The Patriot Post Brief 12-13-2010

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The Patriot Post Brief 12-13-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant." --George Washington

Liberty

"There is no such thing as a 'free' government benefit. Ask small-business owners who are footing skyrocketing bills for bottomless jobless benefits. While politicians in Washington negotiate a deal to provide welcome temporary payroll, income and estate tax relief to America's workers, struggling employers wonder how long they'll have to pay for the compassion of others -- and whether they can survive. The Beltway deal hinges on extending federal unemployment insurance for another 13 months. This would mark the sixth time that the deadline has been extended since June 2008. ... Washington is relying on transfers from the federal general revenue fund to cover loan obligations related to all these hemorrhaging accounts. Who pays? Dentists, tavern owners, maid services, mom-and-pop shops -- small businesses that are the backbone of the American economy. In my home state of Colorado, small and mid-size firms have been saddled with eye-popping unemployment insurance bills that have doubled, tripled and more in the past year. The businesses that have the lowest claims histories are getting punished the most to make up the jobless benefits fund deficit. ... The victims of government wealth redistribution never earn as much of Washington's attention as the beneficiaries." --columnist Michelle Malkin1

Opinion in Brief

"Does the president's stout rhetorical argument these last weeks that anyone making over $250,000 is rich and can easily absorb a big tax increase encourage an investor to believe the president has any idea what economic reality is like? I have the feeling that even if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to extend for two years, if the economy does not come bouncing back, this White House will ask, 'What more do the businessmen want? We gave them their darn Bush tax break; they owe us their big investment.' Tax cuts -- or in this instance, no tax increases -- are vitally useful in creating an economic environment in which investors, and big- and small-businesspeople feel safe to invest again. But low taxes are not sufficient. When they come at the same time that the White House continues to trumpet threatening class warfare sounds, I fear this dreary economy will continue to flounder." --columnist Tony Blankley2

Re: The Left

"The defining difference between liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, tea sipper and addict to castor oil, is envy. Bitter, unyielding and unforgiving envy. ... The Democrats in the House, eager to exact revenge for November, demonstrated their regard ... for the hicks and dummies who threw them out by rejecting the Senate compromise forged by Republicans and the White House that would save the tax cuts for the middle class the Democrats profess to love so much. The great divide between Democrats who 'get it' and those who don't opens wider. Those who don't get it grow mean and stingy, expressing their rage in ways petulant and petty, like the Clinton White House aides who disabled computer keyboards and pilfered whatever they could carry out of the house on the morning that George W. Bush arrived as the new tenant. It's too much even for Barack Obama as he struggles up the ever steeper presidential learning curve. He told his no longer adoring Democrats this week that it was time to grow up and put away childish things." --columnist Wesley Pruden3

For the Record

"Don't count on the transformation of Barack Obama into a 'will of the people' politician. The evidence on tax cuts was simply too much for Obama to ignore -- even he had to admit that he was wrong, that Americans do want lower tax rates. ... Whenever Obama believes he has secured the support of a subgroup, he generally abandons them for the next several months. That's why Obama, after revising government regulations to benefit gay and lesbian couples, abandoned 'don't ask, don't tell.' That's why Obama, after failing to pass quasi-amnesty for illegal immigrants, abandoned the DREAM Act. Obama thinks this is political pragmatism.... That's how he sees the tax cuts. He gave them to us not because he's realized the error of his ways, but because he treats the American people like dogs -- throw us a bone every so often, and he can expect us to fetch the paper for him. ... After the midterm elections, Obama knows one thing very clearly: He doesn't want to follow in the footsteps of his deposed brethren. He'll masquerade as a Republican in order to avoid that fate. We must remember, though, that it's just a masquerade until he proves otherwise." --columnist Ben Shapiro4

Government

"The [Obama deficit commission] report paints an appropriately dire picture of the nation's fiscal outlook. The annual deficit, currently more than $1.4 trillion, amounts to 9 percent of gross domestic product, while federal debt held by the public, currently 62 percent of GDP (up from 33 percent in 2001), is expected to exceed the size of the entire economy by 2025, with interest alone topping $1 trillion. 'America's long-term fiscal gap is unsustainable,' the report says. Despite that daunting description, the solutions proposed by the commission are mild and gradual. It suggests, for example, that Congress 'hold spending in 2012 equal to or lower than spending in 2011,' 'return spending to pre-crisis 2008 levels in real terms in 2013' and 'limit future spending growth to half the projected inflation rate through 2020.' Even this sort of modest spending restraint, of course, will provoke squeals of protest from the affected interest groups. ... Unless we are comfortable with a federal leviathan that consumes more than a fifth of the economy, which it would continue to do forever even if the commission's plan were enacted unchanged, we need to go beyond demanding that the government do more efficiently things it should not be doing at all." --columnist Jacob Sullum5

Insight

"It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will." --Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723-1790)

The Gipper

"The economic welfare of all our people must ultimately stem not from government programs, but from the wealth created by a vigorous private sector." --Ronald Reagan6