It is notable, however, that I have not heard a single such complaint since BHO's inauguration.
In fact, Newsweek magazine ran a cover story about Obama's so-called "Recovery Act" legislation proclaiming, "We are all Socialists now." Of course, because Newsweek is suffering from an acute case of revenue shortfall, a tabloid shock cover like the aforementioned [SHOWN ABOVE] is to be expected.
"The era of profound irresponsibility..."
But there is no shortfall of truth in my claim that the "stimulus bill" has much less to do with economic recovery than it does with, in Obama's words, "the fundamental transformation of the United States of America."
Obama is accomplishing this socialist transformation at lightning pace under cover of "responding to the economic crisis" in order to "save or create 3.5 million jobs." (Note the clever construction "save or create," which is to say that even if there is no net increase in jobs, he'll still take credit for having saved 3.5 million jobs.)
Despite Obama's claims, this ruse wasn't a "crisis spending bill." Nor does it provide "economic growth," and it certainly has no legitimate "bipartisan support," with only three RINO senators from among 219 Republican legislators having been swayed by BHO's incessant fearmongering.
In fact, some Republican and Democrat governors have since calculated the costs associated with accepting the redistribution of "your money" by Obama, and they're saying, "no thanks," because the terms of acceptance would mean significant state tax increases on their citizens.
In my home state of Tennessee, Republican Sen. Bob Corker concurs with the Congressional Budget Office's summary that "the [Obama] legislation would result in a slight decrease in gross domestic product compared with CBO's baseline economic forecast." Sen. Corker has determined that it will not create any new jobs in Tennessee and is assisting Democrat Gov. Phil Bredesen with a determination of how to minimize the impact of the federal mandates.
Indeed, when all the mandates and interest expenses of BHO's programs are calculated, his legislation amounts to more than $3 trillion of "your money" being redistributed to his constituencies.
In an effort to restore the consumer and market confidence so essential to economic recovery, Obama addressed Congress, and by extension the nation, Tuesday night, saying, "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
But even Obama's messianic standing among his adoring adolescents has begun to wane, as it becomes increasingly apparent that he's far more fragrance than substance.
Of course, he spent less time cheerleading than he did promoting his next stab at the free market. To wit, a $3.6 trillion budget for the coming year that includes significant military cuts and significant tax increases on the innovators and entrepreneurs who dared turn a profit during the "era of profound irresponsibility," but which also expands government funding for his constituencies so much that it stands to increase the federal deficit to $1.75 trillion for 2009, or 12.3 percent of GDP.
The U.S. has not been saddled with a deficit representing that much of our GDP since we were fighting a World War on two fronts in 1942.
Regarding the "transformation of America," Obama proclaimed that "the day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here. Now is the time to act boldly and wisely -- to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity."
The New York Times gleefully summed it up: "The budget that President Obama proposed is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters."
"The ideas of Ronald Reagan?" Well, only in that President Reagan's ideas were dominated by the foundational principles of our nation -- individual liberty, constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, free enterprise, strong national defense and traditional American values.
BHO also continued his Herculean effort to redefine the reality that the current economic debacle is not the result of Democrat housing policies, insisting, "I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions."
Obama added, "CEOs won't be able to use taxpayer money to ... buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over." (For the record, Michelle has been renovating the White House, and Barack has been crisscrossing the country in his private 747 with his "dog and pony" show, all with taxpayer money.)
Regarding Obama's "war on success," The Wall Street Journal notes, "A tax policy that confiscated 100 percent of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 (before the recession started) would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable 'dime' of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion."
Needless to say, there will be far fewer folks with earnings over $500,000 this year.
In addition to tax increases on "the wealthy" (which all get passed along in the form of increases in the cost of products and services), Obama proposes to limit tax deductions. In other words, he doesn't want billions of dollars in tax-deductible donations to go toward charitable ministries and services, because his administration knows better how to allocate "your money" for social services.
For all his lofty grandstanding about private-sector greed (a.k.a. "free enterprise"), Obama hasn't proposed any salary rollbacks in the executive or legislative branches, much less big layoffs. Conversely, Obama's proposals will swell the ranks of the central government to unprecedented levels, all paid for with your tax dollars.
So much for the federal government tightening its belt amid massive salary cutbacks and layoffs in the private sector, or, should I say, out here in the real world.
Despite all this, the biggest expansion of government programs and spending in history, Obama had the audacity to say, "There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children. And that is the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay. ... We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences."
One might fairly conclude that Obama is attempting to spend our constitutional republic -- and its assurance of individual liberty predicated on individual responsibility -- right out of existence. Indeed, it's no coincidence that Obama's recovery plan is similar in principle to Red China's emergency $586 billion "stimulus package," emphasizing massive government growth and infrastructure projects.
