Author: Mark Noonan

His Majesty, Barack I

Mark Noonan20 Comments

With the completely unconstitutional imposition of the DREAM Act and, now, the absurd claim of Executive Privilege regarding the “Fast and Furious” scandal, a lot of conservatives and libertarians are furious with President Obama over his assumption of rather autocratic powers.  But I ask everyone to pause for a moment – one has to consider just what sort of government the United States has.  To do this, I think it best to refer to an outside observer of proven sympathy for the United States, Winston Churchill:

…The rigid Constitution of the United States, the gigantic scale and strength of its party machinery, the fixed terms for which public officers and representatives are chosen, invest the President with a greater measure of autocratic power that was possessed before the war by the Head of any great State…

Churchill was referring, in that instance, to Woodrow Wilson.  Keep in mind the time frame Churchill was using – this was the day of Nicholas II of Russia, Wilhelm II of Germany and Franz Josef of Austria.  And yet Churchill was asserting that these three men had, in practice, less autocratic power than was held by Woodrow Wilson.  And, he was right.  Churchill correctly perceived a truth about the the United States which to this day escapes nearly everyone:  the President of the United States, while his term lasts, possesses an immense amount of autocratic power.  Boiled down, in our President we have an elected king – limited in real terms only by three things:

1.  His term of office.

2.  His inability to appropriate funds without Congressional approval.

3.  The risk of impeachment.

Lincoln understood this – stating that he would maintain the contest with the South until he died or his term ended.   When in 1864 Lincoln looked to be the loser of the Presidential election he was yet determined to win victory between election day and the end of his term (which in those days ended in March, not January).  And he could have done it – Congress could have cut off funds for additional military power, but the military power he already had was sufficient and no power in the United States government could have prevented him from ordering Grant to continue, election results be darned.

The real lesson in Obama’s abuse of power is this:  always have a great deal of care whom is elected President.  Because you’ve got him for four years and while you can limit the amount of money he spends, you can’t really limit what he does with the money he is allowed to spend.  Jokingly, someone has written a list of 10 things Romney can do after he takes office in the manner of Obama’s DREAM Act – among them, cease enforcement of various environmental laws and of any tax rate above 18%.  It was put out as a joke, but it is also a reality.  Suppose Romney did tell the IRS not to prosecute anyone who failed to pay more than 18% of their income as taxes – what could anyone do?  Impeach him?  Impeachment has only come up three times in American history: with Andrew Johnson it was a GOP witch hunt against a War Democrat; with Nixon it was a Democrat witch hunt against someone they didn’t like; with Clinton we actually had a genuinely impeachable offense but Democrats ensured that it wouldn’t go anywhere.  Impeach Obama?  It would require the votes of 20 Senate Democrats to do it – short of committing rape or murder live, on television, do you think that there is anything Obama can do which would move 20 Senate Democrats to vote to convict?  Get real!

We elect a king every four years and then allow that king one more shot at an additional four years.  In office, he is mostly limited by his own conscience and sense of right and wrong.  A President who simply does not care about the law (or, as in Obama’s case, understand what a law is) is highly dangerous – as we can see with Obama.  For more than two centuries we have been extraordinarily lucky – even with a cad like Clinton or a twisted man like Nixon, there was still a sense of respect for the Constitution and a desire to live up to great predecessors – looming over all was the figure of Washington, who defined what a President is and offered a model for all who came after if they cared at all about the United States.  Trouble is, if we get someone who doesn’t care about the United States – who, in a real sense, has nothing but contempt for Washington and the edifice he raised – then we’re in a bad way.

Now there are some practical steps we can take – from re-asserting Congressional power to declare war, to putting more strings on what is done with appropriated money, to insisting that no US ground troops are deployed outside the United States except during time of declared war.  These and other measures can hem in a President a bit and ensure that he seeks Congressional cooperation before doing something.  But, fundamentally, unless we want to re-write our Constitution in to a parliamentary abomination (ie, where the head of government is the leader of the House of Representatives and the President is a mere figurehead), then we simply have to ensure that when we elect a person to the Presidency that we are sure he or she is fit for the job.  King Obama is the first man we’ve elected who is entirely unfit by temperment, training and education for the Presidency – and it shows in the way he is (deliberately or not is immaterial) wrecking the manner of American government.

