There Really Is A Plan B

Today’s Weekly Standard posted an article by Bill Kristol and Jeffrey Anderson about the 2017 Project. The 2017 Project has developed an alternative heath care proposal to ObamaCare.

The article explains:

It would solve the three core problems that called out for real reform even before the Democrats passed Obamacare: getting more people insured; dealing with the problem of preexisting conditions; and lowering costs. In providing politically attractive and substantively sound solutions to these three core concerns, it would justify bringing an end to Obamacare, and thus would pave the way for full repeal.

Just as important as what our proposal would do is what it wouldn’t do.  It wouldn’t force anyone to buy insurance. It wouldn’t auto-enroll anyone in any plan. It wouldn’t reduce the tax break for employer-based insurance (aside from closing the tax loophole at the high end). It wouldn’t cost anywhere near the $2 trillion over a decade that Obamacare would cost. It wouldn’t undermine religious liberty. It would allow Americans to keep their current plan if they like it.

It would be wonderful to have a plan that provided health insurance for every American without spending $2 trillion over ten years. It would also be nice to let Americans make their own decisions about what health insurance they need and what health insurance they don’t need.

More information on the alternate proposal to ObamaCare can be found at 2017Project.com. Please follow the link to see the details.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

The Weekly Standard reported today on a recent quote by Harry Reid.

The article reports:

Senate majority leader Harry Reid says that “Everybody” is “willing to pay more” taxes. He said so in an interview with a Nevada Public Radio host.

“The only people who feel there shouldn’t be more coming in to the federal government from the rich people are the Republicans in the Congress,” Reid told the radio host, according to Roll Call. “Everybody else, including the rich people, are willing to pay more. They want to pay more.”

Wow. I am not a rich person, but I am part of everybody else, and I have no desire to pay any more taxes than I already pay. Nor do I think anyone, rich or poor should have to pay more taxes until the government learns to spend money more carefully.

Traditionally in America government spending has been about 18 percent of the GDP in taxes. The Obama Administration has increased the amount of spending drastically.

Heritage.org posted the following chart:

The reason for the drop in spending in 2012 is the budget control act. Even if you don’t like sequestration, it is becoming obvious that it does cut government spending.

 

 

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Rick Perry Comes To New York

Texas Governor Rick Perry has been making the rounds lately–visiting states with high taxes that might cause businesses to take a look at Texas. Fred Barnes posted an article at the Weekly Standard about Governor Perry’s recent visit to Manhattan.

The article reports:

After his freshman year at Texas A&M in 1969, Perry sold Bible-related books one summer in rural Missouri. “It took weeks before I sold my first books,” he says, but he learned salesmanship. “I look at myself just like a businessman trying to sell a product,” he says. Perry told Trump he’s selling the “opportunity” for business owners to flee the “high tax, high regulation, high litigation” environment of states like New York and thrive in a free market state that lets them keep more of the money they earn. Texas has no state income tax.

Perry is never bashful. When touting Texas as a safe haven for American business, he’s doing what no governor has done before. And he’s doing it with as much fanfare and buzz as possible. Some governors send letters, urging companies to pick up stakes and move. When Perry spent a day in Connecticut last week, he bumped into Dennis Daugaard, the Republican governor of South Dakota. Both were on economic missions. The Connecticut media latched on to Perry and ignored Daugaard.

This is an example of how the United States is supposed to work. The states were set up to be independent laboratories for policies–then Congress would enact the programs that worked in the successful states and not enact the programs in the states with economic or social problems that were not being solved. Unfortunately, Congress has often chosen to do the opposite.

The advertising campaign in New York was noteworthy:

The killer line: “If you’re tired of the same old recipe of over-taxation, over-regulation, and frivolous litigation, get out before you go broke.” Perry delivered the closer. “Texas is calling,” he said. “Your opportunity awaits.” The ads made a splash.

Governor Perry’s trips and advertising campaign are paid for by a group called Texas One, a foundation that touts the state’s economy.

