The Patriot Post Chronicle 7-13-2011

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 7-13-2011
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another." --Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

"Republicans seemed warily confident that they might get a [debt-ceiling] deal over the weekend on cutting future spending without raising taxes -- a deal that would likely lead to smaller future deficits, the possibility of badly needed tax reforms and the resumption of economic and jobs growth. No such luck. Not only did Obama not really put any specific major cuts on the table, he reportedly surprised negotiators by asking them to agree to a 'balanced approach' to deficit-cutting by including a job-killing $1.7 trillion in potential new tax hikes. ... As a new Heritage Foundation study shows, the government's tax take under Obama's current budget plans will 'increase rapidly' from its long-term average of about 18% of GDP to a ruinous 26% of GDP in coming decades. That's why he seemed desperate, saying we need to 'tear the Band-Aid' off and 'eat our peas' to get a deal done by Aug. 2, the phony deadline established by Democrats for fiscal Armageddon. ... During the press conference Monday in which he made his case for 'revenue increases' -- that is, tax hikes -- in deficit talks, Obama suggested why: He wants to spend even more in the future. He's not shy about airing his many ideas for this, among them what he calls 'investments' in Head Start and student loan programs, more government funding of medical research, and even an 'infrastructure bank.' Such programs aren't possible, Obama said, 'if we haven't gotten our fiscal house in order.' This almost defies belief. This is how we got into the problem in the first place. Too much government, too much spending, too many regulations, too many taxes. Is Obama really that out of touch with Americans? It seems so." --Investor's Business Daily1

Essential Liberty

"The ignorance about our country is staggering. According to one survey, only 28% of students could identify the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. Only 26% of students knew that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. Fewer than one-quarter of students knew that George Washington was the first president of the United States. ... Ignorance and possibly contempt for American values, civics and history might help explain how someone like Barack Obama could become president of the United States. At no other time in our history could a person with longtime associations with people who hate our country become president. ... The fact that Obama became president and brought openly Marxist people into his administration doesn't say so much about him as it says about the effects of decades of brainwashing of the American people by the education establishment, media and the intellectual elite." --economist Walter E. Williams2

Upright

"It's a common refrain among those who lust to increase government's size and power: Every failed measure justifies more of the same. Poverty programs make it harder to escape poverty? We need more poverty programs! Racial preferences heighten racial division? We need more racial preferences! And a diversity manual for every janitor in the country! When ObamaCare ends up driving the costs of medicine up and the quality and availability down, you can bet the people who created that monstrosity will claim it failed only because it didn't go far enough. Let's generalize this into the First Rule of Liberalism: Government failure always justifies more government." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

"Speaking for himself on July 11, the president offered that he had 'hundreds of thousands of dollars that I don't need.' The president is of course welcome to donate as much of his extra money as he likes to the federal treasury. He knows Timothy Geithner personally and can probably get a guarantee that his check will be cashed without delay. And since the president is so ready to impute unpleasant motives (like greed) to those who oppose tax increases, perhaps we should impute some sort of moral failing to him for not having thus far contributed his spare change to the government." --columnist Mona Charen

"The sheer incompetence and, in some cases, mendacity, of the current crop of statist politicians in both the legislative and executive branches seem likely to bring on an economic crisis that will actually force Americans to decide between a constitutional restoration and a full embrace of statism. ... This pantomime deficit-reduction process is evidence that those in charge have lost their mental grip on the true dimensions of the fiscal crisis. Once they have lost their mental grip, their economic grip -- and then their political grip -- also will soon slip away, followed, perhaps, by a restoration of liberty." --columnist Tony Blankley

"Welfare mostly subsidizes people in poverty, helping few escape from it. In their hearts, most people who are poor would like to be rich, or at least self-sustaining, but this president never talks about how they might achieve that goal. Instead, he criticizes those who made the right choices and now enjoy the fruits of their labor. Rather than use successful people as examples for the poor to follow, the president seeks to punish the rich with higher taxes and more regulations on their businesses." --columnist Cal Thomas

Patriot News Review

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The Demo-gogues

Deal now, spend more later: "Let's get this [debt ceiling] problem off the table ... [and] with a solid fiscal situation, we will then be in a position to make the kind of investments that I think are going to be necessary to win the future." --Barack Obama

A great GOP campaign ad: "So, when you hear folks saying 'Well, the president shouldn't want massive job killing tax increases when the economy is this weak.' Nobody's looking to raise taxes right now. We're talking about potentially 2013 and the out years." --Barack Obama

Hypocrisy: "You go talk to your constituents and ask them, 'Are you willing to compromise your kids' safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?'" --Barack Obama (Obama and his jet-setting entourage are the biggest spenders in the world. How about we reverse the question?)

Constituents don't know anything: "Let me distinguish between professional politicians and the public at large. You know, the public is not paying close attention to the ins and outs of how a Treasury auction goes. They shouldn't. They're worrying about their family, they're worrying about their jobs. They're worrying about their neighborhood. They have got a lot of other things on their plate. We're paid to worry about it." --Barack Obama, scoffing at the fact that more than two-thirds of the electorate oppose increasing the debt ceiling

It's okay to mix religion and politics when Democrats do it: "What would Jesus do this weekend? Or Moses? Or Allah? Or anyone else? I don't want this [debt negotiations] book closed without the clergy having an opportunity to forcefully express themselves as well as I know they can do." --Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)

Belly laugh of the week: "Now, without re-litigating the past, I'm absolutely convinced, and the vast majority of economists are convinced, that the steps we took in the Recovery Act saved millions of people their jobs or created a whole bunch of jobs. And part of the evidence of that is as you see what happens with the Recovery Act phasing out." --Barack Obama arguing that current job losses are proof that the stimulus worked

Throwing granny off a cliff: "I cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this [debt debate issue]. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it. This is not just a matter of Social Security checks. These are veterans checks, these are folks on disability and their checks. There are about 70 million checks that go out." --Barack Obama