspondingly?

Let me put it concretely: say I took a $100 bill out of the wallet of a millionaire. And then say I took a $100 bill out of the wallet of a poor person. If I took both bills to a Democrat, would he or she be able to tell the difference? Would he say, “Ah, THIS bill will lower the deficit because it comes from a rich person; but THIS one clearly won’t because it clearly came from a poor person.”

Update, Sep. 10: A study by the Joint Tax Committee, using the same static methodology that I refer to in my opening paragraph, calculate that the government will lose $700 billion in revenue if the tax cuts for the top income brackets are extended. And that sounds bad. But they also conclude that the Bush tax cuts on the middle class will cost the Treasury $3 TRILLION over the same period. If we can’t afford $700 billion, then how on earth can we afford $3 trillion? And then you’ve got to ask how much the Treasury is losing by not taxing the poor first into the poorhouse, and then into the street? And how much more revenue could we collect if we then imposed a “street” tax? [end update].

Hopefully you get the point: if tax cuts for the rich are bad because they increase the deficit, then they are equally bad for everyone else for the same exact reason. And so we should either tax the hell out of everyone, or cut taxes for everyone. And a consistent Democrat opposed to “deficit-hiking tax cuts for the rich” should be for raising YOUR taxes as much as possible.

Republicans don’t fall into this fundamental contradiction (see below), because they don’t believe that tax cuts create deficits. Democrats do. Which means they are perfectly content with shockingly supermassive deficits – as long as its 95% of Americans who are creating those deficits, rather than 100%.

Joe Biden said it was a patriotic duty to pay higher taxes. And yet Democrats are trying to make 95% of Americans unpatriotic traitors who don’t care about their country?

Now, Democrats will at this point repudiate logic and punt to the issue of “fairness.” But “fairness” is a very subjective thing, when one group of people decide it’s “fair” for another group of people to hand over their money while the first group pays nothing. Even George Bernard Shaw – a socialist, mind you – understood this. He pointed out the fact that “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

Which is to say it’s NOT fair at all. Paul may think it’s fair, but poor Peter gets screwed year after year.

And it is a fundamental act of hypocrisy – not to mention advancing yet ANOTHER central tenet of Marxist class warfare – to claim to oppose tax cuts for the rich in the name of the deficit, but not to oppose tax cuts for everyone else.

And for the record, I despise both hypocrisy AND central tenets of Marxism. Which is why I despise the Democrat Party, which is both hypocritical and basically Marxist.

[Update, September 20] Brit Hume demolished the Obama-Democrat argument regarding the Bush tax cuts being a “cost” to the government, saying:

“But the very language used in discussing these issues tells you something as well. In Washington, letting people keep more of their own money is considered a cost. As if all the money really belongs to the government in the first place in which what you get to keep is an expenditure.”

And, again, that mindset about government control and in fact government ownership over people’s wealth represents a profoundly Marxist view of the world. [End update].

For what it’s worth, Democrats will only maintain the massive contradiction of “tax cuts for the rich raising the deficit” for so long. Obama already admitted he was willing to go back on his promise to raise taxes on the middle class. And his people are already looking to tee off on middle class tax hikes. In addition, if you have any private retirement funds, they may well be coming after you soon.

The Falsehood That Tax Cuts Increase The Deficit

Now let’s take a look at the utterly fallacious view that tax cuts in general create higher deficits.

Let’s take a trip back in time, starting with the 1920s. From Burton Folsom’s book, New Deal or Raw Deal?:

In 1921, President Harding asked the sixty-five-year-old [Andrew] Mellon to be secretary of the treasury; the national debt [resulting from WWI] had surpassed $20 billion and unemployment had reached 11.7 percent, one of the highest rates in U.S. history. Harding invited Mellon to tinker with tax rates to encourage investment without incurring more debt. Mellon studied the problem carefully; his solution was what is today called “supply side economics,” the idea of cutting taxes to stimulate investment. High income tax rates, Mellon argued, “inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw this capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities. . . . The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up, wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people” (page 128).

Mellon wrote, “It seems difficult for some to understand that high rates of taxation do not necessarily mean large revenue to the Government, and that more revenue may often be obtained by lower taxes.” And he compared the government setting tax rates on incomes to a businessman setting prices on products: “If a price is fixed too high, sales drop off and with them profits.”

And what happened?

“As secretary of the treasury, Mellon promoted, and Harding and Coolidge backed, a plan that eventually cut taxes on large incomes from 73 to 24 percent and on smaller incomes from 4 to 1/2 of 1 percent. These tax cuts helped produce an outpouring of economic development – from air conditioning to refrigerators to zippers, Scotch tape to radios and talking movies. Investors took more risks when they were allowed to keep more of their gains. President Coolidge, during his six years in office, averaged only 3.3 percent unemployment and 1 percent inflation – the lowest misery index of any president in the twentieth century.

Furthermore, Mellon was also vindicated in his astonishing predictions that cutting taxes across the board would generate more revenue. In the early 1920s, when the highest tax rate was 73 percent, the total income tax revenue to the U.S. government was a little over $700 million. In 1928 and 1929, when the top tax rate was slashed to 25 and 24 percent, the total revenue topped the $1 billion mark. Also remarkable, as Table 3 indicates, is that the burden of paying these taxes fell increasingly upon the wealthy” (page 129-130).

Now, that is incredible upon its face, but it becomes even more incredible when contrasted with FDR’s antibusiness and confiscatory tax policies, which both dramatically shrunk in terms of actual income tax revenues (from $1.096 billion in 1929 to $527 million in 1935), and dramatically shifted the tax burden to the backs of the poor by imposing huge new excise taxes (from $540 million in 1929 to $1.364 billion in 1935). See Table 1 on page 125 of New Deal or Raw Deal for that information.

FDR both collected far less taxes from the rich, while imposing a far more onerous tax burden upon the poor.

It is simply a matter of empirical fact that tax cuts create increased revenue, and that those [Democrats] who have refused to pay attention to that fact have ended up reducing government revenues even as they increased the burdens on the poorest whom they falsely claim to help.

Let’s move on to John F. Kennedy, one of the most popular Democrat presidents ever. Few realize that he was also a supply-side tax cutter.

Kennedy said:

“It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now … Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.”

– John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962, president’s news conference

“Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not a reduced – flow of revenues to the federal government.”

– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 17, 1963, annual budget message to the Congress, fiscal year 1964

“In today’s economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax reduction even if it temporarily enlarges the federal deficit – why reducing taxes is the best way open to us to increase revenues.”

– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 21, 1963, annual message to the Congress: “The Economic Report Of The President”

“It is no contradiction – the most important single thing we can do to stimulate investment in today’s economy is to raise consumption by major reduction of individual income tax rates.”

– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 21, 1963, annual message to the Congress: “The Economic Report Of The President”

“Our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment and effort – thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling our national growth rate.”

– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 24, 1963, message to Congress on tax reduction and reform, House Doc. 43, 88th Congress, 1st Session.

“A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget. Every taxpayer and his family will have more money left over after taxes for a new car, a new home, new conveniences, education and investment. Every businessman can keep a higher percentage of his profits in his cash register or put it to work expanding or improving his business, and as the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues.”

– John F. Kennedy, Sept. 18, 1963, radio and television address to the nation on tax-reduction bill

Which is to say that modern Democrats are essentially calling one of their greatest presidents a liar when they demonize tax cuts as a means of increasing government revenues.

So let’s move on to Ronald Reagan. Reagan had two major tax cutting policies implemented: the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981, which was retroactive to 1981, and the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Did Reagan’s tax cuts decrease federal revenues? Hardly:

We find that 8 of the following 10 years there was a surplus of revenue from 1980, prior to the Reagan tax cuts. And, following the Tax Reform Act of 1986, there was a MASSIVE INCREASE of revenue.

So Reagan’s tax cuts increased revenue. But who paid the increased tax revenue? The poor? Opponents of the Reagan tax cuts argued that his policy was a giveaway to the rich (ever heard that one before?) because their tax payments would fall. But that was exactly wrong. In reality:

“The share of the income tax burden borne by the top 10 percent of taxpayers increased from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. Meanwhile, the share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers dropped from 7.5 percent in 1981 to 5.7 percent in 1988.”

So Ronald Reagan a) collected more total revenue, b) collected more revenue from the rich, while c) reducing revenue collected by the bottom half of taxpayers, and d) generated an economic powerhouse that lasted – with only minor hiccups – for nearly three decades. Pretty good achievement considering that his predecessor was forced to describe his own economy as a “malaise,” suffering due to a “crisis of confidence.” Pretty good considering that President Jimmy Carter responded to a reporter’s question as to what he would do about the problem of inflation by answering, “It would be misleading for me to tell any of you that there is a solution to it.”

Reagan whipped inflation. Just as he whipped that malaise and that crisis of confidence.

This might explain why a Gallup poll showed that Ronald Reagan is regarded as our greatest president, while fellow tax-cutting great John F. Kennedy is tied for second with Abraham Lincoln. Because, in proving Democrat policies are completely wrongheaded, he helped people. Including poorer people who benefited from the strong economy he built with his tax policies.

Let’s move on to George Bush and the infamous (to Democrats) Bush tax cuts. And let me quote none other than the New York Times:

Sharp Rise in Tax Revenue to Pare U.S. Deficit
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: July 13, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 12 – For the first time since President Bush took office, an unexpected leap in tax revenue is about to shrink the federal budget deficit this year, by nearly $100 billion.

A Jump in Corporate Payments On Wednesday, White House officials plan to announce that the deficit for the 2005 fiscal year, which ends in September, will be far smaller than the $427 billion they estimated in February.

Mr. Bush plans to hail the improvement at a cabinet meeting and to cite it as validation of his argument that tax cuts would stimulate the economy and ultimately help pay for themselves.

Based on revenue and spending data through June, the budget deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year was $251 billion, $76 billion lower than the $327 billion gap recorded at the corresponding point a year earlier.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the deficit for the full fiscal year, which reached $412 billion in 2004, could be “significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion.”

The big surprise has been in tax revenue, which is running nearly 15 percent higher than in 2004. Corporate tax revenue has soared about 40 percent, after languishing for four years, and individual tax revenue is up as well.

[Update, September 20: The above NY Times link was scrubbed; the same article, edited differently, appears here.]

Note the newspaper’s use of liberals favorite adjective: “unexpected.” They never expect Republican and conservative polices to work, but they always do if they’re given the chance. They never expect Democrat and liberal policies to fail, but they always seem to fail every single time they’re tried.

For the record, President George Bush’s 2003 tax cuts:

raised federal tax receipts by $785 billion, the largest four-year revenue increase in U.S. history. In fiscal 2007, which ended last month, the government took in 6.7% more tax revenues than in 2006.

These increases in tax revenue have substantially reduced the federal budget deficits. In 2004 the deficit was $413 billion, or 3.5% of gross domestic product. It narrowed to $318 billion in 2005, $248 billion in 2006 and $163 billion in 2007. That last figure is just 1.2% of GDP, which is half of the average of the past 50 years.

