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Politics
Note: Blog entries here represent the personal opinions of the authors, and are intended to touch on the relationship between specific policy issues and political reality, or otherwise represent informal discussions about current political news. Discussions on this page in no way represent positions of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), and are not attempts to aid any particular political candidate or political party, or to aid the passage of any particular piece of legislation before Congress.
When a child wastes his allowance on foolish things, wise and prudent parents will be reluctant to hand over more money if that child comes begging. And that’s just how taxpayers should feel about a new effort to bailout labor union pensions.
Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey has introduced the “Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act,” otherwise known as the “Buy Union Votes and Boost My 2012 Reelection Chances” bill. In essence, the bill would transfer billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities from mostly union-managed multi-employer pension plans to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which is backed by taxpayers.
But even as unions push for taxpayers to fill the gap in their underfunded and mismanaged pension plans, they drop millions of dollars in union dues on political causes.
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Republicans have kicked off their ObamaCare “repeal and replace” campaign, but there will likely be neither repeal nor replace unless Republicans control both Congress and the White House, and that’s 2012 at best — if then. However, by taking over only one house of Congress opponents can dramatically lower the unsustainable cost of ObamaCare by refusing to fund its worst elements. Here’s a few suggestions.
Reduce Medicaid eligibility. Historically, states have varied widely on Medicaid eligibility, with some setting the threshold significantly below the federal poverty level (FPL). ObamaCare sets a nationwide eligibility threshold at 133 percent, which increases the number of people in the government-run program by an additional estimated 15 million by 2019. Funding Medicaid eligibility only up to 100 percent of FPL would dramatically lower its cost. Read More...
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Lost in all the discussion about how irresponsible it was for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to express concerns and opinions about Arizona's recently passed immigration law without having read it is something that's even more astonishing (and arrogant) to me.
He also showed up at a Congressional hearing without adequately prepping for the hearing.
Holder had to know he'd be asked about the Arizona law, and especially about the fact that he hadn't yet read the law when he made his comments over the weekend. But, knowing this, he still hadn't bothered to read the law in preparation for Thursday's hearing?
This is just astonishing to me, insulting to Congress, and indicative, I think, of the arrogance of this administration. Read More...
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When an 18-year incumbent Senator is defeated in his party nominating process, apart from scandal, that's a shock to the system, and it's no wonder every pundit has an opinion on the matter.
Trouble is, they're almost all wrong.
Typical of the chatter is Juan Williams, who reacted:
"A guy like Bob Bennett, who is a right-wing conservative, is being driven out because he's not sufficiently conservative?"
Juan Williams misses the point, and in the process forgets that "conservative" means more than pro-life and pro-gun. Conservative also means, at least it used to mean, responsible in fiscal matters as well as in sexual and social matters. Limiting government spending, and especially limiting government's role in the economy. And, in the worst case scenario, if a gradual expansi Read More...
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On Fox News Sunday, anchor Chris Wallace asked Florida U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio, a Republican, if he still stood behind a statement he had made on the program a month earlier that he would support Social Security benefit cuts for people under the age of 55.
Rubio confirmed that he did, and went on to add that he believed all serious observers agreed that benefits would need to be cut.
We disagree, but more about that in a minute.
If we lived in a “post-partisan” political world, where ideas could be proposed and discussed in an intelligent manner, then we could have a rational discussion about benefits cuts.
But Washington’s political divisiveness has become a national embarrassment, with name calling, and scoldings and massive pieces of legislation being forced through without one single vote from the minority party.
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I predict that one of the most common phrases in the American vocabulary over the next few years will be, “I didn’t know the health care bill would do that.” And Democrats will be saying it most.
Even as the president traveled to Iowa City to let everyone know Armageddon hadn’t happened, several large companies declared they would start health-reform-related write downs--AT&T for $1 billion.
Here’s the back-story. In 2003, Congress passed the Medicare prescription drug benefit. There was a concern among legislators that including that benefit might encourage large employers that provided retiree coverage to phase it out.
Republicans, who controlled Congress, decided to provide those companies with a subsidy, spending about $665 per retiree to subsidize the employer’s plan, but saving $1,209 if the retiree had been dumped into Medicare. Read More...
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Members of Congress say they are concerned about the exploding budget deficit, though not so concerned, it seems, to stop all the spending that’s actually causing the deficit explosion—up to about 24.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
President Obama’s solution has been to appoint, by executive order—because the Senate wouldn’t pass it—a bipartisan group to explore what the government can do to reign in the spending.
It’s like an alcoholic convening a meeting of other heavy drinkers to discuss how the alcoholic can cut back on his drinking—and having the meeting at a bar at happy hour.
Of course, everyone knows the committee will recommend some minor spending cuts and some major tax increases. The tax increases would pass and the spending cuts would be postponed until later—because spendaholics don’t really want to cut spending, they just want to say that they do.
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| Senator Jim Bunning could probably use a hug. The retiring Kentucky Republican has been trying to get Congress to live up to its fiscal promises. And for that good deed he’s getting pummeled by Democrats, barraged by reporters and largely ignored by Republicans. This is not a good sign for all that promised future austerity by either party. Congress passed a new version of “pay as you go,” or “paygo,” legislation in February when it increased the government’s borrowing limit to $1.9 trillion. The goal of paygo is to force the government to find ways to offset any new spending. Democrats included the provision to help deflect criticism for their explosion in deficit spending. President Obama showered it with praise: "PAYGO would hold us to a simple but bedrock principle: Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere. Read More...
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What Will the President Say in His State of the Union? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says he has some explaining to do.
Washington is all atwitter over President Obama’s upcoming State of the Union address. And understandably so, because the president has some serious explaining to do, like:
- How he plans to get control of the $1.4 trillion federal deficit, more than three times the deficit Obama was so critical of under George Bush.
- And how he intends to pay for all the Democrats’ new federal spending. Yes, he could raise taxes, but he already has several new taxes in his health care bill.
- And maybe the president can explain why his much-boasted stimulus bill has had little impact on creating new jobs.
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 Fate of the Union |
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Something remarkable is going on in America.
I can’t quite explain it; I’m not sure anyone can. But we can use Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska to exemplify the change.
In order to “persuade”—some might say “payoff”—Nelson to vote for Senator Harry Reid’s health care reform bill, Reid agreed that the federal government would pay Nebraska’s portion of the increased Medicaid cost—forever.
Nelson can be forgiven for thinking his so-called “cornhusker kickback” would be hailed back home as a great achievement because, in the past, it would have been. Trying to maximize federal revenue is like a state hobby.
And Reid certainly thought Nebraska would approve. Why, he essentially called the other states a bunch of chumps for not getting their own kickback.
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Is It Time for Some Congressional New Year’s Resolutions? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says yes, before Congress bankrupts the country.
It’s time once again to encourage Congress to make some New Year’s resolutions.
First, with the national debt limit being pushed up to about $14 trillion and no end in sight, members of Congress must resolve to get federal spending under control.
The second resolution should be a commitment to more bipartisanship. This is the most partisan and polarized administration in recent history, barely able to get one or two Republicans to vote for a bill.
Third, Congress needs to be more transparent. Democrats are ramming through major legislation without letting Republicans or the public even see the bill, much less read it, until they’re ready to pass it.
Folks, this is no way to run a country. Read More...
Resolutions |
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There’s maybe 15 new taxes in Senator Harry Reid’s health care plan, including new taxes on:
- “Cadillac plans” (that is expensive, not necessarily rich-benefit plans);
- Medical devices and cosmetic surgery (oops, there went the Hollywood vote);
- Drug companies, health insurers and insurance executives;
- New limits on contributions to flexible spending accounts and increased penalties on non-qualified health savings account expenses;
- Individuals who don’t buy and employers who don’t provide health insurance;
- And, of course, high-income earners, and much more.
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The Obama Administration has earned kudos for their vision of using of technology to be a primary part of the solution to policy challenges from improved healthcare to efficient energy usage.
And while considering the application of existing technology to current problems is ahead of typical political thinking, it is still fairly two dimensional. The true promise of an information technology-based health system or of a smart grid for greener energy is the ongoing innovation, the promise of better and better solutions.
The administration and Capitol Hill need to broaden their thinking beyond particular solutions and begin considering ways to foster and empower a solution economy.
What makes up the solution economy?—a society that allows the freedom to innovate and experiment with ideas.
That requires an environment that encourages, or certainly allows, risk by providing reward. Read More...
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Late last week the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission shared his view that it was critical for the Federal Government to start regulating the Internet. Hey, we’ve got an idea: Before the Feds start regulating the Internet, why not start using it?
Why not, for instance, try to crack the problem of posting the text of major legislation on-line for 72 hours before debate, so that all Members of Congress and informed Americans can see for themselves what is being considered?
We’re pretty sure that when our country was founded over 200 years ago, our representatives had a copy of the bill in their hands before they had to vote on it. Yet today, in the era of the Internet, mobile broadband and thumb drives, we’re told that this is impossible, unnecessary, or undesirable.
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Did the Summer of 2009 Transform American Politics? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says real change may be coming—next year.
Most Americans pay little attention to politics or public policy; not so last summer.
The public turned out en masse to hear their congressmen talk about the state of the economy, ballooning federal spending and debt, and health care reform.
And they wanted to be heard.
You’d think politicians would welcome this new-found interest in public affairs. But some congressmen shunned the public, even called them names.
Democratic leaders have called these interested voters “un-American” and “evil mongers,” though many were independents, seniors or even Democrats. And President Obama’s Organizing for America called them “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists.”
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Town Halls |
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President George W. Bush had been in office a little more than a year when, on March 5, 2002, he decided to impose temporary tariffs on steel. It was clearly a calculated political move to try and curry favor with steel unions in the rustbelt swing states of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
As if backtracking on its strong commitment to free trade weren’t enough, the administration pushed economist and presidential advisor Larry Lindsey into writing an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending the tariffs.
Conservatives around the country groaned for their friend Lindsey and pitied the fact that he was compelled to defend what he knew was bad policy.
Now President Barack Obama has imposed a 35 percent tariff on Chinese-made tires, and some are lamenting this as a reversal of his stated support for free trade. Read More...
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From the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Privacy advocates who enjoy focusing on issues like browser cookies, behavioral advertising, database privacy and deep packet inspection can just throw in the towel if anything approaching HR 3200, the current draft of the health care bill in the House of Representatives, becomes law.
Because HR 3200 contains the most egregious violations of Americans’ privacy imaginable. Indeed, one way to characterize HR 3200 is as “The End of Privacy.”
The bill creates a “Health Choices Commissioner” (henceforth sarcastically referred to as the Health Choices Commissar), and, of course, the Commissar needs to be able to pry into your finances. HR 3200 gives the Commissar the right to look at your tax return, so as to quickly determine your eligibility for services and for federal health care benefits.
Yes, it’s right there, on pages 195-196 Read More...
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What’s the Best Way to Clean a House? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says by letting the sunshine in.
Great Britain is reeling since London’s Daily Telegraph started digging into members’ of Parliament reimbursed expenses. While most of them were legal, many were also outrageous.
- About $3,400 was spent to drain a castle moat.
- Members expensed horse manure, changing light bulbs, tennis court repairs and massage chairs.
- And, one member even expensed an $8 charitable donation.
The scandal has led to several resignations. And the Speaker of the House of Commons has been forced out—the first to do that in 300 years.
In a preemptive strike, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has ordered all House members’ expenses be posted online for public viewing. That’s a good start.
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Clean House |
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One could blog every day with instances like this, where Canadians with health emergencies end up having to come to the U.S. for treatment.
A critically ill Hamilton preemie turned away from McMaster Children's Hospital is all alone in a Buffalo intensive care unit because her parents don't have passports to get across the border.
Hamilton's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was full when Ava Isabella Stinson was born 14 weeks premature at St. Joseph's Hospital Thursday at 12:24 p.m.
A provincewide search for an open NICU bed came up empty, leaving no choice but to send the two-pound, four-ounce preemie to Buffalo that evening.
Her parents, Natalie Paquette and Richard Stinson, couldn't follow their baby because as of June 1, a passport is required to cross the border into the United States. Read More...
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Once again, the U.S. Congress is going to vote on a massive piece of legislation without even a couple of days to read and consider the details of the bill.
"The fastest speed-readers and the most intelligent minds can't make informed decisions with that much time. How can Congress?" Sunlight Foundation Engagement Director Jake Brewer said today in a statement. "The problem here is the bill wasn't developed in the open in a committee, so no one -- including those members of Congress not on the Energy Committee -- knows how this latest version was created."
The foundation points out that while the bill, formally called the American Clean Energy and Security Act, was 946 pages long last week, it has ballooned to 1,201 pages in recent days with little explanation for how or why. Read More...
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Nobel Prize Alert: Robert Reich has discovered a new economic law:
"Without the government as competition, the private sector has little incentive to improve."
This is truly breathtaking. As it turns out, it's not the private sector that drives innovation, growth and efficiency, it's the government.
In other words, we should credit the U.S. Postal Service for the innovation and efficiencies that have been gained by FedEx and UPS. They don't get the credit--they'd be big, fat, inefficient and wasteful were it not for the competition provided by the U.S. Postal Service.
Give me a break.
I'd like anyone, anywhere, to show me an example of where the government has competed along side of the private sector. Government doesn't compete with the private sector in any ind Read More...
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It's only the 18th impeachment in the history of the U.S., and a rare occasion when a Member of the House enters the Senate chamber. Read More...
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For days I've been hearing about how it's important for the U.S. to not take a hardline on the revolution going on in Iran--that, because of the U.S.'s historic and difficult relationship with Iran, that we should not become a foil (to use President Obama's words) for the dictatorship.
It sounds reasonable and prudent--but let's remember that's NOT what Reagan did. We had a historically difficult relationship with the Soviet Union also, in case we've already forgotten. But Reagan didn't kowtow to the Soviet establishment. He spoke directly to the people who sought freedom in Poland, in Berlin, and in Reykjavik, and didn't refrain from siding with the repressed people out of fear of alienating their totalitarian masters.
And history has already demonstrated the results of the Reagan strategy.
I'm just sayin'. Read More...
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I have spent a fascinating several days on Twitter, literally talking to Twitterers in Iran, and in some cases talking directly to young people who were in the protests. I watched as demonstrators warned each other "don't go to the hospitals--the basijis are taking names at the hospitals" and "helicopters are dropping acid on the demonstrators." Amazing.
I had a discussion with one in particular who was pushing back at Twitterers in the U.S. who were excited and supportive of the demonstrations. This particular person was convinced that America (American neocons, to be specific) wanted the regime to stay in place because "America needs an enemy."
But by the end of the weekend I started to feel sorry for Twitter, because now Twitter matters to governments, and that's bad. Read More...
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Does Congress Deserve a Bonus? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says not if the criterion is successfully managing an organization.
Remember how angry Congress and the country got when we learned that insurer AIG used $165 million of taxpayer money to pay bonuses?
The backlash was from a sense that the company had been horribly managed, and the rest of us would have to pay for it. Bad management doesn’t deserve a bonus.
Well, it seems that members of Congress have also handed out millions of dollars in bonuses—to their staffs. Up to $14,000 a person.
Now, many Hill staff are hard workers and may deserve a bonus.
But if bankrupting an organization and leaving taxpayers with billions of dollars in debt is the hallmark of poor management, that should be condemned, not rewarded, And that sounds almost like a perfect description of … Congress. Read More...
