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THE FOUNDATION: TAXATION

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”  — John Marshall

INSIGHT

“The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is... legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay... If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.”  — Frederic Bastiat

THE GIPPER ON TAXES

“[April 15] is the last day for filing income tax returns — a day that reminds us that taxpayers pay too much of their earnings to the Federal Government. And Americans will continue to pay too much money to the Federal Government until the Congress acts on our proposals to reduce tax rates across the board... While April 15 serves as a reminder, the people of the United States truly do not need to be reminded. They are victims of inflation, which pushes them into higher tax brackets. They are robbed daily of a better standard of living. They are discouraged from work and investment... Taxes are much too high to deal in half measures... The choice before us is clear. I strongly feel that the great majority of Americans believe that nothing would better encourage economic growth than leaving more money in the hands of the people who earn it. It’s time to stop stripping bare the productive citizens of America and funneling their hard-earned income into the Federal bureaucracy. Today is a day when the people reaffirm their commitment to our system by contributing a portion of their income to the Government. Americans have always been prepared to pay their fair share, but today they should make it clear to all elected officials that government has gone beyond its bounds and that the people will not tolerate the ever-increasing tax burden they have experienced in recent years.”  — Ronald Reagan

FOR THE RECORD

“Letting the Bush tax cuts expire... would be the largest increase in personal income taxes since World War II... The tax code changes enacted in 2001 and 2003 are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. If they do, statutory marginal tax rates will rise across the board; ranging from a 13% increase for the highest income households to a 50% increase in tax rates faced by lower-income households. The marriage penalty will be reimposed and the child credit cut by $500 per child. The long-term capital gains tax rate will rise by one-third (to 20% from 15%) and the top tax rate on dividends will nearly triple (to 39.6% from 15%). The estate tax will roar back from extinction at the same time, with a top rate of 55% and an exempt amount of only $600,000. Finally, the Alternative Minimum Tax will reach far deeper into the middle class, ensnaring 25 million tax filers in its web.”  — John Cogan and R. Glenn Hubbard

GOVERNMENT

“Most of what Congress is constitutionally authorized to spend for is listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and includes: coining money, establish Post Offices, to support Armies and a few other activities. Today’s federal budget is over $3 trillion dollars. I challenge anyone to find specific constitutional authority for at least $2 trillion of it. That includes Social Security, Medicare, farm and business handouts, education, prescription drugs and a host of other federal expenditures. Americans who have become accustomed to living at the expense of another American would not want Congress to obey the Constitution, especially if it left out their favorite handout.”  — Walter Williams
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CULTURE

“It’s a lot later than we think. We’re raising an illiterate and uneducated generation, and there’s more to come. On April 1, America’s Promise Alliance released a detailed study revealing that fewer than half of the teenagers in 17 of the largest U.S. cities drop out of high school before they graduate — more than 1.2 million of them. The cost of this is enormous: billions of dollars in lost productivity for expensive social services and (because ignorance begets crime) to build more prisons. This report sounded like an April Fool’s joke on the growing number of fools, meaning all of us. The high school dropout resembles the fool depicted on Tarot cards — standing at the edge of a precipice, with no idea how far he’ll fall, when fall he will. It’s no coincidence that the number symbol for the fool is a zero. A hundred times zero is still zero... The catechism of liberalism inevitably prescribes more money as the key to changing all this, but the real key is how the money is spent. The public schools in the nation’s capital spend about $25,000 per student per year, considerably more than a good private school education. Nevertheless, Washington’s schools are among the worst in the country. That’s why few congressmen send their kids to public schools. In some years, none do. Dropping out is a fool’s errand, but getting children to stay in school requires encouragement from all of us. ‘A knowledgeable fool,’ as Moliere observed, ‘is a greater fool than an ignorant fool.’ We’ve been forewarned.”  — Suzanne Fields

FAMILY

“Could anything be more incoherent or sad? Gender Identity Disorder is not ‘incredible,’ no matter how politically fashionable it has become to claim otherwise. It is not just another hue in the rainbow of diversity. It is a dysfunction. It should be met with sympathy, counseling, and therapy, not with five-page spreads in People and appearances on ‘Oprah.’ Headlines notwithstanding, there is no ‘pregnant man.’ There is only a confused and unsettled woman, who proclaims that surgery, hormones, and clothing made her a man, and is clinging to that fiction even as the baby growing in her womb announces her womanhood to the world.”  — Jeff Jacoby