The article reports the goals of Governor Perry’s trip to New York:

Perry had three goals for his trip. He succeeded, partially anyway, on two. In time, he may on the third. The first was to attract businesses to Texas. Perry insists it takes nine months from his pitch to a company’s decision to move. So we’ll have to wait on that. But Perry says he expects to hear this summer that an untold number of California companies are Texas-bound.

The second goal was to stir a national debate on “blue state versus red states policies.” Perry thinks he’s set this in motion and he may have. It should shine a favorable light on the Texas model of low taxes, light regulation, and less litigation—small government that works.

Perry didn’t acknowledge the third goal. It was a test of his skill as a potential presidential candidate after his disastrous performance in last year’s race for the Republican nomination. He says he “parachuted” into that campaign both too late and unprepared. He knows better now.

I guess the primary season for the 2016 Presidential election has begun.

Enhanced by Zemanta

I Wondered About This When I First Heard It

Yesterday Hot Air posted a story about the Democrat‘s claim that the e-mails regarding Benghazi had been doctored by the Republicans. That claim was made by Dan Pfeiffer on his Sunday round of talk show appearances. So what is the story behind the claim?

The article reports:

Nothing was “doctored.” Following the House report, Steve Hayes of The Weekly Standard revealed a significant amount of new detail, followed by Jon Karl at ABC News. Both Hayes and Karl refer to summaries of the emails, meaning they presumably relied a great deal on the notes of those at the March 19 White House briefing. Karl inaccurately quotes from one email, which may have been based on faulty note-taking or some other error. While this is significant, the email in question exists and has the same core content as the email quoted by Karl — there was no wholesale fabrication.

The article explains why some of the initial reports were not totally accurate:

The incorrect versions – and they were inaccurate quotes – were not generated by GOP operatives. They were extracted by ABC’s Jon Karl from notes taken by attendees at the original meeting when the White House refused to initially allow anyone to have copies which could have been used for full referencing. ABC went with the notes, being the closest thing anyone had to an official record, and the GOP worked off those notes.

As the scandal continues, pay attention to who says what and question everything you read or hear. That is the only way we will ever get to the truth.

Enhanced by Zemanta

How To Silence Your Political Opposition Before An Election

Like it or not, political success in America has a lot to do with money. One way to stifle your political opposition is to dry up their money supply. One way to dry up their money supply is to refuse tax exempt status to their organizations that would buy advertising time in the major media. When you do that, their donations are no longer tax deductible and they receive less money. When you leave their tax-exempt status in limbo, they receive less in donations and thus have a smaller voice in the political process. That is the reason the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal is important.

Today’s Weekly Standard reports:

NBC’s Lisa Myers reported this morning that the IRS  deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election. The IRS commissioner “has known for at least a year that this was going on,” said Myers, “and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What’s going on here? The IRS denied it.

I don’t know if this would have made a difference. I am not sure how many people were or actually are paying attention to what is going on. Remember the stories we heard that said that the Tea Party was losing its impact? Well, due to the actions of the IRS, it was losing its funding.

I am not sure what the proper response to this mess is. I watched some of the hearings this morning and was disgusted. The Democrats are still denying and defending, and I am not sure if anyone is noticing what is going on. We are in danger of losing our system of government–we are on the edge of having our government tell us what we can think and how we can vote. We just watched the government defund the people who disagreed with them. My heart hurts for America right now. Unless more Americans wake up to what is happening, we have a government that controls us–not a government that represents us.

The Truth Eventually Comes Out

The upcoming issue of the Weekly Standard includes an article by Stephen Hayes about the evolution of the Obama Administration talking points concerning the attack on Benghazi. It is a rather lengthy article, and I suggest following the link above and reading the entire article. The Obama Administration purposely misled the American people in order to convince us that Al Qaeda was no longer a threat. I don’t know if the results of the 2012 would have been different if voters had known the truth, but I still hate being lied to.