Bonus |
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Allow us to make some informed observations about the “Tea Party protests” that have apparently escaped the mainstream media and those currently in political power in our nation’s capital.
(“Informed because IPI Resident Fellow Dr. Merrill Matthews spoke at the Dallas Tea Party event, and IPI president Tom Giovanetti spoke at the Denton County event.)
The Obama administration has dismissed the tea parties with feigned confusion. “We don’t understand what all these people are worked up about? After all, we gave 95% of them a tax cut, didn’t we?”
But people aren’t that stupid, and the tea party protesters aren’t just worked up about taxes. Read More...
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Should Governors Refuse Part of the Stimulus Money? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says four governors are … and it’s costing them.
The governors of Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi claim that part of the money from the stimulus package will force them to spend more in unemployment benefits in the future—after the bailout money’s long gone.
So they’re taking a principled stand and turning down part of the funds.
Steve Moore of The Wall Street Journal reports that their refusal has Democrats hopping mad. The Democratic National Committee is running ads in South Carolina criticizing Governor Mark Sanford for not taking “free” money.
Of course, the money isn’t free. Our children and grandchildren will be handed the bill.
Read More...
Governors Bail Outs |
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Camille Paglia continues to delight with her intellectual honesty in her latest Salon column. Here is a particularly rewarding passage, though you should follow the link and read the whole thing.
Yes, something very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power. Read More...
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In a brand new op/ed in American Spectator, IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara writes:
"Suppose to vote in state and national elections you weren't allowed a secret ballot behind a curtain. Suppose to vote you had to go downtown and vote in the baseball stadium, where your choices would be flashed on the scoreboard, before a howling mob. Your boss, and your co-workers, and your neighbors would all know who you voted for.
That is how the unions and liberal Democrats want to change the law in regard to employees choosing whether they want a union.
For decades now, employees have been able to vote in secret ballot certification elections to determine whether they really wanted a union in their work place. In about half of these elections, for many years now, the workers have said no to the union... Read More...
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Just wondering if this is what Obama voters were voting for?
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So now the Democrat-controlled Congress is pumping money out of Washington in an effort to stem a catastrophe—and lots of bad press. And it turns out this Congress isn’t any better at it than the Republicans were.
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the city’s levees broke and disaster flooded in. President George W. Bush was initially slow to respond.
But once the public outcry rose to a crescendo, the government began churning out so much money so quickly that the normal processes for ensuring the money was spent properly were ignored.
That led to numerous negative news stories about exorbitant spending and shady operators reaping huge profits, making the Bush administration look not only uncaring, but incompetent.
Well, now money is beginning to pour out of Washington to rescue us from the economic downturn.
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In testimony March 8 before the United States Senate Banking Committee, New York Insurance commissioner Eric Dinallo said he isn’t opposed to federal regulation of insurance; its giving insurance companies the option to choose federal regulation over state regulation that he opposes:
I can have a serious conversation about a federal regulator. My view is it shouldn’t be an optional federal regulator…you shouldn't be able to choose the regulator. I'm not steadfastly against any federal involvement in insurance regulation. I feel very uncomfortable about optionality (sic).
A careful examination of Dinallo’s argument reveals that his opposition to allowing insurance companies the same option banks have to choose which level of government regulates them is really all about protecting states’ current regulatory monopoly over insurance regulation, not about achieving the optimal regulatory arrangement. Read More...
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In Sunday’s Washington Post, columnist Michael Shear cites IPI’s Peter Ferrara on President Obama’s buzz word, “responsibility.” Peter Ferrara, a columnist for the American Spectator and director of budget and entitlement policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation, said that Obama is "trying to distract us from his ideology. When he's going to do something ideological, he uses the word 'responsible' to make it look like it's not." It riles conservatives, Ferrara said, to hear Obama talk about "fiscal responsibility" even as he advocates massive spending that they see as anything but responsible. Ferrara summarizes Obama's message as "I'm not extreme, I'm responsible." After all, Ferrara asks, "What's more mainstream than being responsible?" Read More...
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Here’s the answer to the earmark controversy still raging in Washington, D. C.: good old-fashioned sunshine.
“Earmarks” are those pesky little tags on federal spending. Texas Rep. Ron Paul likes to say that earmarks aren’t new spending. He’s right. When Congress passes a budget, it often includes money for states.
The question is who decides how to divvy up the spoils: members of Congress or state-level elected officials and bureaucrats. Members of Congress say it’s better to let them make those decisions.
Dallas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson claims, “I’ve never asked for anything that didn’t benefit my district.” Well, ma’am, how do we know? Should we take such affirmations on faith? Don’t believe so: not with Congress and the White House playing around with trillions of our dollars.
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So Tuesday night I'm watching a bit of Kudlow, and Larry is talking with a screen full of people about some of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's recent moves and statements. (this is the video)
Kudlow says something like this to Don Luskin (who is a fellow supply-sider but with whom I've had a minor run-in in the past): "I don't understand how this guy [Geithner] thinks. He's a bright guy. He's not stupid, right?"
To which Don Luskin replies "I don't think we can rule out that he's [Geithner] stupid."
Funny line, but tragic if true.
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The election of Barack Obama has sometimes been characterized as a return of John F. Kennedy’s “Camelot.” Both Obama and JFK were young, attractive, articulate senators, with accomplished wives with young children.
Both Kennedy and Obama came to office amidst economic concerns. But when Kennedy became President, higher-income people paid significantly higher rates on their taxes than middle-income workers. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what President Obama wants.
But not President Kennedy. He thought tax rates on high-income earners were too high and stifled investment. And Kennedy’s push for lower tax rates resulted in a burst of economic growth and economic recovery.
Kennedy began a trend moving tax rates in the right direction—down. President Obama is taking tax rates the other direction.
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Nope, no such thing as a free lunch. No such thing as free federal money, either—as Texas and other states are learning.
Under the just-passed $787 billion stimulus law, Texas is due nearly $17 billion—$555 million of it for increased benefits to the unemployed. Hold on, though. It appears that to get the latter sum, the state has to change some eligibility requirements in current law, making benefits available to thousands of temporary and part-time workers. Permanently. Forever.
Of course, when the stimulus money runs out in about two years, the Legislature could, technically, say to these newly covered workers: That’s it; see you around.
We all have a big picture of that happening, don’t we?
No wonder Gov. Rick Perry and several other governors—from Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Idaho, South Carolina and Alaska—grumbled last week that they might steer clear of some of the stimulus money. Read More...
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In a brand new op/ed published in the Detroit News, Doug Bandow writes:
When God gets tossed around in politics, Americans usually think of conservative evangelicals pushing hot-button issues like restrictions on abortion. But a December interfaith gathering of Metro Detroiters made it clear that the Almighty gets carried across all ideological lines.
Former Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida gathered 11 congregations in Detroit -- Jewish and Muslim as well as Christian -- to promote passage of the then-pending auto industry bailout bill in Congress. Representing a parts supplier, James Settles asked congregants at a Detroit church "to continue your prayers, so we can see a miracle.”… Read More...
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The Heritage Foundation has thankfully explained why the idea Sen. Mitch McConnell has been floating to have the government offer fixed 4% mortgages is a bad idea.
refinancing mortgages at very low interest rates would be a costly initiative and a massive new government intervention in housing and finance markets that would yield few if any of the promised benefits. Read More...
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I received an email this morning from a gentleman in India who had read my op/ed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the other day.
My Indian correspondent said:
I live in India and have been following the sequence of bailouts in the U.S with bewilderment for various reasons:
1. U.S is supposed to be the capitalist mecca of the world ...
2. Economic policy was to reward risk ..
3. Taking care of companies was not Government's business ..
4. Those who make crass and stupid mistakes are punished ..
5. Regulators who slept at the wheel would be asked to take a walk ....
Does any of the above hold good today?
The only positive I can see is that we need not listen to lectures on capitalism from the U.S ANYMORE .... Those living in glass houses should not throw stones...
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara discusses terrorism and analyst Deepak Chopra in his latest op/ed featured on American Spectator entitled “Guru Malpractice.”
Ferrara writes: “Are we to believe that Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Pakistani murderers in Mumbai would not have been able to get any guns or weapons if Reagan had not armed the Afghan rebels in the 1980s? Is a single gun from that rebel resistance still even in use today? Certainly none of those weapons were in evidence on 9/11. Those attackers, indeed, were Saudis and Egyptians, without any relation to the Afghan rebels of the 1980s. Moreover, as the Chopras personally know so well, Pakistan was born in 1947 in response to furious longstanding violence between Islamic extremists and Hindu fundamentalists in India, 40 years before Reagan was arming the Afghan rebels. Read More...
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara compares today’s American media to the party-controlled press of the Soviet Union in a new op/ed featured today in American Spectator online.
Ferrara writes:
“In the old Soviet Union, everything was controlled by the Party, the Communist Party. Even military units each had their own party commissar, to ensure no activities took place that were not in the interest of the Party.
This, of course, was true of the media as well. The only media allowed in the old Soviet Union were institutions controlled by and devoted to the Party, and to the government run by the Party. The Soviet media would consequently slavishly repeat the government party line.
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For years the Institute for Policy Innovation has supported fundamental tax reform, such as the suggested “flat” income tax. There are, of course, other tax reform plans as well that accomplish the goals of a tax code that is low, flat, broad-based, simple, neutral, and rewards investment without trying to manipulate taxpayer behavior.
But we increasingly wonder whether it remains possible for the country to move to such a system, even with favorable political winds. The issue is the growing progressivity of our current income tax system, and the trend toward using the tax code for redistribution.
Notwithstanding all the liberals’ and Barack Obama’s claims to the contrary—that only the rich get the tax breaks—the bottom 40 percent of workers pay no—zero, nada, zilch—income tax. And that 40 percent is trending higher.
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Barack Obama wants to raise taxes on higher-income workers because he thinks they’re getting off too easy.
But according to the Tax Policy Center, in 2008:
- The bottom 40 percent of workers—that’s four out of every 10 workers—will pay only 3 percent of all federal taxes.
- The next 40 percent—that’s the middle class—will pay a little more than 25 percent.
- And those in the top 20 percent of earners will pay nearly 70 percent of all federal taxes.
Thus the top 20 percent of income earners will pay about 22 times in federal taxes what the bottom 40 percent pays.
Folks, the only ones getting off easy here are the politicians making these silly claims. Read More...
Tax Brackets |
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In football, “the two minute drill” is a series of plays a team has in its playbook for situations where it is behind in the game and there are two minutes remaining. They’re designed to help the team turn a close loss into a close win in the closing seconds.
I'm one of those delusional people who think John McCain can still win the election. McCain's remaining opportunity has almost nothing to do with McCain the man or the McCain campaign, but rather with the fact that there are sufficient voters for whom Obama still hasn't "sealed the deal."
McCain missed his previous chance for a game-changer by failing to vigorously oppose the ill-considered, unpopular and too expensive federal bail-out of a handful of major investment banks and insurance companies. In the remaining days of the campaign, it’s unlikely that another passive opportunity to change the game is going to come McCain's way.
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So what do you do if you’re Barack Obama and you’ve just been elected president of the United States and you’ve promised to spend a gazillion dollars to improve education and health care and the infrastructure and to hand out “tax cuts” (many of which will actually be income transfers) to 95 percent of the public?
And you’re fiscally constrained because the government is bailing out or buying out banks left and right?
What you need is some serious new inflows of cash, you need it fast, and, contrary to everything you’ve claimed on the campaign trail, you know you can’t get it all by dinging the people making over $250k.
Fortunately—for a President Obama, that is—Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) is pushing legislation that would create that government income stream. And a really BIG stream at that.
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Before the financial mess, Congress was debating a bill that would establish new rules for an incredibly promising field of medical technology. The Pathway for Biosimilars Act includes new rules for intellectual property protection for "biologics," or pharmaceuticals derived from living organisms.
Most of what you know about traditional prescription drugs doesn't apply to biologics. They usually come in a vial, not a pill. They are as effective as they are complex; indeed they are effective because they are complex. Biologic drugs have proven effective against diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.
The Act is a step in the right direction. A robust legal framework for the industry will keep investment dollars flowing and preserve incentives for firms to develop treatments.
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We avoid overt electoral politics at IPI as best we can, so there's not been much on this blog about the personalities involved in the Presidential election.
And we make it clear that political opinions expressed are the opinions of the writers, and not that of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI).
That being said, the most fascinating thing about the election to me has been the reaction to Sarah Palin.
I can tell you that, at IPI's offices when we watched her first public speech after being chosen by John McCain, there were literally tears in some eyes around the conference room table. It was astonishing to see such an impressive woman come almost out-of-nowhere onto the national scene and breathe such life and excitement into the campaign.
But others reacted just as viscerally in a negative way. Read More...
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Peter Ferrara will appear this evening on 'The Michael Reagan Show' to discuss his latest report in American Spectator on the threat of voter fraud.
Catch Peter live on the show at 6:20 pm ET. Click here to listen online. Read More...
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara discusses voter fraud in a special report today in American Spectator.
Ferrara writes:
Today, these same vote fraud schemes are being conducted nationwide under the auspices of the far left extremist group ACORN, the Left's equivalent of the John Birch Society. ACORN is a rogue organization growing out of the 1960s that openly flouts the law as a matter of strategic policy, engaging in physical intimidation, trespass, threatening behavior, even outright violence. It has taken over meetings, throwing out speakers, invaded and occupied businesses, demanding payoffs, and seized unoccupied homes and apartments, forcibly claiming the right to stay.
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Are You Better Off? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says everyone should be asking that question....
Republicans controlled Congress and the presidency from 2001 to 2007. So they should get the credit—or the blame—for whatever happened in those years.
But in January 2007, the Democrats took control of Congress. In those last two years:
- The Dow has fallen more than 2,000 points.
- Wall Street has collapsed and banks are closing.
- Consumer confidence surveys have been cut in half.
- Gasoline prices have risen from about $2.20 a gallon to over $4.00.
- And the economy has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs.
As political commentator Rich Galen points out, the question every American should be asking is: Are you better off than you were TWO years ago? Read More...
Better Off |
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As best we can tell, the free market had little or nothing to do with the banking crisis that has caused panic throughout the world.
That blame can, to varying degrees, be handed to: the Community Reinvestment Act; the efforts of Congress and several administrations to expand low-income families’ access to home loans; a prolonged period of low interest rates; political protection from several members of Congress who were feeding at the trough of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the mark-to-market accounting requirement; some innovative new credit vehicles; and possibly some corruption among private and perhaps public figures.
How any of that is the fault of the free market is a mystery, especially given the already high levels of regulatory control. As The Economist recently pointed out, “After all, the American mortgage market is one of the most regulated parts of finance anywhere.…”
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Because so many members of Congress have drunk deeply from the big-spending troughs of Washington—especially after many of them campaigned as fiscal hawks—we think it’s time for them to step forward, confess their failures and get right with the U.S. Constitution. In an effort to help them mend their big-spending ways, we offer this “12-Step Plan for Congressional Spendaholics.”
- I admit that I have become powerless over spending taxpayers’ money—and so my political promises have become meaningless.
- I have come to believe that only a power greater than myself—the U.S. Constitution, and maybe voter rebellion—can restore me to sanity.
- I have made a decision to turn my life over to the guidance of sound economic and fiscal principles. Read More...
