Op-Eds and Editorials
A grim sign for ObamaCare
Originally Posted At The NY Post
March 29, 2010
How ironic that, even as the Senate last week debated the reconciliation "fixes" to ObamaCare, word came that Social Security has reached the so-called tipping point -- years ahead of schedule. For the first time, Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it receives in tax revenue, to the tune of $29 billion.
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Imminent Debt Crisis Is A Matter Of Choice
December 9, 2009
The underground or "black" economy is rapidly rising, and the fault is mainly due to government policies. Here is the evidence. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) released a report last week concluding that 7.7 percent of U.S. households, containing at least 17 million adults, are unbanked (i.e. those who do not have bank accounts), and an "estimated 17.9 percent of U.S. households, roughly 21 million, are underbanked" (i.e., those who rely heavily on nonbank institutions, such as check cashing and money transmitting services). As an economy becomes richer and incomes rise, the normal expectation is that the proportion of the unbanked population falls and does not rise as is now happening in the United States.
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Read Last Months Post >>>
Originally Posted At Investors.com
By Ernest S. Christian and Gary A. Robbins
March 26, 2010
President Obama doesn't need the recently announced National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to figure out how to prevent the debt from rising to apocalyptic proportions and ruining America for generations to come. It's not rocket science; it's a matter of presidential priorities and choices.
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SO LONG TO CAPITALISM ... AND THEN SOME?
Originally Posted At Real Clear Markets
By Investor's Business Daily
April 7, 2010
It must be said that, like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless, sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
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Dissecting The Real Cost Of ObamaCare
Originally Posted At the Wall Street Journal
By Paul D. Ryan
March 4, 2010
The following are remarks made by Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, about the cost of the House and Senate health-care bills at President Obama's Blair House summit on health care, Feb. 25:
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Eminent Domain As Central Planning
Wielding creative definitions of blight, New York runs roughshod over property rights and uproots viable neighborhoods.
Originally Posted At City Journal
By Nicole Gelinas
Free markets are out of vogue. The unfortunate lesson that policymakers have learned over the past two years is that a big, brainy government that supposedly creates jobs is superior to irrational, faceless markets that just create catastrophic errors. So Washington has seized on the financial and economic crises to enlarge its role in managing the economy—controlling the insurance giant AIG, for example, and trying to maintain high housing prices through tax credits and “mortgage modification” programs.
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Defining ObamaCare Down
We're all free-market moderates now.
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal
February 26, 2010
A bipartisan health-care consensus will remain elusive after yesterday's marathon summit, as expected, though viewers who stuck out the full seven-plus hours could be forgiven for wondering what happened to all the liberals. General anesthesia? To listen to President Obama and his closest Democratic allies, you'd think John McCain had won the election and their bill had been drafted by Paul Ryan, Tom Coburn and the scholars at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Obama's New Investment Tax
A sneaky Medicare levy on dividends and capital gains.
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal
February 24, 2010
The White House's new health-care proposal promises the "largest middle class tax cut for health care in history," which is a creative way of describing a vast taxpayer-subsidized insurance entitlement. Naturally, the fine print goes on to describe one of the largest tax increases for health care in history, too.
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Just Say No To The Health-Care Summit
Democrats need to take mandatory insurance off the table
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal
By Betsy Mccaughey
February 16, 2010
Republicans are dithering over whether to accept President Obama's invitation to a Feb. 25 health-care summit. The White House says the health bills passed with Democratic support—the Pelosi and Reid bills—will be the basis for talks. Republicans should just say no to a summit based on these bills.
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A Growth Lesson From China
Originally Posted At The Washington Post
By George F. Will
February 4, 2010
On Day One of his vow to take "meaningful steps to rein in our debt," Barack Obama asked Congress to freeze portions of discretionary domestic spending. This would follow an astonishing permanent expansion: Republicans on the House Budget Committee say appropriations bills Obama has signed, along with his stimulus spending, have increased discretionary domestic spending 84 percent. He almost certainly will not keep his promise to veto spending bills when Congress, as it almost certainly will, largely disregards his request.
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Escape From Taxation
A new study shows that wealth flees after taxes rise.
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal
February 13, 2010
New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie must be following the economic news from Greece. Its tattered reputation for fiscal control has turned Greece into an international financial nightmare and laughingstock. Perhaps tiring of New Jersey jokes, Governor Christie this week handed down a stiff freeze on spending.
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Recession Chugs On, Except In Government
Originally Posted At The Washington Examiner
February 8, 2010
The drop to 9.7 percent unemployment does not reflect the creation of new jobs that normally accompanies an economic recovery. The number of new jobs is actually declining.