In doing some research this week, I came across the bios of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Wilson Reagan on Obama's White House Web site.
Under Roosevelt, one finds accolades for all the government spending he enacted in an effort to end the Great Depression (the Obama model) but not one word about the lack of effectiveness of any of those programs. Of course, not even the most zealous Leftists among Obama's historical revisionists in the White House would dare make such a claim, because they're unable to find a reputable economist who stands behind FDR's New Deal policies.
On the other hand, when I visited the Reagan bio, much to my amazement and amusement, I found this information: "Dealing skillfully with Congress, Reagan obtained legislation to stimulate economic growth, curb inflation, increase employment, and strengthen national defense. He embarked upon a course of cutting taxes and Government expenditures, refusing to deviate from it when the strengthening of defense forces led to a large deficit." (Translation: Congressional Democrats refused to cut spending for "social programs.") "A renewal of national self-confidence by 1984 helped Reagan and Bush win a second term with an unprecedented number of electoral votes. In 1986 Reagan obtained an overhaul of the income tax code, which eliminated many deductions and exempted millions of people with low incomes."
The Reagan bio concludes, "At the end of his administration, the Nation was enjoying its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression. Overall, the Reagan years saw a restoration of prosperity, and the goal of peace through strength seemed to be within grasp."
So, what is one to conclude about the policies of Obama versus Reagan? Well, Obama's own White House Web site says it all.
(Oh, and I took a peek at Obama's bio and almost suffered a myocardial infarction after reading this opening line: "His story is the American story -- values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family...." What? Barack who?)
Despite Newsweek's cover proclamation, we are NOT all socialists now. In fact, there are more than 60 million gun-owning Patriots across this nation, many of whom have taken sacred oaths "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Of those, more than a few stand ready to honor that oath.
After all, in the words of John Adams, "A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
Radical and thus uncomfortable as this fact may be, there is, nonetheless, a groundswell of discontent across the nation -- millions of Patriots who reject Obama's agenda for transforming the USA into the USSA. In the first Revolutionary War, George Washington mustered fewer than one percent of his countrymen against the mighty army of King George at the onset of hostilities. A far larger percentage of Americans stand ready to defend liberty today.
A year ago, I could not have forecast that the tenor of discontent would have reached such fervor that one now ponders, "Is insurrection the only answer?" I hope not, but it is the 800-pound gorilla at the table, and a growing number of Americans are taking note -- and I am not referring to only those who have lost jobs or incomes. At this writing, every Patriot I know, employed or not, subscribes to the sentiments of Thomas Paine, who penned these inimitable words in 1776: "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."
Indeed.
P.S. For those who have been most grievously affected by the liberal agendas that seeded the housing and financial market crisis, those of you who have lost your job, had your income cut and your savings and retirement funds gutted, help is just a click away. Visit the Federal Election Commission's campaign finance disclosure page, and under the map, select the search criterion menu "Donor's Name" and change that criterion to "Zip Code." Enter your zip code and click "Go." (This search may take up to a minute, so be patient.) Once the search is complete, select the column to search by "Candidate Name," and scroll down to see all the donors in your neighborhood who supported Obama. Since they enabled Obama to redistribute your wealth, surely they would be willing to share some of their own to cover your expenses until Obama's recovery plan has restored your job, your income, your savings and your retirement fund. (Heck, you might even find, as I did, that one of your neighbors far exceeded the legal giving limits to Obama's campaign.)