Lower tax rates have be so successful in spurring growth that the percentage of federal income taxes paid by the very wealthy has increased. According to the Treasury Department, the top 1% of income tax filers paid just 19% of income taxes in 1980 (when the top tax rate was 70%), and 36% in 2003, the year the Bush tax cuts took effect (when the top rate became 35%). The top 5% of income taxpayers went from 37% of taxes paid to 56%, and the top 10% from 49% to 68% of taxes paid. And the amount of taxes paid by those earning more than $1 million a year rose to $236 billion in 2005 from $132 billion in 2003, a 78% increase.

Budget deficits are not merely a matter of tax policy; it is a matter of tax policy AND spending policy. Imagine you have a minimum wage job, but live within your means. Then you get a job that pays a million dollars a year. And you go a little nuts, buy a mansion, a yacht, a fancy car, and other assorted big ticket items such that you go into debt. Are you really so asinine as to argue that you made more money when you earned minimum wage? But that’s literally the Democrats’ argument when they criticize Reagan (who defeated the Soviet Union and won the Cold War in the aftermath of a recession he inherited from President Carter) and George Bush (who won the Iraq War after suffering the greatest attack on US soil in the midst of a recession he inherited from President Clinton).

As a result of the Clinton-era Dot-com bubble bursting, the Nasdaq lost a whopping 78% of its value, and $6 trillion dollars of wealth was simply vaporized. We don’t tend to remember how bad that economic disaster was, because the 9/11 attack was such a huge experience, and because instead of endlessly blaming his predecessor, George Bush simply took responsibility for the economy, cut taxes, and fixed the problem. The result, besides the above tax revenue gains, was an incredible and unprecedented 52 consecutive months of job growth.

Update September 12: Did somebody say something about “jobs”? Another fact to recognize is the horrendous damage that will be done to small businesses and the jobs they create if the tax cuts for the “rich” aren’t continued. As found in the Wall Street Journal, “According to IRS data, fully 48% of the net income of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations reported on tax returns went to households with incomes above $200,000 in 2007.” Further, the Tax Policy Center found that basically a third of taxpayers who are expected to be in the top tax bracket in 2011 generate more than half their income from a business ownership. And while Democrats love to point out that their tax hikes on the so-called rich only impact 3% of small businesses, the National Federation of Independent Business reports that that three percent employs about 25 percent of the nation’s total workforce. “Small businesses that employ 20 to 250 workers are the most likely to be hit by an increase in the top two tax rates, according to NFIB research. Businesses of this size employ more than 25 percent of the U.S. workforce.” So if you want jobs and an economic recovery, you simply don’t pile more punishing taxes on those “rich” people. Especially during a recession [End update].

We’re not arguing theories here; we’re talking about the actual, empirical numbers, literally dollars and cents, which confirms Andrew Mellon’s thesis, and Warren Harding’s and Calvin Coolidge’s, John F. Kennedy’s, Ronald Reagan’s, and George W. Bush’s, economic policies.

Harding and Coolidge, Reagan and Bush, with Democrat JFK right smack in the middle: great tax cutters all.

The notion that small- and limited-government conservatives who want ALL Americans to pay less to a freedom-encroaching government are somehow “beholden to the rich” for doing so is just a lie. And a Marxist-based lie at that.

[Update, 12/15/10]: Check out these numbers as to how the Reagan tax cuts INCREASED the taxes paid by the wealthy, and REDUCED the taxes paid by the middle class and the bottom 50% of tax payers:

Income tax burdens (from the Joint Economic Committee for the US Congress report, 1996):
1981: top 1% of earners paid 17.6% of all personal income taxes
1988: top 1% of earners paid 27.5% of all personal income taxes (+ 10%).

1981: top 10% of earners paid 48% of all personal income taxes
1988: top 10% of earners paid 57.2% of all personal income taxes (+ 9%).

So rich clearly paid MORE of the tax burden when their tax rates were LOWERED.

For the middle class:
1981: middle class paid 57.5% of all personal income taxes
1988: middle class paid 48.7% of all personal income taxes (- 9%).

The middle class’ tax burden went DOWN by 9%. They paid almost 10% LESS than what they had been paying before the Reagan cuts.

For the bottom 50%:
1981: bottom 50% paid 7.5% of all personal income taxes
1988: bottom 50% paid 5.7% of all personal income taxes (- 2%).

So the Joint Economic Economic Committee concludes that if you lower the tax rates on the rich, the rich wind up paying MORE of the tax burden and the poor end up paying LESS. When you enact confiscatory taxation policies, the people who can afford it invariably end up protecting their money. They do everything they can to NOT pay taxes because they are getting screwed. When the rates drop to reasonable rates, they don’t shelter their money; rather, they take advantage of their ability to earn more – and improve the economy by doing so – by investing. If you take away their profit, you take away their incentive to improve the economy and create jobs.

Some articles to read:

The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform

The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates

Income Tax Cuts Increase Revenues and Help Low Income Families

Obama's Broken Promises

2012-01-26T06:15:00.000-08:00

Never trust a Liberal Leftist when it comes to taxes. They don't call them tax and spend Liberals for nothing!

Fact Checking The President's State Of The Union Address

2012-01-25T16:41:00.000-08:00

When you get up to make a big speech as President you need to have all your facts straight. Too often we have seen President Obama a little loose with his statistics and examples. Fortunately we are not living in the Cronkite era. Today's Internet coupled with the rise of the alternative media that is ever vigilant gives us the resources to fact check.

There are some things that are not all wrong in the Presiden't speech, but are what we call stretching the truth a wee bit. And then are some that are more seriously flawed. The Heritage Foundation has done the fact checking for us.

Quotes are drawn from the president’s prepared remarks.

Claim: “On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen … And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.”

Fact: Using the relevant dates, that number is actually between 33,000 and 63,000.

It appears the president is comparing today’s auto industry employment with numbers from November 2009. The industry – vehicle and parts manufacturers, dealers, wholesalers, and repair and maintenance shops – employs 158,900 more people today than it did then, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But why choose November 2009? When comparing today’s employment with the month the president took office or with the month during which the federal bailout took place, the numbers are not nearly as impressive. Since February 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, the industry has added only 33,700 jobs. Since the following month, when General Motors and Chrysler were bailed out, it has added 63,100 – nearly 100,000 fewer than Obama claimed.

Claim: “It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized.”

Fact: Obama has targeted manufacturers with punitive tax hikes.

According to the National Association of Manufacturers, it is, on average, 20 percent more expensive to do business in the United States than it is abroad. The reasons: “our policies on taxes, energy, tort, and trade.” American policies cause that imbalance, not subsidies by other countries.

And while Obama touted manufacturing on numerous occasions during his speech, he has backed policies that would deal body blows to American manufacturing. His incessant refrain to raise taxes on high-income individuals by allowing the Bush tax rates to expire would also ensnare more than 70 percent of manufacturers, according to NAM. “President Obama’s call for tax increases on small businesses, individuals and investors is a poison pill for our economy,” noted NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons.

Claim: “[M]y administration has put more boots on the border than ever before.”

Fact: The vast majority of that increase was proposed and implemented before Obama took office.

Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in 2004, which called for adding at least 2,000 border patrol agents per year. President Bush followed up by sending another 6,000 agents to the border. When that mandate was fulfilled, there were 20,119 active border patrol agents. As of last summer, there were 20,700.

Claim: “We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we’re on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule.”

Fact: Obama chose to delay seeking congressional approval of those agreements for more than two years.

Congress waited for the president to send the free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. He “call[ed] on Congress to pass them without delay,” but it was his administration that was delaying consideration of the measures while it worked to shore up political support and tie stimulus-like spending programs to the agreements.

Claim: “American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years.”

Fact: No thanks to Obama.

The president made a similar claim while informing Americans that he would forego the economic windfalls of the Keystone XL pipeline. He did not mention, of course, that the vast majority of that production has occurred on private lands.

On federal land, over which the president has control, oil and gas production is down by 40% under Obama. He has actively pursued policies that limit oil and gas exploration on federal land. There were fewer onshore leases in 2010 than in any year since 1984. The Obama administration held only a single offshore lease sale in 2011.

Claim: “[W]ith only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, oil isn’t enough.”

Fact: The United States has more recoverable oil than the rest of the non-North American world combined.

The 2 percent statistic is a frequent canard of this administration, but is woefully misleading when used to suggest, as Obama clearly did, that the country only has 2 percent of the world’s oil. In fact, the 2 percent figure refers to the amount of oil that is recoverable at current prices and under lands currently available for development.

According to recent study by the Institute for Energy Research, the United States has more than 1.4 trillion barrels of recoverable oil, more than the rest of the world (excluding North America) combined. That’s enough to fuel every passenger car in the country for 430 years. As IER explains, in what could be a direct response to the president’s claim, “It is merely semantics—not a scientific assessment of what America has the capacity to produce—that allows critics to claim repeatedly that America is running out of energy.”

Furthermore, Obama’s Energy Information Administration, noted Heritage’s David Kreutzer, predicts a steady rise in U.S. reserves even on land currently available for exploration. “It projects that improvements in technology and the economics of extraction, production, and sales actually will lead to a 23.7 percent increase in U.S. reserves,” Kreutzer wrote, “even after extracting billions of barrels of oil in the interim.”

Claim: “[I]t was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.”

Fact: Government funding only marginally contributed to the development of hydraulic fracturing.

The federal government began spending money on natural gas extraction research during the oil crisis in the late 1970s, noted CNN in its own “fact check.” The methods they tested – which included setting off nuclear weapons underground – were expensive and ineffective. Federal support declined as gas prices went back down. Private companies, not the federal government, developed hydraulic fracturing technology that has allowed gas to be extracted inexpensively and en masse.

Claim: “[W]e don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy.”

Fact: Obama just rejected both.

The president killed TransCanada’s application for the Keystone XL pipeline due, he claimed, to insufficient information on its environmental impact. But Obama’s own State Department had already concluded that the pipeline posed “limited adverse environmental impacts during both construction and operation.”

The Keystone XL pipeline would have been an economic windfall, and an environmentally sound project. So the president is correct that we don’t have to choose between a strong economy and environmental stewardship. He seems intent on choosing neither.

Claim: “I ask the Senate to pass a simple rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.”

Fact: The president has already demonstrated his complete lack of respect for the separation of powers.

After making his four illegal recess appointments to federal office, the president now wants to impose a timeline on the Senate’s advice and consent duties. And while it’s heartening that he will at least pay lip service to those duties, Obama’s insistence that he will pursue his agenda “with or without this Congress” suggests he is ready and willing to yet again spurn the Constitution he is sworn to uphold.

Claim: “Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else – like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both.”

Fact: Entitlements drive our national debt, not discretionary spending or tax rates.

