Joel's Rant

It all seemed so possible just a few weeks ago, that the Governor’s race in New York would be a toss-up and the seemingly anointed and self-important Andrew Cuomo, son of liberal icon and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, could actually lose to underdog Carl Paladino, the inexperienced but tough as nails businessman from depressed Buffalo.  Now, after some ostensibly inexcusable remarks in which Paladino tried to explain that children shouldn’t be taught in school that homosexuality is acceptable and that while he supports gay rights he opposes gay marriage, the previous close horse race for Governor seems to have changed into a potential romp in favor of the liberal Democrat.  With the coming fiscal collapse of the State of New York you’d think the voters would focus on the mismanagement and political corruption of their present leaders instead of excoriating Paladino for mentioning the issue of teaching about homosexuality in the public schools, to sometimes very young children.  How much more irrelevant to the coming collapse of the state government could Paladino’s clumsy remarks have been, but that’s not the case, in this case, right?

Lost in the new Paladino narrative that says he’s not only anti-human rights, that he may now even be anti-human, is the fact that Andrew Cuomo is one of the architects of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac financial debacle that nearly crashed the economy of the entire United States.  As Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under Bill Clinton, Andrew Cuomo wrote the policy that forced banks, under penalty of law, to make mortgage loans to people who could never afford to pay back their debt, making failure, foreclosure and financial collapse inevitable.  That’s a fact.

It was Andrew Cuomo who further wrote the policy that required banks to count welfare payments and unemployment benefits as income in determining mortgage eligibility.  It was under the leadership of Andrew Cuomo that HUD developed the infamous “no income mortgage” and the equally infamous “no documentation mortgage”.  That’s also a fact.

When at first banks started to balk, Andrew Cuomo enlisted Attorney General Janet Reno to threaten banks with licensing and merger rejections if they did not tow the HUD line of getting loans to those least able to repay their debt.  In fact, under the direction of Andrew Cuomo, banks were required to make certain that about 50% of the mortgages they wrote had to go to the so-called “disadvantaged.”  We all know how that worked out, and yet he’s the front runner.  And that’s a fact.

And what did Carl Paladino do to take the oxygen completely out of this race?  He essentially had the temerity to take exception to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruling that parents cannot take their kindergarteners out of Massachusetts public-schools classes that teach 5-year-olds that same-sex marriage is a good thing. He essentially questioned how a federal judge in San Francisco, in ruling that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, could declare that children do not need both mothers and fathers and do just as well being raised by same-sex couples, even though there’s no evidence of that anywhere.  The fact that New York State presently pays more in their budget for Medicaid than both Texas and Florida combined should be good reason for voter anger, yet Paladino’s questioning teaching about homosexuality in public schools has his legitimacy being questioned, while no one’s asking Andrew Cuomo any questions.  Go figure!

Except for California, New York is the next closest to bankruptcy and financial ruin of any other state in the nation.  To resolve that potentially disastrous situation, New Yorkers can vote for Andrew Cuomo, with his record of failure, financial ruin and political correctness, or they can vote for Carl Paladino who has vowed to reduce spending and taxes in New York by 20% and has the business acumen to do just that.  Yet it’s Carl Paladino who’s considered the extremist.

At a debate earlier this week, the Democrat nominee for Senator in Delaware, Chris Coons, similarly labeled Republican Christine O’Donnell “an extremist”.  He even made a special attempt to bring up her high school “witchcraft activities” to further prove his point.  Interestingly, when Coons ran for County Executive four years ago he promised not to raise taxes, yet went ahead and raised them three times in those four years to pay for his increased spending that helped drive his county to near bankruptcy.  Yet it’s Christine O’Donnell who’s considered the extremist.

And then there’s the curious case of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the partner of Barack Obama, or maybe the puppet of Barack Obama, leading the charge to pass the $872 billion stimulus bill (increasing to over $1.2 trillion when interest is included) and the disastrous ObamaCare health reform legislation that 60% of the nation wants repealed. 

Isn’t it interesting that earlier this week Barack Obama himself stated that there’s no such thing as “shovel ready” projects and that the money planned for those activities, for which the stimulus law was specifically passed, was essentially spent on other stuff that did not stimulate the economy at all?  In fact, only 3% of the “stimulus money” actually went for “shovel ready” programs, the rest being spent on paying public employee union workers and shoring up entitlement spending.  But Harry Reid supported all of it.  In fact, Harry Reid was one of the architects of that trillion dollar fiasco that future generations will have to pay back long after most of us are gone.  Even now, Harry Reid supports Barack Obama’s call for another $200 billion stimulus on top of the $872 billion, this time to really really be spent on the infrastructure projects the earlier stimulus was supposed to cover that never did.  We’re being played for suckers and Harry Reid has no problem being Obama’s field general to make that happen.

