The Patriot Post Brief 4-25-2011

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The Patriot Post Brief 4-25-2011
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." --James Madison

Liberty

"Obama's ideology tethers him to the idea that the central government should be the primary engine of economic growth and the super-arbiter of the winners and losers in our economy. He cannot countenance the possibility that Keynesian stimulus spending does not appreciably stimulate and probably does just the opposite; never mind that we can't afford it. He can't process that we cannot tax ourselves into prosperity or out of debt. He is viscerally unwilling to restructure the programs that have us committed to $88 trillion in unfunded liabilities. And he either cannot comprehend or is morally hardened to the evil and ineffectiveness involved in the government's making command-control decisions rather than free people through the invisible hand of the market, especially in health care. He cannot understand or is rebellious against the truth that capitalism is morally superior to and produces greater prosperity across the board than any other economic system, bar none. ... Obama, captured in his maximum-security class warfare prison mindset, has proposed even higher taxes on the already overburdened producers, which would further smother the economy and prevent economic recovery, growth and abatement of the national debt. His only real remedy for Medicare is to empower the Independent Payment Advisory Board to ration health care according to its one-size-fits-all lunacy. ... There can be no workable compromise with Obama because his plan could not work to retire the debt and avert our national crisis. The only solution is to retire him." --columnist David Limbaugh1

Opinion in Brief

"Just a little over two years later, it has become clear that whatever you think of his policies, the current occupant of the White House harbors an irrepressible juvenility that undermines the dignity of the office he holds. The recent tongue lashing he administered to Republican Congressman Paul Ryan is the latest example of President Obama's increasingly evident maturity deficiency. ... For the better part of an hour, the President of the United States lambasted Ryan's efforts publicly as little short of abandoning autistic kids to the sewers and locking Granny in the attic. Given this undignified blindside, Rep. Ryan would have been well within his rights to walk out of the hall in disgust. But apparently, decorum and respect are words that find meaning in the Ryan vocabulary -- more than can be said for our Chief Executive. ... Far from being a post-partisan healer, President Obama has proven himself to be petty, juvenile, and someone totally lacking the temperament and class we should expect from an Oval Office executive." --columnist Peter Heck2

Re: The Left

"Obama is trying to convince Americans that 'shared responsibility' means raising taxes only on the top 2 percent of income earners. So Team Obama held a 'town hall' event at Facebook, placing the president next to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, a 26-year-old who is worth $16 billion. ... [It was] a hard week for the president, so it must have felt great to talk at the website that has brought him 19 million 'likes.' COO Sheryl Sandberg explained the ground rules: 'No poking the president.' Then again, [last] Monday, Obama got a pretty rude poking from S&P. The rating agency revised its assessment of the U.S. economy from 'stable' to 'negative.' The notice explained that S&P could downgrade America's coveted AAA rating in the next two years. As Obama told his Facebook fans, if the markets lose faith in Washington's ability to curb the deficit, that could mean a whole new world of damage to the U.S. economy. He didn't explain that S&P's timing -- shortly after Obama presented his weak deficit-reduction package -- screams that Wall Street doesn't think Washington will fix the hole." --columnist Debra Saunders3

Government

"When you reduce income tax rates, high earners have more taxable income. When you raise them, they have less. ... This is most obvious when you think about capital gains. The federal government doesn't try to tax capital gains -- the increase in values of your stocks or your house -- every year... You pay capital gains on a stock or house only in the year you sell it. What happens if the capital gains tax goes up from 15 percent to 50 percent? People stop selling stocks and hold onto their houses if they possibly can. And when cap gains rates go down? They're more willing to sell, pay the lower tax and invest in something else. That's why the government's total revenues from capital gains have tended to rise when the capital gains tax rate is lowered. And why increases in the capital gains tax rate never raises the amount of revenues static models estimate it will. You get the same effect, to a lesser extent, when you change tax rates on ordinary income. People working for minimum wage don't have many options about how they'll be paid. High earners tend to have more options." --political analyst Michael Barone4

For the Record

"The official Pentagon estimate is that the war in Libya cost us $608 million for the first 17 days. Some think that is a laughable underestimate, however, except that nobody is laughing. Forbes reported at the end of March that 'what looks like an inexpensive military operation in Libya is actually costing taxpayers about $2 billion per day.' Remember how Democrats and Republicans in Congress wrestled back and forth recently, nearly shutting down the government over a lousy $38 billion? Heck, we've already burned through that in Libya and Muammar Qadhafi is still thumbing his nose at us from Tripoli. Technically, the air war in Libya is being fought by NATO. But the United States, in addition to paying for our own forces, pays about a quarter of NATO's budget. The numbers get kind of dazzling, but according to the Fiscal Times: The United States now pays NATO $90.2 million for its civil budget, $462.5 million for its military budget and $259 million for NATO's Security Investment Program, which covers radar bases, airfields, fuel pipelines, etc. That is about $811.7 million per year. And how is NATO doing in Libya, by the way? Not all that well." --columnist Roger Simon5

The Gipper

"While the San Diego-based U.S.S. Hoel was steaming toward Melbourne, Australia, on Ash Wednesday, its crew heard of terrible brush fires sweeping two Australian States. More than 70 people were killed and the destruction was great. Well, the crew of this American ship raised $4,000 from their pockets to help, but they felt that it wasn't enough. So, leaving only a skeleton crew aboard, the 100 American sailors gave up a day's shore leave, rolled up their sleeves, and set to work rebuilding a ruined community on the opposite end of the Earth. Just Americans being Americans, but something for all of us to be proud of. Stories like these -- of men and women around the world who love God and freedom -- bear a message of world hope and brotherhood like the rites of Passover and Easter that we celebrate." --Ronald Reagan6