This false dichotomy underscores one of the largest omissions of the State of the Union speech. It is not tax cuts that threaten the “investments” the president describes; it is entitlement spending, especially Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. In less than 10 years, as Heritage’s Patrick Louis Knudsen noted last night, total entitlement spending will cost almost as much as the entire federal budget today, crowding out other programs (such as national defense).
Reforming entitlements would eliminate the need for either cuts to Obama’s favorite federal programs or ruinous tax hikes. But the president neglected to discuss entitlement reform in the State of the Union.

FACT CHECK: 10 Dubious Claims from Obama’s State of the Union, Lachlan Markay, The Foundry, National Heritage Foundation - http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/25/fact-check-10-dubious-claims-from-obamas-state-of-the-union/

Pelosi Set To Reveal Confidential Information To Sandbag Gingrich

2012-01-25T09:51:00.000-08:00

SOTU: An Obama Divisive, Class Warfare, Repetitive Diatribe Of Style Over Substance

2012-01-25T05:28:00.000-08:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

One of the things that you have to do when you listen to President Obama give a speech is to learn how to decipher the code words. His biggest word to decipher is FAIRNESS. Fairness in the lexicon of Obamanese double speak means the institution of the equality of outcome. America's tradition and core values, best enunciated by Conservatives, is equality of opportunity, after that it is up to the individual to take it from there operating under the rule of law and the liberty endowed by his Creator as codified in the Constitution.

What the President would like is to tax everybody at rates that yield the SAME TAKE HOME PAY FOR EVERYBODY. So if the target take home pay is $75,000 per household then a person making a million dollars would pay all of his income to taxes except $75,000. That means he would give the government $925,000 and keep $75,000. A person earning $100,000 would pay $25,000 in taxes so he would take home the same $75,000. And the person earning $35,000 would get a government gift of $40,000 to bring him up to $75,000.

Now why would anybody have the incentive to produce and earn more money under this system? This is Socialism folks.

Listen to what the President said in his State Of The Union Address:

"We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

"Right now, we're poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary."
"Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else_ like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we're serious about paying down our debt, we can't do both."

"...we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you're earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn't get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn't go up. You're the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You're the ones who need relief."
"Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense."
"We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich. It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference_ like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That's not right. Americans know it's not right. They know that this generation's success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country's future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That's how we'll reduce our deficit. That's an America built to last."

CLASS WARFARE GARBAGE, MR PRESIDENT.

BUFFETT DOES PAY AS MUCH IN TAXES AS HIS SECRETARY

The issue is not tax policy or tax cuts, it is over spending. We wouldn't need more taxes if you hadn't over spent, Mr. President. Besides, lower taxes yield higher tax revenues. And when confronted with that fact Mr. President what have you said?

"IT'S A MATTER OF FAIRNESS" In other words , we don't care how much we collect in taxes, we care about leveling everybody to the same equality of outcome. Bringing everybody down to the lowest common denominator is the President's idea of fairness. The problem is it brings all the job producers down. Now who is going to finance the risk taking of developing new products and opening new businesses?

The President , as he has often said before, is willing to work with anybody as long as they agree with his policies but he will not compromise his positions nor give any inclusion to Republican ideas. That's what he said. Read and decipher the inferences of his words. He in effect says one thing and then in the very next breath takes it away.

"As long as I'm president, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place. "

Then there is the the totally false impression the President made about new trade agreements. The recent agreements he signed were proposed by Republican legislators when George Bush was President. For three years Obama vilified them and refused to sign into law what a majority of lawmakers had approved. Big time unions in the US were against Free Trade and the President, owing a big debt to unions for his election, refused to approve what a majority of people said would be a big boost to our economy and create jobs.

"We're also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements I signed into law, we are on track to meet that goal - ahead of schedule. Soon, there will be millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit, and Toledo, and Chicago."
"I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products."

Next there is the issue of illegal immigration. We often hear the words "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" from the President. When we decipher the words we find that what the President wants is amnesty without first closing our borders. The majority of American citizens have repeatedly said - first fence off our southern border. Shut down and close the border - the entire border - and then we will sit down and work out an equitable solution for those who are here now. But the President does want to do that. He wants a blanket amnesty first and then he will think about - no do - closing borders. He has the cart before the horse for political expediency.

"Let's also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren't yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else."
"The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let's at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away."

He gives it on one hand:

"Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I'm directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, and my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy."

Then takes it away on the other hand:

"I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs."

LIKE SOLYNDRA, MR PRESIDENT?

KILLING THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE IS YOUR SOLUTION?

What the President thinks is - that you people, you citizens, are too stupid to get the danger of man made Global Warming. So I am going to bypass Congress and act on my own because I know better and I am your leader.

"The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there's no reason why Congress shouldn't at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven't acted. Well tonight, I will."

This State Of The Union address was a divisive class warfare diatribe, with repeated messages from years past and a government activist - Big Brother will make it right, do it for you attitude. The President holds his ideology as sacrosanct and all who disagree are heretical deniers. And if you, the American people, are too stupid to realize that I am right, I will mandate what is necessary.

But the President left out the really important issues.

NO SERIOUS MENTION OF THE DEBT

NO SERIOUS SOLUTION TO OVER SPENDING

NO MENTION OF A BUDGET

NO MENTION OF THE PIPELINE

This speech offered a vision of a profoundly technocratic and activist government, with its hands in every nook and cranny of the nation’s economic life—a government guiding particular business decisions and nudging individual choices through just the right mix of incentives and rules to reach just the right balance between fairness and growth while designing the perfect website for job retraining programs and producing exactly the proper number of “high-tech batteries.” The president described the government’s bailout of the Detroit automakers as a roaring success and then said “What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries. It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh.” If he thinks that all the tasks he laid out for government are things that people “cannot do better by themselves” then he must have a very high opinion of how well government can do things, or a very low opinion of how well people can do things by themselves, or (most plausibly) both.

The intensely activist tone of the speech also meant, of course, that no real attention could be paid to what was the dominant theme of our political debates over the past year: Our out-of-control deficits and debt. Indeed, this was probably the foremost purpose of the speech. As he prepares for his reelection campaign, the president is clearly trying to move voters away from a focus on our coming fiscal disaster and toward a renewed focus on public spending and public programs—the outlook that defined the beginning of his administration, before his specific public spending and public programs soured the public on such spending and programs and (having resulted in unprecedented deficits) alarmed the Tea Party movement into being and yielded the 2010 election. But of course, those deficits and debt have only gotten worse, not better. And if we do not bring them under control—above all by reforming our health entitlement programs—we face fiscal prospects that would make an utter joke of the kind of approach to public policy and government embodied by this speech, with its explosion of spending, its barriers to economic growth, and its laughably misguided little millionaire’s surtax. Those prospects, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would involve debilitating levels of debt unlike anything we have experienced in America. This is the future from which the president needs to distract us. (1)

Warren Buffett’s secretary is reportedly sitting in the box with the First Lady tonight. Obviously, President Obama will repeat the utterly false claim that Warren Buffett bears a lower tax burden than his secretary does. If you understand the varying tax treatment of labor and capital income at the corporate level — the former being deductible from taxable income, the latter a part of taxable income — then you understand why Buffett’s claim is false. If you further understand how screwed up the tax calculation on phantom capital gains is, how taxing the principal of an investment already taxes its return, and how America’s corporate income tax came about in the first place (Congress enacted it as a substitute for individual income taxation, after the Supreme Court declared direct income taxes unconstitutional), then you understand that those who defend Buffett’s false claim about the undertaxed wealthy are either ignorant or dishonest.

The wealthy pay a significant higher share of their income in taxes than the middle class or the poor do. If you combine federal, state, and local taxes together and divide by income, the top quintile of U.S. households pay about twice as much in taxes as a share of their incomes as the bottom quintile does. Because government spending disproportionately benefits lower-income households, the progressivity of government’s fiscal structure is even more steep than the tax data alone would show.

If you want to defend this level of progressivity, fine. If you want to argue that the system ought to be even more punitive at higher income levels, go for it. But denying that the wealthy already pay a disproportionate share of taxes is an act of gross irresponsibility. (2)

"No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant effort to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others. As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. It’s not fair and it’s not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions. They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down nearly time and again by the President and his Democrat Senate allies…" - Mitch Daniels in the Republican reply

To sum up the SOTU: "I went ... I know ... My ... My ... I took office ... I'm president ... I will work ... I intend ... I will oppose ... I want to speak ... I took office ... I refused ... told me ... My message ... Send me ... I'll sign ... I set ... I signed ... I will go ... I will not stand ... It's not fair ... I'm announcing ... I promise you ... I also hear ... I want ... Join me ... My administration ... I want to cut ... I call on ... I spoke ... let me put ... I believe ... my administration ... I took office ... I will sign ... I'm directing ... my administration ... I'm requiring ... I will not walk away ... I will not walk away ... I will not cede ... I will ... I'm directing ... I'm proud ... Send me ... I will sign ... I'm sending ... I've approved ... my presidency ... I've ordered ... I guess ... I'm confident ... I will not back down ... I will not back down ... I will not go back ... I will not go back ... I'm asking ... fair play ... So do I ... I told ... I'm prepared ... fair share ... my fair share ... I get tax breaks I don't need ... I recognize ... I bet ... I've talked ... Send me a bill ... I will sign ... I ask the Senate ... I've asked ... I'm a Democrat ... I believe ... my education reform ... I will keep taking ... I can do ... I have no doubt ... I will take ... I'm president ... I intend ... I have proposed ... I have already ... I'm proposing ... brings me ... my proudest ... I sat ... I look at ... I'm reminded." --BO (3)

(1)

A State of Denial

By Yuval Levin, The Corner, National Review Online - http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/289189/state-denial-yuval-levin

(2)

Misleading Political Theater

By John Hood, The Corner, National Review Online - http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/289176/misleading-political-theater-john-hood

(3) The Patriot Post - http://patriotpost.us/edition/2012/01/25/chronicle/

The Takers Are Holding The Makers Hostage

2012-01-24T05:43:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaThe air is full of optimism. Employment is up as is the stock market. We are not booming and many are still hurting but a deep depression has been averted, or has it.

The fuse that will ignite the downfall of the world rests in Europe. So far Greece and Italy, the two in the most trouble, have been propped up by Germany and other neighbors. But the European bailouts are just patchwork, a finger in the hole in the dyke, while these governments refuse to take the necessary hard steps to right their economies on a permanent basis.

Stop gap solutions can be short lived. The people of Western Europe, provided with all sorts of government goodies, will not let their governments now take them away. They riot in the streets and threaten violence should reform be instituted. They want to keep their "freebies" and continuously be bailed out by the rest of the world, especially the United States. Western European governments faced with the refusal of their populace to come to grips with reality are prolonging the inevitable. To appease their citizens they refuse to institute the draconian reforms and removal of much of the welfare state that is necessary while at the same time constantly seeking outside aid to continue their nanny states. They will not alter course.