Oh, and while our armed forces were engaged in actual combat with Islamic barbarians, putting someone else’s sons and daughters and husbands and wives and fathers and mothers in harm’s way, Harry Reid stated to the entire world that the war in Iraq was lost.  In his never ending effort to actually get American forces defeated so Democrats would have a political advantage in future elections, Harry Reid gave aid and comfort to our enemies, helping them recruit and continue to carry the battle further.  Yet it’s Sharron Angle who’s considered the extremist.

I could go on and on but the important point is to ask who exactly are the extremists in these and other races all around the country.  Let’s look at the record.

In the past 21 months a record number of housing foreclosures have occurred, with no decrease in sight.  There are now over 43 million American living in poverty, the most in U.S. history.  Over 50 million people now receive food stamps; that’s one of every 6 Americans.  Another 50 million Americans are presently on Medicaid and another 30 million will be added to that number once the full impact of ObamaCare begins in 2014.

Before Democrats took control of both houses of Congress in January 2007, the last Republican Congress budget had a $171 billion dollar deficit.  Once Democrats started writing and passing the budgets, in the last two years of the Bush administration, the deficits rose immediately to over $400 billion.  In the past 2 years, Obama’s budget deficits have been $1.4 trillion each with additional $1 trillion budget deficits expected in each of the next 10 years, and that’s assuming nothing additionally bad happens.  Because of these Democrat actions, the accumulated national debt will effectively triple by the year 2020 to over $20 trillion, and will exceed the debt of every president from George Washington to George W. Bush combined.

Now let’s be absolutely clear; it’s the Congress, not the President, who determines spending and passes budgets.  The President only approves or vetoes what the Congress passes.  The “monthly deficits” presently being passed under Democrats by this Congress, and approved by this present President, now exceeds the “yearly deficits” passed under Republicans.  And it’s the Republicans who are the extremists?

Unemployment officially stands at 9.6%, while the underemployment percentage is over 17% and in some states over 20%.  Those are depression-era numbers that will not improve; in fact those are numbers that cannot possibly improve because of the anti-business, anti-free market and anti-capitalist environment and policies the Democrats in Congress and the President have pursued since January 2009.  The raising of corporate taxes and personal income taxes, new regulations, uncertainty over health care provisions and premiums, cap & trade taxation, EPA regulations and rulings, bailouts of favored industries over the free market, and the continued and constant attack against banks, entrepreneurs, insurance companies, big corporations, wealthy Americans, and any small business “grossing” over $250,000 means no new job growth will created for the foreseeable future.  None.  Our present economy is our future economy, the economy your children and grandchildren will inherit.  And it’s the Republicans who are the extremists?

Democrats have closed the Gulf to offshore drilling, foreclosed on the licensing process for new nuclear power plants, and crippled the coal industry with regulations and threats of cap and trade, all in an effort to starve the American economy of the energy lifeblood it needs to compete economically with the rest of the world.  A nation without access to cheap and continual energy supplies is a nation committing national suicide. And it’s the Republicans who are the extremists?

And that’s just some of the stuff the Democrats, the President and their minions have done.  I’m not even talking about the Black Panther fiasco, Supreme Court Justices who believe the government can force you to eat three vegetables a day, or the racism epidemic at the Eric Holder Justice Department.

So here’s the real truth.  Carl Paladino is not an extremist.  Tea Party candidates like Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Rand Paul, Joe Miller and others are not extremist. Sarah Palin is not an extremist. Candidates that speak of the Constitution and American exceptionalism are not extremist.  People who believe in limited government, personal property, personal responsibility and understanding the government works for the people and not the other way around are not extremist.  Neighbors and friends who stand up and take to the streets and proclaim that enough is enough and demand accountability from our so-called leaders are not extremist.

But every Democrat is an extremist.  That’s a fact.

And that’s all there is to it.

Just before the polls had closed on Tuesday, the great and wise Charles Krauthammer and the ideologically liberal Juan Williams appeared together in a panel on Fox News to discuss the potential for a Christine O’Donnell victory in Delaware.  This was a full 2 hours before Karl Rove appeared on Hannity to pronounce Christine O’Donnell a personality failure of suspect character.  During that panel Krauthammer essentially indicated that the “weak and dubious” O’Donnell had no business taking a certain Republican Senatorial victory away from the liberal Mike Castle, while Williams replied that the excitement generated by the Tea Party is what has introduced new and fresh candidates, bringing an unapologetic conservative ideology to the attention of the voters. 