In a nutshell, this is the story:

The changes are not minor changes, nor are they related to security concerns–the changes are political. Secretary of State Clinton was smart enough not to go on television and repeat the drivel that finally emerged as talking points. Had she gone on all of the Sunday talk shows with the final version of the talking points, her political career would have ended as soon as the truth came out. The entire truth is not out yet, but I am hopeful that it will come out in the future.

I don’t care about the talking points as much as I care about why we did not send available aid immediately to those people who were attacked in Benghazi. To me, that is a much more important question.

Enhanced by Zemanta

President Obama’s Goals For 2014

Next year we have Congressional elections again. We have somehow morphed into a country whose leadership tends to be more concerned about campaigning than leading. The goal of the Democrats right now is to regain control of the House of Representatives and retain control of the Senate; the goal of the Republicans is to retake the Senate and retain control of the House of Representatives. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as Obamacare, was passed during the time the Democrats controlled the White House and both branches of Congress. The Republicans are trying to prevent Nancy Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House and crafting and passing equally left-wing legislation.

In the April 29, 2013, issue of the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes posts an article about next year’s campaign. In many ways, the Republicans have acted as the ‘stupid party.’ They have squandered many opportunities to lead and to do the things they need to do to distinguish themselves from the Democrats. Right now they are sitting on a bill to repeal the medical device tax in Obamacare that has the support of both parties (H.R. 1295, H.R. 523, S.232). These bills have been stuck in committee because one Republican leader wants to pass a comprehensive tax reform bill rather than simply do something simple that will save jobs and improve the economy. Thus, the ‘stupid’ party.

The article at the Weekly Standard provides some insight into the strategy of President Obama in the 2014 election:

Obama has told the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee he’ll do eight fundraisers for them in 2013 and no telling how many next year. And Organizing for America—his reelection campaign now functioning as the president’s personal PAC—will try to create voter turnout next year that’s more like 2012 than 2010. The goal is to prevent Republicans from dominating the 2014 elections as they did in taking over the House in the 2010 midterms.

Meanwhile, the president has set a trap for Republicans. He’s agreed to reduce annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security as a (small) concession to justify a new round of negotiations for a grand bargain on taxes, spending, and the deficit. House and Senate Republicans have wisely rejected new talks, but this allows Obama to tar them as obstructionists who oppose serious deficit reduction to protect the rich from higher taxes.

That’s just the beginning. He’ll accuse them of obstructing gun control legislation, which died in the Senate last week with the defeat of expanded background checks of gun buyers. If immigration reform fails, Obama will blame Republicans for obstructing it, too.

The Republicans have a choice–they can begin to lead or they can remain the ‘stupid party.’ There are many people (including myself) who have stopped contributing to the Republican Party and have instead supported individual candidates. The split in the Republican Party between the ‘old guard’ leadership and the Tea Party will probably come to a head during the coming campaign. For the sake of our country, I hope the Tea Party wins.

Enhanced by Zemanta

A Disturbing Video From Florida

On Friday the Weekly Standard reported on a committee hearing in Florida where the state is considering a bill to require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion.

This is part of the video of that hearing:

The article reports:

Alisa LaPolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified that her organization believes the decision to kill an infant who survives a failed abortion should be left up to the woman seeking an abortion and her abortion doctor.

“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I’m almost in disbelief,” said Rep. Jim Boyd. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”

“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” said Planned Parenthood lobbyist Snow.

When questioned further, Ms. Snow simply stated that she was not a physician or an abortion provider and could not provide further information.

I have no comment.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Will The Person Who Actually Cancelled The White House Tours Please Stand Up

The Weekly Standard posted two articles today about the cancellation of the White House tours. One article quotes President Obama stating that he did not cancel the White House tours, and one article quotes Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary, stating that the White House cancelled the tours. Would you people please get your stories straight.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Misplaced Priorities

As spring break approaches and class trips are planned to Washington, D. C., the White House has announced that tours of the White House will be cancelled until further notice due to the budget cuts in the sequester. Meanwhile, The Weekly Standard reported today that the three White House calligraphers, with annual salaries of $96,725, $85,953 and $94,372 (for a yearly total of $277,050) are not in danger of being laid off.

