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THE FOUNDATION

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one...." --James Madison

RE: THE LEFT

"The so-called stimulus bill may not do much for the economy, but it's certainly stimulating a lot of laughter, as its supporters are reduced to arguing essentially that it would be irresponsible not to waste boatloads of taxpayer money. We do not exaggerate. Consider this article by Michael Hirsh of Newsweek: 'Obama's desire to begin a "post-partisan" era may have backfired. In his eagerness to accommodate Republicans and listen to their ideas over the past week, he has allowed the GOP to turn the haggling over the stimulus package into a decidedly stale, Republican-style debate over pork, waste and overspending. This makes very little economic sense when you are in a major recession that only gets worse day by day. Yes, there are still some very legitimate issues with a bill that's supposed to be "temporary" and "targeted" -- among them, large increases in permanent entitlement spending, and a paucity of tax cuts that will prompt immediate spending. Even so, Obama has allowed Congress to grow embroiled in nitpicking over efficiency when the central debate should be about whether the package is big enough. When you are dealing with a stimulus of this size, there are going to be wasteful expenditures and boondoggles. There's no way anyone can spend $800 to $900 billion quickly without waste and boondoggles. It comes with the Keynesian territory. This is an emergency; the normal rules do not apply.' Who is this Michael Hirsh, who has elevated unrestrained spending of the people's money to a high principle? Here's his bio: 'Michael Hirsh covers international affairs for Newsweek, reporting on a range of topics from Homeland Security to postwar Iraq. He co-authored the November 3, 2003 cover story, "Bush's $87 Billion Mess," about the Iraq reconstruction plan. The issue was one of three that won the 2004 National Magazine Award for General Excellence.' The bill for 'Bush's mess' is less than the margin of error in reckoning the cost of the 'emergency' legislation about which Hirsh now chides lawmakers for 'nitpicking over efficiency.'" --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

FOR THE RECORD

"Years ago I developed the 'Armey Curve' to explain the negative burden government has on prosperity. The idea, borrowing liberally from Arthur Laffer's curve (which demonstrates that tax revenues fall when the tax burden gets so high that it no longer pays to work), is that at some point the burden of government spending exceeds the private economy's ability to carry it. 'Stimulus' spending often does more harm than good, because it takes more money out of the system than it creates and thereby destroys jobs and leads to stagnation and diminished prosperity for all." --former House Majority Leader Dick Armey

GOVERNMENT

"On page 151 of this legislative pork-fest the 'stimulus' bill is one of the clandestine nuggets of social policy manipulation that are peppered throughout the bill. Section 9201 of the stimulus package establishes the 'Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.' This body, which would be made up of federal bureaucrats will 'coordinate the conduct or support of comparative effectiveness and related health services research.' Sounds benign enough, but the man behind the Coordinating Council, Health and Human Services Secretary-designate since withdrawn (and tax cheat) Tom Daschle, was kind enough to explain the goal of this organization. It is to cut health care costs by preventing Americans from getting treatments that the government decides don't meet their standards for cost effectiveness. In his 2008 book on health care, he explained that such a council would, 'lower overall spending by determining which medicines, treatments and procedures are most effective-and identifying those that do not justify their high price tags.' Once a panel of government experts decides what is and what is not cost-effective by their definition, the government will stop paying for treatments, medicines, therapies or devices that fall into the latter category. ... Mind you, they are not simply looking to exclude treatments that don't work, but to exclude treatments that are effective, but whose cost, in their opinion, does not justify their use. You, the patient, and your physician don't get a vote. This would make the federal government the single most important decision-maker regarding health care for every patient in America." --public affairs consultant Douglas O'Brien

THE GIPPER

"For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers -- they just are not easy ones. The time has come for us to decide whether collectively we can afford everything and anything we think of simply because we think of it. The time has come to run a check to see if all the services government provides were in answer to demands or were just goodies dreamed up for our supposed betterment. The time has come to match outgo to income, instead of always doing it the other way around." --Ronald Reagan

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

(To submit reader comments visit our Letters to the Editor page.)

"Your 'Memo to the Republican Party' showing what a map looks like when a real conservative is on the ballot was so good, I stopped to write you before I even read the Digest. Now that's what I call an impact statement. I'll bet you a Pepper Patch Rum Raisin Cake that they still won't take the cue and get a clue. I hope I loose that bet. There is more stimulus in a case of those cakes than in the entire stimulus bill. If we're talking Pepper Patch Pork Sausage ... now, that is a different matter." --Cincinnati, Ohio

"In the 09-05 Digest, you quoted Barack Obama saying, 'Most of the programs that have been criticized as part of this package amount to less than one percent of the overall package.' Really? So if Congress was to remove that contested on percent it would be 'all hands on board,' 'full speed ahead,' huh? Why don't they just try removing that measly one percent and see what happens. Since the real issue is a power-grab, my guess is that they won't be interested in anything short of total capitulation of conservative ideals." --Hilton, New York

POLITICAL FUTURES

"What principle separates the Republicans from the Democrats? If they are just Tweedledee and Tweedledum, then elections come down to personality and rhetoric. If that happens, you can bet the rent money on the Democrats winning. ... When have the Republicans won big? When they stood for something and told the people what that something was. Ronald Reagan was the classic example. But another example would be the stunning Republican victories in the 1994 Congressional elections, which put them in control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. Articulating the message of Newt Gingrich's 'contract for America' was a key to that historic victory. Too many Republicans seem to think that being 'inclusive' means selling out your principles to try to attract votes. It never seems to occur to them that you can attract a wider range of voters by explaining your principles in a way that more people understand. That is precisely what Reagan did and what Gingrich did in 1994. Most Americans' principles are closer to those of the Republicans than to those of the Democrats. It is the only advantage the Republicans have. The Democrats have the media, the unions, the environmental extremists and the tort lawyers on their side. Why should Republicans throw away their one advantage by becoming imitation Democrats?" --Hoover Institution economist Thomas Sowell