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In a brand new op/ed published today by the DC Examiner, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson write:
“When Congress and Hank Paulson agreed government should relieve financial firms of bad assets, the world of global finance breathed a sigh of relief. Socializing the cost of liquidating ‘toxic assets’, mostly bad-mortgage paper, is supposed to get credit flowing again and prevent things from getting worse. Will it? When the House voted ‘no’ on this exceptional experiment in bipartisanship, the market went way down. When the Senate voted ‘yes’ on its heavily sweetened version of the same thing, the market went way down. When the House finally approved the behemoth… the market went down. Since then the Dow Jones has dropped over 1,000 points. Read More...
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Who’s the Big Spender: Obama or McCain? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says just look at their Senate records...
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation recently looked at the spending records of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.
During the first session of the 110th Congress:
• John McCain sponsored or cosponsored 22 bills, which would have increased federal spending by $8 billion annually.
• Barack Obama, by contrast, sponsored or cosponsored 114 bills, increasing federal spending $75 billion annually. And vice presidential candidate Joe Biden wasn’t far behind.
That’s a little more than $9 of government spending for Obama for every $1 for McCain.
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Big Spenders |
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The U.S. Treasury's bailout of the banking industry has dominated the news for the past month, and will probably be the dominant factor in public policy decisions for at least the next four-year presidential term.
The bailout will affect regulatory policy, tax policy and the funds available for any number of other programs, to say nothing of affecting our ability to deal with any future crisis that might arise.
Americans are rightly concerned not only about the cost of the bailout, but of the precedent of letting actors in the market make enormous profits while having the risk backstopped by taxpayers. And taxpayers are disturbed by the fact that elected officials were repeatedly warned about these risks and problems, but did nothing.
But if you think this one is bad, we've got news for you—this mortgage bailout is only the first, and the smallest, of a series of bailouts that are going to be necessary in the future. Read More...
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Catch Peter Ferrara on talk radio today discussing Obama’s tax hike proposals.
In a brand new op/ed published in Human Events, IPI’s Peter says: “With the credit crisis threatening our economy, there couldn’t be a worse time for these comprehensive marginal tax rate increases," and explains just what the fallout would be for the average family.
(All times eastern)
At 11:35 am: Peter live on the ‘G. Gordon Liddy Show’
At 5:15 pm: Peter will be interviewed by Don Kroah of Washington DC’s WAVA FM and take listener call-in questions.
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In a brand new op/ed featured today in The Wall Street Journal, IPI resident scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews discusses the health insurance proposal from presidential candidate Sen. John McCain which would offer more options to the 45 million uninsured Americans by allowing health insurance policies to be purchased across state lines.
Matthews writes:
"Let's hope Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama understands more about financial markets than he does about health-insurance markets. But the initial evidence isn't promising. A recent kerfuffle between Mr. Obama and Republican presidential candidate John McCain concerned the interstate purchase of health insurance. Mr. McCain wants to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines. Read More...
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When it comes to insurance premiums, Texas has a system of price controls lite. In theory, if insurance companies find it necessary to raise premiums under the Texas “file-and-use system,” the company may raise rates immediately once they have notified the state. While the state regulator may disapprove the rate increase and force the company to roll it back, the burden is upon the insurance department to justify its price fixing. In fact, the situation is much worse than it appears on paper. Although Texas is a “file-and-use” state, it actually operates more like a de facto prior-approval system much of the time.
Even on paper, this system is far from ideal. Read More...
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"If you came here because you believe in limited government and the freedom of the American marketplace, vote in accordance with those convictions. Duty is ours, outcomes belong to God," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) as he implored his fellow members of Congress to place a priority on solving a problem rather than just passing legislation.
Vote in accordance with convictions they did, demonstrating true leadership, and perhaps saved the country from a terrible deal.
Political opportunism led Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to bash not only Mr. Pence and others like him for opposing the bail out plan, but also the last decade of pro-growth policies.
But the real reason for the "no" votes is that many recognized a bad deal for the American taxpayer—confirmed by the flood of calls from their constituents who don’t like the deal.
Call it representative democracy.
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Can Increased Prevention Save Health Care Money? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says it will more likely cost money—and freedom...
Both Barack Obama and John McCain say they will reduce health care costs by focusing on prevention.
That means encouraging vaccinations, mammograms, prostate screening and other tests. And that’s good.
But while catching and treating diseases early is cheaper than waiting until they become a medical crisis, many actuaries say we can spend a lot more testing people than we’ll ever save catching diseases early.
Prevention also means helping people exercise, lose weight and stop smoking.
Of course, getting people to live healthier lifestyles would save money, but do you really want the government scrutinizing and even dictating your eating, drinking and exercising habits?
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Prevention |
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In a prior TaxByte, we saw that Obama’s tax plan would increase marginal tax rates for just about every major federal tax. So how is it he claims to be a tax-cutter?
Obama combines these comprehensive tax increases with a slew of refundable tax credits primarily for low- and moderate-income workers, which he calls middle-class tax cuts.
“Refundable” means that if the worker doesn’t have enough tax liability to take advantage of the credit, the government sends the worker a check to cover the full amount of the credit. So if the tax credit is $1,000, but the taxpayer would otherwise only pay $200 in income taxes, the credit covers the $200 tax bill and the government sends the taxpayer a check for the remaining $800.
If the taxpayer pays nothing in federal income taxes, the government would send him a check for the whole $1,000.
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On Friday, July 11, 2008, the White House released a Policy Memorandum objecting to a proposed new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that outlines how different provisions of the Clean Air Act should be applied to address greenhouse gas emissions. The memo takes notice of President Bush’s objection to taking “laws written more than 30 years ago to primarily address local and regional environmental effects and applying them to global climate change.”
The memo goes on:
“The Clean Air Act is one of these laws. If stretched beyond its original intent, it would override legislation just enacted by Congress, requiring the government to regulate far more than merely power plant emissions or cars. Read More...
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When things go wrong, politicians revert to form, not reform. Incumbents claim things are not nearly as bad as they feel and blame people for whining. Challengers claim things are a whole lot worse than they appear and blame incumbents for not doing enough to fix them. Both incumbents and challengers offer up new interventions, redistribution schemes, more government spending, taxing and regulating to make everything better.
Government intervention creates problems worse than those it seeks to correct, and it stimulates heightened political demands, which call forth more government intervention to “fix” the problems and satisfy the political demands the interventions create. The more government fails, the bigger it grows; the bigger it grows, the more it fails. Read More...
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Will Barack Obama Cut Most Americans’ Taxes? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says he’s really just expanding welfare...
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says that under his tax plan, 95 percent of Americans will get a tax cut.
But is it really a tax cut?
Currently, workers in the bottom 40 percent of income pay little or no income taxes. So how does a worker pay less tax than zero? Obama’s answer is a “refundable” tax credit.
For example, if the government gives workers, say, a $1,000 refundable tax credit, those who owe no income taxes will actually get a check for $1,000. Those who owe, say, $600 in taxes won’t pay any tax and will get a check for the $400 difference.
In other words, Obama would take money from some taxpayers and hand it out to others. Folks, that’s not a tax cut; that’s welfare. Read More...
Tax Cuts |
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Read IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara’s brand new op/ed featured today in American Spectator online, “Obama Can’t Be Trusted on National Defense.”
An excerpt:
Just two days ago, on September 15, the New York Post published an explosive article by Amir Taheri, an Iranian born journalist who has long covered the Middle East for a wide range of publications. He was editor in chief of Iran's largest daily newspaper from 1972 to 1979 and has in the past been a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Newsday. He has also long been widely published throughout Europe and the Middle East. He is currently a regular contributor to CNN, National Review, and the New York Post. Read More...
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Is This a Do-Nothing Congress? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says yes, and that may be the good news....
The Wall Street Journal says this Democratic-led Congress has passed 294 bills, fewer than any Congress in the last 20 years.
But it’s also passed the largest number of resolutions—1,932.
Resolutions are usually expressions of support for something and don’t do much harm—or good. Taxpayers for Common Sense has identified its top 10 list. They include:
- Designating July as National Watermelon Month;
- Recognizing the 70th anniversary of the Idaho Potato Commission;
- And naming June 30 National Corvette Day.
Democrats want to postpone passing real laws because they think a new President Obama will sign whatever they pass.
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In a brand new op/ed published today in the Washington Times, Jack Kemp and IPI director of entitlement Peter Ferrara spell out the economic implications of the starkly contrasted Barack Obama and John McCain tax policies.
An excerpt:
"Barack Obama says he supports a tax cut for 95 percent of all Americans. He refers here to his proposal for a $500 refundable income tax credit for all workers, except those in the top 5 percent of income earners. These folks, for some reason, are to be singled out for "special treatment" - i.e., tax increases - unless, as he told ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos last week, "the economy remains weak." So apparently even Mr. Obama recognizes his tax increases would be economically harmful.
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Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson finally got one right.
According to news accounts, the secretary had a looooong weekend.
It started Friday when he and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke apparently called in the “sages” of Wall Street to inform them that there would be no more bailout money.
They were told, “There is no political will for a federal bailout,” according to The Wall Street Journal, and that they would need to come back Saturday morning and figure out what they were going to do—with the administration’s assistance, but without the taxpayers’ money.
For our part, we wish Paulson had taken this stand last March with Bear Stearns, or even last month with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But better late than never. Read More...
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Dr. Merrill Matthews will appear live in-studio today from 2 to 3 pm ET on the USA Radio Network's "Point of View" with Kerby Anderson. Dr. Matthews will be discussing the grim reality of government funded health care system, as well as the differences between presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama's health care policies.
Listen live online from 2 pm to 3 pm ET here. Read More...
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Listen live online to 'The Scott Hennen Show' this morning at 10:30 am ET as Peter Ferrara discusses his latest op/ed, "Tax Cuts: Real and Imaginary" recently featured in The Weekly Standard and co-authored with Newt Gingrich.
Click here to listen live online.
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Check out Peter Ferrara’s regular column in American Spectator online. Peter’s latest op/ed discusses the high stakes this presidential election holds for the justices on the Supreme Court.
Excerpt:
“The key to understanding the Presidential election this year is that the two candidates are diametrically opposed on almost every major issue. In probably no other election since the Civil War have the differences between the two candidates been so stark.
Barack Obama has proposed a record increase in government spending, running into trillions. John McCain has proposed the strictest spending reductions since Reagan. Obama has proposed to increase the marginal tax rates for almost every federal tax. McCain proposes marginal tax rate cuts. Obama proposes to increase taxes on savings and investment. McCain proposes to reduce them.
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I know there's a disagreement among limited government folks about whether or not government should be funding "big science," but I've always been a proponent of government spending money on science research, especially the kind of science research that just can't be done any other way.
Like particle accelerators.
As all the news has been coming out lately about CERN's new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, it's made me a little sad. You see, it could have been even better, and it could have been here.
And by here, I mean not only the United States, but literally HERE, in Texas, just a few miles from IPI's offices.
Remember the Superconducting Supercollider? It would have been three times as powerful as the LHC.
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Are You Pumped Up? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says more drilling means lower taxes.....
The country’s facing a whopping $400 billion budget deficit next year.
That’s prompting Democrats to say we need to raise taxes.
But there’s a better way: in the words of Newt Gingrich, “Drill here, drill now.”
The country makes money from oil production. The Wall Street Journal estimates that drilling for oil offshore and in Alaska could yield about $2 trillion for the government over 30 years.
And U.S. oil companies pay taxes on the money they make. Exxon paid $65 billion in taxes over the past five years—more than it made in profits.
Drilling here reduces the money we give to other oil-producing countries and keeps those royalties, taxes and jobs in the U.S.
In short, we don’t need to pump more taxes, just more oil. Read More...
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara is featured with Newt Gingrich in the Weekly Standard authoring a new op/ed entitled, “Tax Cuts, Real and Imaginary.”
An excerpt:
“Thirty years of Republican tax policy have now completely eliminated federal income taxes on the poor and lower middle-income Americans, and almost eliminated them on middle America. The latest data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Internal Revenue Service show that the lowest 40 percent of income earners as a group actually receive net payments from the federal income tax system. (They get 3.8 percent of total federal income tax revenues instead of paying any income taxes.) The middle 20 percent of income earners pay 4.4 percent of federal income taxes. Read More...
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Once again this year, a continuous late-summer news barrage about the devastation wreaked by hurricanes and tropical storms reminds us how vulnerable people living in coastal areas are to Mother Nature’s vagaries. The only thing that stands between people living there and the risk of financial ruin is their homeowners insurance, and that protection is threatened by the vagaries of bureaucracies state government have created to fix prices and regulate the insurance industry in America today.
Because state insurance regulators in coastal states like Florida insist on fixing insurance premiums below actuarially sound levels, insurance companies are having to cancel old policies and must refuse to write new policies in particularly vulnerable areas. This perfectly rational economic response to irrational government policies creates thousands of homeowners-insurance refugees.
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara has a brand new op/ed featured today in the American Spectator online. In the piece, "Morning in America," Ferrara discusses the tax and fiscal policies of the McCain-Palin ticket.
An excerpt:
"With one bold masterstroke, everything that was so wrong with American politics has been made right. It is as if Frodo just dropped the Ring of Power in the lake of fire at Mount Doom, and, as the third book of The Lord of the Rings reports, "There was a roar and a great confusion of noise...Towers fell and mountains slid, walls crumbled and melted, crashing down....Then all the Captains of the West cried aloud, for their hearts were filled with a new hope in the midst of the darkness."
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Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama doesn’t just pledge to raise taxes; he proposes to raise the most economically damaging marginal tax rates of every major federal tax:
Obamanomics would: - Raise individual income taxes, increasing the top two income tax rates, with the top rate climbing by 13 percent, to almost 40 percent. This tax increase particularly hits small business—which creates the most new jobs in America—as small businesses often pay taxes under the individual rather than corporate income tax.
- Raise the top capital gains tax rate by 33 percent, to 20 percent.
- Raise the top dividends tax rate by 33 percent, to 20 percent.
- Increase Social Security payroll taxes by 16 percent, to 32 percent, for families earning over $250,000 a year. Read More...
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Dr. Merrill Matthews is featured today with a brand new op/ed discussing the differences in health care policy between Barack Obama and John McCain, entitled 'Competing Visions on Health Care.'
An excerpt: "Despite his image as a politician who transcends party boundaries, Barack Obama's health care platform is mostly composed of proposals long propounded by the Democratic mainstream. And it just won't work. Take his plan to expand Medicaid, primarily by adjusting the eligibility criteria to include families earning up to $84,800 a year. Many patients already enrolled in Medicaid can't get medical care. Administrators have made major cuts to reimbursement rates, to the point that many physicians lose money on Medicaid patients. In New York, for example, physicians earn just $20 for 60-minute consultations with Medicaid patients. Read More...
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In a new op/ed by IPI's Peter Ferrara featured today in American Spectator entitled "Obama's New Tax Welfare," Ferrara says:
In 1984, Walter Mondale ran for President promising to raise taxes if elected. He consequently made it to the dustbin of history even before the Soviets, averting a 50 state shutout by just 1,200 votes in his home state of Minnesota.
The recently released details of Barack Obama's tax plan, published on his campaign website, along with an article by his top economic advisers in the Wall Street Journal, confirm that Obama makes Mondale look like a moderate. For Obama pledges not just to raise taxes. He proposes to raise every major federal tax. The recently released details confirm that:
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara will appear live today at 4:10 pm CT on the Dave Elswick Show to discuss Barack Obama’s “tax welfare” program.
To catch the discussion, tune in to Little Rock talker KARN on 102.9 FM or 920 AM.
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Why do some companies move offshore?
The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says Congress should learn a lesson from them.
