The Patriot Post Chronicle 11-9-2011

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 11-9-2011
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." --James Madison

Editorial Exegesis

"The Occupy Wall Street protesters aren't good at articulating what they want, but one of their demands is 'end corporate welfare.' Well, welcome aboard. Some of us have been fighting crony capitalism for decades, and it's good to have new allies if liberals have awakened to the dangers of the corporate welfare state. Corporate welfare is the offer of special favors -- cash grants, loans, guarantees, bailouts and special tax breaks -- to specific industries or firms. The government doesn't track the overall cost of these programs, but in 2008 the Cato Institute made an attempt and came up with $92 billion for fiscal 2006, which is more than the U.S. government spends on homeland security. That annual cost may have doubled to $200 billion in this new era of industry bailouts and subsidies. ... This industrial policy model of government as a financial partner with business can sound appealing, but the government's record in picking winners and losers has been dreadful. Some of the most expensive flops include the Supersonic Transport plane of the mid-1970s, Jimmy Carter's $2 billion Synthetic Fuels Corporation (the precursor to clean energy), Amtrak, which hasn't turned a profit in four decades, and the most expensive public-private partnership debacle of all time, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have lost $142 billion of taxpayer money. ... Americans understand that powerful government invariably favors the powerful, who have the means and access to massage Congress and the bureaucracy that average citizens do not. This really is aid to the 1% paid by the other 99%. Yet the parade of subsidies gets longer each year, perhaps, as the old joke goes, because in Washington Republicans love corporations and Democrats love welfare. As House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan puts it: 'How can we save billions of dollars from unjustified subsidy and entitlement programs, if we can't get corporate America off the dole?'" --The Wall Street Journal1

Upright

"With nine days to go before the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) faces default, a Senate committee on Wednesday is expected to vote on a new plan to address the crisis. ... The legislation would ... provide USPS billions in cash from taxpayers. Specifically, it would hand over some $7 billion in supposedly 'surplus' contributions the government has made to the Federal Employees Retirement System. Such temporary surpluses, however, are common and are typically erased by normal financial swings or amortization over time. Transfer of the entire pot to USPS leaves taxpayers vulnerable if USPS later falls behind (which, given its condition, is not unlikely) while allowing needed structural reforms to be delayed. ... USPS, and mail delivery itself, faces an uncertain future. Comprehensive change is needed to prevent massive losses and virtual bankruptcy. The reforms being considered by the Senate, however, fall short -- while putting taxpayers even more at risk for the consequences of failure." --The Heritage Foundation's James Gattuso

"The Internal Revenue Service can follow individual people over the years because they can identify individuals from their Social Security numbers. During recent years, when 'the top one percent' as an income category has been getting a growing share of the nation's income, IRS data show that actual flesh and blood people who were in the top one percent in 1996 had their incomes go down -- repeat, DOWN -- by a whopping 26 percent by 2005. ... Most people who are in the top one percent in a given year do not stay in that bracket over the years. If we are being serious ... then our concern should be with what is happening to actual flesh and blood human beings, not what is happening to abstract income brackets." --economist Thomas Sowell

"The White House revealed that it would fight a GOP House subpoena for internal documents related to the half-trillion-dollar, stimulus-funded, now-bankrupt Solyndra solar energy loan bust. White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler fumed that the information request placed an 'unreasonable burden on the president's ability to meet his constitutional duties.' ... Ruemmler further complained that the subpoena represents 'a significant intrusion on executive branch interests.' ... While she paints the request as a last-minute surprise, the White House has been stonewalling on Solyndra all year long. And as Reason magazine's Tim Cavanaugh points out: Compliance would be 'the work of a few hours, at a time when the executive branch has 2.8 million employees. The whole thing could be done by staffers, leaving the president to focus on golf and fundraising and long, boring speeches.'" --columnist Michelle Malkin

Insight

"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else." --French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich." --William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008 )

The Demo-gogues

A good pat on the back: "Well, I think we are better off now than we would have been if I hadn't taken all the steps that I took." --Barack Obama

"We were able to prevent America from going into a Great Depression. We were able to, after a series of quarterly GDP reports that were the worst that we've seen since the Great Depression, reverse it and get the economy to grow again. We've seen 20 straight months of consecutive job growth." --Barack Obama

Sure thing: "I have to tell you, the least of my concerns at the moment is the politics of a year from now. I'm worried about putting people back to work right now because those folks are hurting and the U.S. economy is underperforming." --Barack Obama

The BIG Lie: "From a policy standpoint I think it's really important to know that President Obama was a job creator from day one. Now, was the ditch that we were in so deep that when you're talking to people and they still don't have a job, that's any consolation to them? No. But I'll tell you this: If President Obama and the House congressional Democrats had not acted, we would be at 15 percent unemployment." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Blame Republicans: "We've taken every important piece of the jobs bill and demanded that we have a separate vote. But our Republican colleagues in the Senate have voted unanimously to vote down each and every part so far: to restore 400,000 jobs for teachers, police officers, firefighters, putting them back in classrooms, on the streets and in the fire houses. ... So, look, we can't wait. If the Republican Congress won't join us, we're going to continue to act on our own to make the changes that we can to bring relief to middle-class families and those aspiring to get in the middle class." --Joe Biden

Dezinformatsia

Non Compos Mentis: "Well, I'm going to be pilloried for this. I think get rid of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. I just think in the grand scheme of the rights that we have; the right of assembly, free speech, I mean, owning a gun does not, it does not tally on the same level as those other constitutional rights. And being more discreet about who gets to have a firearm and right to kill with a firearm, I think is something that would be in our national interest to revisit that." --Huffington Post's Alex Wagner when asked by HBO's Bill Maher what she would change about the Constitution -- she would take away the right that guarantees all the others

Pushing from the Left: "Do you not feel that by opposing [a tax hike on millionaires to pay for Obama's jobs bill] you're basically out of step with the American people on this issue? ... Do you agree at all that there should be any kind of tax increases?" --ABC's Christiane Amanpour to Speaker John Boehner

Another BIG Lie: "The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense -- the idea that anyone can make it. ... The American dream seems to be thriving in Europe not at home." --CNN's Fareed Zalaria

Conspiracy theories: "[Herman Cain] is just the latest purchase by the Koch brothers. They purchased Michele Bachmann, they purchased Sarah Palin, for this purpose: it's to go out and talk crazy talk. It's to talk about taking more things away from the middle class and giving more to the rich. It's about deregulating virtually everything to where the Koch brothers can go ahead and kill more people with their toxins." --radio talk-show host Mike Papantonio