The Patriot Post Brief 6-18-2012

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The Patriot Post Brief 6-18-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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Barack Has a DREAM

June 18, 2012

The Foundation

"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism." --George Washington

Government

"With his announcement that he will, in effect, unilaterally enact a key feature of long-debated immigration reform, President Obama is doing something he has always wished to do: Get around a Congress that doesn't see the issue his way. In a speech to La Raza last July, Obama said that on the question of immigration reform, 'some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own.' Obama said he found the idea 'very tempting' but had to reject it because 'that's not how our system works.' The president was in a somewhat more combative mood last September, when he addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 'As I mentioned when I was at La Raza a few weeks back, I wish I had a magic wand and could make this all happen on my own,' Obama told the group. 'There are times where -- until Nancy Pelosi is speaker again -- I'd like to work my way around Congress.' ... At the time, Obama conceded only that really big changes require the approval of Congress. 'We live in a democracy, and at the end of the day, I can't do this all by myself under our democratic system,' he said. 'If we're going to do big things -- whether it's passing this jobs bill, or the DREAM Act, or comprehensive immigration reform -- we're going to have to get Congress to act.' Now, Obama has decided, in the words of an Associated Press report, to 'stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives,' a policy that 'will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants.' The action, which Republicans call amnesty and the administration calls 'deferred action,' will surely spark GOP calls to rein in the president's unilateral measures. The question will be whether any Democratic members of Congress, who might agree with Obama's policy goals, will dare express unhappiness with how he enacts them." --columnist Byron York1

Political Futures

"Politically, Obama calculates that some polls showing the current likely Hispanic support for him in the high 50s or low 60s would not provide enough of a margin in critical states ... to counteract the growing slippage of the independent vote and the energy of the clinger/tea-party activists. Thus, what was not legal or advisable in 2009, 2010, or 2011, suddenly has become critical in mid-2012. ... When you collate this recent act with the class-warfare rhetoric, the 'punish our enemies' threats, the president's and Eric Holder's serial racialist statements, the huge borrowing, the national-security leaks, the takeover of health care, the push for redistributive taxes, and even the trivial appointments like a Van Jones, Anita Dunn, or Armendariz, you can fairly conclude that Obama most certainly did not like the way the United States operated for the last 30 or so years, and has tried his best, through hook or crook, to change America in ways that simply were not possible through legislative or even judicial action. Give the president credit. He has thrown down the gauntlet and essentially boasted: This is my vision of the way the new America should work -- and if you don't like it, try stopping me in November, if you dare." --historian Victor Davis Hanson2

Re: The Left

"Obama's depiction of the Bush years is wrong in just about every possible way. First, Bush was hardly a deregulator. In fact, the nation's regulatory budget nearly doubled in his eight years, and regulatory staffing climbed 42%, according to an annual report on the federal regulatory state by George Mason University's Mercatus Center. Nor did Bush's tax cuts devastate the budget. In fact, revenues as a share of gross domestic product hit 18.5% in 2007, which is above the post-World War II average. And deficits fell three years in a row to a low of $160 billion. Unemployment, meanwhile, dropped to 4.4% just before the recession hit. And as we've pointed out on countless occasions, the financial crisis that caused the recession was not the result of too little government, but of far too much government intervention in the banking industry. Then again, Obama can't even keep his own complaints straight. Moments after lambasting Bush's tax-cutting, deregulating ways, he was bragging about how he's imposed fewer regulations than Bush, cut taxes more than a dozen times and how he's not a big spender. (None of that is true.) The real question before voters isn't whether they want to return to some dark, mythical past of Obama's imagination, but whether they want four more years of a dismal present characterized by stagnant growth, chronic unemployment, massive deficits and a president who is utterly clueless about how to fix any of it." --Investor's Business Daily5

Essential Liberty

"The idea of human liberty and its political corollary ... is not applicable only to Americans. Rather, it is a universal principle applicable to all people. Thomas Paine famously observed that 'the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.' But this cause is contested today, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, the progressive administrative state continues to encroach on the republican government established by the Constitution. Abroad, tyrants and terrorists try to extinguish Lady Liberty's flame. American sovereignty is also increasingly threatened by international institutions that have little respect for human rights, the rule of law, and self-government. ... The abandonment of the nation-state system in general and the American constitutional order in particular is unnecessary and at odds with the reason and experience of our experiment in constitutional self-government. The ideas of America's founding are timeless. And yet the defense of freedom is never complete, but requires eternal vigilance -- morally, legally, and materially. Not only must the cloth and colors of the flag endure, but the liberty it represents must not perish from the earth." --Heritage Foundation's Marion Smith6

For the Record

"Job growth has been slipping badly for three months. Retail sales and factory orders are down two straight months. Real incomes are flat. Household wealth is way underwater from the housing collapse, dropping nearly 40 percent in the last three measured years. And gross domestic product was an anemic 1.9 percent in the first quarter. Nearly all leading Wall Street economists are marking down their second-quarter estimates to 2 percent or less. But here's the key point: 2 percent growth is not a recovery. ... The good side of commodity deflation is that oil and retail gas prices have fallen considerably; the bad side is that manufacturers may hold back production and that debtors have to climb out of deeper holes. As someone who always touts the merits of a strong King Dollar, why am I complaining now that we have one? That's my second reason for the latest economic stall: King Dollar is not being accompanied by lower tax rates. ... Instead of easier taxes, a huge tax-hike cliff looms. ... It's hard to quantify, but it's quite possible that business hiring plans and consumer-spending expectations have been put on hold until folks can figure out future tax policy. All this is why the tax-cliff problem needs to be solved immediately." --economist Lawrence Kudlow7