Quote of the week
"Democratic leaders in Washington, they place their hope in the federal government. We place our hope in you, the American people. In the end, it comes down to an honest and fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government. We oppose the national Democratic view that says the way to strengthen our country is to increase dependence on government. We believe the way to strengthen our country is to restrain spending in Washington, to empower individuals and small businesses to grow our economy and create jobs." --Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal
On cross-examination
"[T]he American people are already doing something to create wealth and hasten the recovery, even if we are the ones forgotten in the battle over what Washington should do. Americans are going to work every day and providing for their families ... increasing their savings rates, making much needed capital available to the private sector ... imagining new and more efficient ways to use valuable resources." --economist Steven Horwitz
Open query
"The 'Stimulus Czar' Joe Biden was asked to explain how the trillion-dollar stimulus bill will help a small business owner. Here's the best Czar Biden could come up with: 'For example, it may very well be that she's in a circumstance where she is not able, her customers aren't able to get to her, there's no transit capability, the bridge going across the creek to get to her business needs repair, may very well be that she's in a position where she is unable to access the -- her energy costs are so high by providing smart meters, by being able to bring down the cost of her workforce.' Clearly, Joe Biden has never run a business in his life. If this entrepreneur is worried about energy costs now, smart meters won't do any good unless they can block Obama's $300 billion carbon tax on utilities. And, what entrepreneur would put his or her business in a location that 'customers aren't able to get to'?" --Gary Bauer
The BIG lie
"[W]e have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day." --BHO
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
"This was the most ambitious president we've heard in this chamber in decades. The first half of the speech was FDR, fighting for the New Deal. The second half was Lyndon Johnson fighting for the Great Society, and we've never seen those two presidents rolled together in quite this way before. ... I think most people would have felt just trying to recover from this recession and stop the flow of blood, and get a recovery going would be enough for one president. He's saying no, no, no -- we're going to do health care reform this year. Do energy -- we'll do education. Thankfully -- do national service, and we're going to cut the deficit." --CNN's David Gergen
This week's 'Braying Jackass' award
"[E]ven if the stimulus is a magnificent success, the money still has to be paid back. The plan of record apparently is that we keep borrowing, spending and stimulating, faster and faster, until suddenly, on some signal from heaven or Timothy Geithner, we all stop spending and start saving in recordbreaking amounts. ... There is another way. If it's not the actual, secret plan, it will be an overwhelming temptation: Don't pay the money back. Just three or four years of currency erosion at, say, 10 percent a year would slice the real value of our debt -- public and private, U.S. bonds and jumbo mortgages -- in half. Anyone who regards the prospect of double-digit inflation with insouciance is either too young to have lived through it the last time (the late 1970s) or too old to remember." --Uber-Leftist columnist Michael Kinsley on the Obama plan, who omits the reality that such inflation will also cut all our savings in half
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
News from the Swamp: The BIG budget
President Barack Obama descended from on high to present his budget to Congress on Thursday. Where to start with this $3.6 trillion mammoth?
The budget calls for pulling all but 35,000 to 50,000 troops out of Iraq by August 2010, while ramping up the war in Afghanistan. It calls for restructuring current health care spending and soaking the "rich" with tax increases to help provide $630 billion for national health care, which will actually cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years. To the $700 billion bailout of last year, Obama adds $250 billion, a reserve that's merely a placeholder and "does not represent a specific request," according to the White House. But the door is open for as much as $750 billion in new aid for the financial industry. The Democrat constituency group that is the National Education Association will receive a big boost in the budget as well, while Democrats in Congress work to quash such programs as the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which offers vouchers to 1,700 poor kids in DC, with a provision in the omnibus spending bill moving through the House (more on that later).
Obama calls the increased spending and sky-high deficit of $1.75 trillion in 2009 a "break from a troubled past." Indeed.
The biggest break from the past comes in the form of tax increases. Naturally, Obama couches taxes in terms of class warfare, saying, "Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care, and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well connected." Beginning in 2011, individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000 will see their taxes rise, which Obama says will yield an additional $656 billion to redistribute through 2019. The budget attacks taxpayers from both ends -- raising the 35 percent rate to 39.6 percent and raising capital gains rates, while limiting exemptions and itemized deductions for those in the higher brackets. The top seven percent of all tax returns, or those with adjusted gross incomes above $200,000, paid 62 percent of all income taxes in 2006. The top one percent, those with an adjusted gross income above $388,806, paid almost 40 percent of all income taxes. Just what does this president think is fair? What, exactly, is he seeking to rectify?
Both small and large businesses face retribution as well, which means consumers will be hit with higher prices and fewer jobs. For example, we expect the price of gas to increase substantially when oil and gas companies are hit with higher taxes. But we guess that's just Obama taking care of the middle class.
Another hoped-for revenue source on the way to cutting the deficit in half comes from taxing greenhouse gases via a cap on emissions -- the onerous cap-and-trade concept. Obama claims the tax will bring in some $646 billion over the next 10 years. Left uncalculated, however, is the damage to the economy that his scheme will cause. Again, when the cost of doing business goes up, the affected companies naturally pass those costs along to the consumer. So while the president is touting his "tax cut for 95 percent of working families," he's taking it right back with his cap-and-trade scheme.
In unveiling the plan, the president said, "There are times where you can afford to redecorate your house, and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding its foundation." The foundation of our "house" -- the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- is just fine; it's the structure being built by Leftists that needs knocking down.
Demos need a few billion to tide them over
The House on Wednesday passed a $410 omnibus spending bill to finish nine of the 12 major appropriations bills in the 2009 budget. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Democrats in Congress held off passing these bills last year because they calculated they'd do better under a Democratic President. So they agreed with President Bush to pass only an increase of 3% across the board for these agencies as part of a temporary continuing resolution. Now they're bumping that up to 8%." Oddly enough, these are the same agencies already in line for large chunks of the $787 billion stimulus.
