The Patriot Post Wednesday Digest 12-11-2013

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The Patriot Post Wednesday Digest 12-11-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
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THE FOUNDATION

“The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” –Patrick Henry

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Long-Term Vision

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) announced the Bipartisan Budget Act of 20131 Tuesday night, and, as expected, it’s a mixed bag. There are no tax increases and no extension of costly unemployment benefits but the compromise also busts the hard-won sequester caps from the 2011 Budget Control Act. Ryan argues, “In divided government, you don’t always get what you want. That said, we still can make progress toward our goals. I see this agreement as that kind of progress.”

Instead of discretionary spending topping out at $967 billion in 2014 (down from $986 billion in 2013), next year’s spending will increase to $1.012 trillion and then $1.014 trillion in 2015. The increase is split between defense and domestic programs, giving both parties something. To “pay” for $63 billion in new spending for the next two years, there will be, over 10 years, $85 billion in savings from new fees (such as for airport security) and minor reforms to entitlements and other government programs. The Big Three entitlements are the biggest drivers of the federal debt, and chipping away with small reforms is better than nothing.

As with any compromise, not everyone is happy. The Wall Street Journal reports2, “More than 20 conservative leaders signed a statement released Tuesday opposing any deal that raises spending levels or increases revenue. They included the leaders of the Family Research Council, the Tea Party Patriots, the tea party-aligned FreedomWorks and the American Conservative Union.” And as commentator George Will wryly observed, “saving” $23 billion over 10 years “is a rounding error on the [$17 trillion] debt. … It’s trivial.”

We share Heritage’s objections3, but allow us to offer a slightly different strategic perspective. First, this budget deal certainly doesn’t adequately address the core problem: The federal government spends far too much money. The sequester wasn’t ideal, but at least it reduced spending growth and it was already law; undoing it seems counterproductive. However, as Ryan notes, “This bill reduces the deficit by $23 billion, it does not raise taxes, and it cuts spending in a smarter way. I see this agreement as a step in the right direction.”

Ryan is looking beyond the next two years with an eye toward addressing long-term debt. Yes, conservatives want far more than he was able to accomplish this time, but to achieve that we have to win elections. And to do that, conservatives must not lose sight of the primary objective for 2014 and 2016, which is to ensure Democrats are saddled with the disaster of ObamaCare. Sometimes the cost of strategic objectives is high.

Don’t interpret our analysis as surrender, when in fact it reflects the best strategic option at our disposal now – other than taking up arms and marching on Washington, which we think might be the second best option!

ECONOMY, REGS & TAXES
Income Redistribution: Last GM Shares Sold

More than four years after U.S. taxpayers bailed out a flailing General Motors, the government sold its remaining shares in the company this week, leading Barack Obama to announce, “GM has now repaid every taxpayer dollar my administration committed to its rescue, plus billions invested by the previous administration.” There’s just one problem: it isn’t true. Shocking, we know.

When the Obama administration put taxpayers on the hook for $49.5 billion to prop up the auto giant, the government received in return a 60.8% stake, or 912 million shares, in GM. With the sale of the remaining shares, the government recovered $39 billion of the bailout. For those in the administration who can’t apply basic math, that’s a $10.5 billion difference – a far cry from Obama’s “every taxpayer dollar” repaid claim.

Naturally, the president omitted this small fact in his announcement6, instead touting his refusal to let GM fail and bragging that his administration “bet on what was true” and “that bet has paid off.” In no other arena – indeed, in no sane reasoning anywhere – would a 21%, $10.5 billion loss be called a payoff. Indeed, it certainly didn’t pay off for the American taxpayer. But then again, none of Obama’s policies have, so why would we expect this one to be any different?

NATIONAL SECURITY
Patriot Act Author Challenges NSA

In a March Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that the National Security Agency (NSA) does not – at least “not wittingly” – collect massive amounts of information on Americans. In May, of course, NSA contractor Edward Snowden stole and released a vast trove of information on NSA programs, revealing that the NSA does, in fact, collect records on virtually every phone call made in the U.S. among other sweeping electronic surveillance. That led Clapper to apologize for his “misleading” statement.

Patriot Act author Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) now wants Clapper fired and prosecuted for lying to Congress. He also wants NSA director Keith Alexander fired for overseeing the mass surveillance. Something tells us, however, that neither will happen.

Furthermore, Sensenbrenner introduced the USA FREEDOM Act7, which seeks “To rein in the dragnet collection of data by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies, increase transparency of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), provide businesses the ability to release information regarding FISA requests, and create an independent constitutional advocate to argue cases before the FISC.” The prospects of Sensenbrenner’s bill are unclear.

CULTURE, SCIENCE & FAITH
Air Force Removes Nativity

The Air Force Academy has been the focus of some recent attention with its removal of “So help me God”8 from its official listing of military oaths. This week it’s Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina that’s having its own run-in with religious liberty.

The ironically named Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) pressured officials at Shaw to remove a Nativity scene after allegedly receiving some small number of complaints from offended Airmen. Paul Loebe of the MRFF wrote, “It was very sectarian in nature and a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution as well as a blatant violation of Air Force Instruction 1-1, Section 2.11.” Nothing could be further from the truth, but that’s what these leftists specialize in – obfuscating truth and spreading lies.

By the way, the MRFF is run by Mikey Weinstein and is causing all the trouble over the oaths. Evidently, the military fears Weinstein, and he needs only make a phone call to have religious liberty suppressed. Besides, it is the Christmas, er, holiday, uh, winter solstice season in which certain displays of joy, um, intolerance are attacked and banned by the Left.

BRIEF OPINION
Editorial Exegesis

Pittsburg Tribune-Review: “Under ObamaCare, employers with at least 50 employees must offer qualifying health coverage to full-timers. By 2015, this provision is projected to add $2.24 per hour to the cost of providing single coverage to an employee, according to [The Heritage Foundation’s] James Sherk and Patrick D. Tyrrell. … Together with the aforementioned minimum-wage proposal, ‘employers that provide health insurance would have to pay at least $13.27 per hour for workers with the required single health coverage’ by 2016, Sherk and Terrell report. If employers opt instead to pay the penalty, the cost would be at least $12.71 per hour for each full-time employee. Businesses already operating within tight profit margins would be forced to cut jobs, roll back workers to part-time hours or both, thereby eliminating what typically are first-time employment opportunities. The minimum-wage proposal and what’s already contained in ObamaCare will do considerably more economic harm than any conceivable good.”