OPINION IN BRIEF

"Now that Tim Geithner has been confirmed as Treasury Secretary, Tom Daschle has withdrawn as HHS Secretary and Nancy Killefer has withdrawn from some government post I had never even heard of (chief performance officer?), we can infer some new rules in our changed government. 1. It is OK to cheat on taxes, but of course there is a limit. And that limit is more than $34,000 but less than $128,000 in taxes owed if you are a Democrat. (For Republicans, the limit remains the perception of thinking about adding $100 to your charitable deductions without the receipts to back it up.) 2. We now have a new way to get tax cheats to not only pay up, but to apologize for their errors and carelessness: nominate them to Cabinet posts. ... 3. We might have a new method to elicit information and apologies from enemy combatants without resorting to torture, sleep deprivation, stress positions or defiled Korans: nominate them to Cabinet posts. ... 4. When we are desperate enough (as in the current economic crisis, or at any time in the last 80 years), neither competence nor ethics matter in a nominee as much as speed of confirmation. If you either can't do your own taxes correctly, or refuse to do them honestly, you can still be put in charge of tax audits and collection. If we ever have a crime crisis, for example, Charles Manson stands a good shot to head the FBI. 5. Of course one lesson is the obvious one: if you thought 'change' meant getting competent and honest people with no ties to special interests into influential government positions, you can now consider yourself suckered. I put the lesson this way: you vote for a Wizard, but you get a man behind a curtain." --columnist Randall Hoven

LIBERTY

"In office for just two weeks, President Barack Hussein Obama (D) already suffers from cognitive dissonance. President Barack Obama said in an interview last week he worried that detainees freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, might resume attacks on the United States. But he told NBC News that closure of the prison was a matter of upholding U.S. values and law, and that a failure to do so would ultimately make Americans less secure. 'Can we guarantee that they're not going to try to participate in another attack? No,' Obama said. 'But what I can guarantee is that if we don't uphold our Constitution and our values, that over time that will make us less safe. And that will be a recruitment tool for organizations like al-Qaeda.' Ok, let's put this in plain language -- being president is not community organizing. Being president means you have real responsibilities. A primary responsibility is protecting the citizens. Those citizens killed in a terrorist attack because of freed terrorists are then rendered totally incapable of 'upholding U.S. values and law'; instead they have been sacrificed for the unAmerican value of debasing its citizens to appease enemies. A basic of 'our Constitution and our values' is to protect our shores. Deliberately leaving the country vulnerable to terrorists is unconstitutional." --columnist Ethel Fenig

FAITH AND FAMILY

"If a pregnant woman smokes or drinks, we blame her. But if a woman decides to have a fatherless child, we praise her as brave -- even though the outcome for the child is much worse. Thus, the New York Times writes warmly of single mothers, always including an innocent explanation: 'Many of these women followed a similar and familiar pattern in having their first child: They planned to marry, found they hadn't by their 30s, looked some more and then decided to have a child without a husband.' At which point, a stork showed up with their babies. So apparently, single motherhood could happen to anyone! ... Then there is the Times' reversal of cause and effect, which manages to exonerate the single mother while turning her into a victim: 'The biggest reason that children born to unmarried mothers tend to have problems -- they're more likely to drop out of school and commit crimes -- is that they tend to grow up poor.' First, the reason the children 'tend to grow up poor' is that their mothers considered it unnecessary to have a primary bread-earner in the family. Second, the Times simply made up the fact that poverty, rather than single motherhood, causes anti-social behavior in children. Poverty doesn't cause crime -- single mothers do. If poverty caused crime, how did we get Bernie Madoff? ... If the establishment media wrote about smoking the way they write about unwed motherhood, I think people would notice that they seem oddly hellbent on destroying as many lives as possible." --columnist Ann Coulter

THE LAST WORD

"The messiah of November has disappeared, gone off to winter somewhere in another galaxy and lounge among the stars. Who knows when (or whether) he'll return. He left a gloomy surrogate with a melancholy message. The messiah promised 'change' but so far demonstrates only that the men we send to live in the White House have changed. FDR called our stoic grandparents to the fireside to tell them there was nothing to fear but fear itself. They believed him, pulled up their socks, survived the Great Depression and went on to fight and win a great world war. Dr. Doom tells us that fear is the best friend we're likely to find. Ronald Reagan arrived in Washington to clean up after Jimmy Carter, demonstrated that it's still morning in America, and won the Cold War. Dr. Doom tells us that it's late on a dark and stormy night, grovels toward Mecca, and tells ghost stories. 'This recession might linger for years,' Dr. Doom, aka President Obama, told us Thursday. 'Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that at some point we may not be able to reverse.' Woe is definitely us. ... In a piece of op-ed commentary in The Washington Post, he puts a little realistic distance between himself and credulous Republicans and other conservatives. 'I reject these theories such as tax cuts, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change,' he writes. This will come as big news to a lot people who took a flyer on Mr. Obama, persuaded by his friendly embrace of the idea that cutting taxes is good, and his promise not to bother anyone earning less than 200 grand. That was then. Now he only reminds us that he's the president, and we're not." --columnist Wesley Pruden

*****

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.)