So, rather than whine about what Obama has done, let us set to work with a will to oust him on November 6th and then lay the lesson to heart:  never be fooled again.

Hey, Obama: Where is My Hoover Dam?

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Interesting news story:  Voyager 1 is now on the very edge of the outer solar system and will soon enter inter-stellar space, the first man-made object to do so.  Clearly, a milestone in human achievement.  But here’s the kicker – its actually an achievement of the 1970’s, as Voyager was launched in 1977.  That got me thinking – our government has been wasting bags of money for the past 80 years, but we’re always getting less and less from it.

Think of it like this:  when FDR started us on our path to bankruptcy, we at least got the Hoover Dam; the Civilian Conservation Corps (any of you camping enthusiasts out there can probably name a half dozen camping/fishing spots which were created by the CCA); Mt Rushmore.  For Ike’s bags of money spent we got the inter-state highway system.  For JFK’s profligacy we got the Moon shot.  It all started to go wrong with LBJ; his building of the Great American Bankruptcy got us the “Great Society” and Vietnam.  Nixon just went from bad to worse – spending still shot up and we lost Vietnam and got millstones like the EPA.  And on and on it went – until, now, we’ve got Obama…who has spent at least $3 trillion more than would have been spent if McCain had been elected, and what did we get for it?  Solyndra.

Our liberals are spending more money than ever and we are getting less and less for it – just more government; more payoffs to cronies; more bailouts for the well-connected.  We, the people, are more than used to getting robbed blind by liberals…but at least we used to get something useful thrown in.  Like the Hoover Dam and the Moon shot; in other words, things which useful people can either use or at least glory in.  Can you imagine the shivers of horror among liberals if anyone suggesting building another Hoover Dam?  Carving another mountain in to a grand, American monument?  If, on the other hand, you offered to re-carve Mt. Rushmore in to a Gay Pride display, liberals would allow it – with no more than 10 years of bureaucratic red tape between proposal and first action.

Small minded, cowardly, little cretins who’s only concern is their place at the trough – that is modern, American liberals.  That, by the way, is what was rejected in Wisconsin.  That, also, is what the battle is ultimately about – will America shake off the chains of liberalism and rise to new heights of glory, or will we go on our knees and, fearful of doing anything, die a slow, painful death?  Will we, that is, take the path of least resistance until the whole United States is Detroit?  Or will we recover our courage and not only save America, but even return Detroit to its glory days?

Obama offers us nothing but more bureaucrats and more money for his cronies – Romney offers us a return to American greatness.  A return of an America which can, indeed, put a man on the Moon.

My choice is made; and never have I had an easier one.

Syria: How Global Power Works

Mark Noonan10 Comments

Like this; from the New York Times:

With evidence that powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters, the bloody uprising in Syria has thrust the Obama administration into an increasingly difficult position as the conflict shows signs of mutating into a full-fledged civil war.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Tuesday that the United States believed that Russia was shipping attack helicopters to Syria that President Bashar al-Assad could use to escalate his government’s deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. Her comments reflected rising frustration with Russia, which has continued to supply weapons to its major Middle Eastern ally despite an international outcry over the government’s brutal crackdown…

Meanwhile, the report goes on to note that the rebels are being armed by the Turks with assistance from other Muslim powers.  Here’s what is actually going on:

No one outside of the precincts of the West gives a hoot about the sufferings of the Syrian people.  We here in the United States are disgusted with the mayhem and slaughter but people who are not like us don’t care – they only look at the mayhem and slaughter and think, “can I gain any advantage out of it?”.  No amount of moralizing by Obama and Clinton or anyone in the West will make the least impression upon the Turks, Russians, Iranian,  Saudis or anyone else who is so far involved in the war in Syria.  In fact, they’ll probably view such statements as a sign of weakness – figuring that if we really had a pair we’d intervene so we can grab what advantage we want out of the situation.  Holding back and lecturing all concerned is, in the view of such people, the act of cowards.