Senator Hillary Clinton is mad—that is, angry.
She claims a growing number of companies are flocking to places like the Caymen Islands to avoid paying U.S. taxes. And she wants to punish them by denying them any government contracts.
But she never addresses why some companies move offshore. The U.S. has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. And some Democrats want to raise them even higher.
Clinton says she wants to reward “responsible companies” that stay inland.
Of course, Exxon does just that, yet many Democrats want to punish it and other oil companies with a huge “windfall profits tax.”
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IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson are featured today on Forbes.com with a new piece discussing the powerful, artistic propaganda used to paint the Russians as liberators for the ‘oppressed’ South Ossetians in Georgia.
An excerpt: Apart from the regular bullets and tanks, the South Ossetian war between Georgia and Russia has brought forth some alternative methods of warfare. There was an alleged cyber-attack on Georgian Web sites that served as a premonition to the military action. More significant, though, were the harshly harmonious sounds of Dmitri Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, performed in South Ossetia's capital last Thursday. Called "Leningrad," the symphony came to symbolize the Nazi resistance movement during Word War II. Read More...
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| Catch Peter Ferrara, IPI director of entitlement and budget policy, live today discussing more economic policy differences between presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain. Tune in to Seattle-Tacoma’s “The David Boze Show” on 770 AM KTTH at 7:30 pm Eastern/4:30 pm Pacific. To read Peter’s new op/ed co-authored by Jack Kemp on National Review Online, “Which Way To Prosperity?” click here. Read More...
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| Peter Ferrara’s provocative new op/ed featured today in the American Spectator online discusses “Poverty and Welfare in America.” An excerpt: “…BUT I WANT TO FOCUS here on Obama's answer to the question about why he wants to be President and what motivated him to go into politics. He referenced the biblical injunction from Jesus Christ in the Book of Matthew, saying, "Whatever you do to the least of these you do unto me." Obama expressed his concern that America is not doing enough for the least among us, the poor, the sick, the old. He wants to be President most of all to lead the government to do more for these most vulnerable and weakest of citizens, and ensure that they are cared for adequately. This sentiment is what motivates most grassroots Democrats, who hold the vague and uninformed notion that America is not doing nearly enough to combat widespread poverty. Read More...
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Jack Kemp and IPI’s Peter Ferrara co-author a new op/ed featured today in National Review Online building on their discussion regarding the differences between McCain’s and Obama’s economic policies.
”The central question in this election is, Which candidate can most improve our wobbly economy? Here, the McCain-Obama contrast could not be sharper. Obama has proposed increases in every major federal tax. He has proposed to increase individual income taxes, with the top rate to rise to almost 40 percent. He has proposed to increase the top capital-gains tax rate by 33 percent. He has proposed the same for the top tax rate on dividends. He has proposed to increase payroll taxes, with a rate increase of 16 percent to 32 percent for workers earning over $250,000 a year. Read More...
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Listen live online Thursday morning at 8:33 am CT/9:33 am ET as IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara discusses Obama’s tax policy with radio host Lynn Woolley.
In a new op/ed featured this week in the Wall Street Journal, Ferrara explains how Barack Obama’s tax-cut policies are just a new form of welfare.
To listen live online at 9:33 am ET, click here. Read More...
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Catch IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara live this morning with Greg Allen on “The Right Balance.”
Peter will be discussing presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s tax policy, what Ferrara calls not a tax-cut plan at all, but rather a welfare plan.
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| IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara will be a guest on the Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” today at 4:20 pm ET to discuss presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s tax plan. In a brand new op/ed published today in the Wall Street Journal, Ferrara discusses how “Obama’s Tax Plan is Really a Welfare Plan.” "Barack Obama's tax plan is the opposite of supply-side economics. He proposes to raise marginal rates for just about every federal tax. He also proposes a raft of tax credits that taxpayers can receive if they engage in various government-specified activities. Moreover, the tax credits would mostly go to those who pay little or nothing in federal income taxes. His trick is to make the tax credits "refundable." Read More...
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IPI's Peter Ferrara has a compelling op/ed in the Wall Street Journal today which explodes the fact that Obama's tax policy outline is misleading, and is focused on promoting welfare, not economic growth.
We'll have much more to say about Peter's op/ed and subsequent media appearances shortly.
Reinforcing Peter's point is another piece in the WSJ today by William McGurn, which points out that Obama is fully aware that raising the capital gains tax rate will lower the amount of money that comes into the federal government--that raising the tax RATE results in reducing the tax REVENUE. In other words, a tax rate hike on taxpayers is actually a tax revenue cut to the federal government.
But that doesn't trouble Obama, because for Obama, taxes aren't about revenue--they are purely social policy. Read More...
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IPI’s Peter Ferrara will be a guest on the nationally syndicated “The Lars Larson Show” today at 6:20 pm ET/5:20 pm CT to discuss his recent op/ed on the ‘flower power’ energy policies of Barack Obama.
To find a station near you, click here.
To read Peter’s op/ed in the American Spectator, click here. Read More...
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In a new op/ed featured online in The American Spectator, IPI’s Peter Ferrara discusses Barack Obama’s proposed centralized government energy policies that Ferrara calls “flower power.”
An excerpt: "Barack Obama proposes that we seize the profits of the oil companies and use them for $1,000 "energy rebate" checks to every working family in America. That is what he said in his speech in Lansing, Michigan on August 4, 2008, entitled "New Energy for America." Economist Donald Boudreaux pointed out that seizing all oil profits would still not be enough to fund these $1,000 giveaway checks.
If the government is going to target an industry it has vilified in the public mind, loot all its profits, and then use the money for giveaway checks to buy votes, then what has our nation become?
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IPI’s Peter Ferrara will be interviewed by Greg Allen, host of “The Right Balance” this Wednesday, August 13.
Peter will be clearly illuminating the vast economic policy differences between presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama, recently featured in an op/ed co-authored with Jack Kemp in this weekend’s Washington Times.
To listen live from 10:33 – 10:50 am ET, please visit “The Right Balance” online.
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In a new op/ed featured today in the Washington Times, IPI director of budget and entitlement policy Peter Ferrara and Jack Kemp discuss the economic positions of John McCain and Barack Obama.
An excerpt: "It's a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now." Those are the words of President John F. Kennedy in 1962. He went on to say, "The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus."
What's more, in Kennedy's annual message to Congress, circa 1963, he said: "In today's economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax reduction, even if it temporarily enlarges the federal deficit. Read More...
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In a new op/ed featured in the Mobile Press-Register, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens Laurson discuss the recent Boeing-Airbus contract dispute in Congress, and how it evolved into a global fight.
An excerpt: Might the never-ending story of the Air Force's competition for new refueling tankers actually end this December? Or will it lead to a new international trade dispute? In this competition's first round, Boeing officials were caught bribing Air Force officials, bringing prison time for both. In the inevitable re-competition, and after painstaking analysis, the Air Force awarded the contract to a Northrop Grumman/EADS partnership, which based its proposal on the Airbus 330.
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How does that old saying go? Those who refuse to learn from history are bound to . . . um, run for Congress?
Democrats have decided that since the first economic stimulus provided virtually no economic stimulus, it’s time to double down and do it again!
Having touched the hot stove and gotten burned, they’ve decided the lesson is to hold their hand on the stove even longer.
The New York Times says that many economists agree with the Democrats’ assessment. The story quotes former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who attended a meeting of Democratic congressional leaders to devise a plan. Summers is quoted as saying, “This is a serious situation. We are in much more danger of responding inefficiently than in responding excessively.”
There goes any respect we might have had for Larry Summers.
The story says that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other Dems wa Read More...
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In a new op/ed featured today on American Spectator online, IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara highlights an integral member of today’s American conservative movement, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.
In the piece, entitled “Understanding American Politics,” Ferrara discusses Norquist’s new book, Leave Us Alone, and the two coalitions Norquist forecasts will define the course of American politics for the next 50 years.
An excerpt:
If you want to understand American politics, then you will read the new book by Grover Norquist, Leave Us Alone (reviewed by W. James Antle III in last April's American Spectator).
Norquist has a unique real world perspective on politics in America. Read More...
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara discusses “What Kansas Knows” this week in a new op/ed featured in the American Spectator online.
An excerpt:
Few outside the Democrat party understand what has just happened in the historic primary season that recently ended. But in those primaries, the party made a fundamental decision that marks a dramatic turning point in American politics.
Bill Clinton swept up the Democrats in 1992 based on the new politics of the Democrat Leadership Council (DLC), which he headed. The DLC sought to remake the Democrats based on recognition of what had then just happened in the real world of American politics. Reagan's Republicans had won three straight national elections, thrashing unreconstructed liberals like Mondale and Dukakis in landslides.
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Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is apparently making Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) life miserable.
That’s the good news.
The better news is that, apart from a few of his like-minded cohorts like Sen. Jim deMint (R-SC), he’s making a number of Republicans’ lives miserable also.
Reid is putting together a package of nearly 40 bills in order to avoid Coburn’s relentless efforts to stop—or at least reduce—pork-barrel spending. Such bills are usually referred to as an “omnibus,” but the Associated Press says this one is being unofficially called the “Coburn omnibus.”
Note: Wouldn’t it be nice if it were being called the “Republican omnibus” because so many Republicans were opposing those nearly 40-bill pork fests?
Coburn has taken it on himself to change the way the Senate—and by extension, Washington—does business. Read More...
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So, after promising not to raise taxes, John McCain now says that "nothing is off the table" when it comes to fixing Social Security.
Here's the quote:
"There is nothing that's off the table. I have my positions, and I'll articulate them. But nothing's off the table," McCain said. "I don't want tax increases. But that doesn't mean that anything is off the table."
This "nothing is off the table" business is getting to me. It's a politician's way of saying "I have an open mind, and I'm a reasonable person."
But, in fact, for people of integrity, there is always a whole list of things that are "off the table," and there's no reason why a conservative politician shouldn't be able to say that certain policy positions, such as raising taxes to fix Social Security, are also "off the table."
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara is featured in The American Spectator online with a new op/ed saying, “Shut Up and Produce Some Oil.”
Ferrara writes:
“Liberals are flailing about looking for some political cover on energy and gas prices. For decades now, they have supported the policies of extremists who have systematically sought to shut down every major energy source for our economy. We can't drill for oil offshore, we can't drill in the frozen tundra of north Alaska, we can't even develop oil shale on the mainland. Liberals are even opposing the development of new oil discoveries in the Plains states. Meanwhile, China is now producing oil from wells in Cuban waters off the coast of Florida, selling and reaping enormous profits from oil that America should be producing.
Nuclear power? Can't have that. Read More...
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IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson are featured in the American Spectator with a new op/ed on the crisis in Zimbabwe entitled, “Zimbabwean Shame to Share.”
The authors write:
"China's morality-free pragmatism, Russia's habitual antagonism, South Africa's shameful cowardice -- these are the three most appalling responses to the British and U.S. attempts to place sanctions on Zimbabwe and its president-cum-tyrant, Robert Mugabe. China and Russia vetoed a proposal that would have barred Zimbabwe from receiving weapon shipments, frozen Robert Mugabe's foreign assets, and restricted his travel. Also voting against that resolution was the colorful dictatorial throng of Libya, Vietnam -- and South Africa.
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The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says they are in one California town.
There is a widespread perception that people who work for the government make a sacrifice because they get paid less than the private sector.
Well, not in Vallejo, California.
The city of Vallejo is filing for bankruptcy, and the reason is the city’s salaries:
- Nearly three-fourths of city employees make more than $100,000 a year.
- The city manager makes $317,000, and a police captain makes $306,000 in salary and benefits.
According to National Journal, city wages and benefits take up more than 75 percent of the general revenues. Now the city’s broke.
But it’s indicative of many government programs, including Social Security, which promise more than they can pay.
The politicians take the credit for being generous, while taxpayers are stuck with the bill. Read More...
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In a new op/ed published this week in National Review Online, IPI’s Peter Ferrara says the war in Iraq is over, and it’s too late for Barack Obama to surrender.
An excerpt:
"Barack Obama continues his overseas trip today in the Middle East, where the facts on the ground have recently been moving so fast hardly anyone in the U.S. has really kept up. But unheralded press reports in recent weeks establish this new reality.
The war in Iraq is over. America and her allies won. Sorry, Barack, but it is too late for you and your misguided, uninformed, anti-American netroots to surrender.
The surge that Obama opposed and said would fail has succeeded spectacularly. McCain was right about that from the beginning.
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Peter Ferrara, IPI director of entitlement and budget policy, will appear live today on the “Let’s Talk Frank” radio show with hosts Lee and Terry Frank to discuss his recent American Spectator op/ed: “Barack’s Left Wing Extremism.”
To listen in live in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, tune in to WKVL Knoxville, WLOD Loudon, WGAP Maryville, or WATO Oak Ridge today at 4:30 pm ET. Read More...
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I've just (only in the last hour or so) returned from a week in Europe, so my ears were particularly attuned to the latest Obama incident; this time his criticism of Americans for being language illiterate compared to Europeans.
His exact quote was:
"You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here , they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup'!"
Well, Mr. Obama, Mr. Just-Now-Getting-to-Know-Your-Own-Country, let me ask you a question: What kind of Europeans come to the United States? Isn't it pretty much the upper-class Europeans with above-average education that come to the U.S.?
I just went through customs in the Chicago O'Hare airport. I saw any number of examples of Europeans who could not speak English to the customs staff, who need Read More...
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When Are Senators Hypocrites?
Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says when they condemn employers and then do the same thing.
Some Democratic politicians accuse employers of being greedy for outsourcing jobs to local contracting companies in order to cut costs. Yet Democrats who control the U.S. Senate are doing the same thing to the Senate dining rooms.
The dining rooms, which are staffed by government employees, have been losing money—and customers—for years. Taxpayers make up those losses.
The House of Representatives privatized its dining rooms in the ‘80s. Now the House dining rooms are full, and the private catering company running them has given back to the government more than a million dollars in the last five years.
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IPI senior fellow George Pieler is featured with International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens Laurson with a new op/ed in South Africa’s Business Day, entitled “Urgent Need for Joint Effort to Freeze Mugabe Out.”
Pieler and Laurson write: ROBERT Mugabe has again driven a stake through hope for a civil and propitious future in Zimbabwe. A campaign of violence, terror and murder against the political opposition achieved its goal: Morgan Tsvangirai, the Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC’s) presidential candidate, withdrew from the runoff “election”, giving president-cum-dictator Mugabe his “resounding victory”. No observer should be surprised, but apparently many were. The March 29 elections, in which Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) came in second after Tsvangirai’s MDC, were mistaken for a sign of democracy and a precursor of change . Read More...
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Are American CEOs Overpaid?
The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says take a look at American athletes.
Steven Malanga of the Manhattan Institute recently asked how fairly is income distributed in major league sports.
Turns out, not so fair.
For the total U.S. population, the top 20 percent of households makes 51 percent of total family income.
But Malanga says that in football, the top 20 percent of players makes 63 percent of the money—not including all the advertising contracts.
Politicians are increasingly complaining that a small number of Americans make too much money. But they’re talking about CEOs, not athletes.
Apparently, when athletes are well paid, people think it’s because they’re good. When CEOs are well paid, it’s because they’re greedy.
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Evangelical leader James Dobson is under a bit of fire for questioning Barack Obama's fidelity to Christian doctrine and his interpretation of the Bible.