Should Western Europe come down with a giant crash it will take the Eastern Europe, the United States, China and Russia with them. And the European rioting in the streets will become a way of life in the United States.

THE TAKERS ARE HOLDING THE MAKERS HOSTAGE

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Obama has been busy pushing the United States into a society of dependence in order to form a voting coalition that will perpetuate Democrat Party rule for decades, even generations. This is a deliberate course of action aimed at making the takers outnumber the makers.

But if the world wide crash should occur, our President has left us no reserves to survive the downfall. We are all like stampeding cattle, heading for the cliff, unable to reverse course.

Obama has so spent every last ounce of American reserves, borrowed us to the hilt and printed trillions of dollars of unbacked paper money that HAS LEFT US NO OUT. In his mad dash to CHANGE America he has pulled out all stops to push the takers into a majority over the makers.

But what happens if the United States can no longer borrow billions from China? What happens if it prints any more paper dollars it makes things much worse? What happens when taxes can not be raised any further? Will black markets run rampant? Will we be able to continue the amount and scope of government benefits we do now?

WILL WE ALL BECOME SLAVES TO EACH OTHER?

This election of 2012 will be so pivotal because Obama has pushed the takers to a 49% portion of the population. That is why he will be so hard to defeat. If re-elected Obama will push that 49% over the top to a majority that can never be reversed. Like Greek citizens, Americans will riot in the streets before they give up government benefits once granted them. And the takers, now a majority, will always vote Democrat, never Republican. The Left will hold a permanent grasp of American power squeezing us all into a vice of servitude.

Jeffrey Folks has similar thoughts on the subject:

Unfortunately, when the percentage of those receiving government aid exceeds 50%, it is difficult to cut benefits. The threat of cutbacks in Greece has brought chaos to that country. The sight of thousands of left-wing thugs, marching in close ranks and armed with large batons and Molotov cocktails, is now a common one in central Athens. These blackshirted youths form a paramilitary force of a sort that has appeared in other European nations as well, adding a dangerous element of uncertainty to the future.

Government's response to civil unrest has been to appease the protesters. Greek officials have dragged their feet finalizing proposals for "voluntary" write-downs of 50% on their sovereign debt since those write-downs come with stringent conditions of structural reform. From all appearances, it looks like the Greeks are angling for debt forgiveness with no substantive change in the Greek welfare state. In other words, they are asking investors to continue subsidizing their enormous deficit spending.

If all this sounds a lot like what's happening in the U.S., it is. Like the socialists who govern Greece, Obama's left-wing administration depends on the support of left-wing activists, unionized government workers, radicalized students, and welfare recipients. All of these groups have been pressing for more government spending, and Obama has not disappointed them.

In just three years, discretionary spending has increased by 24% (not counting an additional trillion dollars of stimulus spending plus two rounds of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve), all of it funded with deficit spending. Obama's 2012 budget, which was rejected by every member of the Senate, called for continued spending at 2011 levels, even as his own budget supercommittee struggled to come up with $1.5 trillion in cuts.

It is clear that Obama's priority is not fiscal responsibility. In fact, the single-minded focus of this administration has been the expansion of government benefit programs designed to foster dependency. From the beginning, Obama's political strategy has centered on the restoration of "welfare as we know it." The clients of welfare are always reliable supporters of the Democratic Party.

If Democrats can expand the percentage of the population dependent on benefits above 50% of the population, they will have achieved a permanent grasp on power. If anyone doubts this, let him look to the European welfare states. In none of these countries have social welfare programs been eliminated once they've gained their footing.

America stands at a crossroads in 2012, for this is the year when the American people will decide irrevocably whether they wish to see their country transformed into a European-style welfare state.

At this crossroads the choice is between two very different futures. The welfare state promises lifetime benefits for the entire population. Every American will be entitled to a safety net of food support, housing, education, medical care, child care, child tax credits, transportation, and a host of other benefits regardless of whether he or she chooses to work. Everyone will enjoy the right to this wide array of government benefits covering the necessities of life, but to pay for it, those who choose to work will be taxed to the point that they too live near the level of welfare recipients.

Eventually, the logic of the welfare state dictates that few will choose to work. Instead of a nation divided into "takers and makers," America will become like Greece: a society composed mostly of takers. And those takers will never willingly relinquish their lifetime benefits.

The dire consequences of this situation are not entirely apparent even in Greece because the Greek economy has been propped up by the stronger northern European states and by international loan agencies largely funded by the American taxpayer. Yet it appears that Greece may be on the brink of default, as large debt payments are due in March 2012. Once Greece is cut loose, it will face a very long and harsh economic depression, and until it institutes fiscal reform, that depression will continue indefinitely.

Economic depression is the endgame not just for Greece, but for the Eurozone as a whole and for America as well if spending is not reined in. In America one can already see the effects of Obama's restoration of welfare: higher rates of long-term unemployment, millions permanently dropping out of the labor force, stagnant wages, stalled growth, a dearth of high-paying jobs, and a shift of innovation and job-creation to nations in the developing world. In just three years, America has lost its triple-A credit rating, slipped from second to tenth in economic freedom ratings, and accumulated more new debt than it did during its first 214 years as a nation.

Ominously, the percentage of takers, those who collect benefits and pay no federal income tax, now sits at 49%. Anything beyond that and the country is lost forever.

Fortunately, there is an alternative future. Under capitalism, workers are not condemned to hand over 70% or 90% of their earnings to the state, and they're not forced to live at the level of welfare recipients. The free market affords ample opportunity for success for individuals and for the nation as a whole, but it demands acceptance of the fact that some will fail.

Socialism is an economic system in which no one is allowed to succeed, or to fail. But by eliminating the motive of competition, socialist economies reduce all workers to the lowest common denominator. Instead of success for the many and failure for a few, the norm under capitalism, socialism invariably produces failure for all.

Paradoxically, the only thing that can prevent failure for all is for society to accept the fact that some will fail. Fewer people will eventually fail if early in life they are convinced that there are serious consequences for doing so. And while inevitably some will fail, society as a whole will be better off for allowing them to do so.

Whether Americans will choose the more demanding path of capitalism over the soft tyranny of socialism remains a question mark. It is not just that there are now almost as many takers as makers; it is that even among those who succeed, there exists a misguided sympathy for those who fail to compete. Many Americans are convinced that there should be no moral hazard for irresponsible behavior: there should be a bailout for underwater homeowners, forgiveness for bankrupts, lifetime unemployment benefits, homes for the homeless, suffrage for felons, and so on. By supporting such behavior, however, they are simply encouraging more of the same.

The choice, in sum, is between prosperity for all but a few and poverty for all. It is hard to imagine that any free people would choose poverty for no better reason than that under capitalism, a few will be left behind. But that is the danger we now face.

And once the takers take over, we will no longer be in a position to choose.(1)

(1)

Takers Taking Over, Jeffrey Folks, American Thinker

The Vitriolic Media Smashing Republicans

2012-01-23T17:36:00.000-08:00

Republican contenders for the Presidency have been taking a heavy concentration of enemy fire. The only problem is that it is not just coming from politicians from the opposition but also flak is being dumped on Republicans from supposedly "objective" News reporters. We all know that the traditional media is in the tank for Obama. But the severity of the attacks and the charges made are much more than any Republicans could get away with should they try to do the same back.

Yet the vast majority of the media do not understand why theirs is a declining and failing business model. They are still in denial and cannot accept the reality of the marketplace, as their actions have prompted the American public to lose all confidence in their objectivity and integrity.

The 2012 election season has begun and this same media finds itself in the position of having to defend and reinforce the man they chose to sleep with. They have willingly opted to do exactly that. The mainstream media is systematically pulling out all the stops to destroy any and all viable Republican challengers in an undeclared but understood alliance with the Obama re-election machine.

Rather than objectively analyze the folly of the Obama class warfare strategy and its potential to undermine and destroy societal cohesion, the mainstream media has trumpeted and encouraged this divisive and dangerous strategy. The Occupy Wall Street movement, conceived by Friends of Obama and encouraged by the White House, as well as blessed by many in the media, was intended to further reinforce the war against the rich and redirect the anger and blame for all of America's woes away from the statist policies of the Obama regime. Mitt Romney, who since last summer has been the presumptive opponent to oppose Obama, is in the process of being cast as the capitalist villain in this stage production.

Herman Cain was destroyed by unproven and salacious allegations of sexual harassment. Michele Bachmann was portrayed as wild-eyed and unstable religious fanatic, and Rick Perry was painted as an ignorant, incoherent and unreliable cowboy from Texas. Characterizations that would never be applied to any Democratic candidate.

When it comes to Newt Gingrich there is no ethical barrier too high for the media to tear down in an attempt to marginalize him. Now the specter of an acknowledged bitter ex-wife being given access to a national stage two days before a crucial primary vote in order to vent her side of an emotional and vitriolic divorce saga is considered acceptable, as well as any innuendo or accusation created out of whole cloth. A scenario that would never be contemplated were Newt a liberal Democrat. (1)

Not only do Democrats and the media get away with salacious, muck raking comments and journalism which are bordering on slander and libel but if anybody on the Right should desire to be critical of Obama or Democrats back, they are screamed at as being derogatory, mean, nasty and racist. Caslling Obama the "Food Stamp President" is not racist and comes no where near the vitriolic discourse of the Left.

The Right has talk radio, blogs, and some fairness in FOX News. Conservatives need to support these sources and not lay down and play dead. They need to fight back as Gingrich has done in most of the Republican debates.

A cursory examination of history reveals the catastrophic failure of nations composed of a massive central government siphoning off the wealth of the people in order to reward those the governing regime deems to be acceptable. The media is never among the chosen; in fact it is often the first profession to be marginalized.

Yet like so many on the Left, a majority of the members of the mainstream media are incapable of recognizing their error in blindly supporting the liberal/socialist agenda over the years. Regardless of the evidence at hand, either historic or contemporary, their egos and narcissism so dominate their psyche that admitting a mistake is tantamount to the apocalypse. Thus they appear willing to sacrifice their own future and standard of living by actively campaigning for Obama's re-election rather than honestly report on the lies and machinations of this regime and their devastating impact on future generations. The only outcome the media has guaranteed is the continued decline and degradation of their once noble profession. (1)

(1) The Self-Destruction of the Mainstream Media, by Steve McCann, American Thinker -

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/the_self-destruction_of_the_mainstream_media.html

Deprogramming The Left’s Hit Squads

2012-01-23T15:03:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaThere have been numerous stories being circulated that this candidate or that candidate is not really Conservative. They have been doing it to Romney, to Gingrich and to Santorum. Granted each one has probably taken a Liberal position here and there. But what is their over-all philosophy?

You have to be careful when you point to Legislative bills because so many times there are attachments to bills, other bills that a Legislator would not vote for have been piggy backed onto a bill he/she deems of great importance. Then it becomes a decision of which is more important, the Conservative main bill that one is for or the Liberal bill that has been attached that one is against.