Russia and Iran want to maintain their Syrian ally.  Iran because it allows Iran to keep up pressure in Israel while also allowing Iran to project power in to the center of the middle east.  Russia because Syria is on Turkey’s southern flank and puts the Turks between two fires if any Russo-Turkish conflict arises…plus it sticks a finger in our eye and Putin (utter fool that he is) thinks that Russia’s proper role is to oppose the United States (the truth is that Russia can only survive in alliance with the United States, but Putin is just too blinded by his Great Russian nationalism to see this).  In service of this goal the Iranians have shipped thugs to Syria for the purpose of massacring Syrians who oppose the Assad regime (probably the very same thugs the Iranians use to massacre Iranians who oppose the Mullah’s regime in Teheran…so, they’re likely experienced killers who no how to choke off a rebellion).  Russia won’t send troops but is clearly sending arms – and in spite of bland words to the contrary, is sending arms which are useful in fighting the increasingly competent Syrian rebels.

Turkey would love to turn Syria in to a satellite State – the Turks, after all, were the imperial overlords of Syria for more than four centuries and while we here in the United States might not know it, the Turks understand that controlling Damascus is just as important as controlling Baghdad if you want to dominate the middle east (this is why Iran continues to press their power in Iraq along with trying to sustain their ally in Syria).  The Turks also have a very long history of enmity with the Russians (there have been, I think, 9 Russo-Turkish wars over the centuries) and so would love to reduce Russian influence in the area.  Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and other States in the area have a vested interest in curbing Iranian influence – and taking out Iran’s key ally in Damascus is worth a lot in Saudi eyes.

Our problem is that we have as President and Secretary of State two people who appear to have zero knowledge of how the world works.  Obama and Clinton seem to think that there is, somewhere, a genuine desire in Syria and in the other players to end the bloodshed.  There isn’t.  There is a desire to win.  Assad wants to win.  The rebels want to win.  Iran wants to win.  Russia wants to win.  Turkey wants to win.  Saudi Arabia wants to win.  All of them won’t win, of course – but they are all fighting for victory as they see it.  We, under Obama and Clinton, don’t want to win – we don’t even know what we want other than an end to the violence; an admirable desire, but violence can be ended in good or bad ways.  Obama and Clinton are ensuring that when the violence ends there is sure to be one nation which won’t have won:  the United States.

Proper American policy in this matter is not to get involved in Syria – we have no dog in that hunt, unless we could grab Damascus and keep it.  That would involve a major military offensive too fraught with risks right now to be envisioned.  So, nothing to do in Syria – but we do have a strong interest in completely ending Syria’s (and, thus, Iran’s) role in Lebanon.  Syria’s armed forces are, naturally, being concentrated on the rebels.  I’ll bet their forces in Lebanon are thin on the ground:  the opportunity is for us eject them completely – ending Syrian domination and at the same time vastly undercutting the ability of the Iran-backed terrorist groups to operate there.  It is a certainty that Lebanon’s Christian population wouldn’t be adverse to a change in Lebanon’s status – certainly in the southern regions of the country, which we are most concerned about as it borders Israel.  A bit of thought and effort and some coordination with Israel and the thing could be done…by the time Syria is able to respond, it would be too late.

Will we do this?  Not a chance – Obama doesn’t even see it.  I doubt that anyone in his Administration does.  So, we’ll get more liberal hand-wringing while the Russian and Iranians battle it out with the Turks and Saudis and the winner of that not only gets Syria, but Lebanon thrown in to the bargain.  Just monumental stupidity brought about by rank ignorance on the part of our leadership.

 

Obama Losing African-American Support?

Mark Noonan4 Comments

Last week, in an update to an open thread, I linked to an article which shows that under Obama black Americans have suffered greatly, with black unemployment rising to ruinous levels.  I asked, rhetorically, if these conditions will really cause black Americans to once again award 95% of their votes to Obama.  My thinking was, yes, it would.  Though I expect black turnout to be lower in 2012 as a percentage of the total vote than 2008, I fully expected a repeat of the overwhelming support for Obama.

Perhaps I was wrong – this poll (PDF) by the Democrat-leaning PPP shows Romney gaining the support of 20% of North Carolina African-American voters.  To be sure, the polling sample of black voters is small; about 200 respondents.  But, still – my goodness!  If Romney can really win 20% of the black vote then not only is Obama doomed but about 2o or 30 House seats suddenly become “in play” for the November election (the Democrats have about that many House seats which are theirs by gift of a 90%+ black vote in favor of the Democrats…if that drops a bit, the Democrats lose the seat).  It is  poll results like this which must be costing Axelrod many a sleepless night.

