The Patriot Post Chronicle 05-30-2012

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 05-30-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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Obama's Tall Fiscal Tales

May 30, 2012

The Foundation

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Editorial Exegesis

"Mitt Romney 'warned about a "prairie fire of debt." That's what he said,' Mr. Obama said on the Des Moines fairgrounds on Thursday, as if he couldn't believe it either. ... 'What my opponent didn't tell you was that federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any President in almost 60 years.' ... Press secretary Jay Carney chimed in [saying] ... to White House reporters that they should not 'buy into the B.S. that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this Administration....' Mr. Carney the media critic deeply sourced his view to someone named Rex Nutting, who wrote an 856-word column for MarketWatch that argued 'There has been no huge increase in spending under the current President, despite what you hear.' ... His accounting methods are, er, unusual. Mr. Nutting claims that Mr. Obama is only responsible for $140 billion worth of spending in his hyperactivist first year in office because ... the fiscal year technically begins on October 1, 2009. Therefore he says Mr. Obama had no control over the budget, though in February 2009 he did famously manage to pass an $800 billion stimulus that was supposed to be a one-time deal. Mr. Nutting then measures Mr. Obama's spending growth rate against an inflated 2009 baseline that includes the spending Mr. Obama caused but which he attributes to Mr. Bush. ... The larger conceptual error of the Nutting-Obama-Carney troika is neglecting to compare the budget to the size of the economy. The best perspective on how outlays, tax receipts and deficits change over time is as a share of GDP. ... Prior to Mr. Obama, the U.S. had not spent more than 23.5% of GDP ... since the end of World War II. Yet Mr. Obama has managed to exceed that four years in a row: 25.2% in 2009, 24.1% in 2010 and 2011, and an estimated 24.3% in 2012, up from a range between 18%-21% from 1994-2008. ... As for that prairie fire of debt, Mr. Obama can fairly blame $1 trillion or so of the $5 trillion debt increase of the last four years on Mr. Bush. But what about the other $4 trillion? Debt held by the public now stands at 74.2% of the economy, up from 40.5% at the end of 2008 -- and rising rapidly." --The Wall Street Journal1

Essential Liberty

"The Origination Clause in Article I, Section 7 states: 'All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.' ... The Founding Fathers required revenue measures to originate in the House because they wanted this authority to belong to the legislative body closest to the people. ... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has taken to thumbing his nose at this clear mandate. Recently, he publicly dismissed the Origination Clause as a 'hyper-technical budget issue,' raised by his Republican opponents as 'a fig leaf to hide their blatant obstruction.' ... One unnamed Senate staffer even speculated that the House's fealty to the Constitution 'may be part of some Republican plan.' ... Liberal Senate leaders, it seems, are determined to do what they want when they want to do it, Constitution or no Constitution. ... One of the chief operational principles of the current Senate seems to be, to paraphrase that famous line from Treasure of the Sierra Madre: 'Constitution? We don't need no stinking Constitution!' That's one more reason why the tea-party movement remains politically relevant more than three years after its birth." --Heritage Foundation's Michael G. Franc

Upright

"Barack Obama and his friends in the mainstream media, so called, can't believe that anyone could vote against someone as wonderful as he is (and they are). Only a bigot would vote against such a wonderful president. ... Sixteen states have offered Democratic voters an alternative to Barack Obama, either an actual candidate, 'Uncommitted,' or an opportunity to write in someone's name. So far 15 percent of those Democratic voters have done so. In five states where there has been an actual opponent, 27 percent voted against the president. In New Hampshire, 1 Democrat in 10 wrote in an alternative. Twenty percent of North Carolina Democrats voted for 'Uncommitted.' That's a lot of 'bigots.'" --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

"What do you get when you cross 3 pediatricians, 4 internists, 3 family doctors, 2 epidemiologists, 2 nurses, a PhD, an obstetrician, a perinatologist and an occupational medicine doctor? Unfortunately, this is not a joke. ... This would be the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), an ad hoc committee charged with making recommendations about clinical preventative services. They have just issued their findings that there is no role for routine PSA screening in men to detect prostate cancer.... You would not go to a pediatrician or obstetrician if you had this disease, so how does it make sense to aggregate 16 such people and have them opine on a subject that they know about only from a book? ... Someone in Washington has decided what the value of a human life is, and what would be the acceptable cost associated with saving it. This is called 'comparative effectiveness' and is what happens in a socialized healthcare system, like in England, where resources need to be allocated prudently, and healthcare is rationed. This is the essence of Obamacare." --columnist Hal C. Scherz, M.D.

"At Cannes, where anti-capitalist movies are always a hit, Brad Pitt's newest venture, 'Killing Them Softly,' is touted as a seething indictment of the American system. 'America isn't a country -- it's a business' is apparently the film's central insight. Set against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis, the film was reportedly financed by Megan Ellison, daughter of billionaire businessman Larry Ellison. No wonder that when these kids grow up, some of them make documentaries about how vast conspiracies keep the electric car and, no doubt, the Everlasting Gobstopper off the market. Even more of them uncritically accept this stuff. After all, everyone knows big businessmen are evil." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

The Demo-gogues

Predictions: "This election will be closer than the last one. People don't remember the last election was close. We're gonna have to contend with even more negative ads, even more cynicism and nastiness and just plain foolishness." --Barack Obama

Fulfilling those predictions: "I'm running to pay down our debt in a way that's balanced and responsible. After inheriting a $1 trillion deficit, I signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law." --Barack Obama

"The challenge we've got is that too many folks aren't on the same page. We've got too many of my dear Republican friends in Congress that have been standing in the way of some steps that we could take that would make a difference at the moment." --Barack Obama

"Nobody wants a handout. Nobody wants to get something for nothing." --Barack Obama

Straw man: "We don't need another political fight about ending a woman's right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood or taking away affordable birth control." --Barack Obama turning an argument about government's role on its head

Poor taste: "Finally, I do want to acknowledge a man who has played a major role in diminishing inequality in Massachusetts and other spheres, and that's Hubie Jones. ... I'm particularly pleased that Hubie got an honorary degree today. You know, when you get an honorary degree they give you one of these and Hubie, I think you now got a hoodie you can wear and no one will shoot at you." --Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) with a "joke" referencing Trayvon Martin's hoodie