Well, after learning today that Obama apparently carries Hindu idols around in his pocket for good luck, perhaps people ought to give Dobson a bit of latitude. Or at least some credit for having a handle on what Christians believe.
I'm fairly certain that, no matter which of the various Christian denominations you belong to, or which school of Bible interpretation you favor, Christians have pretty much across-the-board rejected idolatry.
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Like a lot of men, I'm negligent about going to the doctor regularly. I insist that my family go to the doctor, but somehow I never quite get around to doing so myself.
I've been promising my family for about a year now that I'll make an appointment to have a full physical exam, but today I'm definitely going to make the call, because I have a new goal in life: I want to live long enough to see Dr. James Hansen proven wrong about global warming.
This is James Hansen Week in Washington. This morning he's on NPR's Diane Rehm show, and this week he will be testifying before Congress. Read More...
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On the way to Boston on Thursday, I came across several interesting quotations from the June 14th issue of The Economist.
From page 34, on the politics of Iraq:
Mr. McCain . . . correctly foresaw that the "surge" of troops into Baghdad and its region last summer would produce results. In fact, Mr. McCain had been calling for the surge for three years before it happened.
Mr. Obama, by contrast, joined other Senate Democrats in trying not only to block the surge but to force Mr. Bush into a timetable for ceasing all combat in Iraq within a year.
In common with most Democrats, Mr. Obama is also guilt of having shown little public recognition that the facts on the ground have changed materially in the past months.
. . . come the election, it is likely that no one will be paying that much attention to the war . The Project for Excellence in Journalism compared network news coverage in early 2007 and 2008, and found that the share of airtime devoted to Iraq fell from 22% of the total to 4%. Read More...
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What’s That Ticking Sound You Hear?
Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says that’s a financial time bomb—that’s about to go off.
By the end of this one-minute commentary, the federal government will owe an additional $4,800 because our politicians refuse to address the big entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
USA Today reports that last year the government’s financial obligations grew by $2.5 trillion. That’s $4,800 a minute—every minute.
And that’s on top of the $57 trillion the government already needs, but doesn’t have, to pay our lifetime benefits when we retire.
And the problem will only get worse as the baby boomers start retiring in just three years.
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On June 10 at the National Press Club, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy organized a forum on technology policy in the Presidential campaigns, featuring former FCC Chair Reed Hundt, tech advisor to Obama and former FCC Chair Michael Powell, advisor to John McCain. One sees in U.S. elections such a fascination with the personal qualities of the candidates that one would think that the President ran the executive branch single-handedly. But, of course, he doesn't, and the teams matter. A relatively inexerperienced candidate might make up for this by having a knack for identifying astute advisors--or find his platform hijacked by a careerist with his own agenda.
Reed Hundt opened with an attack on McCain, including such details as McCain's vote against the e-rate, the provision of the 1996 Telecom Act that funded Internet service to schools and libraries. Read More...
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Well, it’s June, which marks the beginning of the hurricane season and (this year) the end of the Democratic primaries. And you know what that means!
The presidential candidates are looking for some way to win votes in the battleground state of Florida; and Florida is looking for a bailout—or at least the promise of a bailout when the next big hurricane hits.
Florida-backed legislation, which has passed the U.S. House of Representatives but not the Senate, seeks to have the federal government become the national “reinsurer” in cases of catastrophic property losses, such as, oh, a major hurricane.
In essence, the federal government would pick up the tab in case of a huge disaster.
Florida is backing the legislation for two reasons. Read More...
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Peter Ferrara will appear this morning on the 'Lynn Woolley Show' to discuss the Senate cap and trade bill.
To catch the interview live at 10:15 am CT, visit the Lynn Woolley Show online at http://www.belogical.com/. Read More...
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IPI Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy Peter Ferrara will appear this morning on “The Right Balance” with host Greg Allen to discuss ‘the strategy of the smart surrender,’ the AMT, and more.
Catch the discussion this morning at 10:50 ET by listening live online here: http://www.therightbalance.org/ Read More...
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Massive government spending and entitlement programs create opportunities for fraud. Nevertheless, never underestimate the ability of politicians to claim against all evidence that their new entitlement will be the exception.
A perfect example is Barack Obama’s claim that once president, his sweeping health care reform proposal will save billions of dollars, in part by getting rid of “waste, fraud and abuse.”
If only it were so.
Just last week Attorney General Michael Mukasey praised federal and state law enforcement efforts in trying to stem the wave of Medicare fraud, especially in medical devices.
It’s a really BIG wave.
Since a Medicare anti-fraud strike force began targeting South Florida, 200 people have been arrested responsible for an estimated $638 million in false claims.
Read More...
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IPI Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy, Peter Ferrara, will appear today on “The Marc Bernier Show” to discuss a theme emerging from many conservatives—“the strategy of the smart surrender.”
Peter featured this discussion recently in an op/ed published in the American Spectator.
Click here to listen live online at 4:35 pm ET. Read More...
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Peter Ferrara’s featured in National Review Online today with a new op/ed: “Baby, Baby It’s a Cold World.”
Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy adviser to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was recently referenced by senior climate-science authority Fred Singer as saying: “Global warming stopped ten years ago; it hasn't gotten warmer since 1998. . . . . And in fact in the last seven years, there has been a downturn in global temperatures equivalent on average to about [or] very close to one degree Fahrenheit per decade. We're actually in a period . . . of global cooling.”
This is what the temperature data shows. Indeed, even global-warming advocates are now saying there won’t be any actual global warming for the next ten years or so. You can interpret that to mean the budding cooling trend will continue.
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Dear Scott,
I’m neither a partisan defender nor partisan critic of the Bush administration, so the various revelations and accusations in your book are of insufficient interest for me to rush out and buy it.
I am, however, a defender of Christianity and a seminary graduate, so you definitely got my attention by claiming that our shared Christian faith was a primary motivation for writing your book.
As I’m sure you know, Galatians 5:22-23 enumerates the various virtues which are to characterize the lives and actions of Christians:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
Scott, I’m wondering: Which of these Christian virtues motivated that you write your book?
Love? Joy? Peace? No, I don’t think it could have been any of those. Patience? Read More...
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The excesses of capitalism are things like too many flavors of ice cream.
The excesses of the other systems are things like genocide, gulags, and repression.
I'll take the excesses of capitalism, thank you. Read More...
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Talk show host Rush Limbaugh quotes IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara from a new op/ed featured on American Spectator online: “The Strategy of the Smart Surrender.”
During his show, Limbaugh discussed the premise of the piece and how more and more conservatives are yielding to the left in the battle of ideas.
“So what we have here, there was a great piece, Peter Ferrara in the American Spectator last week writing in this case about David Frum, who is a conservative commentator and author, writer, National Review Online. Read More...
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George Pieler and Jens F. Laurson are featured this week in the Alabama Press-Register discussing defense contracts and earmarks in “Competition Ensured the Selection of the Best Quality Tanker.”
Reps. John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi and Todd Tiahrt all want to give Boeing the contract for refueling tankers the Air Force awarded to a Northrop Grumman-Airbus partnership. Protecting local (Boeing) jobs is a classic congressional move, but this time there's an extra dimension: an attack on international trade and a presidential-campaign hit on John McCain.
Sen. McCain is accused, by the Financial Times, among others, of self-interest, because some of his campaign team lobbied for the Northrop Grumman bid. That may look bad, but McCain has a long history with this particular contract.
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In a new op/ed, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson discuss Zimbabwe's recent election in which Robert Mugabe has yet again attempted to manipulate the results in his favor.
In the piece, "Let Hope Not Blind Us To Mugabe's Ruthlessness," the authors warn the international community should not underestimate Mugabe's next move, and suggest policies friends of the country should embrace in order to help the people of the African nation.
An excerpt:
“HOPE springs eternal. For Zimbabweans, it is the only way to remain sane and civil in a country so thoroughly ruined by the ineptitude, corruption, and racial hatred stirred up by Robert Mugabe and his cronies. Read More...
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Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says wait until you see what government employees are doing.
While millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet, some federal employees have found a solution: charge it to the taxpayers.
A new government report says that over a 15-month investigation, nearly $6 billion in credit card charges didn’t follow proper procedures. It’s easy to see why. According to the report:
- Postal workers charged more than $14,000 for Internet dating services.
- Four Pentagon employees charged $77,000 in clothing to high-end stores.
- And one State Department worker charged $360 for women’s lingerie, but claimed it was for jungle training in Ecuador.
While most federal employees are honest, some apparently can’t control themselves when they have access to other peoples’ money. Read More...
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You’ve probably heard of the “No New Taxes” pledge. Well, how about a “No Tech Taxes” pledge.
It looks like that’s where presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain is heading.
McCain has fought against (primarily) state efforts to impose Internet access taxes and to illegitimately require vendors to collect sales taxes, much to the chagrin of the states, which see the Internet as a new treasure trove of revenue.
Access taxes are those that would be added to your Internet service provider (ISP) bill that gives you access to the Internet. And the sales taxes would be collected whether appropriate or not when you buy a product or service online. Congress has so far successfully managed to fight off attempts to impose or expand those taxes, but the reprieves have been temporary—and hard to secure.
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While news reports of ExxonMobil's $10 billion first quarter profits sound enormous, for a company the size of ExxonMobil, it's actually not so large a number. In fact, ExxonMobil's profit margins have been falling, which is why Wall Street was disappointed and ExxonMobil's stockprice fell.
But ExxonMobil's falling profit margins are still too much for Washington, it seems, where some Democrats think the company’s making too much.
Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey said last week, “Big oil is spending their profits to prop up their stock price rather than on discovering and delivering alternatives to $4 gas.”
One “alternative” to $4-per-gallon gas is to increase the domestic supply. But Mr. Markey and most of his Democratic colleagues have opposed virtually all efforts to open up more domestic drilling. Read More...
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In a new op/ed featured on Forbes.com, entitled “Georgia On His Mind,” IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens Laurson say the decision regarding whether or not to include Ukraine and George as members of NATO “ought not have a de facto veto” by non-NATO member Russia.
An excerpt:
It surprised no one that Russia cried foul when NATO considered having Georgia and Ukraine join the alliance.
For the time being, Putin & Co. have achieved their goal: The matter has been shelved. But when the real decision time comes, the merits of NATO membership should be based on the will of the Georgian and Ukrainian governments and NATO's candid assessment of their bids. Read More...
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Should We Be Giving More to the Poor?
Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says liberals should.
Liberals claim the country needs to give more to the poor.
But Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks says that when it comes to charity, conservatives give more.
According to Brooks, liberal families make on average about 6 percent more than conservatives. But conservative families donate about 30 percent more to charity.
Take liberal presidential candidate Barack Obama. His income tax returns show that in 2001 he and his wife made $275,000. And gave away a whopping . . . $1,500.
Bill and Hillary Clinton made $100 million between 2000 and 2007 and gave away $10 million — to the Clinton Foundation, which they controlled.
So don’t be fooled by liberal calls for more charity. The money they really want to give away is yours.
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Tough times lead to bad ideas—and sometimes, really bad ideas.
Consider the tax break being pushed by the National Association of Homebuilders.
They would get to offset their current losses by looking back to previous years and getting a retroactive tax break. The provision is estimated to cost about $6 billion and is part of a larger $15 billion bill that passed the Senate last week.
Now, we’re all for most tax breaks, especially those that cut marginal tax rates and spur economic growth. (We’d be even more supportive of fundamental tax reform that eliminated most breaks, and set a low flat rate in its place.)
But that’s not what this tax break does. It’s meant to bailout homebuilders in the hope that they will keep on building and, consequently, keep construction workers employed.
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Republican Presidential nominee John McCain gave a speech on economic issues this morning, and there is much in the speech that should help cheer conservatives and make them more enthusiastic about the McCain candidacy.
McCain is talking about ideas that appeal directly to the conservative base, but are also in direct contrast with the positions that are being taken by both Obama and Clinton. These are ideas that should appeal to every common sense voter, leaving either Obama or Clinton with only the hardcore leftists, and that's not enough to win an election with.
For one thing, McCain is talking about tax cuts, not tax increases:
In the same way, many in Congress think Americans are under-taxed. They speak as if letting you keep your own earnings were an act of charity, and now they have decided you've had enough. By allowing many of the current low tax rates to expire, they would impose -- overnight -- the single largest tax increase since the Second World War. Among supporters of a tax increase are Senators Obama and Clinton. Both promise big "change." And a trillion dollars in new taxes over the next decade would certainly fit that description. Read More...
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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain has proposed a radical reform for the tax treatment of health insurance. He would eliminate the current employer tax exclusion (i.e., employees do not count as income the money employers spend on employee health insurance; it is “excluded” from income) and replace it with a refundable tax credit: $2,500 for an individual and $5,000 for a family.
Critics of the McCain proposal—and they are legion—say that a $5,000 tax credit for a family doesn’t come near covering the cost of the average family policy, about $12,000 a year.
But to make that claim is to display a woeful ignorance of how the current tax exclusion affects a family’s income tax bill.
Consider, for example, a family making $60,000 a year, which has an employer-provided policy that costs $12,000 a year.
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I don’t expect the stimulus rebates to be received by taxpayers next month to have any significant lasting effect in boosting the economy. That is because these rebates do not involve marginal tax rate cuts. They are simply old-fashioned Keynesian cash grants, financed by Federal government borrowing. Any stimulus from taxpayers spending that money would be offset by the borrowing drawing the same amount of money out of the private sector.
Maybe the policymakers who dreamed up this outdated policy for President Bush and the Democrats in Congress will be lucky, and the economy will rebound this summer on its own. But maybe not, maybe the economy will deteriorate further this summer, providing an enormous political boost for the Democrats.
I think the election will turn on the economy, not on the war in Iraq. The challenge for McCain is to frame the issue as who has the better plan to turn the economy around and get it booming again.
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IPI senior fellow George Pieler is featured with International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens Laurson on Forbes.com today.
Their new op/ed, entitled “Tipping Point for Southern Africa,” discusses the recent election in Zimbabwe with surprising results for the Robert Mugabe-led government.
An excerpt: “When the neo-totalitarian government of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe starts complaining about electoral coups by its meek and mild opposition, you know something's afoot. Days after Zimbabwe's election, the Mugabe regime reports ‘official’ vote tallies showing a near tie and likely runoff, which requires ‘official’ numbers showing that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai got less then 50%. Read More...
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As an indication of how radical academia tends to be, our local Texas Christian University (TCU) has been planning to give the Rev. Wright an award at a March 29th banquet on the TCU campus.
Obviously they are scrambling now, but the truly important point in mind is that, knowing Rev. Jeremiah Wright, TCU thought he was worthy of an award.
This to me is an indication of how radically liberal public academia tends to be. Do you think a controversial conservative would have half a chance of speaking at all at TCU, much less be given an award?
That's the most important point. Developments since are funny, as TCU grasps for ways to avoid the criticism they so richly deserve.
The first thing TCU did was to try a technicality. "It's not TCU that's giving the award . . . Read More...
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Here's what I think is the political significance of Obama's "Rev. Wright problem."
As far as most voters are concerned:
-If Obama was aware of Rev. Wright's views and implicitly endorse them through church membership, attendance and giving, Obama is too radical to be president.
-If Obama was aware of Rev. Wright's views and didn't think they were problem enough to change churches over, Obama doesn't have good enough judgment to be president.
-If Obama was aware of Rev. Wright's views and is trying to finesse the issue to preserve his political viability, Obama is too dishonest to be president.
-If Obama attended Rev. Wright's church for 20 years and wasn't aware of Wright's positions, Obama is too stupid not observant enough to be president.
