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« on: December 24, 2019, 01:57:37 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 12-23-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Dec. 23, 2019
https://patriotpost.us/digests/67566-mid-day-digest-2019-12-23
THE FOUNDATION
“There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.” —George Washington (1789)
https://patriotpost.us/fqd/67563-founders-quote-daily-2019-12-23
IN TODAY’S EDITION
Looking back over a decade should make us thankful.1
Evangelicals are still wrestling with how to view Trump.2
Daily Features: More Analysis3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Opinion in Brief6, Short Cuts7, Memes8, and Cartoons9.
FEATURED ANALYSIS
Ending the Decade in Great Shape10
The last decade has ended much better than it began and, well, it’s not because of the government. It’s despite the government and its massive growth.
Let’s start with some cold, hard numbers.
When this decade began in 2010, America had just marked the largest budget deficit — $1.4 trillion — in our nation’s history. That deficit included the gigantic growth of the federal government to include the bank bailout and the so-called American Recovery Act that featured “stimulus” spending aimed for shovel-ready jobs that weren’t so shovel ready.
The year 2010 began with unemployment at 9.8%, after a double-digit peak of 10% in October 2009. Wages were hitting a low of 1.6% annual median growth in January 2010 after falling from 3.6% median growth in January 2009. Only 153,484,000 Americans were in the shrinking labor force at the beginning of 2010 compared to the more than 164.4 million working as of November 2019.
The beginning of the decade marked a financial wall with improvements confined by the reliance of taxpayer-funded capital and spending rather than the private sector. The free market was constrained by the growth of the government, contrary to sound economic principles. As the late economist Milton Friedman once put it, “The deeper the recession, the stronger the recovery.” That was true until 2009, which began the worst recovery since the Great Depression.
Until the Obama administration’s government-funded “recovery,” the 11 preceding post-Depression recessions were followed by recoveries of all jobs lost in an average of 27 months. Barack Obama’s recovery took 76 months — over six years — with GDP growth of no more than 2% declared to be the “new normal.”
Private-sector growth cannot compete with the unfair advantages of government-run sectors of the economy, and markets respond unfavorably to government intervention. Look no further than March 2010, when about 20% of America’s economy became governed by regulations for a uniform product that drove out-of-pocket spending higher for customers. The grossly misnamed “Affordable” Care Act (ObamaCare) has forced more people onto health-insurance rolls, but it has not reduced the costs of healthcare services. In fact, contrary to its name, the law has actually increased the amount patients pay on their own while having insurance.
Big Government doesn’t fix problems that involve cost, access, quality, or value. Instead, economic forces respond very favorably to the removal of barriers in markets. The last three years offer the proof that reducing taxes and regulations works.
Manufacturing jobs are growing faster than at any time over the last 30 years. Four million jobs have been created since November 2016. Unemployment for blacks and Hispanics is at historic lows. Annual GDP growth topped 3% for the first time in a decade. Median household income is at a record high and wages are growing at a healthy clip, particularly for those at the bottom11.
The Donald Trump-led economy is humming along nicely.
But what about the rest of the world? Well, it’s improving, too.
As the Cato Institute’s Johan Norberg writes12, “The World Bank reports that the world-wide rate of extreme poverty fell more than half, from 18.2% to 8.6%, between 2008 and 2018. Last year the World Data Lab calculated that for the first time, more than half the world’s population can be considered ‘middle class.’”
Due to increased access to fresh water, vaccines, and sanitation, the incidence of malaria in Africa has declined by almost 60% and deaths due to HIV/AIDS have been more than halved. Death rates from air pollution declined worldwide by nearly 20% as improvements in infrastructure and societal habits translate into better health.
It’s interesting that as individuals experience better economic conditions, they enjoy greater personal wealth, mobility, and access to services and products that offer more energy efficiency and higher capacity. That, in turn, shows that economic growth can mean using less and being a more sustainable global community.
Our smart phones now serve as a camera, calendar, clock, map, radio, flashlight, and even our primary source of news via “screen time” and video content — all in the palm of our hands. Gone are the computers that require an entire room. Gone are the heavy TVs and massive stereo systems complete with wires and speakers. Gone are our oversized atlas maps and our notebook-sized day planners.
Yes, 2010-2019 has been and continues to be a time of great political strife. Yet the reality is that this “First World Problem” that occupies the preponderance of our time and energies is cast upon the canvass of an American Day of opportunity and growth that will continue to grow — as long as our government is restrained and people are permitted to live in Liberty.
2020 … here we come!
https://patriotpost.us/articles/67545-ending-the-decade-in-great-shape
Christianity Today Regurgitates Dem Talking Points13
It’s wrong for evangelical Christians to support President Donald Trump against the Democrats’ partisan impeachment charade. That’s the basic argument offered by Christianity Today editor-in-chief Mark Galli in an editorial14 published last Thursday. Galli asserts about impeachment, “The facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.” Evidently, Galli has elected not only to accept the Democrats’ partisan conjecture and unsubstantiated talking points as a substitute for actual evidence and facts, but to make matters worse he has used the CT platform to moralize the Democrats’ anti-Trump message.
While admitting to the blatant partisan and fundamentally unjust manner in which the House Democrats conducted their impeachment case against Trump, Galli dubiously claims that the only moral choice for Christians is to support Trump’s removal from office. “That [Trump] should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator and the Ten Commandments,” Galli writes.
So, uncritically accepting the Democrats’ many demonstrably false assertions against Trump (such as Adam Schiff’s made-up conversation of Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president) comports with the Ninth Commandment’s prohibition against bearing false witness against one’s neighbor?
Furthermore, the broad-brush insinuation that Christians who support Trump and reject the assertion that he deserves to be impeached and removed from office are doing so out of blind “partisan loyalties” ironically smacks of blind anti-Trump partisan animus.
The fundamental flaw in Galli’s thinking is conflating support for Trump’s presidency with justification for his entire “blackened moral record.” Galli asks, “Can [Christians] say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?” But is that actually what Christians have been saying?
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins gave a cogent response that says otherwise: “Putting aside Galli’s holier-than-thou patronization, the underdeveloped political theology advanced here represents a failure to look at Trump’s record and the growing contrast between the two parties on life, family, and religious liberty. Although Galli recognizes Trump’s accomplishments in these areas, Galli goes on to say these positives do not compensate for Trump’s failings in other areas. And while President Trump is certainly not perfect, it is totally unfair to imply that support for Trump jeopardizes Christian witness to Christ when many Christians support the president because of his commitment to policies that are grounded in a biblical worldview. Not only is it unfair, but it betrays the prudence and measured judgment that Christians ought to be bringing to a broken world, and a political system which is not perfect but requires us to apply our faith in the best way we can.” |