Sometimes our Candidates have changed their opinions. Romney readily admits that he has gone from pro choice to pro life. Gingrich admits that sitting on the couch and discussing man made Global Warming with Nancy Pelosi was a huge mistake. Now and then our leaders see the error of their ways.

The Lexington Libertarian believes that a lot of this “He’s not really Conservative” stuff is being put out by those who wish to create dissension in the ranks. Outsiders have a vested interest in seeing to it that the weakest possible candidate gets the Republican nomination for President. And those forces were successful in 2088 in getting just that, John McCain.

In regards to Gingrich, the man has quite a Conservative record. Do you remember this?

Begin with a much-maligned, much-misunderstood document: Gingrich's 1994 Contract With America. As a tool of ideological war, it is unparalleled in modern American history. The purpose of the Contract, as Gingrich said clearly at the time, was to end the game which House Democrats had been playing for many decades: notionally support conservative ideas, but use control of the House to prevent any votes on measures which might implement those conservative principles.

The second part of the Contract was a solemn promise to bring each of the ten substantive bills for a vote in the House within the first 100 days of the new Congress and also to implement eight procedural changes in how the House conducted business on the very first day of the new Republican House. Gingrich kept every promise made in the Contract and, in fact, honored his pledges sooner than he was obligated to. (1)

Then you hear the media reporting that most Republicans running for office are scared to death of a Gingrich candidacy, that his campaign would drag them down to defeat. DON’T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. It is more mean spirited gossip designed to divide Republicans.

The Contract also generated an enormous backwind of support for all Republicans running for state or federal office in 1994. As a consequence, in the midterm election of a very savvy Democrat, when the economy was in reasonably good shape, Republicans won not only the House and the Senate, but also most gubernatorial and state legislative elections, breaking an iron partisan grip that Democrats had held on America since FDR.(1)

Of course if that doesn’t scare everybody away from a Gingrich candidacy then Nancy Pelosi threatens to rehash the old ethics charges that were filed against Gingrich. Never mind that these are confidential investigative Congressional Records, she will do what is illegal and immoral to bring down the Great Satan, Newt Gingrich.

But in the process we all need to remember that those charges filed were the result of a Democrat hit squad that rivaled Watergate.

There was a reason why union goons entered Gingrich's offices and why House Democrats filed 84 ethics charges (one of which stuck, and most of which were absurd) against Gingrich when he was speaker and why Nancy Pelosi threatened to raise these ancient charges yet again. Not only was Gingrich liberals' enemy, but he defeated them. (1)

As Conservatives let’s not let the latest rumors and innuendos and false charges keep us from a good candidate. Gingrich’s Contract With America was most effective and Conservative and hit the Liberals hard. That is why they want to sink his Presidential bid as fast as they can.

There was another vital component of the Contract: it depersonalized national politics and focused instead on explicit legislative initiatives, whose whole and simple terms were made public beforehand. Take personal destruction; vague rhetoric; and huge, indigestible bills and regulations out of politics, and the left has nothing at all. (1)

(1) Gingrich v. Leftism
By Bruce Walker, American ThinkerRead more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/gingrich_v_leftism.html#ixzz1kK4m4DAg

Wanted: A Tenacious Advocate

2012-01-23T09:13:00.000-08:00

Image via CrunchBaseThis is a second in a series of articles on why Newt Gingrich won South Carolina and why he is doing much better in Florida.

You know that Gingrich has hit a raw nerve in the Democrat camp when the ultra Left wing New York Times comes out in an editorial slamming Gingrich as dirty, mean, racist and out to destroy Obama. What the Left wants is a John McCain type who will declare certain subjects off limits and a no criticism policy of the opposition. Gingrich is a fighter and he will not do that.

But read what the New York Times thinks:

Newt Gingrich won the primary by a decisive margin of 12.5 percentage points, and there is no mystery about how he did it. Two-thirds of voters interviewed in exit polls said they made their decision on the basis of the two South Carolina debates, where Mr. Gingrich exploited racial resentment and hatred of the news media to connect with furious voters.

South Carolina has moved sharply rightward since Mr. Obama arrived on the national scene. In 2000, 24 percent of state voters said they were “very conservative,” but that number jumped to 34 percent in 2008. Now it is up to 37 percent, according to exit polls. Two-thirds of Saturday’s voters said they supported the Tea Party, reflecting the election in 2010 of four South Carolina freshmen who are among the most extreme members of the House.

It was Mr. Gingrich who pulled the race into the gutter, where he found considerable support. He repeatedly called Mr. Obama “the greatest food-stamp president in American history,” and lectured a black questioner at Monday’s debate about the amount of federal handouts to blacks, suggesting their work ethic was questionable.

On Thursday, in the derisive tones of a radio talk-show host, he said Mr. Obama’s cabinet looked like Mickey Mouse and Goofy. At that night’s debate, he lashed into the moderator for asking a perfectly reasonable question about his ex-wife’s allegation that he wanted an open marriage, saying it was typical of an “elite media” that was trying to protect the president by attacking Republicans.

That was just what South Carolina voters wanted to hear, the signal that he would not only challenge Mr. Obama but work to bloody him, to destroy his dignity. As one voter told a reporter, “I think we’ve reached a point where we need someone who’s mean.”(1)

So it is the raggedy tag Tea Party who are dirty fighters. Is that so? If you look at the record most of the name calling and the outlandish remarks are coming from Democrats. They have been name calling since day one. And the Occupiers whom they support and encourage are way more derogatory than the respectful Tea Party people.

What the Left wants is for Obama to skate through the election without being held to task for his failures and his extreme ideology. After all the Media is going to grant him that exemption.

But you see if the Republicans don't fight back and dispute Obama's far Left ideology then they are not doing their job as the opposition Party and they will most surely go down to defeat. And this is precisely the point about Romney, who refuses to defend Capitalism vocally, who has no ringing endorsement of capital investments but would rather slink away into the corner apologizing for only paying a 15% federal tax rate. Conservatives want someone as their leader who can clearly enunciate Conservative values and the advantages of the free market system.

CONSERVATIVES DON'T WANT A WEAK CANDIDATE. THEY DON'T WANT SOMEONE WHO APOLOGIZES. THEY WANT SOME ONE WHO CAN HOLLER BACK AND STICK IT TO THE LEFT.

The Wall Street Journal Shows us a contrasting opinion of the situation with the New York Times:

Most strikingly, he (Gingrich) routed Mr. Romney on what had been the former Massachusetts governor's greatest strength—electability. Some 45% of voters in the exit poll said defeating President Obama was the candidate trait that mattered most, and they went for Mr. Gingrich over Mr. Romney, 51% to 37%.

This reflects Mr. Gingrich's debate skills but perhaps more his willingness to promote conservative values. Since Reagan, Republicans have had a President or nominee who was typically either tongue-tied or timid in defending their policies and principles. With Mr. Obama preparing a re-election assault on those principles, GOP voters understandably want a tenacious advocate. Voters sense that, whatever his other failings, Mr. Gingrich can match Mr. Obama on the issues and won't go down without a fight.

This is in contrast to Mr. Romney, who is cautious at his most tenacious but in the last week has seemed befuddled by questions he surely knew were coming. The demand to release his tax returns was inevitable, especially with Mr. Obama preparing to attack him as "Mr. 1%." Mr. Romney said Sunday he will release his 2010 tax return on Tuesday, but blowing that layup suggests either personal stubbornness or the lack of an adviser who can tell him when he's wrong.

The more serious flaw exposed by the tax debate is Mr. Romney's inability, or unwillingness, to make a larger and persuasive case for free-market economic growth and lower tax rates. Before last week, he seemed to believe he could dodge a class-war battle by not proposing a cut in tax rates. This was always implausible given Mr. Obama's campaign, but it is impossible now that he has disclosed that his own effective tax rate is 15%.

He faces a fundamental political choice: Duck and cover against the barrage of attacks on his 15% rate, the lower rate on "carried-interest" and any overseas income he might have, or go on offense by standing for something larger than his own career, such as a major tax reform to spur growth.

Mr. Romney and his advisers are making the mistake that John Kerry made against George W. Bush in 2004—believing that voters are so unhappy with the incumbent that all Mr. Romney has to do is present himself as a safe alternative. Mr. Romney seems to think it's enough to run on his biography as a businessman.(2)

That's what Conservatives want - "A TENACIOUS ADVOCATE." This is not going to be an easy fight to dislodge a sitting President. You cannot just take the safe route of just being there without saying anything. Voters are going to want good reasons for dumping Obama. So what the Republican Party is in desperate need of is somebody who can explain it well and somebody who is not timid, who doesn't cower before all the Left wing attacks but who can dish it right back.

So far Gingrich is the best at providing what Republican voters want. Gingrich is not afraid to put his career on the line with what he says. Romney is not going to be able to back into this nomination.

(1)

South Carolina’s Divisive Message, New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/south-carolinas-divisive-message.html?_r=1

(2)

The Gingrich Challenge, Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203718504577176880442968276.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

And The Last Man Standing Is...?

2012-01-22T11:23:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

MAKE WAR NOT LOVE

The pundits, the Left leaning Obama media and some of the Republican campaign managers along with the elite Republican apparatus are shocked that Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary by a wide margin.

They don’t understand the mood of the average Republican voter. Conservatives in the party are angry. They are tired of Republicans getting out maneuvered, walked all over and trashed without a whimper of protest. They want a Republican Presidential nominee who can take it to the Democrats, who will fight back. Yes, they want a FIGHTER! This has been precisely the Conservative love affair with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Not that he is a true blue Conservative but here’s a man who puts Liberals in their place!

The Liberal, Rockefeller, RINO wing of the Republican Party wants to get along with the other side. They want to reason with Democrats. They want to compromise with Democrats, meet them half way. They don’t want to be down in the trenches but above it all. Let’s not stoop to the likes of those dirty Democrats, they say. Let’s show the electorate that we are above all that.

This wing of the Republican Party has given us the likes of Bob Dole, George Bush and John McCain as Republican Presidential nominees. Conservatives are remembering that McCain refused to criticize Obama on some really critical past associations. No, no, no don’t mention Reverend Wright or Bill Ayers or Marxist/Socialist connections. Don’t even say the word Islamic terrorist. And above all strictly control what Sarah Palin has to say.

And they remember the John McCain who reached across the aisle to co-operate with Democrats with crafting legislation that gave away a lot. That’s not what today’s Conservative Republican voter wants. And it is not just the Tea Party. It is a whole host of Conservatives – from neo Conservatives to traditional Conservatives to religious Conservatives to Libertarians.

"The South Carolina electorate didn’t vote for a person or a platform; they voted for a personality — the fiery, combative, MSM-hating Newt. They want the GOP nominee to charge at the president, throw around the term Alinksyite, push back at John King and Juan Williams, and shout out the absurdity of Barack Obama as president and the destructiveness of his combination of epic incompetence and awful ideology."