White House apologists were quick to point to the unemployment rate decline from 10 percent to 9.7 percent as evidence that the recovery is gathering momentum and that President Obama's policies -- especially his $787 billion economic stimulus bill Congress approved last February -- are "working." But the back story behind the figures provides cold comfort.
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Gerard Alexander: Why Are Liberals So Condescending?
Originally Posted At The Washington Post
By Gerard Alexander
February 7, 2010
Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration.
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Rahn: Where Is The Inflation?
Indicators point to late 2010
Originally Posted At The Washington Times
By Richard W. Rahn
February 9, 2010
Most economists, including yours truly, have been saying that the huge budget deficits the country is running will result in inflation. So, where's the inflation? Inflation normally lags changes in the growth of the money supply by one to two years. The big monetary expansion took place in the last half of 2008. So if the economy follows past trends, one would expect to see growing inflation by the latter part of this year.
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Why Chicago Loves Portland
Mayor Daley has his eye on jobs from high-tax Oregon.
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal
February 2, 2010
For virtuous tax competition, we usually think of Hong Kong. But who would have thought of Chicago as a lower-tax refuge?
The bright idea comes from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who is looking to lure...
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ObamaCare's Excuses
The White House is still working privately to 'punch it through.'
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal
February 4, 2010
'All that's changed in the last two weeks," President Obama told Senate Democrats yesterday, "is that our party has gone from having the largest Senate majority in a generation to the second largest Senate majority in a generation." This was only the latest salvo in the White House campaign to resuscitate ObamaCare, and distinctly not a concession to the post-Massachusetts political reality.
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In This Economy, Lawmakers Should Not Raise Their Salaries
Originally Posted At The Hill
By Reps. Harry Mitchell
February 2, 2010
With unemployment still hovering around 10 percent, foreclosures up 21 percent, and so many families struggling to make ends meet, we believe this is the wrong time for members of Congress to raise their own pay.
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The Fed's Anti-Inflation Exit Strategy Will Fail
Sooner or later the pressure to lend out excess bank reserves will be unstoppable.
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal
By Allan H. Meltzer
January 27, 2010
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has explained his exit strategy to prevent future inflation. The Fed recently began to pay interest to banks on the reserves they hold in their vaults. Using this new tool, it claims the ability to get banks to keep the money instead of lending it out, thus containing the money supply and inflation.
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Taxpayer Ambush In Oregon
The public unions win in Portland.
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal
January 28, 2010
It's not often that citizens vote for higher taxes, but 54% of Oregonians have done precisely that. In a rolling month-long referendum by mail that ended Tuesday, they approved some $700 million in tax hikes on business and wealthy residents.
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GDP Soars 5.7% ...
Originally Posted At Investors.com
January 29, 2010
Economy: Gross domestic product grew a robust 5.7% last quarter — much stronger than expected. Like everyone, we're glad the economy's getting back on its feet. But this number isn't nearly as good as it looks.
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BLANKLEY: To Re-Empower Our States
Repeal the 17th Amendment to shift influence out of Washington
Originally Posted At The Washington Times
By Tony Blankley
January 26, 2010
As I was preparing to write a column on the ludi -crous maligning of the Tea Party movement by liberals, Democrats and the mainstream media (which I hope to write next week instead) I started thinking about one of the key objectives of the Tea Party people - the strict enforcement of the 10th Amendment ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.").
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PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS ARE SINKING CALIFORNIA
Months after closing its last budget gap, the Golden State is $20 billion in the red.
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal.com
By Steven Greenhut
January 22, 2010
An old friend of mine has a saying, "Even the worm learns." Prod one several hundred times, he says, and it will learn to avoid the prodder. As California enters its annual budget drama, I can't help but wonder if the wisdom of the elected politicians here in the state capital equals that of the earthworm.
The state is in a precarious position, with a 12.3% unemployment rate...
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How Retirees Saved the Banks
Originally Posted At nytimes.com
January 18, 2010
If You’re A Retiree Who Relies On Interest Income, You Know That The Tap Is Running Dry. In Fact, Many Investors In Certificates Of Deposits, Savings Accounts And Money Market Accounts Are Losing Money Once Taxes And Inflation Are Subtracted From Today’s Extremely Low Yields.
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Looting Social Security, Part 2
Originally Posted At TheNation.com
By William Greider
January 4, 2010
He's baaack--the Wall Street billionaire who wants to loot Social Security. This time, Pete Peterson has invented his own "news network" to promote his right-wing rants about shrinking the only retirement security system available to millions of working people. Peterson styles himself as a patriot saving the nation from fiscal insolvency and has committed $1 billion to that cause (a chunk of the wealth he accumulated at Blackstone Group, the notorious corporate-takeover firm). His efforts might be dismissed as ludicrous--except money does talk in Washington, and Peterson is now buying Washington reporters to spread his dire warnings.