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The next big issue is going to be the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We better start getting prepared. Read More...
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Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says it sure didn’t reduce the role of money in campaigns.
Conventional wisdom says that money corrupts political campaigns. And so the three major presidential candidates have supported campaign finance reform to reduce money’s influence, at least until now.
They need cash to get their message out, and so their views have, well, mellowed.
- Barack Obama had pledged that as the Democratic nominee he would use government-provided money in the general election. But he’s raising so much cash he’s waffling on that commitment.
- Hillary Clinton’s wealthy friends want to start an organization so they can spend millions promoting her.
- And cash-starved John McCain used his donor list as collateral for a campaign loan.
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Just when you think politicians can’t get any wackier, one comes up with a new doozey. Back on November 30, 2007, we published an opinion piece on Forbes.com entitled “Great New Idea: Sub-prime Insurance” in which we suggested that a prominent scheme being bandied about in the U.S. Congress to “spread insurance risk” has strikingly similar characteristics of exotic financial derivatives collateralized by sub-prime mortgages:
“[Federal] Legislation is supposed to empower Florida and other states similarly situated (risk-prone and averse to letting market forces do their job) pool their collective risks as backing for marketable bonds and reinsurance. Those instruments would get federal (i.e., American taxpayer) guarantees to back them up.
“Gosh. Read More...
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| In a new oped featured today on Forbes.com, IPI Senior Fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens Laurson assess the overall impact made by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra during last week’s appearance in North Korea. In “When A Concert Isn’t Just A Concert,” the authors state, “[m]ore North Korean faces smiling to music made by Americans won't end the nuclear impasse, but they are a welcome enough step in the right direction.” An excerpt: The New York Philharmonic's decision to play in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, provoked commentary--both positive and negative--with a decidedly excited ring to it. Read More...
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We’ve been trying to keep up with all of the new spending programs Senator Barack Obama promises to implement if he is elected president and, well, it hasn’t been easy. Because there are so many of them.
Here are some of them, taken from his campaign material:
1. “Obama will provide a $500 ‘Making Work Pay’ tax credit to almost every worker in America . . .”
Of course, the government doesn’t make money, it only transfers it. So before you can “give” the vast majority of Americans a $500 tax credit, you have to take it from them first.
2. “The Obama middle class tax plan will also provide 10 million homeowners a new mortgage interest credit that directly lowers the interest rate homeowners pay on their mortgages . . .”
3. “[E]liminate federal income taxes for all seniors making under $50,000 per year.”
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You Do the Math (and You Won’t Like It)
We don’t really know yet how much taxpayers will have to cough up for Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to fulfill their promise to get every American covered with health insurance. But it’s possible to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations.
And it appears, well, let’s just say it won’t be cheap.
Both candidates say they would let the uninsured (anyone, actually) join the program that covers some 8 million federal employees and retirees and their dependents—or something similar— known as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).
While lots of private sector health insurers offer coverage under the FEHBP, one of the most popular is the Blue Cross Blue Shield “Standard Family” plan, which costs $1,028 a month, or $12,336 for this year.
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The ultraliberalism of Sen. Barack Obama is demonstrated by his legislative proposal now before the U.S. Senate, entitled “The Global Poverty Act.” The bill commits U.S. taxpayers to the goal of the 2000 United Nations Millenium Summit to reduce world poverty by 2015. This includes “the elimination of extreme global poverty” and “reducing by one half the proportion of people worldwide…who live on less than $1 per day.” The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7% of GDP for this goal, which would increase our foreign aid by $65 billion per year. That would amount to over a quarter trillion in increased foreign aid during one term of a Barack Obama Presidency.
Former Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs heads the Millenium Project for the UN, which is to spearhead this new global war on poverty. Sachs is now arguing for a new, UN sponsored, global tax for U.S. taxpayers and others to fund the new worldwide handouts.
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In a letter to the editor published in the Washington Times today, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affaris Forum editor-in-chief Jens Laurson point out that just because the North Korean government has agreed to broadcast the New York Philharmonic’s concert in Pyongyang, that doesn’t mean most Koreans will get a chance to watch.
“There are an estimated quarter- to half-million TV sets in North Korea, with the privileged, party-line-toeing upper bureaucratic echelons likely the favored to have access to TV. To truly reach as many North Koreans as possible, the New York Philharmonic concert would have to be broadcast on North Korean national radio, which reaches anywhere up to 4 million people.”
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Larry Lessig has decided not to run for Congress.
Too bad, at least from my perspective.
My guess is Lessig would be involved somehow in a possible Obama administration. Read More...
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Several longish comments, observations and opinions from the FCC's hearing on broadband industry network management practices at Harvard University in Boston on Monday:
- About 100 people showed up too late to get into the room, and "too late" was an hour before the start of the event. Anticipating a crowd, I showed up about 90 minutes early, and got one of the few remaining seats in the room. It was clear from the applause that both Free Press and Comcast had gotten their crowds out.
- It seemed to me that Kevin Martin had already made up his mind before he arrived at the hearing. It was clear to me from Martin's questions and demeanor that he has no patience for Comcast or their arguments. The entire day, there was only one speaker who was cut off, and that was when Kevin Martin pointedly cut off Comcast's Executive Vice President David Cohen. Martin also insisted on a particular line of inquiry several times, which indicates that it is compelling, at least to him. He kept asking people whether applications like Bit Torrent allow people to consume "more bandwidth than they are paying for." Read More...
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The latest oped by IPI senior fellow George Pieler and IAF editor-in-chief Jens Laurson is featured today on the FEER Forum, an online publication from the editors of The Far Eastern Economic Review.
The oped entitled, “Serenading a Dictator” discusses the up-coming controversial debut of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in North Korea.
An excerpt:
When the New York Philharmonic accepted an invitation from the North Korean Government to perform at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, commentary either praised the move as a savvy act of cultural diplomacy or condemned it as a public relations ploy for one of the world’s worst tyrants.
When the United States’ first orchestra takes the stage on Feb. 26, playing to a hall packed with the Politburo’s elite, it will likely be the latter.
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Larry Lessig is making noises about running for Congress.
In fact, he's not just making noises. He's doing a virtual strip-tease.
This fits entirely with what I have observed about Lessig's personality: He has always seen himself as a savior and visionary, and people with egos of that size frequently end up taking a run at elected office. Plus, he's got an echo chamber of fellow-travelers who will beg him to save the Universe by running for Congress.
As I have written before, Larry assumes that, because he hasn't been able to get his CopyLeft agenda through Congress or through the courts, the system must be corrupt.
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In the Wisconsin campaign, Democratic candidate for president Barack Obama said that he was "the only candidate in the race that had consistently opposed NAFTA."
Obama's campaign has already distributed mass mailings critical of Clinton on the issue in Ohio. "Bad trade deals like NAFTA hit Ohio harder than most states. Only Barack Obama consistently opposed NAFTA," it said.
When I heard this, I thought "Wait a minute--the debate over NAFTA took place in 1992 and 1993. What high office did Barack Obama hold back in '92-'93 that he had to take a position on NAFTA? What job did Obama have that required him to wrestle with all the complicated issues of the NAFTA debate?"
What was Obama doing in '92-'93 during the NAFTA debate?
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"What I try to do every day is figure out how to help somebody. . . But you can try to help somebody every single day. And I’ve tried to do that as a public servant, as an activist, and now as a senator, and that’s what I will do as president.” (Hillary Clinton presidential ad)
Call us old fashioned. Or maybe call us Constitutionalists. But we can’t for the life of us figure out why or when the presidency morphed into the Salvation Army.
The president of the United States is the leader of the free world, not the leader of a charity. The Commander-in-Chief, not Mother Teresa. The one trying to grow the economy, not grow economic dependency.
When he was running for president, Bill Clinton liked to say “I feel your pain”: apparently his wife thinks she feels everyone’s pain.
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In the last several presidential campaign cycles, the state of Texas (where IPI's offices are located) has pretty much been neglected. We watched the campaign coverage in other states on television, but then we looked around and barely saw any sign of the campaign around us. Very few signs and billboards, few TV and radio commercials.
The reasons are clear. Texas' primary is ususally scheduled fairly late, so the primary races are typically decided before they ever get to Texas. And, in the general election, Texas is assumed to go Republican, so Texas gets neglected by both parties.
We normally don't hear many radio or TV ads--we don't even see much in the way of yard signs and bumper stickers.
But not so during this campaign primary season. Suddenly, beginning this week, we are hearing radio commercials for both Obama and Clinton, and television commercials as well.
Based on only my individual observations, Obama is running significantly more radio and TV ads in Texas than Hillary is--but that might just be the N. Texas area where I am (Dallas, Ft. Worth). It's possible that in other areas of the state Hillary is running more ads. Read More...
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In case you’ve forgotten recently why not so long ago many conservatives could not abide Senator John McCain, read the transcript of George Stephanopoulos’s interview with him Sunday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
When asked, what would differentiate a McCain Administration from that of George W. Bush, the first thing out of the Senator’s mouth was “global warming.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: “Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama are basically saying, ‘Vote for John McCain, you're voting for a third Bush term.’”
MCCAIN: “We will wage this campaign on profound and significant philosophical difference. . .How am I different? Climate change. Climate change is an issue.”
Not only does the Senator embrace the dubious evidence of man-made global warming as scientifically sound and settled, he also reveals a remarkable misunderstanding of the basic precepts of economics when he talks about the issue. The heir presumptive to the Republican presidential nomination told Stephanopoulos that capping and trading carbon emissions would actually be beneficial economically—a new profit center for American business, as it were: Read More...
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The February 26 debut of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Pyongyang is most likely a “PR coup for one of the world’s worst tyrants,” rather than “savvy cultural diplomacy,” write George Pieler and Jens Laurson today in the Washington Times.
In their new oped, “Despot Serenade,” the authors describe how the orchestra, being given a rare opportunity to display the American ideals of liberty to a suppressed nation, have opted instead for security in the capital of North Korea.
An excerpt:
After the New York Philharmonic accepted an invitation from the North Korean government to perform at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, a flurry of commentary condemned and praised the move. Was this savvy cultural diplomacy, or merely a PR coup for one of the world's worst tyrants?
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The Iowa Electronic Markets are real-money futures markets in which contract payoffs depend on economic and political events such as elections. In the electoral market, a market participant purchases a candidate contract at the market price, which pays the owner $1.00 after the election if the candidate wins and nothing if he or she loses. The Iowa Electronic Market was started during the 1988 presidential election and since then has established a solid reputation for forecasting election results with considerably greater accuracy than polls. (“It has predicted the outcome of the popular vote with an average prediction error of 1.33 percent. Research has shown that the IEM is about twice as accurate as polls conducted before presidential elections.”)
Although pundits continue to characterize Super Tuesday as a “split decision” between the Read More...
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Since most of our elected officials in Washington seem to have played hooky the day the teacher talked about tax policy, we thought we should go back and give them a quick refresher course.
How do we know that most of them missed the class? Because 385 of them voted for the economic stimulus package. The only thing that legislation has stimulated is a race over who can give away the most money. (Don’t even get us started on the Senate’s 80-4 vote!)
So let’s start our class with a quote from a former star student who learned his economic principles well and graduated with highest honors. According to Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ): “As you may know, I was one of only 25 Republicans to vote against the (stimulus) bill. Every American knows that the federal government does not have the money to pay for these rebates. We will have to borrow it. It makes absolutely no sense to me to go give away money we don't have.”
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Don’t be misled by the hype and hysteria over the presidential campaigns; they are much ado about little difference among any of the candidates. Indeed, a good rule of thumb is the greater the hype, the less real difference there is: Two Parties; One Establishment.
No where is this clearer than when it comes to government spending. The fact is Republicans stand for big government; Democrats stand for slightly bigger government.
There are two fundamental forces driving the growth of government. First is the fear-induced national consensus since 9-11 to give government whatever resources politicians demand in the name of national defense, homeland security and public safety. At the federal level, for example, total spending on national defense/homeland security is approaching a trillion dollars a year, approximately one-third of the federal budget.
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It’s surprising the degree to which technology issues have NOT been a part of the presidential race.
That was not the case in 2000. Remember Al Gore “invented the Internet”? And George Bush talked a great deal about broadband deployed across the country and the many benefits of the Internet.
It’s true that technology, particularly the Internet, is being used in campaigns like never before, especially to better facilitate more immediate feedback and fundraising.
But it turns out that the technology industry and the public policy issues most important to it have thus far been all but neglected in the presidential primaries.
This is odd, of course, because our economy increasingly relies on the technology industries for growth. And, right now, our economy could use some growth.
For instance, the tax credit provided for companies who invest in research and development done in the United States was al Read More...
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While we liked much of what President George Bush said last night in his seventh State of the Union Address, the best we can say is: too little, too late.
Yes, the president wants Congress to make permanent several of his tax cuts, many of which played a significant role in boosting economic growth. . . BUT there is something depressingly dissonant about having a president make supply-side arguments for tax cuts but yet make Keynesian arguments for economic stimulus. It gives one the impression that the president never really understood the reason why tax cuts stimulate economic growth. Perhaps this is why the president hasn’t succeeded in selling his tax cuts.
Yes, the president also made some excellent comments about the need for entitlement reform, especially Social Security and Medicare. . . Read More...
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The conservative website TownHall.com, of which IPI was once a member organization, has recently been aggressively promoting their young bloggers and columnists to the television talking head shows. This works for both parties: The shows have an insatiable appetite for new (as opposed to the same old) faces, and TownHall provides the TV shows an endless stream of especially young, attractive and mostly female faces. And since TownHall.com is in the business of selling advertising, attractive young females on TV is a great way to draw eyeballs to your website.
But this is a recipe for potential disaster to the conservative movement, if TownHall.com promotes spokespersons don’t really have much of an idea what they are talking about.
The latest example was this afternoon, when someone I’ve never heard of named Amanda Carpenter of TownHall.com appeared on Neil Cavuto’s show on the FoxNews Channel and proclaimed that John McCain was not a conservative. Read More...
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Am I the only one to see an interesting paradox in the New Hampshire primary? Political pundits have suggested that the tears Hillary Clinton shed on the Sunday before the primary had an impact on the results. Suddenly the emotion and tears demonstrated her softer side, her personal commitment and her sensitivity and vulnerability. They imply that voters saw that as a sympathetic moment that may have turned her campaign around. Well, perhaps that's true. But how soon we forget that in 1972 Edmund Muskie's campaign was derailed by his emotional reaction to an article in the Manchester Union-Leader that caused him to shed tears on the eve of the New Hampshire primary in a speech delivered in front of that newspaper's offices. That emotional reaction shattered his image and collapsed his presidential aspirations. So it's beneficial for a woman to shed tears but it's not okay for a man to have the save emotional reaction. Read More...
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Rudy Giuliani didn't tear up and start crying over his dismal finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire; he stepped up to the plate and hit a homerun on taxes and got right back in the game. And by the way, kudos to Steve Forbes who obviously is having a big influence inside the Giuliani campaign, which is evident in Rudy's bold new tax proposal that fits the bill to a tee of what I was talking about in my blog yesterday ("'Clicking along' to economic despair").
The Giuliani plan would lower the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent, and it would reduce the tax rate on capital gains to 10 percent and index gains for inflation. Read More...
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Just a couple of notes from this weekend's news that suggests that the various laws of economics are still in effect, and socialism still doesn't work no matter how many times Latin America gives it a go.