"I suspect that the GOP as a whole has a lot of this pent-up anger at the Manhattan-Beltway media elites, and they too have been cool to cool hand Mitt as a result."

"A “sure-thing” strategy might have been great except for this roiling mass of voters who want to be very sure that the GOP nominee talks bluntly, at length, and with passion about the absolutely awful record of a failed president, about how the elite media cleared his path in 2008 and has protected him since, and how Barack Obama’s contempt for the rule of law is not only startling but a source of great worry."

"Center-right voters fear for the Republic and know their fear is legitimate. “Independents” also feel that fear, but don’t know what it is, or express it as just worry over the economy. The deep sources of that fear have to be articulated, and forcefully."

"Newt’s greatest contribution to the race has been to demonstrate that the style of political argument that Chris Christie and Paul Ryan debuted in the last couple of years actually is not a luxury but a necessity to win hearts and minds in the GOP. The 2012 election will not be won because of Mitt Romney’s tax returns or his years at Bain, or because of Newt’s past marriages or the payments from Freddie."

"2012 will be decided on whether the American people rouse themselves as they did in 2010, and having roused themselves again, are less afraid of the decline staring them in the face than they are of the painful but promising future and the GOP nominee who is promising to lead them to it by first returning to the founding principles of the country. "(1)

Meanwhile the Democrats with nothing to run on, no accomplishments that they can point to, are running a scorched earth campaign, the politics of personal destruction, GANGSTER POLITICS! And the leading Republican contender, Mitt Romney, is just meekly letting them get away with it without fighting back. That’s what a “Moderate” will do for you. It’s bland mamby pamby pabulum political response.

Conservatives have had enough. They are tired of being labeled as xenophobic, homophobic, islamophobic, racist and bigoted. They are tired of weak, spineless leaders. They are tired of being put on the defensive. They are tired of being made to feel guilty because of their positions.

John McCain spent years cultivating the Liberal/Left press before he gained the Republican Presidential nomination. He made nice to them often espousing Liberal positions in hopes of appeasing them. When he finally got the Presidential nomination he thought that he would keep his “friends” in the media. They turned on him in a flash. All the compromise, the nice guy approach gets you is defeat.

"And where did the crowd roar? They roared when some premise of liberalism or some particular liberal was taken apart. No Republican on Republican crime was rewarded. Even Mitt, no favorite of the red meat crowd, got his loudest moments when he finally decided to support capitalism with some fervor. Newt of course got the big reaction over the week by attacking liberal members of the media who were either attacking conservative beliefs on the whole (Juan Williams and the race card) or protecting Obama by attacking Republicans' personal lives (John King)."

"The math is clear. While negative ads can be effective if run in huge numbers -- as in Iowa -- what the voters are craving in the debates and on the stump is someone who can look liberals squarely in the eye and tell them why we are right and they are wrong. The American conservative base has had to put up with being called stupid, racist, greedy and unfair for decades by not only the Democrats but the vast majority of the media. The pent up frustration of these decades is magnified by the fact that George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush and John McCain would not or perhaps could not confront this."

"In fact, rare is the Republican candidate at any level who refuses to put up with this and fights back. When they do, they become sensations. Even Chris Christie and Donald Trump -- neither one a real conservative -- earned the love of the Republican base by simply deigning to fight back. Marco Rubio and Allen West are far more popular and well known than they have any right to be simply because they refuse to accept the argument on liberals' terms. They fight. They elicit the roar."

"Which brings us back to the crowd roar in South Carolina. In Myrtle Beach and Charleston combined, there were probably 3-4 thousand folks total in attendance. Now while that is not significant in and of itself -- consider that every day we look at polls with far fewer folks and consider them gospel truth on everything from elections to mouthwash. In other words, my assumption was that those few thousand folks are indeed a darned good cross section of Republican voters across South Carolina and in fact the country. It wasn't the few thousand who rose to give Newt his standing ovations per se, it's that there were probably hundreds of thousands cheering at their television sets across the nation as well. That something like 60% of all likely voters in South Carolina did watch those debates was merely confirmation of just how important the crowd reaction should be assumed."

"Yet the elites ignored the roar. After all, the roar came from the unwashed. It came from the fans of cockfights. It came from tea party folks and other such rabble. Inside the sterile cable studios and on their laptops, the pundits scored their debate and their election prospects without the roar. They have their little formulas about who has to raise doubts here and who has to score points there.

What they don't understand is what the roar means."

"The roar is passion. The roar is intensity. The roar is pent up frustration. The roar, put another way, is the national mood of conservatives. It is a roar that will demand a fighter. It will demand that those who want our votes must not cower in the face of the liberal template. If fact, it is a roar that demands that we do not accept any liberal templates."

"That's why Newt has gotten all the roars, and why he has vaulted into serious contention only days after being written off. Anyone else who wants the roar should heed the lesson. The roar comes only at the expense of liberals and liberalism. You won't get the roar attacking others on the stage. Tell your consultants to take a hike if they tell you otherwise."

"That roar was an easy predictor of what would happen Saturday night in South Carolina. I knew it and everyone I know knew it late Thursday night. And it was. Seems like no one inside the beltway got it. Until Saturday evening." (2)

(1) The Ball Is in Florida’s Court Now, by Hugh Hewitt, The Corner, National Review Online –
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/288824/ball-floridas-court-now-hugh-hewitt

(2) Psst: Hear the Roar and Pay Attention
By C. Edmund Wright, American Thinker - http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/psst_hear_the_roar_and_pay_attention.html#ixzz1kDIPLSzo

The Politics Of Personal Destruction

2012-01-22T06:35:00.000-08:00

That's all the Democrats have left - to destroy their opponents. They have no accomplishments to run on.

But the jig is up. The American people see what is going on and they don't like it. In the end the Democrats will go down in flames, much of it their own making.

January 3, 2007

2012-01-21T20:40:00.000-08:00

The day the Democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actuallyJanuary 3rd 2007,the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress.

The Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this:
January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!

Remember that day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS (especially Barney) for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment...to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie -starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy). Barney blocked it and called it a "Chicken Little Philosophy" (and the sky did fall!)
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie?
OBAMA and the Democrat Congress, especially BARNEY!!!!

So when someone tries to blame Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!"
Bush may have been in the car but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel they were driving the economy into the ditch.
Budgets do not come from the White House.. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 & 2011.

In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.

For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budget.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009. Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period:
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.

If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is "I inherited a deficit that I voted for, and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th."

"President Obama, man of the people, will deliver his presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. -- so that Democratic Party fundraisers can reward big donors with skyboxes and other lavish perks. ... The self-proclaimed Party of the 99 Percent is reportedly busy creating special-access VIP packages for the 1 percent -- under the illusion of throwing open its doors to the masses. DNC officials refuse to disclose fundraising updates until after the convention, even as they champion their own 'openness and accessibility.' And no doubt, Obama will use his stadium-size pulpit to 'stand up' to the very same 'fat cats' who'll be watching him while sipping Courvoisier in their DNC-appointed luxury seats. Such is the audacity of progressive cognitive dissonance." --columnist Michelle Malkin

Obamanation = Ineptocracy & Thugocracy

2012-01-21T14:29:00.000-08:00

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least

capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where

the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are

rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a

diminishing number of producers.

Thugocracy - rule of a country or state by a group of thugs.

WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU MERGE GANGSTER POLITICS WITH INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, The creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.." — Winston Churchill

"We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us." - Barrack Obama

Gingrich Rips The Obama Media

2012-01-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

Obama Gives Defense Secrets to Our Enemies!

2012-01-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

The naivete of our President is astounding. His pursuit of getting the Russians to like us some more is once again demonstrative of a utopian mind off in never never land.

LEGISLATIVE ALERT!

2012-01-19T21:45:00.000-08:00

Once again The Lexington Libertarian is proud to republish an outstanding article by Constitutional lawyer, professor, author and radio talk host, veteran Michael Connelly. Please visit his website www.michaelconnelly.jigsy.com.

I pointed out in my last blog article that President Obama has started off the year by continuing to ignore Congress and implement his socialist agenda by using Executive action. However, that does not mean that the rest of us can also ignore Congress. There are currently some important pieces of legislation pending in either the House or the Senate that demand the attention of every patriotic American. Some of them merit our support while other bills need to be defeated.

There are two pieces of pending legislation that are very dangerous to our First Amendment rights since they are designed to limit our ability to use the Internet to express ourselves, and to find out the truth about what is actually happening in our country. These are HR 3261, the so called “Stop Internet Piracy Act” (SOPA) in the House of Representatives, and S 968 in the Senate, the “Protect Intellectual Property Act” (PIPA), The Senate version has heavy support from the usual far left Democrats while surprisingly the House version has a lot of Republican support.

Both pieces of legislation profess to have noble intentions to prevent Internet piracy, and copyright infringement, . However, I have read the proposed bills and both of them contain some very dangerous language that would basically give President Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder a kill switch over the Internet. For example, if you have a website and post content from other websites on it the government can shut you down if anyone complains that you don’t have permission to use the material.

The key is, “if anyone complains.” If I give you permission to repost my articles and you do so, it would not me necessary for me to claim you misused them, anyone can do it and you would be shut down until you proved otherwise. It is assumed you are guilty until you take the time and go to the expense to prove your innocence. There are other provisions in both bills that would essentially allow the Federal government to severely restrict and control the content of the Internet such as is the case in countries like Iran and China. Please contact your representative and Senators and urge them to oppose these bills.

On the other hand, there are some good pieces of legislation that have been introduced in the House of Representatives that I urge you to support. The first is HR 973 that restricts the use of foreign law in deciding cases in U. S. Courts. This bill has become extremely important in light of the recent unbelievable ruling by the U. S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a lower Federal ruling striking down an amendment to the state Constitution of Oklahoma that was adopted by a favorable vote of 70% of the people of Oklahoma. The amendment stated in part, "The courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia law."

A Muslim representative from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a radical Islamic group, challenged the law on the grounds that it violated his freedom of religion. The court agreed and found the state constitutional amendment unconstitutional under the Federal Constitution. This ruling is incredible to me since Sharia law relegates women to what amounts to slave status. Under Sharia law women are subordinate to men, and a Muslim man can rape, beat, and even kill his wife for virtually any reason. He can also murder his daughters if they “dishonor the family” by dating a non Muslim or adopting American dress or habits.

If this court ruling is allowed to stand Sharia law could potentially be used as a valid defense against charges brought by U. S. prosecutors for any of these crimes. HR 973 is designed to prevent that from happening. It is sponsored by Republican Representative Sandy Adams of Florida and has 83 cosponsors. Contact your representative now and ask them to support this important legislation.

Two other house bills that need your support are HR 204 and HR 2913. The first cuts Congressional pay and the second cuts the extravagant benefits given to members of Congress. For example, if you serve one term in the House of Representatives you get full retirement benefits for the rest of your life. On the other hand, if you risk your life serving our country in the military you get no retirement benefits at all until you have served at least twenty years. At a time when our deficit is at an all time high and many Americans are struggling to even feed their families, it is time for members of Congress to share some of the sacrifices that the rest of us face.