 I never thought this could happen, but I take Juan Williams over Charles Krauthammer on this one.  Go figure!

 But without getting too deep in the weeds, let’s all focus on what’s important here for a moment.  If O’Donnell had already been in the Senate she would have voted against Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.  She would have voted against ObamaCare, cap & trade, stimulus spending, government takeovers of GM, student loans and AIG.  She would have voted against bailouts and the latest finance bill and would definitely vote against future Card Check, the Disclosure Law and VAT tax legislation which are sure to be introduced by the Democrats if they maintain control in Congress.  She definitely would vote FOR extending the Bush tax cuts and possibly for eliminating the Departments of Education, Commerce and maybe even Energy, all of which essentially serve no purpose. 

 The fact that she may have suffered a foreclosure means nothing; so have a lot of people.  The fact that she may have defaulted on a loan is immaterial; so have lots of people in this economy.  O’Donnell claims both of those issues are mischaracterizations and explains them both away on her campaign website, which also provides IRS and mortgage bank documents online to support her replies (http://christine2010.com/christine-counters/) for those interested in drawing their own conclusions.

The important point, for those looking for a new direction in this country, is that both Mike Castle and her Democrat opponent Chris Coons would have voted the exact opposite of O’Donnell on the issues that count. 

 A review of Mike Castle’s voting record over the past several years includes the following:

Voted YES on TARP
Voted YES on Cap and Trade
Voted YES on Cash for Clunkers
Voted YES on the auto bailout
Voted YES on bailing out Fannie and Freddie
Voted YES on SCHIP (along with its companion tax increase)
Voted YES to increase taxes on oil and gas companies
Voted YES to increase the minimum wage
Voted YES on the pork-infested 2005 Highway bill
Voted YES to increase funding for PBS
Voted YES on the Medicare drug benefit
Voted YES on No Child Left Behind
Voted YES on McCain-Feingold
Voted NO to end milk subsidies
Voted NO on waiving Davis-Bacon labor rules

Voted NO on Iraqi troop surge

Voted NO to open up ANWR

Voted NO to restrict eminent domain abuse

It doesn’t get more liberal than that.  Mike Castle is a liberal and would have continued voting liberal along with every liberal Democrat in Congress and along with Barack Obama.

This brings us to the issue of liberalism and what they believe and where they want to take the country. 

It was just announced last week that poverty in this country has hit a record high as the rate jumped from 13.2% to 14.3%, translating into 43.6 million people living below the poverty line.  And that doesn’t include those millions living just above the poverty line but are one bad break away from entering that netherworld of despair.  That’s the most people in the history of the nation.  In addition, over 60 million people receive Food Stamps and 50 million people are already on Medicaid.  Once ObamaCare kicks in, that number will jump to 80 million people on Medicaid; that’s fully 25% of the entire nation on medical assistance specifically meant for poor people and those living below the poverty line. 

Those are numbers not seen since at least the 1960’s and reflects the failure of liberal poverty spending programs that have taken over $20 trillion out of the private, job creating, economy since 1964’s so-called “War on Poverty”.  Think of the state of our nation today had that $20 Trillion been invested, by the free market and private enterprise, in general research & development, transportation, medical and pharmaceutical development, bio-engineering, energy assets and development, communications and all the other ventures that have produced the most successful society and highest standard of living for all its citizens in the history or the Earth. 

Just think what the poverty population in this country would be had that $20 Trillion been used to create jobs instead of creating victims and handouts and placing people on lifetime assistance.  We’re already seeing 4^th generation welfare recipients in this country.

And what’s the liberal response to these facts?  More spending and blaming George W. Bush for the federal deficit.  Yes, of course, all of this was caused by the Bush tax cuts.  Really?  Let’s cut to the chase and dispel the myth that the Bush tax cuts caused the deficit. 

Actually, in 2002, tax revenues were $1.85 trillion.  In 2007, after the tax cuts had gone into effect, revenues had grown to $2.57 trillion, a 39% increase.  Unfortunately, spending by a Republican Congress outpaced treasury revenues and so the deficit grew.  But never, not even one time during the Bush administration, did any Democrat in Congress state that the budget being passed was too high.   Never did any Democrat call for reducing spending during the Bush years, unless, of course, the spending was for the Defense Department.  Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and all the rest voted every single time for increased spending and complained only when spending wasn’t higher.  And those are the facts.