It really is unfortunate that budget cuts seems to bring out the worst in our President. He is trying to do things to anger the public so that he can increase spending and taxes.Please remember that this is all about the 2014 elections. If the Democrats can win the House of Representatives, government spending and government growth can continue unchecked. That is the reason the President is attempting to use the sequester to turn public opinion against budget cuts and against the Republican party. It is important that voters stay informed and not fall for this plan.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Being Forced To Vote While Being Denied The Necessary Information

One of the objections in the confirmation battle of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense is that there is a lot of missing information in the papers he has submitted to Congress. Actually, the blank spaces in that information could be easily cleared up by a search of Chuck Hagel’s archive at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Today’s Weekly Standard is reporting that the University has decided to keep the archive sealed because not everything there has been processed.

The article reports:

“Chuck Hagel’s record in the Senate is well documented in the public domain,” says Hagel spokesman Marie Harf in an emailed statement.

“Given his extraordinary disclosures to date, which surpass the threshold applied to nominees, there is no need to make this archived material public.”

The man is being considered for Secretary of Defense–we need to know everything about him except his shoe size!

The article contains this very interesting bit of information:

But university officials yesterday indicated that if Hagel himself were to grant this reporter access to the archives, his request would be granted.

I can’t help but wonder exactly what is being hidden.

The 3 AM Telephone Call That Was Never Answered

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is testifying before Congress today, and the Weekly Standard has posted some of that testimony.

The article reports:

Panetta said that Obama left operational details, including knowledge of what resources were available to help the Americans under seize, “up to us.”

In fact, Panetta says that the night of 9/11, he did not communicate with a single person at the White House. The attack resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Panetta said that, save their 5 o’clock prescheduled meeting with the president the day of September 11, Obama did not call or communicate in anyway with the defense secretary that day. There were no calls about the what was going on in Benghazi. He never called to check-in.

This is the video posted at YouTube::Enhanced by Zemanta

I have nothing to say.

About Those Stimulus Reports

Yesterday’s Weekly Standard reported that the required reports on the President’s $787,000,000,000 economic “stimulus” (now estimated to cost $831,000,000,000) have not been released.

The article reports:

In its last report, published in 2011, the president’s own Council of Economic Advisors released an estimate showing that, for every $317,000 in “stimulus” spending that had by then gone out the door, only one job had been created or saved.  Even in Washington, that’s not considered good bang for the buck.

Quarterly reports are required by law–the last on was posted in 2011. Where is the transparency the President keeps talking about?

The article concludes:

With only 58.6 percent of Americans currently employed — down 2.4 percent from the time of Obama’s first inauguration — it’s not surprising that the Obama administration doesn’t really want to fulfill it legal responsibilities and release subsequent reports on its failed “stimulus.”  However, it hardly seems fair — to use one of Obama’s favorite words — that the rich and (extremely) powerful think that they can choose whether or not to abide by the laws they spearhead and sign, while the rest of us are forced to obey them. 

Perhaps it’s time for the rich and powerful to do their fair share and obey the laws that they enforce against others.  And perhaps this is something that the House of Representatives might want to look into.

The only thing the stimulus did successfully was increase our indebtedness. It’s time to stop the excessive spending.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Fired For Being Good At His Job

This story is based on two sources–one at Breitbart.com on Monday and one at The Weekly Standard on Tuesday. Both sources report that General James Mattis, the current commander of U.S. Central Command, is being moved out of his job before that would normally happen. What was his crime?