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Obama gives Interpol free hand in U.S.
Originally Posted At The Washington Examiner
December 30, 2009
No presidential statement or White House press briefing was held on it. In fact, all that can be found about it on the official White House Web site is the Dec. 17 announcement and one-paragraph text of President Obama's Executive Order 12425, with this innocuous headline: "Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities."In fact, this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties. No wonder the White House said as little as possible about it.
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The Deficit Commission Trap
Democrats now want Republican cover for their tax increases.
Originally Posted At The Wall Street Journal
December 29, 2009
After signing a $787 billion economic stimulus and embracing two annual blowout budgets that will double the national debt over 10 years even before ObamaCare, President Obama is poised to pivot next (election) year and denounce the horrors of deficit spending. So the White House is now floating a bipartisan commission to reduce federal borrowing, and much of the political class is all for it.We only hope Republicans aren't foolish enough to fall down this trap door, though some are already tempted.
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America's Party
Originally Posted At HumanEvents.com
By Patrick J. Buchanan
December 28, 2009
For Democrats like Harry Reid, who called them "evil-mongers," and Nancy Pelosi, who called them "un-American," the NBC News poll must have hit like a sucker punch at a Georgetown wine-and-cheese. The Tea Party movement, those folks rallying against spending last spring and Obamacare in the summer town halls, are viewed more favorably than the Democratic Party.
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Central Problem: the Central Bank
The Federal Reserve's easy-money madness must end.
Originally Posted At Barron's
By ROBERT KLEIN AND GEORGE REISMAN
December 28, 2009
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA HEADS the list of Americans who believe that the continuing financial crisis should be blamed on excessive risk-taking by bankers who had an unbridled desire to make money in mortgages. These would-be reformers want stronger government regulation of the bankers to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. In a recent 60 Minutes interview, Obama blamed "fat cat bankers" for causing the crisis, putting America through its "worst economic year...in decades."
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GOP Obstruction: Too Little Too Late
Harry Reid Hornswoggles Ben Nelson On Abortion
Originally Posted At Politico
By Lawrence A. Hunter & Lewis K. Uhler
December 22, 2009
After weeks of refusing to embrace the “obstructionist” label as a virtue, Senate Republicans finally saw the light and late last week began to use the parliamentary tools at their disposal to delay a final vote on health care. Until then, with the exception of South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, Republican lawmakers had refused to use Senate rules and procedures to obstruct the passage of the health care bill being pushed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and run out the clock on Obamacare. Some prominent Republican senators and members of their staffs had even let it be known they actually believed passage of the Reid health care bill and enactment of Obamacare would benefit GOP candidates in the November midterm elections.
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Why Leaderless Tea Parties Are Beating the GOP
Originally Posted At American Thinker
By Richard Viguerie
December 10, 2009
Rasmussen reports that the Tea Party Movement, which percolated only months ago, is beating the Grand Old Party. That's amazing -- a nascent grassroots movement is more popular than a long-established political party -- and it's good news. Republican Party leaders should be embarrassed. Instead, the Republican establishment disdains this populist uprising. Rather than embracing this genuine movement, establishment politicians and consultants are calculating how to co-opt, sideline, or even defeat the newest phenomenon in politics: tea partiers.
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Bill 'reforms' Constitution
Congress is asserting a new, unauthorized power to force us to buy health insurance.
Originally Posted At The Philadelphia Enquirer
By Robert A. Levy and Michael F. Cannon
December 11, 2009
The Democrats' health-care overhaul asserts for Congress a power that the framers of the Constitution never envisioned: the power to force Americans to purchase unwanted goods or services. With all the hype, one might think the "public option" is the linchpin of the Democratic health plan. Yet Congress has created entitlements in the past, and enrollment in a public option would not be mandatory (at least not initially).
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The New Socialism
A metamorphosis from red to green.
Originally Posted At National Review Online
By Charles Krauthammer
December 11, 2009
In the 1970s and early ’80s, having seized control of the U.N. apparatus (by power of numbers), Third World countries decided to cash in. OPEC was pulling off the greatest wealth transfer from rich to poor in history. Why not them? So in grand U.N. declarations and conferences, they began calling for a “New International Economic Order.” The NIEO’s essential demand was simple: to transfer fantastic chunks of wealth from the industrialized West to the Third World.
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New underground economy
Key indicator: Avoidance of bank accounts
Originally Posted At The Washington Times
By Richard W. Rahn
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Friday, May 18, 2012
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Source: ABC News
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