Barack Obama and his minions somehow believe that “the well off” or “the well connected” people in this country have explicitly conspired to shaft the “middle class”.  Their philosophy of class warfare is right out of the Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and begs the question of where exactly on the income scale does Barack Obama divide the country between “us” and “them”? 

In 2007, the top 1% of income earners were those making $410,000 or more per year, and they paid 40% of all income taxes.  The top 5% were those making over $160,000 per year, and they paid 60% of the income taxes.

Doesn’t the real antidote to poverty lie in getting this top 5% or so to create the jobs to hire the millions presently receiving assistance?  Isn’t that the only way?  The Reagan years tax cuts saw over 21 million new jobs created.  The Bush years (yes, the George W. Bush years) tax cuts saw 8 million new jobs created.  And those numbers are real and don’t include any accounting gimmicks like “jobs saved.” 

Isn’t Conservatism the antidote to Liberalism? 

The lines being drawn in this country could not be clearer and those lines are being highlighted by the Tea Party movement and those that understand what’s at stake.  As the great Mark Levin has stated, those differences are stark and grim and separate the views of Conservative’s from the views of Liberal’s and include the following:

We believe in the Founders, they believe in Karl Marx,

We believe in liberating the individual, they believe in controlling the individual,

We believe in being able to keep what you earn, they believe in stealing what you earn,

We believe in American citizenship, they believe in Global citizenship,

We believe in American greatness, they believe in American arrogance,

We believe in representative government, they believe in big government,

We believe in liberating and protecting victims, they believe we’re colonialists and imperialists,

We believe in limited government, they believe in unfettered government,

We believe in putting people in control, they believe in controlling the people.

We believe in liberty, they believe in tyranny.

And that’s all there is to it.

It’s now official.  The people and the individual states of the United States, on one side, are now locked in a death roll with the federal government, on the other side.  It’s us versus them.  It’s good versus evil.  It’s the Founders versus the Marxists and their anti-American accomplices.  Don’t believe me?  How do you explain what’s been happening to our country over the past 18 months?

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is forcing Arizona to keep its border with Mexico open to illegal aliens despite the wishes of the American citizens who live there.  This federal government affront to the Constitution is clearly transparent when you consider that the Obama regime would never be taking this “open border” action if it was understood that illegal alien Hispanics, given the opportunity, would almost certainly vote for Republicans instead of Democrats.  You get that, right?  Otherwise, Obama’s rouge government would have the border closed in 20 minutes.  Turning the sovereignty of our country into a mere political calculation is the height of pure evil and is in absolute opposition to his oath of office to “….preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  Clearly this government respects the “rights” and “needs” of non-citizens, who given the chance will help the current group of Obama’s minions retain power, over the rights and needs of the real American citizens.  Obama’s ends clearly justify his means, no?

How about the Obama regime closing off-shore drilling for some unspecified period of time?  While it seemed the gulf leak would be the most unprecedented eco-disaster of all time, the results so far appears not to be the case at all.  It’s essentially not even in the news anymore.  In fact, even the New York Times is reporting that while sightings of tar balls and emulsified oil can be seen here and there (those are their words), the immense patches of surface oil that covered thousands of square miles of the gulf after the April 20^th oil rig explosion are largely gone.  It seems the amount of oil dispersed, compared against the size and water volume of the gulf, is much like spilling a 12 ounce can of soda into the Superdome filled to the roof with water.  Even the marshes and wetlands are already recovering from the “disaster” and seafood has been declared safe to eat.

Robust off-shore drilling not only continues everywhere else in the world but the bidding for dormant gulf drill rigs is already underway.  It’s estimated that over 100,000 gulf state jobs will be lost, most forever, crippling local economies and spreading financial misery to more millions of Americans.  The Governor of Louisiana is now forced to fight the federal government moratorium in court again, much like what’s happening in Arizona, for the right to continue drilling.  Is it possible the Obama regime, and his rogue government, is actually attempting to starve the energy demands of the country and/or purposely creating victims of former oil industry workers and their families?  Do you still think this ban on continued drilling is a mere “safety issue?”  What do you suppose would have been the clean-up response of the Obama Interior Department had the oil leak been off the shores of blue states like Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland instead of red states like Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama?  What does common sense and your life experiences tell you?  And there’s more.