First stop, Venezuela, where in a story about Chavez's declining popularity, we read an interview with a young student who is skeptical of Chavez's constitutional reform initiative, wherein he conveniently scraps his own term limits.
Where is Ms. Aguilar when she is being interviewed by Associated Press?
Amanda Aguilar, 17, was in line at 5:30 a.m. waiting for a food store to open to buy her single, rationed carton of milk.
Hmmmm. Looks like the worker's paradise is running into some problems in Venezuela, or is at least having to spend a lot of time waiting in food lines. Read More...
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This is rich: China is going to tell us all how to secure the Internet this afternoon at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
I wonder if they are going to brag about how effectively they have cut down on all that nasty free speech and political inquiry? I wonder if they are going to tell us how they don't respect the privacy of their citizens and constantly monitor and spy on their Internet usage? Read More...
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At various times I have described the gaggle of activists that has congealed around opposition to intellectual property as "IP skeptics" (I think I may have coined that term), "anti-IP", "anti-capitalist", "anti-corporate," "neo- Marxist," etc. In my most recent blog entry, I referred to them as Marxists.
This label was, apparently, not appreciated. Though I should note that it was not denied.
So I'd like to make the case that, in fact, these activist NGOs are, in fact, Marxists, or at least that they advocate what can accurately be described as a Marxist agenda. Read More...
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Read IPI Senior Research Fellow George A. Pieler’s latest oped, co-authored with Jens F. Lauron, featured online at the Claremont Institute.
In “Chilling Uncertainties About Global Warming,” Pieler and Laurson discuss the dangers of mainstream doomsdayers muffling the voice of dissent in the debate over climate change.
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Resident Scholar and Healthcare Policy Expert Dr. Merrill Matthews offers insight into the Rev. Robertson's endorsement of presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani in today's edition of The Washington Times.
In "Christian Right Scatters Support for GOP," Dr. Matthews states: "Many evangelicals have been saying quietly that given the choice between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, they would vote for Rudy. Pat Robertson's endorsement frees them up to say so publicly."
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Listen online to IPI Resident Scholar Merrill Matthews latest commentary on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
In this spot, Matthews discusses if even President Ronald Reagan could live up to the image politicians today make of the conservative leader.
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Some of my friends accuse me of always looking for the "Grand Unification Theory" (GUT) when it comes to policy. That's a polite way of saying I'm always in search of pie-in-the-sky solutions to practical policy problems; that I'm an intransigent ideologue rather than a pragmatist who knows how to get things done in Washington .
I retort that we used to call that devising model solutions based on principles; that in Washington, DC, there is usually great virtue in principle-based gridlock; and "getting nothing done" is usually far preferable to doing something wrong just for the sake of doing something.
I think the misperception that my commitment to principle makes me the Anti-Pragmatist arises, in part, because I am extremely sensitive to (I feel in my GUT) barely perceptible but fatal flaws in policy prescriptions that not only destine the policy to fail in the first instance but also contain the poisonous seeds of larger policy catastrophes that sprout from them. Read More...
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In the 2000 election, it was a tricky path for Democrat Al Gore to navigate, figuring out how closely he should identify himself with President Clinton, and to what degree he should seek to distance himself.
It's even trickier for Republicans leading up to the 2008 election, because their lame duck President is unpopular, and I don't mean only with Democrats. Republicans are pretty much looking forward to seeing Bush go, even while admiring his tax cuts and the noteworthy way he handled the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
In fact, it's commonly felt that it's time for Republican candidates to start distancing themselves from the Bush administration, albeit in a judicious way so as to not alienate the loyal Republican voter.
Republicans in Congress have the same problem. They need to carefully and selectively distance themselves from an unpopular President while not appearing disloyal.
The trick is to find a place where the President has done something or taken a position that will be unpopular with his core constituency. By differing with the President on such an issue, you show greater loyalty to the ideals of the movement than even he apparently has. But you need the President to go off the reservation on something for this opportunity to open.
Well, good news to you all. The Bush administration has just given you all a tremendous gift. This administration (more particularly its inept policy process) has just handed right-thinking Republicans everywhere, at all levels of government, a golden opportunity to distance from the Bush administration. Read More...
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With the GOP up to it ears in S-Chips and Continuing-Resolution Season soon upon us again, I’ve been reflecting back on the many missteps and missed opportunities since Republicans took control of the federal government in the name of the Conservative Movement. The more I sifted the ashes of failed Republicanism—especially where controlling the growth of government is concerned—the higher my blood pressure rose.
Then serenity descended as it dawned on me, politicians are like dogs: You can’t really hold politicians anymore responsible for their uncivilized habits, greedy pilfering and violent behavior than you do a dog that fouls the house of his master, attacks the neighbors and bites the hand that feeds him. It’s the nature of the beast.
We voters are politicians’ masters, and if they continue to behave badly, it is our own fault for not bringing them to heel and training them properly and constraining the environment they inhabit. Where is Cesar the Dog Whisperer when you need him to teach us how to get these politicians who are ruining our lives under control? Maybe Cesar could write a new book called the Politician Whisperer and hold some training sessions for voters to get the mangy curs under control. Read More...
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Late last week, I wrote a commentary on this blog that concluded:
“Give Hillary credit for her political wiles—she is positioning herself to hoist the Republicans on their own petard, stealing their ill-conceived ideas and making it increasingly difficult for even a Republican majority (which few people believe will return in 2008 anyway) to resist. Hillary’s new [health care] plan is really just a refinement and extension of the framework Republicans have pieced together during the past several years. . .Why is anyone surprised that Hillary is about to beat the Republicans at their own game and make them an offer they can’t refuse? It would be funny if the consequences weren’t going to be so gruesome.”
Now comes confirmation of exactly what I said. Read More...
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In listening to all the experts pro and con on whether the President should veto the SCHIP bill two issues remain virtually undiscussed.
First this is a tax increase. It really doesn't matter what the tax is on, the fact remains that it is a tax increase. One thing that President Bush Senior learned was that when you say you're not going to raise taxes the public tends to take you at your word and gets very testy when you renege on that promise. If you don't believe that check the 1992 election results.
President Bush Junior understands that and is passionate about his opposition to any increases in taxes. And anyway what's wrong with vetoing on principle? No he hasn't vetoed any fiscal legislation for his first six years but we should applaud his resolve even late in his presidency
The second point is about expectations. When you finance a program like children's health insurance on a tax for which there is likely to be a reduction in revenue over time due to a decrease in the use of the base that is taxed - i.e. tobacco - then somewhere along the line you are going to have to find a revenue replacement. It doesn't matter whether there is enough revenue for the next five years (according to the Congressional Budgeting Office), sooner or later this revenue source -- tobacco taxes--is going to dissipate -- like tobacco smoke! Congress is certainly not going to say, "Sorry kids there's been a reduction in smoking so we don't have enough money to fund your health insurance!" It'll never happen. Read More...
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Generals tend to fight the last war and politicians are predisposed to run against the historical records of their opponents. Thus, it is not surprising to see Republican candidates for the presidency beginning to run against “HillaryCare” in response to Senator Hillary Clinton’s recently released national health care proposal.
No matter what newspaper or web site you open these days there seems to be another conservative critique of Hillary’s new health care proposal that condemns it by associating it with the Senator’s 1994 plan. A welcome exception to this proclivity is Kevin Hassett’s recent critique that, for the most part, confines the analysis to Clinton’s current plan.
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IPI Senior Research Fellow George Pieler is joined by International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens Laurson in a new oped featured in South Africa’s Business Day.
Pieler and Laurson discuss how the most important effort to bringing reform to Zimbabwe’s political scene are needed from African neighbors, rather than the US and UK.
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President Bush, who last week announced some modest measures to ease the burden of avoiding foreclosure for some sub-prime mortgage holders (principally those who are most likely to prove creditworthy, and stay in good payment status in the long term), does not impress Barack Obama. The Senator from Illinois got great media play for his August 29 Financial Times column, blasting various industries for having "forced" folks into accepting (presumably unwanted?) credit they couldn’t handle.
Still, once one gets past Sen. Obama’s blazing rhetoric against Predatory Lending, one is relieved to find that he doesn’t really want to deny less wealthy (and more risky) candidates for mortgages the miracle of home ownership. Instead, he just wants to federalize fraud actions against mortgage lenders, collect some fines (how to prove fraud is left to unidentified experts, which sounds dangerously like designated IRS-type officials to go bounty-hunting for Unscrupulous Lenders) and standardize the information disclosed to prospective borrowers before they close on a loan. Read More...
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In the recent immigration debate, some alleged that talk radio was running the country. But now we can see who really runs the country: pollsters.
Nothing has caused movement in Washington like a recent poll that showed 84% of Americans believe humans are contributing to climate change, with 78% saying we should do something “right away”. Among Republicans, 60% agree.
As a result, Washington magnates are scrambling to develop plans to increase utility bills by 50% or more, and to shut down new production of electricity. Legislation to address global warming always has one thing in common: imposing substantial suffering on most of the public.
This debate needs to take into account the fact that global warming policy will not just mean higher prices. It means that some will have to do without, consuming less electricity, less gas for their car, less driving. That will be the poor, working people, and the middle class. Read More...
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Explaining why Mitt Romney would be more successful in reforming health care as president than he was as governor of Massachusetts, Romney economic advisor Glenn Hubbard (former Bush Council of Economic Advisers Chairman) said:
"Massachusetts didn't have the federal tax code to play with."
Oh boy, so much for principled, comprehensive tax reform. It's pretty depressing when one of the Republican front runners is being advised to "play with" the federal tax code as a machine for social engineering.
And what exactly does Hubbard advise Romney to do about health-care per se? The best way to answer that question is to look at what he proposed in a book co-authored with John Cogan and Daniel Kessler ( Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System, Read More...
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Mark Steyn’s column for Monday, August 13 provides an explosive revelation. Global warming preachers have been telling us that 1998 was the hottest year in America on record. 2001 was supposed to be among the Top Ten hottest in America ever. And the surrounding years were supposed to be up there too.
But NASA has recently revised the data published on its website. The hottest year is no longer 1998, but 1934. 2001 is no longer in the Top Ten. Instead four of the top ten hottest years are in the 1930s.
Oddly enough, the corrections arose due to a Canadian citizen named Steve McIntyre of climateaudit.com who studies weather data the way an inveterate old baseball fan studies historical batting averages. His review of the raw data showed that NASA’s translation of the facts contained consistent errors. When he reported his findings to NASA scientists, they conducted a review that showed he was correct.
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In the New York Post on Friday, July 27, 2007, John Podhoretz writes in a commentary entitled “The Liberal Edge”:
“What if, in fact, we’re seeing a restoration of a secular national trend towards liberalism -- a preference among voters and the American populace more generally toward liberal solutions to national problems and to the Democratic Party as the repository for those solutions?
“This would be the trend that was in evidence on Election Night 2000. If you add up the votes of the two left liberal presidential candidates that year – Al Gore and Ralph Nader – you come up with 54 million. That’s three million more than George W. Bush and Pat Buchanan combined.
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The Wall Street Journal's most compelling columnist, Holman W. Jenkins, has done it again.
Today, Jenkins has almost completely nailed Google's machinations to use the power of the federal government to preserve its business share and market power by re-regulating wireline telecom and by, for the first time, regulating wireless.
This is all being done for the financial interests of the Google corporation.
Jenkins details Google's attempt, and apparently Kevin Martin's acquiescence, to having the FCC set new rules for the 700Mhz auction that reduce the value of the spectrum and force whoever owns the spectrum to give Google defacto free access to the spectrum.
Make no mistake: Google understands that restricting a wireless operator's ability to design its own business model can, by definition, only reduce its incentive to invest. But Google has bigger fish to fry. It wants to make sure it can continue to free-ride on your broadband subscription bills, even in the mobile world. It wants to make sure it won't have to share the proceeds of its massive search and advertising dominance with suppliers of network capacity. Read More...
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Political rhythms would suggest that 2008 will be a banner year for Democrats. Republicans have held the White House for 8 years with a now unpopular incumbent. They held the Congress for longer until recently. At some point, voters just want to try a change.
The Democrats, however, are quite vulnerable because they are not offering voters a change. Completely captive to their far left, they are offering a nostalgic rollback to the 1960s, or even the 1930s.
If Republicans are going to take advantage of this, however, they are going to have to offer a positive, even populist message that speaks to voters’ basic concerns. To rally the nation to their side, the Republicans need a deeply appealing economic growth message. Indeed, such a credible message is the key to appealing to all the important voter base groups that are currently weak for Republicans – younger voters, Hispanics, African Americans, labor.
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Well, so much for the idea that those who commit acts of terrorism are the poor, underprivileged Muslims whose actions are at least partially understandable because they have been so deprived by the West and are understandably lashing out at the West.
OR that the reason they fall sway under the message of jihad is that they are poor and uneducated and not exposed to a variety of viewpoints and different cultures.
This latest bunch were DOCTORS. Well-educated, informed, with scientific training and exposed to lots of different cultures.
Fact the facts. The same struggle that dominated Europe and Asia for more than a thousand years until it was interrupted by the Cold War has resumed. It's an ideological struggle, and it has little or nothing to do with what we DO. It has to do with what we ARE, or more precisely, with what we AREN'T. Read More...
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On May 29, 2007, Hillary Clinton gave a major economic policy speech at the Manchester School for Technology in New Hampshire. Free market advocates ignore that speech at their peril.
What was shocking about it to me is that it started off with Jack Kemp themes about prosperity, particularly for working people. Indeed, the title of the speech was Modern Progressive Vision: Shared Prosperity”. Clinton goes on to say,
“I believe that one of the most crucial jobs of the next President is to define a new vision of economic fairness and prosperity for the 21st century, a vision for how we ensure greater opportunity for our next generation, and then to outline a strategy and then to implement it.”
She goes on to promise to “provide more opportunities for more Americans to succeed” and to “promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none.” She says Read More...
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Hillary and Barack have committed themselves to "fixing" the American health care system by inaugurating price controls, raising taxes and imposing heavy-handed regulation on the health-care industry. To illustrate the incredible stupidity and real-world consequences of adopting their delusional ideas, earlier this week I posted short descriptions of what the imposition of price controls has wrought in Argentina, Venezuela and Iran.
Today, I call your attention to the chaos inflationary monetary policy and price controls are wreaking in Zimbabwe.
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Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both say if they become president they will "fix" America's health-care system with price controls, higher taxes and heavy-handed regulation. It will be a disaster if they try. Rather than curing the health-care system with more of their ham-handed rules and regulations—which suffers primarily from ill-conceived government laws and regulations to begin with—they will infect the entire economy with an "econosocomial" infection that could be deadly.
Don't take my word for it; look at the empirical record.
There are two natural experiments in price controls underway currently in Argentina and Venezuela. The results were predictable but the politicians paid no attention. Read More...
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Conservatives have been fighting to reverse an activist Supreme Court since the 1968 Nixon campaign. Now, almost 40 years later, we are on the verge of success. But have we lost interest?
The current court is very finely balanced between conservatives and liberals. There are 4 solid conservatives on the court, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Sam Alito. There are also 4 solid liberals, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, and Stephen Breyer. Then there is Anthony Kennedy, who keeps wandering back and forth, with the outcome of every ideological case dependent on his whims.
By April 20, 2009, ultraliberal John Paul Stevens will be 89 years old. He is unlikely to survive the next President’s term on the court. If he is replaced by a true conservative like the other 4, the balance of the Court will shift decisively to the conservatives.
