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nChrist
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« on: September 27, 2010, 04:32:29 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Brief 9-27-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation
"It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object." --James Madison
For the Record
"On Sept. 23 last week, 12 Republican House members stood in a hardware store in Sterling, Va., and issued a Pledge to America. ... One [commitment] is to roll back non-defense discretionary spending to 2008 levels. The other is to repeal -- not revise or amend or embroider, but repeal -- the health care bill signed by Barack Obama exactly six months before the shirt-sleeved House Republicans made their pledge. The rollback to 2008 strikes me as good policy and politics -- or, at least, good conservative policy and good Republican politics. Good conservative policy because the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders vastly increased domestic spending in the 2009 stimulus package and the 2010 budget. With a Democratic president and Democratic supermajorities for the first time in more than 30 years, experienced and dedicated Democrats took out their wish lists and turned them into law. In particular, they increased the budget baselines for many domestic programs. Getting those baselines back down will make a significant difference not just this year but for years to come. ... Today, we are in, if not an official recession, at least an agonizingly slow recovery. And if Democrats complain that it's unfair for government and public employees to be limited to what they got in 2008, Republicans can reply that an awful lot of their constituents would be very happy to go back to the income levels and the housing equity and the 401(k) balances they had in 2008. ... As for Obamacare, a few months ago Republican leaders were reluctant to call for repeal. They may have feared that Nancy Pelosi and Bill Clinton were right when they predicted the legislation would become more popular when passed. Or they may have been wary of sounding extreme. But now they're squarely for repeal. It turns out to be a stand most Republican primary voters demand and most general election voters support. ... Can Republicans really repeal Obamacare and roll back spending to 2008 levels? Probably not. But by taking clear stands, they raise their chances of getting part way there by 2012. And maybe farther later." --political analyst Michael Barone1
Insight
"The constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those ... who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy. ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded." --President Franklin Pierce (1804-1869)
Government
"I know it's been said before, but it merits repeating: the debate about taxes in general, and about extending the Bush tax cuts in particular, only sounds like the issue in question is fiscal. It's not. The Right and Left differ on tax policy primarily because of a difference in values. Broadly speaking, the Right believes that your stuff is yours. The Left believes your stuff doesn't really become your stuff until the government says it is. So the Right sees taxes as a way to pay for necessary government services. The Left sees taxes as an instrument of social control and redistributive justice. ... It is simply not credible for Democrats and liberals to say they oppose extending those tax cuts because of concern for budget deficits. The real reasons are just old-fashioned envy, hard egalitarianism, soft socialism, and Keynesian claptrap about the economic benefits of redistributing income to promote consumption over saving. I agree with the supply-side argument that virtually all Americans benefit from the growth effects of keeping marginal tax rates low. But the most important reason to extend the tax cuts for everyone is that it is wrong for the government to steal and redistribute income." --National Review's John Hood2
The Gipper
"Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment." --Ronald Reagan3
Political Futures
"The refutation of Crist, Murkowski and Castle is a wonderful thing, regardless of how it plays out in November. ... In three primaries Republican voters decided they didn't like what they saw in the three candidates presented by the establishment. In all three cases, the instincts of the voters were completely confirmed -- by the subsequent actions of the hacks they drummed out of the party. Crist, Murkowski and Castle have made it abundantly clear they are devoid of anything resembling principles or party loyalty. All three have made something else clear as well: contempt for the average American has revealed itself to be far more 'bipartisan' than ever before. Such contempt has become so transparent and pervasive that the term 'ruling class' resonates like it never has: many Americans have become completely alienated from their representatives, regardless of party affiliation. Here's a scary thought for Democrats: think what's happening to the Republican party can't happen to yours? Think again. A Congress with an approval rating of 23.6% while your party's in charge can't be reassuring. In November, if the public purges Democrats from the majority less than two years after Democrat political strategist James Carville's proclaimed they would rule for the next forty, expect the kind of finger-pointing and blood-letting that will make the current Republican purge look tame by comparison. Americans may not agree about many things but one thing is certain: they are sick to death of selfish phonies selling themselves as 'servants of the people.'" --columnist Arnold Ahlert4 |
