The Patriot Post Chronicle 7-6-2011

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 7-6-2011
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." --Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

"Perhaps you've already noticed around the neighborhood, but this is a rotten summer for young Americans to find a job. The Department of Labor reported last week that a smaller share of 16-19 year-olds are working than at anytime since records began to be kept in 1948. ... Only 24% of teens, one in four, have jobs, compared to 42% as recently as the summer of 2001. ... So instead of learning valuable job skills -- getting out of bed before noon, showing up on time, being courteous to customers, operating a cash register or fork lift -- millions of kids will spend the summer playing computer games or hanging out. ... Congress ... contributed by passing one of the most ill-timed minimum wage increases in history. One of the first acts of the gone-but-not-forgotten Nancy Pelosi ascendancy was to raise the minimum wage in stages to $7.25 an hour in 2009 from $5.15 in 2007. Even liberals ought to understand that raising the cost of hiring the young and unskilled while employers are slashing payrolls is loopy economics. Or maybe not. The Center for American Progress, often called the think tank for the Obama White House, recently recommended another increase to $8.25 an hour. Though the U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1%, the thinkers assert that a rising wage would 'stimulate economic growth to the tune of 50,000 new jobs.' So if the government orders employers to pay more to hire workers when they're already not hiring, they'll somehow hire more workers. By this logic, if we raised the minimum wage to $25 an hour we'd have full employment. Back on planet Earth, the minimum wage increase has coincided with the plunge in the percentage of working teens. Before the most recent wage hikes, roughly seven million teens were working. Now there are closer to five million with a job and paycheck." --The Wall Street Journal1

Upright

"President Obama is not going to lead on the debt ceiling issue. Nor is he going to compromise or play a mediating role. He is more interested in blaming others for his troubles, demagoguing other solutions and running for re-election. This is why conservatives need to be reminded not to yield to scare tactics. ... President Obama is intent on laying the groundwork to blame Congress if a deal is not reached. It's why the President pointed his finger at Congress several times [last week], saying it was 'their job' and 'these are bills that Congress ran up' and finally excusing himself: 'I've been doing Afghanistan, bin Laden and the Greek crisis.' Apparently for the President, the economy of Greece is more important than preventing the American economy from collapsing ... like Greece's." --Heritage Foundation's Rory Cooper

"As a result of lower tax rates on the top income earners, not only do they pay a much larger share of all taxes, but they pay much more taxes total -- and revenue to the government has increased. This is because lowering taxes on the rich creates more rich people and richer rich people. The federal government gets much more revenue if you impose a 40 percent tax on a large number of very wealthy millionaires than if you impose a 70 percent tax on a small number of less wealthy millionaires." --Mario Loyola, director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies

"With Obama's statements, are we witnessing larger symptoms of a progressive push to reshape and redefine the Declaration's inalienable rights and, even more fundamentally, their very source? ... Progressivism is nothing more than moral relativism at the political level. Truth is never constant, with no fixed starting point, whether (theologically) in Sacred Scripture or (politically) in sacred political documents like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Truth is determined not by an absolute, single authority but by the individual -- or, here, progressive individuals en masse -- who are always marching and ever-advancing toward evolving truths revealed somewhere down the road." --author and columnist Paul Kengor

"I saw a poll recently that insisted that only 16% of voters think that congressional incumbents should be re-elected. But that's entirely misleading. The real question is whether they want to replace their own congressman. ... In politics, clearly love is blind. So the fact that five out of six American voters think incumbents should be evicted from Congress is meaningless because they're referring to every incumbent but their own. That, in a nutshell, is how incumbents become incumbents." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

Insight

"Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt." --American poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

The Demo-gogues

Failing the giggle test: "It's time we return to the type of fiscal discipline Democrats brought to Washington in the 90s when Democrats in Congress and the White House balanced the budget and used the surplus to do what Mr. President? To pay down the debt." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who was with the minority Democrats in the 90s

Non Compos Mentis: "When the ... unemployment rate is high, it's hard for the incumbent to win. I remind you though, we're not the incumbent. The Republicans are the incumbent. ... I feel comfortable about our ability to win it back. I have a sense of responsibility to win it back, a plan to do so, and a confidence that it is very much possible to do so." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on the 2012 election

Accusations: "We need to start asking yourselves an uncomfortable question: Are Republicans slowing down the recovery on purpose for political gain in 2012? And now it's becoming clear that insisting on a slash-and-burn approach may be part of this plan. It has a double benefit for Republicans: It's ideologically tidy, and it undermines economic recovery which they think only helps them in 2012. If the public comes to believe that Republicans are deliberately sabotaging the economy, it will backfire politically." --Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

We'll have a gay old time: "'I am proud to be one of the senators cosponsoring the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act in the Senate because marriage equality is one of the most important things we can do to make it better for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans." --Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) on the video entitled "A Message of Hope from the United States Senate," encouraging LGBT youth to persevere

We can't afford five more years: "And, Philadelphia, I know there are some of you who are frustrated because we haven't gotten everything done that we said we were going to do in two and a half years. It's only been two and a half years. I got five and a half years more to go." --Barack Obama at a Philadelphia fundraiser