Why have the governors of 18 states demanded EPA rules favoring climate change legislation be rescinded?  Even more interesting is why the Troubled Asset Relief Program Special Inspector General (IG), Neal M. Barofsky, recently testified that decisions on which car dealerships to close as part of the auto industry bailout, closures the Obama administration forced on General Motors and Chrysler , were based in part on race and gender.  In effect, over 2000 dealerships were strong-armed into closing simply because they were not minority or woman owned.  Because of that, an estimated 100,000 people lost their jobs during a recession.  And the benefit to the car companies for this arbitrary Obama regime action was exactly zero, none.  In fact, the IG report shows the action to have been detrimental to the health of both car companies.  In response to the IG report, Obama’s “auto team czar” Ron Bloom admitted that the dealerships could have been kept open, saving those jobs, “but that doing so would have been inconsistent with the President’s mandate for “shared sacrifice.”  How completely loathsome is that?

Why did the DOJ let the New Black Panthers off the hook for obvious and malicious voter intimidation during the last presidential election with absolutely no apparent reason?

Why has the DOJ proffered rules and policies favoring the “rights” of terrorists while attacking CIA intelligence officers attempting to get information from them that would protect the nation from assault?

Why has the DOJ made it the policy of the federal government to see the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, tried for crimes in New York City, yards from ground zero, thereby allowing him the largest stage in the world from which to spin his tales of the need to destroy America? 

Why did the Obama regime agree to let the Lockerbie bomber go free?  Yes, they provided a copy of the letter they initially sent to Scottish officials making it appear, with a wink and a nod, that they opposed the release of the bomber, but Obama won’t provide copies of the two other missives they shared with Scottish officials before the bomber’s release on the grounds that any additional information about the matter being made public could make future relations with foreign governments more difficult.  How convenient.  So there’s more to the story but the Obama State Department won’t make public additional available information. Hmm……makes you wonder, no?  Whose side is Obama on, anyway?   

He and his rogue government certainly have a soft spot for killers, thugs, dictators and terrorists, and that’s no joke.  He really does. It seems he’d be much more comfortable having dinner with Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers than with you and our family.

Why was Elena Kagan, of all people, put on the Supreme Court?  Is it possible, or is it more likely, that she’s just a political operative of Barack Obama, whom she called one of her personal heroes?  Here’s a person with no experience as a judge, and virtually no experience as a litigator in court, and no experience outside the cloistered halls of academia, stating quite frankly and clearly that the government of the United States is not limited in any way from doing virtually anything it wants to do to the people of this country, a concept totally anathema to the Constitution and the Framers and Founders of this country.  Yet she can be on the court for another 20, 30 or 40 years or more, plying that kind of anti-American logic and helping transform America into something quite alien, and quite Marxist, from the country required by our founding governing documents.  And she’s just the newest of three others on the court who think like that.  One more and America will be lost forever.  Think about what kind of country your children and grandchildren will live in if Obama’s ever able to replace one of the conservative judges.

And what about news last week that the Congress finally passed, with virtually no Republican support, the unfunded extension of unemployment benefits which will require borrowing from China over $36 billion.  But that’s not all.  Congress also passed this week, also with virtually no Republican support, an unfunded bill to provide another $26 billion so that teachers won’t be laid off.  That’s another $62 billion borrowed dollars to accomplish some friendly sounding priorities, but how friendly are they really?  It’s amazing how in just about 18 months $62 billion went from being considered real money to now it’s just chump change.  That’s a real problem.

How many weeks should someone expect to receive unemployment benefits?  At what point do unemployment benefits become welfare payments?  How about 99 weeks?  How about 126 weeks?  We’re there now.  Let’s be honest for a moment.  How many people look seriously for a job until just before unemployment benefits are scheduled to run out?  Many of us know people that could be working but are instead waiting for the “right” position to become available or are taking a “vacation” as long as the government is willing to pay for it.  Let’s get real.

How about those poor teachers that will be laid off without additional “emergency” funding?  And what will happen to the poor children without those poor teachers?  What about the fact that, according to the Cato Institute, public school employment nationwide has risen 10 times faster since 1970 than student enrollment?  That’s 1000%, for crying out loud!   Is it possible that teacher unions have held taxpayers hostage over the years, and that teacher salaries, which are only for 10 months of work,  are way out of proportion to what the market place should be paying, and that a huge number of administrative personnel should be removed, and that teachers are completely protected from the perils of recession when private sector jobs are not, and on and on?  But the Marxist government is beholden to teachers and other public employee unions in the way described in detail by the socialists of the past, including Karl Marx himself.  It’s part of his manifesto.  Instead of continuing to fund even higher the public education monstrosity of ineptness, there may not be another sector in the American economy more in need of reducing spending than public education.  But is anyone in our rogue government responsible enough to say that?

And then there’s the curious case of Dr. Donald Berwick.  Here’s a Marxist, apparently pretty good as a medical doctor, but who has stated convincingly that he supports a single payer plan for the country, marvels at the British health care model despite its failure, and supports emphatically the rationing of health care in America, yet gets to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) without a congressional hearing.  Barack Obama provided him with a “recess appointment”, an action permitted by the Constitution ostensibly for when, particularly in the old days when travel was difficult and time consuming, Congress is in a long term recess.  In this case Congress was in recess for only 2 weeks and in previous such appointments Congressional hearings had already taken place, like when Ambassador John Bolton was provided a recess appointment by George W. Bush.  The importance of hearings, of course, is so Congress can complete their constitutional responsibility to ask questions and make decisions about the people tasked with running important government business.  In this case no questions were asked of this guy, who is tasked with managing a federal agency with a budget over $600 billion, more than even the Department of Defense, and has responsibility for crafting the regulations required by ObamaCare.  You’d think people would want to know more about this guy, no?

Why then would the Obama regime want to keep Berwick from being grilled by Congress?  The answer, of course, is because he’s a rank political operative of Barack Obama, much like Elena Kagan and Sonya Sotomayor before her, and will do whatever is asked of him by Barack Obama.  Case closed.  The Constitution once again betrayed.

The theme of the Constitution is that the interest of the citizens must be paramount over the interests of the government.  The complete reversal of that theme, coupled by the fact that the Constitution is being willfully misinterpreted by the President, Congress and the Supreme Court, proves that there is no end to the destruction of our country from an enemy within.

And that’s all there is to it.

It was quite a spectacle to see earlier this week, Barack Obama standing among a crowd of auto workers claiming his stimulus and bailouts saved the industry from disaster and even increasing their payroll by 55,000 workers.  Didn’t Joe Biden state not too long ago that the 8 million jobs lost since the beginning of the recession were not coming back?  Didn’t the government recently announce 3 million jobs “saved” or created yet unemployment grew from 8% in February 2009 to today’s 9.5% and that doesn’t include those millions that have literally dropped out of the labor market, otherwise the jobless percentage would be over 17%, also known as “depression era territory?”  And wasn’t it just this week that the Obama regime floated the idea of another jobs stimulus on top of the $862 billion stimulus already passed last year?  And why would unemployment benefits need to be extended beyond 99 weeks if jobs were actually being created?  Is that progress, or is that admitting disaster?

Actually, having bailed out GM to the tune of $55 billion ($7 billion approved during the Bush administration and $48 billion under Obama plus Obama’s additional $25 billion to Chrysler) I’d expect some auto worker jobs would be created, although at $1 million per job I’d judge that action to have been quite the failure.  And the Obama regime’s forcing GM to build and market their new electric car, the Chevy Volt, reeks of dangerous and politically motivated tidings to come.  Getting only 40 miles to a 3-hour charge (and exactly where does that increased electricity use come from if not fossil fuel power plants) and with a sticker price of $41,000 per unit, and on top of that being subsidized by the taxpayers to the tune of an additional $7500 per unit, you can see this also will be a complete and utter failure.  Who, besides a complete fool or rich democrat (or is that the same thing) , would buy a car like that?  Only the government would miss seeing this effort as a failure.  You’d honestly expect decisions like that to be made by the Soviet Politburo, but that’s what happens when government invades and coerces the private sector.  We can only expect more of this in the other industries being taken over or being invaded by the government. 

And these are the same people who plan to control your health care and tell you what you can and can’t get from your doctor.

If that doesn’t scare the shoot out of you try this.

Niall Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard University, reports that the great nations and empires of the past were destroyed, and with the fantastic speed of only one or two generations, by ruinous debt and unsustainable ficsal policy.  As Ferguson writes, what are the implications for our country today? The most obvious point is that the fall of great nations are associated with fiscal crises, sharp imbalances between revenues and expenditures, and the mounting cost of servicing a mountain of public debt.  Sound familiar? 

Think of Spain in the 17th century; already by 1543 nearly two-thirds of ordinary revenue was going to interest to pay for the loans by which the Habsburg monarchy financed itself.

Or think of France in the 18th century; between 1751 and 1788, the eve of Revolution, interest and amortization payments rose from just over 25% of tax revenue to 62%.  With that, the Bourbon monarchy passed from triumph to terror with astonishing speed.

Finally, consider Britain in the 20th century. Its real problems came after 1945, when a substantial proportion of its now immense debt burden was in foreign hands, amounting to about 33% of the national GDP.  The Suez crisis in 1956 proved that a financially strapped and weakened Britain, beholden to the US for fiscal support, could not act in defiance of the US in the Middle East, setting the seal on the end of their empire.

If you believe the United States is impervious to those disasters consider the fact that the Obama regime has run a deficit of $1.4 trillion two straight years in a row, about 10% of GDP, with more $1 trillion deficits for the next several years in the future.  Since 2001, in the space of just 10 years, the federal debt in public hands has doubled as a share of GDP from 32% to a projected 66% next year. According to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest projections, the debt could rise above 90 per cent of GDP by 2020 and reach 146 per cent by 2030 and 344 per cent by 2050. 

So how will our leaders deal with this extraordinarily dangerous situation?  By allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, thereby raising taxes on every person and every business in America that still pays taxes.  What that does is take money out of the private sector, where it is otherwise spent building industries, upgrading machines and equipment, providing dollars for research and development and thereby creating high paying jobs that expand markets and increase economic stability.  They’re also going to attack the energy industries and make it even harder to get credit and loans and eventually passing some form of card check to further cripple our ability to complete in the global economy.  And that doesn’t even include the coming VAT tax, wealth tax and potentially taking over your IRA.

Just look at how the stimulus money was wasted.  Look at how all the bailout money was spent.  Look at how Fannie and Freddie have been given, even with all we know about them, a free hand with no monetary limits to continue their destruction of the housing and mortgage industries.  It never ends.  
 
And isn’t it interesting that no matter how high taxes get, and how high the budget deficit gets, it is never enough.  Even with budgets now about $4 trillion each year, for some reason, there’s never enough money for everything.  It’s still not high enough.

How can any significant number of jobs be created when the US corporate tax rate, the second highest in the world, is 35% while the tax on small business is set to rise to 39.6% after January 1, 2011?  Small businesses, like your local pizza restaurant and barber shop, the job creating engine of America, will pay higher taxes than even billion dollar corporations?  How can jobs be created when the people with the money to hire workers will have that money stolen away by the government?

It takes 150,000 new jobs created each month just to keep the unemployment figures stable.  It would take 400,000 jobs each month for 3-years just to get back down to 8% unemployment.  What’s the chance that’s going to happen with this Marxist, anti-business, anti-capitalist, anti-free market, government in control of this country?

The answer is none; there is absolutely no chance that’s going to happen.  In fact, it’s going to get worse, much worse.  Even Ben Bernanke this so.  We’re already Greece.  And when we get worse than Greece there’s going to be civil unrest. 

And that’s all there is to it.

I was just this evening driving back from a GOP “Happy Hour” and was listening to the radio and heard that super-duper star basketball player LeBron James had decided to move from playing ball in Cleveland to playing in Miami.  My take on LeBron is that he seems like a pretty good guy, good to his teammates, and willing to extend himself to fans and their kids.  That’s all good.   Then I started to think about his new Miami contract. 

Now LeBron had been sought aggressively by most every basketball team with cash to spend, and while I don’t know what Miami finally agreed to pay him, I believe it could have been as high as $100 million for 5 years.  That’s a lot of cash, enough for several people’s lifetimes and all that.  It also turns out that LeBron’s a big Barack Obama supporter, just like the other 95% of blacks that support him nationwide and apparently will continue to support him no matter what and regardless of the circumstances, even if it’s over a cliff.

Now this is interesting.  It turns out one of the reasons LeBron chose to play in Miami is that Florida has no state income tax, as opposed to New York or Ohio, teams in cities of those states also contesting for LeBron’s contract, which has some of the highest state income tax rates in the nation.  So who cares?  What’s the problem?  Lots of people don’t want to pay taxes.

Here’s the problem.  LeBron supports Obama.  He supports Obama’s programs, and policies and spending.  He’s in favor of it all.  Yet LeBron, just like other liberals who are among the richest people on planet Earth, would just as soon support all that crap, be vocal about it, yet have other people pay that Obama freight.  He’ll leave Cleveland for Miami, save himself about $10-12 million, and not look back because he’s trying to get away from the high taxes, even though he supports the policies and spending that make those very taxes high.  Let the “small” people pay.  Isn’t that the liberal attitude?  Isn’t that an amoral attitude?

Who does he think is going to pay for all of those programs?  He’s certainly trying to avoid paying for those programs, which he apparently likes so much.  You see my point, right?

Why do the Hollywood types, who can be valued between $1 million and $1 billion, leave California for their ranches in Wyoming or Montana or abroad?  Why do all those rich liberals leave Massachusetts for New Hampshire and California for Arizona and Nevada, and New York for Florida, and Washington DC for Virginia and on and on?  They do it to lower their taxes, even though they support the policies and spending that make the taxes so high.  Isn’t that the liberal attitude?  ?  Isn’t that an amoral attitude?

A liberal friend of mine recently told me that he thinks business is amoral.  He actually said that.  There are those that think the truly rich are amoral.  Barack Obama thinks both business and the truly rich are both amoral and has said so many times, in many places, to many different audiences, all to huge applause.  Of course, he doesn’t like to talk about himself being rich, and needless to say his state-run media friends never ask him about  that either.

Back in the early 1900s, Teddy Roosevelt, that new favorite of the modern liberals, took on the so-called “Robber Barons” because he and his other “Progressive” elites thought too much wealth in just a few hands was dangerous to the country.  Oh, really?

And what did those Robber Barons do with their money?  What did Rockefeller and Carnegie and Vanderbilt and others do with their riches?  They invested it. They invested it in America.  They used it for research and development.  They loaned it out for others to use to develop their own ideas and products and on and on.  And in doing so they developed companies and businesses that employed tens of millions of Americans and provided the wages and inexpensive products that raised the standard of living in America.  Was that amoral?

And what about the captains of industry in our modern world?  Haven’t they stolen from the people and created chaos?  Haven’t they destroyed our society?  Aren’t they amoral?  Are they really?

Let’s for a moment try to be honest.  Hasn’t industry and free market capitalism provided life saving drugs, and cheap fuel and air conditioning and computers and cheap air travel, and cheap food in amazing quantity and medical care and insurance and cars and dazzling electronics?  And haven’t they, when not forced to do stupid things by the federal government, provided financing for mortgages and credit for average Americans?  And haven’t they created jobs and jobs and jobs, over 40 million jobs and Trillions in wealth from 1980 to 2007.  And don’t you assume there will be bigger and better and more and more in the future?  If you’re an American, you definitely assume that.  Is that amoral?

And who do you suppose does that stuff?  You think the government does that?  If you had to depend on the government for food, how much food would there be?  If you had to depend on the government for gasoline, how much gasoline would there be?  If you had to depend on the government to heat your home in the winter, how long would it take before you froze to death?  If you had to depend on the government for jobs, how many jobs would there be?  The government just spent over $1 TRILLION to create jobs and after more than one entire year not one job was created.  Not a single one. Is it the government you want in control of the free markets?  Are you a complete idiot?  Are you amoral?

Because of capitalism and free markets and big business, poor people in America can essentially enjoy much of the lifestyle of even the richest among us.  Even poor Americans own cars, and have televisions and computers, and own their own homes, and can buy cheap fuel and drive to every part of the country.  And if poor Americans don’t have the money to buy those things they can develop skills and work and save until they do.  Is that amoral?

About 6 weeks ago my wife and I were on vacation in Las Vegas and staying at the Bellagio Hotel, one of the finest 5-star hotels in the world (we got a great deal, it being during the week and the off-season and all that).  But there we were at the Bellagio, having breakfast in the Promenade, where all the expensive and fancy shops are, and I was reminded of a story about capitalism that the great economist Walter Williams likes to talk about, that capitalism really benefits poor people the most. 

To borrow from Walter’s story, here I was having breakfast in the Bellagio and thinking that if Bill Gates suddenly came to Las Vegas that day he might just as easily also be staying at the Bellagio, just like me.  And that if Bill wanted some breakfast he might just as readily come down to the same restaurant as me and maybe even sit 10 feet from where I was sitting.  And the reason is that I could afford what Bill Gates can afford.  Only capitalism could make that happen.

Yes, Bill’s room would likely be much more luxurious than mine, but we would still both be staying at the Bellagio.  He might order more expensive stuff off the menu than me but we would both be eating at the same restaurant.  He might leave the hotel and rent a Ferrari for the day while I rented a Mustang, but we both would be able to rent cars and enjoy the day.  I realized I could essentially do what the richest man in the world can do.  Is that amoral?

Only capitalism could make that happen.  Only under capitalism could I aspire to live the “Bill Gates” life.  Only under capitalism could I develop the skills to work at what I like and perhaps fail as I might. 

In a socialist society, like the one imagined by Barack Obama, and the Hollywood liberals, and rich sports-heroes that support Barack Obama, the place you are is the place you’ll stay no matter how hard you try or what skills you have or dreams you might dream.  In a socialist society, Barack Obama’s society, you are what he says you are and you ain’t stayin’ at no Bellagio, that’s for sure. 

And that’s amoral.

And that’s all there is to it.