LIBERTY

“There are only two ways to do things in life: voluntarily or forced. We reporters may be obnoxious, intrusive, stupid, rude, etc., but we cannot force anyone to do anything. All our work is in the voluntary sector. But litigation is force. When a plaintiff sues, a defendant is forced to mount a defense. If he settles or loses, he’s forced to pay. Government is the enforcer. Sometimes we need force — including the force behind the litigators — to protect our freedoms, just as we may need missiles. But we try not to use our missiles because we understand that they do tremendous collateral damage. But litigation does collateral damage, too. The millions spent on legal defense can’t be used to make life-enhancing — and life-saving — products. We ought to avoid using lawyers the way we avoid firing missiles.”  — John Stossel

OPINION IN BRIEF

“As the Jeremiah Wright scandal was breaking, I speculated that trouble of this sort for her rival was precisely the reason Hillary Clinton was staying in the race for the Democratic nomination — that the longer the primary season extended, the more chances there would be for Obama to stumble, and that she would be there to seize the baton and run for the finish line. But of course, the longer the primary season, the more chances there are for Hillary Clinton to stumble as well. And the difference between Obama and Clinton is that he can stumble and still win because he’s in the lead. She can’t afford to stumble at all if she is trying to gain on him. And stumble she has. Her bizarre lie about the nonexistent sniper fire that threatened her in Bosnia was the first nail. The hurried departure of her chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn, is the second... Whatever kind of error this was — Penn’s for taking the meeting [with U.S. ally Colombia], Hillary for employing Penn, or Hillary for chucking Penn out the door now when she might have done it more profitably two months ago once it became clear his strategy for her nomination had failed utterly — it’s one error too many for her. How can she make the case that she is a better candidate in the general election than Obama if she can’t go five days without making a major blunder on the campaign trail? She can’t.”  — John Podhoretz
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RE: THE LEFT

“Never mind the unbelievable arrogance of a foreign policy boob like Barack Obama, lecturing the two most knowledgeable on-the-ground figures [Petraeus and Crocker] in Iraq on the best military strategy for Iraq. Barack Obama’s scariest characteristic isn’t his ego, though its sheer size threatens to shift the globe out of orbit. Obama’s scariest characteristic is his puerile belief that everything can be solved by talking with dictators.”  — Ben Shapiro

POLITICAL FUTURES

“If Senator John McCain needed to prove that he is a real Republican, he did it when he continued an old Republican tradition of utterly inept attempts to appeal to black voters. Senator McCain was booed at a recent memorial on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. In typical Republican fashion, he tried to apologize but the audience was not buying it and let him know it... The Republican strategy for making inroads into the black vote has failed consistently for more than a quarter of a century. Yet it never seems to occur to them to change their approach. The first thing that they do that is foredoomed to failure is trying to reach blacks through the civil rights organizations and other institutions of the black establishment. The second proven loser is trying to appeal to blacks by offering the same kinds of things that Democrats offer — token honors, politically correct rhetoric and welfare state benefits. Blacks who want those things know that they can already get them from the Democrats. Why should they listen to Republicans who act like imitation Democrats?”  — Thomas Sowell

SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“I just want to thank you, Mark Alexander, for your very insightful observation of Barack Obama and the Left in general. You put very clearly and concisely what all of us in the conservative camp know to be the truth, but have trouble explaining sometimes. I am sorry for Senator Obama; how sad that he is the product of the very society that he is trying so hard to keep alive. He may be financially and academically successful, but he has nothing else to recommend him.”  — Gainesville, Florida

“Thank you so much for the brief bio on Obama. It helps to fill in that nebulous and foggy background about this man. But the psychological framework of Obama, et al., is brilliant! This information and understanding should be a help in confronting and defeating both the arrogant mentality and the divisive promotion of ‘everybody is a victim’ mentality. Keep up the good work!”  — Fort Worth, Texas

“Mr. Alexander, you have provided your readers a very cogent argument for the rootless wanderings of today’s liberals. Their anger at all things related to discipline is well worth noting, because its ignorance invites peril to our republic.”  — Arlington, Virginia

“While it may be politically correct to call Barack Hussein Obama a leftist in the mold of Kennedy, Kerry and like ilk, he is in fact a socialist. A close examination of the rhetoric from his mouth and that of his wife clearly reveals his socialist credentials. It is a sad day for the Democrat party and the United States.”  — Cypress, Texas

THE LAST WORD

“In his famous ‘race’ speech last month, [Barack] Obama declared of [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright, ‘I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.’ This was supposed to sound like a statement of personal loyalty, but given the way that community has rallied behind Wright, in retrospect it seems more a cynical assessment of what Obama had to do to keep his electoral base from disintegrating. Obama is already the most successful black presidential candidate in American history, and he is more likely than not to become the first black major-party nominee. He claims to be interested in racial reconciliation, and he has a great opportunity to promote it by taking a clear stand against the extreme views that are depressingly common in the black community and that have been espoused by his own ‘spiritual mentor.’ So far, though, Obama has displayed a lot more ambition than courage.”  — James Taranto

Veritas vos Liberabit — Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)