In addition, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is reportedly in ill health. Read More...
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In Washington, DC there is a fine line between policy and politics, between policy implementation and political strategy. Indeed, it is commonly understood that politicians use research the way drunks use a lamp post; for support rather than illumination.
During the past 30 years, conservatives have done a remarkable job of creating alternative centers of scholarly inquiry on matters of public policy and political and economic theory -- we call them “think tanks.” One important distinction between independent think tanks and most research centers located within academic institutions is that think tanks, by and large, are transparent about their normative position on matters of public policy. Hence, much of think tanks’ output has a political strategy component attached. Nothing wrong with that -- as long as there is truth in advertising. Read More...
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In today's New York Times ("Reviving the Hamilton Agenda"), "big-government conservative" David Brooks ramps up the Bigo-cons' obsessive campaign to do for domestic policy what their neo-con brethren did for foreign policy -- pump up the American Leviathan with steroids until no one can resist its imperial authority, all in the name of the general welfare and public safety of course.
Bigo-cons, like their neo-con brethren, prey on people's fears and insecurities to frighten them into giving up their wealth, liberty and children to feed the government beast. Read More...
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Democrats are calling for an investigation of the oil companies regarding the high price of gasoline. But what we really need is an investigation of how Democrat policies are responsible for the outrageously high price of gas today.
For decades now, Democrats have kowtowed to extremists in their party who have consistently sought to shut down every source of energy for the modern industrial economy. These are people who believe our modern industrial economy is somehow immoral and we need to go back to a pre-industrial, agrarian standard of living. These views reflect a strain of infantilism in American politics which has become too loud and too powerful through the Democrat party.
Because these extremists do a good job of posing as simple homespun environmentalists who just want to clean things up at no real cost, they have been effective in achieving many of their goals. Read More...
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. . . would be to stop using the word "amnesty."
It's no longer a useful word. Nobody knows what it means when used in terms of immigration. It's loaded with emotion and devoid of any real meaning.
Now, a word like "treason" is useful. There's no such thing as good treason. There aren't degrees of treason.
But there are such things as good amnesty. Tax amnesty to give people a chance to come clean is a good thing. At some point, amnesty was probably a good idea for those who dodged the Vietnam draft.
I'm to the point that when anyone criticizes an immigration proposal as being "amnesty," I immediately tune out and no longer take them seriously. Let's accurately describe and debate the important details of the various proposals without restorting to loaded language like "amnesty."
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The heavy focus on funding for the Iraq War and lately the immigration debate has obscured the now fully enacted Democrat budget resolution for fiscal year 2008. That resolution can be summarized in one word: taxes.
The final resolution provides for a $217 billion tax increase over the next 5 years. In calling for this, the Democrats revealed who they think is rich. They would raise income tax rates for single people making over $31,000 a year and for married people making over $62,000 a year. They would also double the tax rates on capital gains and dividends, returning the economy to the 2001 recession before the Bush tax cuts. The unemployment rate just before the full Bush tax cuts became effective in 2003 was 40% higher than today.
But that is just the beginning. The resolution includes a tax increase trigger providing for a full tax increase of close to $400 billion if a surplus doesn’t materialize by 2012. Read More...
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I was on a flight the other night from Washington Reagan back to Dallas. There were several servicemen in uniform on the flight, as is almost always the case.
Just before we reached the gate, as the flight attendant was going through her final few comments, she finished by saying something like "And we'd like to thank our servicemen, and want to let them know that we appreciate everything they are doing for our country."
The passengers broke out in spontaneous applause.
Polling data suggest that a large number of passengers on the plane, perhaps even a majority, would not characterize themselves as supporters of the operations in Iraq. Yet, they applauded the servicemen.
This is typical of Americans. They may not support a particular military operation, but they support their men in uniform.
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A very, very local item from my very, very local newspaper in Denton County, Texas yesterday:
Argyle Fire District to Receive $138,000 Homeland Security Grant
The Homeland Security Grant is for more hefty fire protection bunker gear, which is used in structure fires. It also provides for a huge, specialized washing machine needed to wash the bulky gear. AVFD received lighter jumpsuits used to fight grass fires. The lighter suits keep the firefighters cooler than the bunker gear. Other most welcome items are helmets, gloves, boots and portable radios for the trucks. Ande Mosher, AVFD's woman firefigher, did an outstanding job of drafting the successful application for the grant.
Now, it very nice, very warm and fuzzy, that the local volunteer fire department has gotten some shiny new equipment. Who doesn't want cooler firefighters? Read More...
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This latest op/ed, published in the American Spectator, is adapted from a forthcoming study by IPI and authored by Doug Bandow:
Political Hay The Never-Ending Energy Conspiracy The evil oil companies are at it again. The price of a gallon of gas has jumped by more than 30 cents in the past month. The gasoline gougers are busy reaping windfall profits. It's time for a congressional investigation! New legislation must be introduced! The administration must confront corporate thieves! No, wait. That all happened last summer. As gas prices rose, customers blamed gas station owners and oil producers alike. Politicians moved from somnolence to frenzy at record speed. Read More...
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Peter Ferrara's new op/ed on DC's gun-control ruling appeared today on National Review Online. On behalf of Peter's work with the American Civil Rights Union, Peter filed briefs in the Parker case supporting gun-ownership. Conservative Win Second Amendment victory in D.C The conservative movement won an historic victory last Friday. In the case of Parker v. District of Columbia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does, indeed, protect a right for individual citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense and other legal uses. Consequently, the court struck down a nettle of D.C. gun-control laws which effectively prohibited gun ownership and use within the District by law-abiding citizens. Read More...
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Bear Stearns Chief Economist David Malpass authored a very important article which ran in The Wall Street Journal on February 27, 2007 (“Budget Strain’). Malpass argues that “paying for” making the Bush tax cuts permanent by raising other taxes would reverse the strong economic growth of recent years, and “point to recession.”
To the dismay of the reemergent tax collectors for the welfare state among some self proclaimed conservatives, I argued the same point in a blog on November 13, 2006. I said,
“Raising revenue from some tax increase or another to cover the supposed losses from making the Bush tax cuts permanent does not make the cuts permanent, but effectively repeals them.
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This is a nail in the Giuliani coffin, at least as far as conservatives are concerned.
The Politico finds that, contrary to his assertions, Giuliani strongly tends to promote left-leaning judges.
A Politico review of the 75 judges Giuliani appointed to three of New York state's lower courts found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by more than 8 to 1. One of his appointments was an officer of the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Judges. Another ruled that the state law banning liquor sales on Sundays was unconstitutional because it was insufficiently secular.
A third, an abortion-rights supporter, later made it to the federal bench in part because New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a liberal Democrat, said he liked her ideology.
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If you like Snickers, you might want to start stashing away a reserve pile. As IPI's George Pieler and co-author Jens Laurson note in this new op/ed published in the Washington Examiner, trans-fat regulating is getting out of hand.
The problem is not that trans fats are being “outlawed,” but that elected officials presume a right (and power) to “help” their citizen with lifestyle choices far beyond the proper purview of government.
WASHINGTON - What do Marriott, McDonald’s and New York City have in common? They’re all moving to protect you from trans fats in your diet. The difference is the first two are voluntary initiatives aimed to create customer goodwill, while New York’s dictates your customer’s choic Read More...
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Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute has written a thoughtful column on how the states' move toward earlier and earlier primaries is giving voters fewer choices as it shortens the exposure to candidates and results in too-early nominees.
Because there is little time for substantive evaluation of lesser known candidates, the primaries come down to who has the money to run the slickest ad campaign. Moreover, early primaries put significantly more financial pressure on the lesser known candidates by forcing them to spend their money to establish and build name recognition among the voters. With so many primaries right at the beginning of the primary season they do not have the opportunity to build any momentum. Consequently, there is a high probability that the Democrat, and possibly the Republican, 2008 presidential nominee will be determined on February 5th. Read More...
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I'm once again in Geneva attending a session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a UN agency devoted to intellectual property.
As a UN agency, diplomacy reigns supreme. The language is always very careful, and, well, diplomatic.
Many times a country will give an intervention (floor speech), and other countries will give short speeches like this:
The government of [Country B] wishes to associate itself with the intervention given by [Country A].
This kind of intervention goes on all the time. Typically, the major country in a region or the lead country of a particular country bloc will give the position intervention for that bloc, and then other countries in that bloc will associate themselves with the intervention given by their bloc's leader.
What I have never heard in three years of WIPO attendance is a country that goes out of its way to disassociate itself with the intervention given by the lead country of its bloc.
Until about 2 minutes ago, that is. Read More...
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Having grown weary of being Commander-in-Chief, our President is now apparently auditioning for the job of Nanny-in-Chief.
I'm embarrassed for him and disgusted to hear the President lecturing about executive compensation. Is this the kind of foolishness we have to look forward to for the next 2 years?
The Nanny-in-Chief says executive compensation ought to be tied to performance. Who is to say that it isn't already?
Markets set prices for CEOs and other executives, just like markets set the price for everything else in a functioning market economy. It's when nosy Nannies-in-Chief start trying to manipulate prices that markets stop working.
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See, this is how you bring disrepute on your cause. It's not enough to protest and get news coverage. You have to go and spray paint the U.S. Capitol building.
Approximately 300 protesters were allowed to take the steps and began to spray paint "anarchist symbols" and phrase such as "Our capitol building" and "you can’t stop us" around the area, the source said.
Morse responded to these claims in an e-mail Sunday afternoon explaining that the protesters were seeking confrontation with the police.
So you're not just looking to make a statement. You're looking for a confrontation, and you're to do vandalism against the government at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. Read More...
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It was heartening to see the president promise to veto the House prescription-drug price-negotiation bill if it appears on his desk. Not surprisingly, despite the promise of a presidential veto, the bill still passed the House as part of the Democrats' first-100-hours blitz on January 12 by a vote of 255 to 170 with only 24 Republicans voting for passage, far fewer that the 290 votes required to override a presidential veto. Now it is time for the Senate to step up to the plate and defeat the measure.
If that means a filibuster, so be it. The last thing in the world voters want to see now is a bunch of Senate Republicans playing political games and trying to have it both ways by currying favor with liberals by casting a “free” yea vote with the assurance the president will save them from themselves with a veto.
Time and time again in recent years while the Republicans controlled the Senate (in the 109th Congress by a margin of 55 to 45, one Independent Read More...
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Following up on Barry Aarons' blog posting here, and the WSJ editorial, we've just learned what we needed to know about Boehner, and he is disqualified from leading a House Republican caucus that values integrity and principle.
Screwing Jeff Flake and rewarding Jerry Lewis tells you everything.
I look forward to the day that Boehner and his fake tan and his cigs are spending all their time out on the links and no longer have anything to do with conservative leadership. And any conservative organization that gives Boehner any props or a speaking forum is aiding and abetting a loser. Read More...
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Under the rubric of "no good deed goes unpunished," Arizona Republican Representative Jeff Flake was stripped of his Judiciary Committee assignment despite his seniority to five remaining minority members as was reported in The Wall Street Journal.
Flake has been one of the few outspoken opponents of earmarks, those budget busting little medallions of pork that were a contributing factor to the Republican election losses last November.
I know Jeff Flake quite well (he represented me for a few years until I moved a few blocks away and wandered out of his district). Flake is one of the more honest, direct members of Congress. He is philosophically grounded and very consistent. Read More...
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There is much whining and righteous indignation on the Republican side of the aisle as the new Democratically controlled Congress gets underway. “They aren’t playing fair,” “they are jamming legislation down our throats without due deliberation and public hearings,” “they aren’t giving us an opportunity to amend bills on the floor,” and on and on.
Come on, guys, get over it. Stop acting like a bunch of babies and just accept the fact that you brought it on yourselves by the way you treated Democrats for more than a decade while you were in control—the same Democrats, by the way, who brought it on themselves for treating you the same way during the previous four decades when they controlled the Congress.
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IPI's George Pieler and co-author Jens Laurson had a recent op/ed published on Forbes.com. You can read the op/ed online here.
A few good quotes from the piece:
"Backed by oil and gas reserves, Vladimir Putin's Russia is an object lesson of how policies based on global self-assertion can quickly turn very ugly. Skilled in the arts of brazen lying and feigned outrage, Russia plays international politics and finance like a tin drum. The Russian Bear well knows that pragmatic Western interests see profits, dividends and investment opportunities that far outweigh the indignities, injustices and lawlessness they confront along the way. Read More...
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My friend Fredrik Erixon from the European Centre for International Political Economy has drawn my attention to the item this morning that prominent market economists (and former Bush administration officials) Glenn Hubbard and Greg Mankiw have joined the Mitt Romney campaign, at least in an advisory capacity.
Here's more from The Washington Post. Read More...
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| The New York Times reported Monday on its front page: "Senior Republican staff members in Congress have voiced the fear that Bush will now put his legacy over the party's immediate future, and take his cues from President Bill Clinton by ‘triangulating’ when opportunity strikes -- that is, making deals with Democrats, over Republican objections, on immigration, health care or Social Security." The Times quotes one senior Republican leadership aide as saying, "While the White House is trying to define their legacy, they'll try to triangulate us. There is no sense of wanting to defend the Bush administration right now." Conservatives are right to distrust a fatally wounded and flailing White House. Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby reveals why in his op-ed yesterday (“A Fix for Social Security,” November 27, 2006). Read More...
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Since Election Day, there have been continuing rumors that the White House is preparing to negotiate a deal with the Democrats on Social Security that would entail tax increases, future benefit cuts, hikes in the retirement age and no personal retirement accounts. Last week, these rumors began to take on more substance as both The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal confirmed something foul is afoot.
It appears that the president is so desperate for the Democrats to cut him some slack on Iraq and for a legacy of “saving Social Security” that he has put Social Security reform up for sale, and after that I have no doubt he will not hesitate to put the entire conservative agenda -- including tax hikes -- on the auction block if he thinks it will save his presidency.
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Federal spending as a percent of GDP has been stable for over 50 years now at around 20%. The latest long term projections of the Congressional Budget Office suggest that over the next 40 years Federal spending will explode out of this long term stability, and grow to close to 40% of GDP or more. That spending explosion is primarily due to our current entitlement programs, particularly Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.
But that reality didn’t stop Roger Altman and Alan Blinder from calling for new entitlement spending increases and programs in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on November 21, 2006 [subscription required]. Altman was a Deputy Secretary at Treasury under President Clinton,
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You know things aren't going in the right direction in Russia when defector critics of the Putin administration are being poisoned. It's KGB all over again.
Journalists murdered, political opponents jailed, defectors poisoned. Of course they belong in the WTO. Roll out the red carpet.
It's good that Russia is making noises on more intellectual property protection.
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For all those who now are engaging in debates about what it means to be a Republican, or a conservative, or what the Republican strategy should be for not only the next 2 years but also for the future, how about this: How about our unifying principle is to not go the direction of the Euro-welfare states?
The Economist blog had a fascinating post a couple of days ago. I suggest you read the entire thing. Here are some remarkable quotes about the European social welfare state model, written by those who should know:
An expensive welfare state also tends to reduce the size of the workforce . . . . the more secure the safety net, the less likely people are to have children.
Governments have largely nationalised the traditional functions of the family . . .
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IPI's Peter Ferrara has an article in today's National Review Online arguing that Republicans need to return to their economic principles in order to experience electoral success and regain their majority.
It's essentially an expansion of Peter's recent blog entry here on IPI Policy Bytes.
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Author: Merrill Matthews Jr. || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA