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« on: January 24, 2011, 10:14:03 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Brief 1-24-2011
From The Federalist Patriot
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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, subject to particular exceptions." --James Madison
For the Record
"For the first time, our national debt has surpassed $14 trillion -- a dubious and shameful record. Even more astonishing, the past two presidents, one from each major political party, are responsible for half of that monstrous sum. As an Associated Press story noted, 'about half of today's national debt was run up in the past six years. It soared from $7.6 trillion in January 2005 as President George W. Bush began his second term to $10.6 trillion the day President Obama was inaugurated and to $14.02 trillion now.' In this era of hyper-partisanship, it is comforting to know that there is one thing both parties have agreed upon -- spending the nation into insolvency. It is clear that $14 trillion is an amount is so astronomical as to be literally incomprehensible.... Unfortunately, that does not stop us from racking up such sums. Doubtless, the two phenomena are somehow related. So deduct another $45,300 from your salary. That is what the national debt amounts to for every man, woman, and child in America. ... For decades, the government has been spending our wealth -- first everything we made, then everything we ever going to make, and now everything our children and their children will ever make. How future generations will judge us for the theft of their prosperity is not hard to guess." --Matt Patterson1, senior editor at the Capital Research Center
Government
"It takes a worried man to sing a worried song, and in a recent speech that seemed like Larry Summers' swan song, the president's departed economic adviser warned that America is 'at risk of a profound demoralization with respect to government.' He fears a future in which 'an inadequately resourced government performs badly, leading to further demands that it be cut back, exacerbating performance problems, deepening the backlash, and creating a vicious cycle.' ... Until the 1930s, or perhaps the 1960s, there was a 'legitimacy barrier' to federal government activism: When new policies were proposed, the first debate was about whether the federal government could properly act at all on the subject. Today, there is no barrier to the promiscuous multiplication of programs, because no program is really new. Rather, it is an extension, modification or enlargement of something government is already doing. The vicious cycle that should worry Summers is the reverse of the one he imagines. It is not government being 'cut back' because of disappointments that reinforce themselves. Rather, it is government squandering its limited resources, including the resource of competence, in reckless expansions of its scope." --columnist George Will2
Opinion in Brief
"Politics being what it is, we are sure to hear all sorts of doomsday rhetoric at the thought of cutbacks in government spending. The poor will be starving in the streets, to hear the politicians and the media tell it. But the amount of money it would take to keep the poor from starving in the streets is chump change compared to how much it would take to keep on feeding unions, subsidized businesses and other special interests who are robbing the taxpayers blind. Letting armies of government employees retire in their fifties, to live for decades on pensions larger than they were making when they were working, costs a lot more than keeping the poor from starving in the streets. ... Bankruptcy says: 'We just don't have the money.' ... Bailouts say: 'Give the taxpayers a little rhetoric, and a little smoke and mirrors with the book-keeping, and we can keep the party rolling.' One of the political games that is played during a budget crisis is to cut back on essential services like police departments and fire departments, in order to blackmail the public into accepting higher tax rates. Often, a lot more money could be saved by getting rid of runaway pension contracts with public sector unions. Bankruptcy can do that. Bailouts cannot." --economist Thomas Sowell3
The Gipper
"I come before you to report on the state of our Union, and I'm pleased to report that after four years of united effort, the American people have brought forth a nation renewed, stronger, freer, and more secure than before. Four years ago we began to change, forever I hope, our assumptions about government and its place in our lives. Out of that change has come great and robust growth -- in our confidence, our economy, and our role in the world. Tonight America is stronger because of the values that we hold dear. We believe faith and freedom must be our guiding stars, for they show us truth, they make us brave, give us hope, and leave us wiser than we were. Our progress began not in Washington, DC, but in the hearts of our families, communities, workplaces, and voluntary groups which, together, are unleashing the invincible spirit of one great nation under God. Four years ago we said we would invigorate our economy by giving people greater freedom and incentives to take risks and letting them keep more of what they earned. We did what we promised, and a great industrial giant is reborn." --Ronald Reagan4
Political Futures
"Many Democrats who voted for the Illinois tax increases were lame ducks who will pay no political price for their cowardly vote. Besides, it wasn't their money. That's why it's so easy to spend. If politicians in other financially troubled states won't follow Indiana's example, people can move to states with lower taxes. But no one can escape the federal government. ... Suppose there was a groundswell of taxpayers who announced they will no longer pay for government and, in fact, will start reducing payments to government if politicians won't significantly cut spending? That would get their attention. There aren't enough prisons to house thousands, perhaps millions, of taxpayers who cry 'enough' and demand that Washington live within its means. It's time to starve the beast. If Dracula doesn't get blood, he dies. If Washington can't suck more money out of us and must stop borrowing, it will be forced to cut back, like so many have done in this recession." --columnist Cal Thomas5
Re: The Left
"Through its dominance of the news media, entertainment media and educational institutions, the left has been able to successfully demonize the right for at least half a century. The left rarely convinces Americans to adopt its views. What it does is create a fear of the right that influences many Americans to align themselves with the left. ... As it becomes ever more obvious that [Jared] Loughner's crimes had nothing ... to do with conservatives, the left will do three things: change the subject by criticizing Palin's use of the term 'blood libel,' ...; deny it ever really blamed the right for the Loughner's crimes (hoping, with good reason, that Americans have a short memory); and continue to blame the right for creating the 'climate of hate' that the left itself has created. That is why it is important for conservatives and honorable liberals not to allow Americans to forget what the left did last week. It is the key to giving conservatives the good name they deserve. And it is the key to giving the left the name it deserves." --columnist Dennis Prager6 |