HR 204 was introduced by Democrat Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and has only 18 cosponsors while HR 2913 was introduced by Republican Mike Coffman of Colorado and has only 15 cosponsors. Let your representatives know you expect them to support these bills.

Obama Knocking Off All The Serious Competition

2012-01-19T19:53:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Perhaps you have seen, heard or read of the outrageous attacks on Romney and Gingrich that last two days.

Wednesday is was Romney – he has investments in the Cayman Islands, he has given money to the Mormon church, Bain Capital and he pays federal taxes at the rate of 15%. There is nothing new here, just a hype of all that could possibly hurt. And nothing here is wrong or illegal.

Investing in the Cayman Islands is like investing in Dallas or Chicago. First you pay income tax on your earnings – in Romney’s case 35% - then you invest it. Whether in Singapore, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands or New York it makes no difference. As to paying 15% federal taxes while less fortunate people pay more – the you don’t pay your fair share charge - this is just an unjustifiable charge. First Romney has paid 35% on what he has invested. Then he pays an additional 15% Capital Gains tax. People forget that the 15% Romney and others like him are paying in taxes is a tax upon a tax and all that is invested is done with post tax not pre- tax earnings.

So these are bogus trumped up charges designed to defame and destroy.

Thursday it was Gingrich’s turn as ABC again as they did on Wednesday to Romney deliberately spread all over the media an interview with Gingrich’s former wife Marianne how bitter she is about their divorce. Nothing new here just an opportunity to attempt to destroy a Republican contender running for President.

Does not two days in a row the two top Republican contenders get shellacked by ABC smell like a dirty rat. And of course CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, Washington Post and a slew of others all followed suit blasting away, making these stories their top billing. The traditional media is nothing more these days then the Obama media working for his re-election. And because Obama has no record of accomplishment to run on he is employing the media as hit men to trash his opposition.

And the top two were picked, but not Santorum or Paul. Santorum is a viable candidate and a true blue Conservative but he lacks the resources to compete. He doesn’t even have an organization or the money to make a go of it in the Florida primary. Obama with a $1 billion war chest is licking his chops at doing battle with a seriously under financed, poorly organized opponent. And Ron Paul out there on the lunatic fringe – well he would be an easy opponent for Obama.

So the strategy here is to knock out the two best Republicans running for President and to leave the two weakest alone. It will only be possible to topple Obama with a top notch, popular Republican nominee. Obama knows that and is trying to set himself up to go up against a weak Republican. IT WORKED LAST TIME AROUND WITH JOHN MCCAIN.

But once again there is a double standard here. Did anybody make an issue of any of the Kennedy’s investments when they all ran for President? NO BECAUSE THEY WERE DEMOCRATS. Did ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, the Washington Post et al break the story on Jonathan Edward’s affair while his wife was dying from cancer? NO BECAUSE HE WAS A DEMOCRAT. The National Enquirer broke that story. We are going to hear about the Mormon Church and its very past positions of polygamy and non acceptance of Blacks but did we hear anything last time around about Rev. Wright and his hateful, anti American discourse… only from Sean Hannity BECAUSE OBAMA WAS A DEMOCRAT.

So all you good Conservatives boycott the traditional media. There are plenty of online sources to get the truth and there is FOX News.

We Didn't Learn From Ancient Rome That Bread & Circuses Leads To Decay

2012-01-19T15:07:00.000-08:00

One of the three top writers in the United States on the current political scene and the state of society is historian Victor Davis Hanson. You have heard the Lexington Libertarian extol his virtues before. Hanson makes a point in comparing California to Greece that the average American mind needs to grasp – the Liberal mind never will. It is precisely this: money doesn’t grow on trees. You can hire twice the government workers that is needed and offer them benefits fitting for a King and retirement at 80% of their salary with free medical care for life and then……..not be able to deliver on the promises. Why? Because money doesn’t grow on trees. You can’t just mandate all sorts of goodies without ever considering what’s going to happen when the bill comes due.

Greece can’t put 50% of the population into government jobs and then guarantee they can all retire at age 55 at close to full salary. And free medical care is not free. It costs more than the old fashioned pay as you go method. California is learning this all the hard way. City and state workers are retiring expecting a plush life of leisure and the governments cannot pay them all that has been promised.

We have the same problem on a National scale. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Welfare, Unemployment Compensation dragged on forever, government pensions, Obamacare, prescription medicine subsidies, subsidized mass transit, Amtrack and the Post Office which are both hemorrhaging and you name it…are all unfunded liabilities bankrupting the nation.

But Victor Davis Hanson says it so much better.

In 2000, Greeks apparently assumed that they had struck it rich with their
newfound money-laden European Union lenders — even though they certainly had not earned their new riches through increased productivity, the discovery of more
natural resources, or greater collective investment and savings.

The brief euro mirage has vanished. Life in Athens is zooming backward to
the pre-EU days of the 1970s. Then, most imported goods were too expensive to
buy, medical care was often premodern, and the city resembled more a Turkish
Istanbul than a European Munich.

The United States should pay heed to the modern Greek Cassandra, since our
own rendezvous with reality is rapidly approaching. The costs of servicing a
growing national debt of more than $15 trillion are starting to squeeze out
other budget expenditures. Americans are no longer affluent enough to borrow
hundreds of billions of dollars to import oil, while we snub our noses at vast
new oil and gas deposits beneath our own soil and seas.

In my state, Californians for 40 years have hiked taxes; grown their
government; vastly expanded entitlements; put farmland, timberland, and oil and
gas lands off limits; and opened their borders to millions of illegal aliens.
They apparently assumed that they had inherited so much wealth from prior
generations and that their state was so naturally rich, that a continually
better life was their natural birthright.

It wasn’t. Now, as in Greece, the veneer of civilization is proving pretty
thin in California. Hospitals no longer have the money to offer sophisticated
long-term medical care to the indigent. Cities no longer have the funds to
self-insure themselves from the accustomed barrage of monthly lawsuits. When
thieves rip copper wire out of street lights, the streets stay dark. Most state
residents would rather go to the dentist these days than queue up and take a
number at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Hospital emergency rooms neither
have room nor act as if there’s much of an emergency.

Traffic flows no better on most of the state’s freeways than it did 40
years ago — and often much worse, given the crumbling infrastructure and
increased traffic. Once-excellent K–12 public schools now score near the bottom
in nationwide tests. The California state-university system keeps adding
administrators to the point where they have almost matched the number of
faculty, though half of the students who enter CSU need remedial reading and
math. Despite millions of dollars in tutoring, half the students still don’t
graduate. The taxpayer is blamed in constant harangues for not ponying up more
money, rather than administrators being faulted for a lack of reform.

In 1960, there were far fewer government officials, far fewer prisons, far
fewer laws, and far fewer lawyers — and yet the state was a far safer place than
it is a half-century later.

Technological progress — whether iPhones or Xboxes — can often accompany
moral regress.

There are not yet weeds in our cities, but those too may be
coming.

The average Californian, like the average Greek, forgot that civilization
is fragile. Its continuance requires respect for the law, tough-minded education,
collective thrift, private investment, individual self-reliance, and common
codes of behavior and civility — and exempts no one from those rules. Such
knowledge and patterns of civilized behavior, slowly accrued over centuries, can
be lost in a single generation.

A keen visitor to Athens — or Los Angeles — during the last decade not only
could have seen that things were not quite right, but also could have concluded
that they could not go on as they were. And so they are not.

Washington, please take heed. (1)

AND THE LIBERAL SOLUTION: HIGHER TAXES!

(1) Civilization in Reverse by Victor Davis Hanson, National Review Online - http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/288436/civilization-reverse-victor-davis-hanson

Oil Production Keeps Recession at Bay in North Dakota

2012-01-19T09:58:00.000-08:00

Oil production in the Bakken shale formation is making unemployment virtually nonexistent in North Dakota. With 200 rigs pumping 440,000 barrels of oil per day, the state's unemployment rate is holding at 3.5 percent. Many of the jobs pay exceptionally well, with high school graduates making more than $100,000 per year, says the Heartland Institute.

Oil production in North Dakota now rivals that of OPEC member Ecuador, which produces 485,000 barrels per day.
The North Dakota legislature is using some of the state's oil revenue to fund $1.2 billion in infrastructure improvements, including building roads and schools to accommodate the many people bringing their families when they move to the state to work.

One of the primary beneficiaries of this oil boom has been public schools.

The state legislature has directed $340 million in oil-related revenues to public schools during the next two years.
Other oil revenues will be fund a disaster relief fund and enable a reduction in property taxes.

To preserve oil-related funds, the state legislature has directed 30 percent of the funds from the state's 6.5 percent oil extraction tax be sent to the state's Legacy Fund.

The Legacy Fund cannot be touched until 2017, when accrued interest will become available for spending measures.
Principal can be spent only if two-thirds of the legislature agrees to do so, and no more than 15 percent of the principal can be spent in any biennium.

Most of the Bakken shale production is occurring on private land, but analysts and state legislators fear the federal the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may nevertheless seek to shut it down. EPA is currently investigating hydraulic fracturing (fracking) production techniques, which are utilized in shale oil production.

Source: Kenneth Artz, "Oil Production Keeps Recession at Bay in North Dakota," Heartland Institute, December 20, 2011.

For text:

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/12/20/oil-production-keeps-recession-bay-north-dakota

Oil Production Keeps Recession at Bay in North Dakota, NCPA

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21507&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Keystone Out - We Have A Radical Environmental Extremist In The White House

2012-01-18T20:21:00.000-08:00

President Obama has rejected the Keystone Pipeline once again proving that he is a radical environmental extremist. It shouldn’t surprise anyone as he is a radical Marxist/Socialist extremist in all domestic and foreign affairs. Let the record show that this has been a decision based solely on ideology. The President claims that more tests were needed. Yet the State Department has already conducted a thorough environmental review and concluded that the pipeline poses minimal environmental risk to soil, wetlands, water resources, vegetation, fish, and wildlife, and creates few greenhouse-gas emissions. Keystone XL also met 57 specific pipeline safety standard requirements created by the State Department and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). The pipeline has passed every environmental test and impact survey that Obama has stretched out over a three year period of review.

Oil contamination of drinking water would not be likely in many instances because the soil composition prevents or mitigates the downward migration of oil. The Keystone XL pipeline will be equipped with thousands of sensors to monitor pressure and detect leaks, and will have additional safety systems to prevent a major oil spill. Additionally, in areas where a water table is near land surface, TransCanada will add a waterproof coating and cement casing to the piping. The State Department also notes that “In no spill incident scenario would the entire Northern High Plains Aquifer system [of which the Ogallala Aquifer is a part] be adversely affected.”[10] The State Department has already worked with the Bureau of Land Management and state agencies to negotiate more than 340 minor route variations to address environmental concerns.