The Weekly Standard reports:

…Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way — not because he went all “mad dog,” which is his public image, and the view at the White House, but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering the second- and third-order consequences of military action against Iran. Some of those questions apparently were uncomfortable. Like, what do you do with Iran once the nuclear issue is resolved and it remains a foe? What do you do if Iran then develops conventional capabilities that could make it hazardous for U.S. Navy ships to operate in the Persian Gulf? He kept saying, “And then what?”

Inquiry along these lines apparently was not welcomed — at least in the CENTCOM view. The White House view, apparently, is that Mattis was too hawkish, which is not something I believe, having seen him in the field over the years. I’d call him a tough-minded realist, someone who’d rather have tea with you than shoot you, but is happy to end the conversation either way.

This is not a White House that embraces the idea of secondary consequences of their actions. If the White House had looked at secondary consequences, it is possible that the Arab Spring might not have turned into the Arab Winter.

The article at Breitbart reports:

Mattis also expressed concern over the consequences of certain aspects of the U.S. approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan. It seems this line of reasoning didn’t sit well with National Security Adviser Tom Donilon.

The Obama Administration does not seem to take kindly to people who ask probing questions.

The article at the Weekly Standard concludes:

We should all be worried. The combination of President Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense—to be his hatchet man to slash the defense budget without regard to geopolitical realities—and the early retirement of a general renowned for his powerful blend of strategic sense and candor, bodes ill for the security of the United States. With a yes man as secretary of defense and a signal to the uniformed military that the frank and forceful presentation of the military’s view throughout the strategy-making and implementation process is not welcome runs counter to the principles of sound civil-military relations.   

Of course, a president has every right to choose the generals he wants, but it is also the case that he usually gets the generals he deserves. By pushing Mattis overboard, the administration is sending a message that it doesn’t want smart, independently minded generals who speak candidly to their civilian leaders. The message that generals and admirals may receive that they should go along to get along, which is a bad message for the health of U.S. civil-military relations.

By removing Mattis, the President has taken a wise voice out of defense discussions. Because we currently live in a very dangerous world, that is not a good thing.

Enhanced by Zemanta

If Mommy Is A Commie Then You Gotta Turn Her In…

Back in the early sixties when folk music was the rage, there was a group called the Chad Mitchell Trio that recorded a song called “The John Birch Society.” It was a great song. Some of the lyrics stated:

Oh, we’re the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society

Here to save our country from a communistic plot

Join the John Birch Society holding off the Reds

We’ll use our hand and hearts and if we must we’ll use our heads

Do you want Justice Warren for your Commissar?

Do you want Mrs. Krushchev in there with the DAR?

You cannot trust your neighbor or even next of kin

If mommie is a commie then you gotta turn her in.

It was a great song, with some really good harmony. The last line illustrates the way I feel about one aspect of President Obama’s new gun control policy initiative. Any conversation I have with my lawyer is considered confidential by law. My children’s medical records are not accessible to me once my children are eighteen. There are measures taken to protect the privacy of medical patients with certain diseases. Why then are doctors being asked to rat out their patients who have guns?

The Weekly Standard posted an article today outlining the President’s gun control policy concerning the role of doctors.

The article states:

Protect the rights of health care providers to talk to their patients about gun safety: Doctors and other health care providers also need to be able to ask about firearms in their patients’ homes and safe storage of those firearms, especially if their patients show signs of certain mental illnesses or if they have a young child or mentally ill family member at home. Some have incorrectly claimed that language in the Affordable Care Act prohibits doctors from asking their patients about guns and gun safety. Medical groups also continue to fight against state laws attempting to ban doctors from asking these questions. The Administration will issue guidance clarifying that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit or otherwise regulate communication between doctors and patients, including about firearms.

The law further states that there should be no restriction on doctors and healthcare officials warning law enforcement about threats of violence. Another part of the law states, “We should never ask doctors and other health care providers to turn a blind eye to the risks posed by guns in the wrong hands.” Exactly what does that mean?