Meanwhile, the bill outrageously adds $50 million for the UN Population Fund, which funds abortions overseas. There are also more than 8,500 earmarks in the omnibus, which we think is Latin for "bus full of pork." Among the $7.7 billion in earmarks are $4.5 million for new park development in Manhattan, $1.7 million for "Swine Odor and Manure Management Research," $1.2 million for mosquito trapping in Florida, and, our favorite, $200,000 for a "tattoo-removal violence-outreach program" in Los Angeles. One of our West Coast editors really has been meaning to get that "Mom" tattoo removed.
New & notable legislation
The Senate passed a bill Thursday that would grant full House representation to the District of Columbia by adding two seats to the House -- one for DC and one for Utah, next in line for reapportionment. The House is expected to approve the measure next week. (Two bright spots include an amendment to scrap most of DC's gun control laws, and the Broadcaster Freedom Amendment, which would prevent reinstatement of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine.") The Constitution provides that House members shall be chosen "by the People of the several States" and calls for a "Seat of the Government of the United States" that is not a state. But who would worry about something so antiquated as our nation's Constitution?
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who seems to have picked up where race pimps like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson left off, has introduced H.R. 40, known as the "Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act." The purpose is "to acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes." And here we thought that's what Affirmative Action has been doing for the past 45 years.
Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) introduced H.J. Res. 5, which reads, "Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President." The prospect of King Obama brings to mind Benjamin Franklin's words: "There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever..."
The House passed the Captive Primate Safety Act this week, which would stop interstate commerce in primates as pets in the wake of the recent chimpanzee attack in Connecticut. So much for our next office intern.
Hope 'n' Change: Third time's a charm
Didn't we do this already? Twice? President Obama has now tapped former Washington Governor Gary Locke as commerce secretary. Obama's first pick, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, bowed out due to his ties to an ethics scandal in his state, and the second pick, New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, withdrew because of fundamental ideological differences with the administration. Locke, the nation's first American governor of Chinese descent, handily won election and re-election in 2000 and 2004 in Washington, and he's been a high-profile member of the Democrat Party throughout that time. Despite his popularity in the Evergreen State, Locke has had his share of controversy: for starters, his association with convicted Demo fundraiser John Huang, and accusations of kickbacks to family members and campaign contributors. However, Locke supports free trade, and he appears to be independent from the control of Big Labor, a rarity in the new administration.
From the Left: Possible appointment ambushed by MoveOn.org
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen's name has been circulating as a candidate for Health and Human Services secretary, and he seems like a wise choice for the Obama camp. Bredesen is a twice-elected Democrat in a red state and a former CEO of HealthAmerica Corp. He has worked to rein in a runaway Medicaid program (TennCare) that, by the time he took office in 2003, claimed a third of the state's budget. He introduced cost controls such as co-pays and monthly premiums. All well and good until MoveOn.org showed up to engage in one of its classic attempts at character assassination, accusing Bredesen of ruining the program and getting rich off the endeavor. They conveniently ignored the status of Medicaid before Bredesen took office, but since when has MoveOn been about fact over fiction? Bredesen defends his actions and remains confident that he did the right thing, but that will probably not be enough to win him the HHS cabinet post. (On top of that, he is considering rejecting some of the Obama stimulus money -- and would be the first Democrat to do so.) Now, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has seemingly moved ahead of Bredesen for consideration for the HHS post. It is evident that effective reform by way of private-sector solutions to public-sector problems has a narrow audience these days.
Obama victory party owes Chicago $1.74 million
Team Obama has yet to pay its $1.74 million tab to Chicago for the election victory celebration in Grant Park. The Democratic National Committee is "still looking at various costs and bills" but would not elaborate. On its own, the cash-strapped city never would have been able to pay for the party, which included $1 million for police protection and another $140,000 on communications and logistics. The Obama campaign, which closed out the election season with the highest fundraising take of any presidential campaign in American history, could pay for the party out of petty cash. In fact, it could also single-handedly close Chicago's $50 million budget gap. So what's the holdup? After all, with 78 years of continuous and virtuous Democrat rule, why should any organization want to take a close look at the city's books?
____________________________
THE PATRIOT POST
Friday Digest
Vol. 09 No. 08
27 February 2009
THE FOUNDATION
"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood." --John Adams
PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
ObamaNation -- The USSA
By Mark Alexander
______________________________
Barack Hussein Obama aka Barry Soetoro
is not eligible to be President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five
of the United States Constitution regardless of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago,the moon)
because he was not born of TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth. His father was a citizen/subject
of Kenya/Great Britain.
Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
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