(1)

In total, the Keystone XL pipeline project has been subjected to tremendous amounts of scrutiny through the National Environmental Policy Act, which includes review by ten federal agencies, as well as numerous state and local agency reviews. The State Department [Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement] has concluded that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would have "limited adverse environmental impact during construction and operation" and that it would significantly strengthen U.S. economic security. (2)

A last minute smokescreen effort by the President is to try to reroute the pipeline slightly and then declare that two years more of testing is required for the new route. This is all a bogus attempt to kill this importation of oil on flimsy grounds. The three years of study already done covers a wide area within the bounds of a reroute.

In turning down the pipeline the President has killed 20,000 jobs directly in a time of economic recession. The Keystone pipeline would provide 700,000 to 830,000 barrels of oil per day to the United States from a country that does not hate America. Over all Obama’s energy policy has prevented the realization of over a million new jobs nationwide.

A reminder that this is totally a privately funded $20 billion project requiring no government expenditure. And the states of Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas through which the pipeline will pass will realize over $5.2 billion in property taxes over the projected 100 years of operation.

Newt Gingrich said, "What Obama will have done is kill jobs, weaken American energy security, and driven Canada into the hands of China out of sheer, utter stupidity,"

"Unfortunately Prime Minister Harper of Canada just this week said because of the volatile indecisiveness on the part of this president, that they feel they are being held hostage and they will take their energy elsewhere specifically to Asia and China," Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, told Fox News Radio. (3)

THE ROUTES OF THIS PIPELINE REJECTION GOES BACK TO OBAMA AND HIS FELLOW LEFTISTS ACCEPTING THE JUNK SCIENCE OF MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING. What the radical environmental extremists want is to shut down the production and use of all coal, oil, gas and nuclear power. In its place would be solar, wind and hydro electric power AND... some new technology not yet invented. THESE EXTREMISTS WANT US TO LIVE THE LIFESTYLE OF THE AMISH. And they don’t care how hard a time of it we have in heating and cooling our houses nor in finding reliable transportation to work.

In addition you will note that Obama has, arbitrarily by mandate, raised auto and light truck CAFE fuel efficiency standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The President thinks he can do what only God can do – wave his hand, and no matter how impossible, make it happen. And a 54.5 mpg standard is an average which means that some vehicles will need to top 75 mpg to carry those only doing about 40 mpg. Even the Toyota Prius today does not get 54.5 mpg. THERE IS NO TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE TO MEET THIS STANDARD. Even if we all ride around in golf carts wrapped in aluminum foil we can’t do that well. THIS IS A DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO OUTLAW ALL FOSSIL FUELED VEHICLES NO MATTER THE CONSEQUENCES.

And we must add to the mix here the loud objections of the radical environmental extremists to the practice of FRACKING in oil extraction. This is another attempt to shut down the use of oil altogether.

THIS IS PRECISELY WHY THE LEXINGTON LIBERTARIAN HAS WRITTEN SO MANY ARTICLES ON THE HOAX OF MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING WHICH WE REFUSE TO EUPHEMISE TO CLIMATE CHANGE.

We hope you have your horse and buggy ready and that your home has multiple fireplaces. Maybe then you won’t get hurt so bad when Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz and stops the exportation of all Middle East Oil. Good luck!

Ameritopia

2012-01-18T09:03:00.000-08:00

Gingrich Takes It To The Liberals In S.C. Debate

2012-01-17T09:40:00.000-08:00

Notice the standing ovation Gingrich gets. First time in a debate a candidate gets a standing ovation. Look for Gingrich to beat Romney in South Carolina.

Voter ID and The Integrity Of The Ballot Continues As A Concern

2012-01-16T20:11:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Video footage provided exclusively to The Daily Caller shows election workers in New Hampshire giving out ballots in the names of dead voters at multiple voting precincts during the state’s primary election on Tuesday.

The bombshell video is the work of conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe and his organization, Project Veritas.

Voters in the Granite State are not required to present identification to vote. O’Keefe’s investigators were able to obtain ballots under the names of dead voters at polling locations Tuesday by simply asking for them, he said.

“Live free or die,” an election worker told one of the investigators in the video. “This is New Hampshire. No ID needed.”(1)

Once again Democrats are fighting to stop voter integrity and the sanctity of the ballot. How they justify their position is one that the American people need to look into. Holder has already shot down South Carolina's voter ID and now it looks as if Florida'a attempts at voter integrity will be challenged by the ACLU and reversed by the Justice Department.

The Lexington Libertarian has visited this issue previously and shot down all reasons to oppose voter integrity and the sanctity of the ballot. THERE IS NO GOOD EXCUSE TO CONTINUE THIS VENDETTA AGAINST GOOD GOVERNMENT. Yet the Democrats push on. Republican legislatures have passed voting laws that Democrat Governors have vetoed. HOW DO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS OUTRAGE? HOW CAN YOU BE FOR VOTER FRAUD AND LOOK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN THE EYE?

Robert Knight has an update on this story.

Pretty soon, the right to cast a meaningful vote might be just a memory.

The issue at hand is ensuring that American citizens can exercise the most fundamental civil right of being an American -- casting a vote with the assurance that it will count and not be canceled by an illegitimate vote.

The ACLU has filed three lawsuits seeking to overturn a new Florida law that tightens the integrity of the ballot box, while the Obama Justice Department has scotched South Carolina's new photo ID law. It's part of a nationwide campaign by the left to overturn numerous recently enacted laws designed to defeat voter fraud.

The ACLU claims that the Florida law, enacted by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Rick Scott, will suppress participation by minority, young, and elderly voters.

Actually, the new rules adopted by Florida, South Carolina, and other states are aimed at Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Elmer Fudd, who work out of former ACORN offices and whose names turn up on registration rolls and recall petitions.

The ACORN people, perhaps deploying Alvin and the Chipmunks with clipboards, seem to have little trouble signing up Mickey and his friends when elections roll around.

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, video sting artist James O'Keefe and his team have exposed the fact that dead people's names were readily accepted by poll workers during Tuesday's presidential primary election.

Although Democrats insist that little or no voter fraud is occurring, at least 55 former Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) employees or associates have been convicted of some form of voter fraud in 11 states, according to the Capital Research Center's Matthew Vadum.

Voter integrity rules are long overdue to prevent fraud, and Democrats seem to think that minority, young, and elderly people are morons who can't play by the same rules as everyone else.

The left's strategy is simple: energize the base with false fears while depicting Republicans as barely disguised Klansmen with pitchforks and torches.

In December, Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. ordered a halt to South Carolina's new photo ID law. Several of his fellow Democrats have compared voter fraud prevention to Jim Crow laws like poll taxes. But the state provides free photo IDs, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has even offered to drive people to the polls who could not get there otherwise.

At a January 10 press conference in Columbia, Haley and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that the state will sue the Justice Department within the next week or two.

State Sen. Kevin Bryant said from the podium, "When I'm not here, I'm a pharmacist. When you come in my store, and you refill a narcotic prescription, I have to take and look at a picture ID to verify that you're getting your prescription. Let's talk about voter suppression. If you vote, and someone else votes fraudulently, they've suppressed your vote. It's exactly the opposite of what the Obama administration has accused us of."
Seven states passed laws in 2011 requiring photo IDs, and others shortened early voting timeframes and tightened requirements for absentee ballots. All but 13 states had legislation introduced in 2011 dealing with the critical issue of voter integrity.

Five states (Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, and North Carolina) enacted photo ID laws that were vetoed by Democratic governors.

Speaking of such, North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue was caught on tape last September wishing that elections could be suspended so that lawmakers wouldn't have to worry about what voters thought.

If you can't fix the election, why not just cancel it?

Then Mickey, Donald, and Elmer can get back to dodging cream pies and falling anvils.(2)

(1)

NH poll workers shown handing out ballots in dead peoples’ names [VIDEO], Daily Caller

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-uVhhIlPk0&feature=player_embedded#!

(2)The Left's War on Voter Fraud Reform

By Robert Knight, American Thinker

Obama Increasingly Governing As The Sole Power In Government

2012-01-16T08:50:00.000-08:00

"While the political elite are focused on the Republican primary fight, the rest of America is focused on looking for (or keeping) a job; hoping the kids are actually learning something at school; despairing over, while staring at, their evaporating retirement accounts; and wondering ... if anyone is actually watching the store. ... Like it or not, Barack Obama is President of the United States. ... In dealing with the Congress he went from completely ignoring the Republican Minority when Democrats controlled both Chambers, to completely ignoring the entire Branch by ruling via Executive Order and redefining the Constitution after the 2010 mid-term elections in which his policies and leadership style cost Democrats control of the U.S. House and broke the back of the near filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. In Obama's America, your opponents are too disobedient and negotiations with them are too tiresome. ... Rather than reduce the 'recriminations' he talked about, he has created more government agencies to watch over fewer growing businesses to institutionalize recriminations against economic growth. In Obama's America, economic success is no longer something to be proud of, [it] is something to be embarrassed about, investigated for, and taxed on." --political analyst Rich Galen

Prager Understands The Mindset Of The Left

2012-01-16T08:33:00.000-08:00

"It takes a person of great character and self-control to continually imbibe and mouth the mantras of the left -- that everyone on the right is sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, islamophobic, racist and bigoted -- and not become a meaner human being. If I believed just about everyone with left-wing views was despicable, I would be meaner, too. In a previous column, I wrote about Thomas Friedman making one of the classic anti-Semitic libels when he wrote that the reason the Senate and the House gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing ovations was because 'that ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.' How does a Jew write an anti-Semitic libel? Because he's on the left. That was the reason Rep. Andre Carson said that members of Congress who support the Tea Party want to see blacks 'hanging on a tree.' Because he's on the left. Leftists' meanness toward those with whom they differ has no echo on the normative right. Those on the left need to do some soul-searching. Because as long as they continue to believe that people on the right are not merely wrong but vile, they will get increasingly mean. The problem for the left, however, is that the moment it stops painting the right as vile, it has to argue the issues." --radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

9-9-9: THE WAY TO BEAT OBAMA – DICK MORRIS

2012-01-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

The best way to boost the economy is through taxation that encourages growth.

And the Republicans need to have a vision solution not just a dismantling of Obamanation.

	Before	Now	Change
Number of Unemployed¹	12.0 Million	13.1 Million	+9%
Long-Term Unemployed²	2.7 Million	5.6 Million	+107%
Unemployment Rate³	7.8%	8.5%	+9%
“High Unemployment” States⁴	22	43	+95%
Misery Index⁵	7.83	11.46	+46%
Price of Gas⁶	$1.85	$3.39	+83%
“Typical” Monthly Family Food Cost⁷	$974	$1,013	+4%
Median Value of Single-Family Home⁸	$196,600	$169,100	-14%
Rate of Mortgage Delinquencies⁹	6.62%	10.23%	+55%
U.S. National Debt¹⁰	$10.6 Trillion	$15.2 Trillion	+43%

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