In theory this may seem like a good idea, but the intrusiveness of the law is breathtaking. The federal government is telling your doctor what to talk to you about. If you are a legal gun owner, that is no one’s business but your own. Again, how is this going to stop a disturbed person from shooting up a movie theater or a school?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Obama Is Politically Tone Deaf As He Is Ready To Begin His Second Term

The battle over the fiscal cliff continues. Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Today’s Weekly Standard is reporting that President Obama has issued an executive order ending the pay freeze on federal employees, thus giving a pay raise to Vice-President Biden and members of Congress.

The pay raises are not large, but it does seem odd that at a time when government spending is spiraling out of control, the government is giving out raises to government workers. Also, I would withhold a raise to Congress until they pass a budget.

Enhanced by Zemanta

A Chart That Tells It All

From the Weekly Standard today:

The Senate Budget Committee has stated that $1.2 trillion of the proposed $1.6 trillion in tax hikes would go toward new spending, while only $400 billion would go toward deficit reduction. We don’t need more taxes or more spending–we need to cut both taxes and spending.

President Obama has stated that ‘taxing the rich’ will solve our budget problems. Taxing the rich in order to spend more money will simply create more budget problems. Until we deal with the spending, there will be no solution.

Enhanced by Zemanta

One Place We Need To Consider Cutting The Budget

I realize that I am about to sound like Scrooge at Christmas, but I really feel this situation is getting out of hand.

From The Weekly Standard:

The article is not clear on how much of that money goes to the recipient and how much supports the bureaucracy; but either way, I think we need to do some re-evaluating of the success of our poverty programs.

There is no incentive for someone in government to help someone on welfare get off of welfare–if there is no one on welfare, the government worker has no program to administer. There is no incentive for the person on welfare to get off of welfare because not working takes less effort than working. Also, in many cases, welfare pays more than working. Thus our welfare programs have become the government equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.

The article at The Weekly Standard states:

For fiscal year 2011, CRS identified roughly 80 overlapping federal means-tested welfare programs that together represented the single largest budget item in 2011—more than the nation spends on Social Security, Medicare, or national defense.

…The diffuse and overlapping nature of federal welfare spending has led to some confusion regarding the scope and nature of benefits. For instance, Newark Mayor Cory Booker has recently received a great deal of attention for adopting the “food stamp diet” in which he spends only $4 a day on food (the median individual benefit) to apparently illustrate the insufficiency of food stamp spending ($80 billion a year) or the impossibility of reductions. The situation Booker presents, however, is not accurate: a low-income individual on food stamps may qualify for $25,000 in various forms of welfare support from the federal government on top of his or her existing income and resources—including access to 15 different food assistance programs. Further, even if one unrealistically assumes that no other welfare benefits are available, the size of the food stamp benefit increases as one’s income decreases, as the benefit is designed as a supplement to existing resources; it is explicitly not intended to be the sole source of funds for purchasing food.

It’s time for a Mulligan on welfare programs. We fought the war on poverty and we lost.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Some Wisdom From Fred Barnes

In 1995, Fred Barnes, William Kristol and John Podhoretz formed the Weekly Standard. Fred Barnes is also a regular commentator on Fox News, and has also written for numerous publications, including Reader’s Digest, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Spectator, Washingtonian, The Public Interest, Policy Review and both The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times of London.

In the December 10 issue of The Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes posts an article entitled, “Don’t Go Wobbly.” The article reminds us that although President Obama won the election, he did not win a mandate. He won by waging one of the most negative campaigns in American history.

The article reminds us:

House speaker John Boehner has rejected the president’s proposal as unserious. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell broke into laughter when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner outlined it for him. It’s a wonder even Geithner kept a straight face. Because what the president wants is the same-old same-old: tax hikes immediately, spending cuts down the road. We know how this plays out. Taxes go up, spending cuts never materialize. Obama is also seeking a new $50 billion stimulus. And there’s more. Obama wants to raise the debt limit without the approval of Congress and force banks to refinance troubled home mortgages.

Giving President Obama the ability to raise the debt limit without the consent of Congress is like giving your fifteen year old a credit card with no credit limit. Most grownups don’t have the restraint to handle a credit card without a credit limit–that is why banks set credit limits. Shouldn’t our government be as smart as banks?

The article cites some of the areas of reform that President Obama has asked the Republicans to agree to. These areas include tax rate increases on the wealthy, then limiting tax deductions on the wealthy in the coming year. This represents a serious increase in the expenses of small businesses and will prevent new hiring by small businesses. The President is proposing Medicare cuts–the Republicans need to ask for Medicare reform–not cuts. If we continue to cut the rate at which hospitals are reimbursed for Medicare patients, hospitals will stop admitting Medicare patients.

The article has two good suggestions for Republicans involved in this debate:

To strengthen their hand, Republicans would be smart to stress two things. One is the Simpson-Bowles commission’s strategy for handling the debt and deficit crisis. The Obama-created commission said uncontrolled spending is the cause of the problem, that the best way to gain more revenue is through tax reform, and that any deal must be bipartisan. Republicans agree and should say so loudly. Obama doesn’t agree.

The other is the prospect of a recession. The fiscal cliff is really a tax cliff. Taxes would instantly soar by $400 billion on January 1 and, according to the CBO, would drive the economy back into recession. So might the tax increase of $1.6 trillion advocated by Obama, in addition to higher taxes to finance his health care law that begin next year. Surely the president understands this.

Just as an afterthought–I am willing to go back to the tax rates of the Clinton era as long as we also go back to the spending levels of the Clinton era.

Enhanced by Zemanta

The Cost Of The Arab Spring

This is not another post about Benghazi, although I suspect that there will be one by the end of the day–it is a post about Egypt. President Morsi visited Gaza this week to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. While he was there, the Palestinian people fired rockets on Israel from Gaza. No problem. The fact that Egypt supposedly has a peace treaty with Israel was evidently not important to either President Morsi or the Palestinians. Well, it gets worse.

Yesterday the Weekly Standard reported that rockets were fired from the Sinai Peninsula into Israel on Friday night. Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula during the six-day war of 1967. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in a treaty signed in 1979 between Israel and Egypt.  That treaty was the reason the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Anwar Sadat. The Muslim Brotherhood is now in charge of Egypt.

The article reports:

This new front comes a day after a rocket landed near Tel Aviv and on the same day Israel’s capital Jerusalem was the target of rocket fire. Those attacks were courtesy of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“After Tel Aviv metropolitan area, capital under fire too: An air raid siren was sounded in Jerusalem and surrounding communities early Friday evening. After residents reported hearing blast sounds, security forces confirmed that one rocket had landed in the Gush Etzion area near a Palestinian village,” Ynet reports.

“There were no reports of injuries or damage. This was the first air raid siren sounded in the area since the IDF launched Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip. Air raid sirens were sounded in southern communities throughout the day and a barrage of missiles hit the area.”

Israel needs to defend herself, and she needs to defend herself in a way that makes it a bad idea to launch rockets against her in the future. Unfortunately, when Israel fights back, most of the world community chooses to blame her for the violence.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Deja Vu All Over Again

On Monday The Weekly Standard posted an article about religious freedom at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

The article reports:

Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts has banned a Christian group from campus because the group requires student leaders to adhere to “basic biblical truths of Christianity.” The decision to ban the group, called the Tufts Christian Fellowship, was made by officials from the university’s student government, specifically the Tufts Community Union Judiciary.

The ban means the group “will lose the right to use the Tufts name in its title or at any activities, schedule events or reserve university space through the Office for Campus Life,” according to the Tufts Daily. Additionally, Tufts Christian Fellowship will be unable to receive money from a pool that students are required to pay into and that is specifically set aside for student groups.

This is nothing new.  On March 30, I posted an article about a similar problem at Vanderbilt University (rightwinggranny.com). I reported what had happened at Vanderbilt:

Vandy Catholic — a student group with some 500 members — has decided it cannot agree to the policy and will be leaving campus in the fall. PJ Jedlovec, the president of Vandy Catholic, says it was a difficult decision, one made after much prayer and discussion. 

“We are first and foremost a Catholic organization,” says Jedlovec. “We do, in fact, have qualifications – faith-based qualifications for leadership. We require that our leaders be practicing Catholics. And the university’s nondiscrimination policy — they have made it clear that there is no room in it for an organization that has these faith-based qualifications.”

The whole purpose of a group on campus is to allow students with similar interests and ideas to get together to discuss and explore those interests and ideas. It seems to me that every group meeting on campus probably has leadership that represents the interests and ideas of the group. This is clearly a violation of the First Amendment rights of these students.

Enhanced by Zemanta

A Picture Of The Latest Jobs Report

This chart was posted  yesterday at The Weekly Standard:

The article reports:

“For Every 1 Person Added To Labor Force Since January 2009,” the chart reads, “10 People Added To Those Not In Labor Force.”

Please remember this chart when President Obama tells all of us in the debate tonight how many jobs he has created since he took office.

Enhanced by Zemanta

An Interesting Twist On The Massachusetts Senate Election

Today’s Weekly Standard posted an article (and a video) stating that union members who showed up to support Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren during the Wednesday night debate in Springfield, Massachusetts, were told that they would be fined if they were not there.

This is the video:

The article states:

This isn’t the first instance in a Massachusetts Senate race where unions have been accused of generating fake grassroots support for the Democrat.

In 2010, before Brown‘s victory in the special election, a union member wearing a shirt supporting the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, told a local blogger on camera that he had been paid $50 to wear the shirt but that he was actually voting for Brown.

Don’t believe that all the union support for Ms. Warren is real.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

The New Definition of Independent and Non-Partisan

Today’s Weekly Standard posted an article about President Obama’s recent claim that an independent, non-partisan organization ran all the numbers on Governor Romney’s plan and concluded that any revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers.

Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but as Senator Moynihan used to say, ““Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Let’s take a look at this non-partisan, independent study. It was done by Samuel Brown, William Gale, and Adam Looney.

The article reports:

As Looney’s biography page at the Brookings Institution states, “Looney was the senior economist for public finance and tax policy with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and has been an economist at the Federal Reserve Board.”

It gets even better. This is a copy of some of the White House visitor logs included in the article at the Weekly Standard showing William Gale visiting the White House twelve times:

If you believe that the study the President cited was an independent, non-partisan study, there’s a bridge I would like to sell you in Brooklyn.

Enhanced by Zemanta

The Values Of Our Leaders

Rahm Emanuel left his job in Washington working for President Obama to run for mayor of Chicago. He won the election and is now the mayor of Chicago. The relationship between Mayor Emanuel and President Obama was considered to be a close one of political allies and friends.

The Weekly Standard is reporting today that Mayor Emanuel is planning to block Chick-fil-A from opening its restaurants in Chicago.

The article at the Weekly Standard quotes Mayor Emanuel:

“Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values,”

The values Mayor Emanuel is referring to are the Bible-based Christian values of the owner of Chick-fil-A. The owner does not support gay marriage. Evidently, if you speak out about your Christian beliefs, you are not welcome to do business in Chicago.

But what are Chicago values? At the same time Mayor Emanuel was attempting to block Chick-fil-A from doing business in Chicago, he was welcoming Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan

Some quotes from Louis Farrakhan:

Many of the Jews who owned the homes, the apartments in the black community, we considered them bloodsuckers because they took from our community and built their community but didn’t offer anything back to our community.

The Jews don’t like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that’s a good name. Hitler was a very great man.

Why has Louis Farrakhan come to Chicago? The article reports:

Ignoring Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s history of anti-Semitic remarks, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday welcomed the army of men dispatched to the streets by Farrakhan to stop the violence in Chicago neighborhoods.

And Mussolini kept the trains running on time.

Enhanced by Zemanta