Count on it that Obama will sweep the African-American vote by an overwhelming majority – but if there is really any movement to Romney then it is going to be a stunning political change.  Maybe, at the end of the day it will take a black liberal to destroy African-American loyalty to the Democrats?

As an aside, the overall poll shows Romney up 48-46 over Obama in North Carolina – in line with the “battleground” status of North Carolina for 2012.  On the other hand, the polling sample is 44% Democrat, 36% Republican.  Almost certainly on November 6th the turnout will be more in line with 40%+ GOPer and no better than 35% or so Democrat…meaning that you can add at least 5 points to Romney’s total in this poll.  I never believed stories that North Carolina was competitive for the Democrats in 2012 and I’m more certain than ever it won’t be – watch for the Democrats to pull the plug on the State right after the convention.

The Moment Obama Lost?

Mark Noonan30 Comments

From Powerline, quoting Obama:

The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. Oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, Governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don’t have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.

And so, you know, if Republicans want to be helpful, if they really want to move forward and put people back to work, what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments…

Three days ago the voters of Wisconsin rejected the notion that the people should pony up ever more so that government be flush with cash…and now Obama is asserting that if the GOP wants to be helpful, the way to do it is to get the people to pony up ever more so government can b flush with cash!  This goes beyond stupid – this is an egregious rejection of basic reality.  Whatever else the people might want, more government isn’t it.

If we can’t beat Obama, now, then we might as well close up shop for good.  He’s just proven himself to be completely out  of touch and in opposition to the direction Americans want to go.

Her Eminence, Pope Nancy of the Patriotic American Catholic Church, Speaks

Mark Noonan8 Comments

And, as per usual,  subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge:

…CNSNews.com asked Pelosi, who is Catholic, whether she supported her church in the lawsuits it has filed, which argue that the administration’s regulation violates the freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment.

“What about the 43 Catholic institutions [that] have now sued the administration over the regulation that requires them to provide contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortifacients in their health care plans?” CNSNews.com asked. “They say that violates their religious freedom.  Do you support the Catholic Church in their lawsuits against the administration?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s the entire Catholic Church,” Pelosi responded. “Those people have a right to sue, but I don’t think they’re speaking ex cathedra for the Catholic Church.  And there are people in the Catholic Church, including some of the bishops, who have suggested that some of this may be premature,” Pelosi said…

Uh, Nance, old gal – ex cathedra is something the Pope does only very rarely and only to rule on matters of doctrine.  The Pope does not rule on how we govern ourselves.  The Church’s opposition to abortion goes back to the earliest days of the Church and thus requires no, new ruling from the Pope on whether it can ever be allowed – and, so, when 43 Catholic institutions sue the US government in order to fight against a government mandate to violate Church teaching then they are not doing something ex cathedra because they don’t have to…but they are very much defending the teaching of the Catholic Church you claim to belong to.

It really does make you wonder – how did someone this ignorant manage to not only get elected to Congress but manage to become Speaker of the House at one point?  Does anyone on the left side of the aisle have any concern for intellectual ability?  Was it really no more than she was a fountain of (sometimes illegal) fundraising and a sure vote for the left?  Is that all it takes to rise high in the Democrat party?  Basic knowledge and honesty play no role?

 

On, Wisconsin!

Mark Noonan22 Comments

According to the polls, Walker will be re-elected (is that the proper term for surviving a recall?) today by the voters of Wisconsin – by 5 to 10 percentage points, depending on which poll you believe (I tend towards the higher margin of victory – not because a poll says so, but because the dynamics of the race are showing increasing GOP support and a collapse of Democrat support).  While various liberal pundits and power brokers have spent the last week or so downplaying the significance of the Wisconsin result the fact remains that the American left poured everything it had in to Wisconsin – first to try and prevent Walker’s reforms from being enacted then in an attempt to undo them, with this recall vote today just being the last gasp.   After all this effort if Walker survives, then this is the death knell for the American left.

The left, since the 1930’s, has used the government to fund the increasing power of the left.  Public sector unions are just this sort of thing on steroids – such unions lobby themselves (essentially) on whether or not government will get bigger while they also ensure that anyone who plays ball with Big Government and the left gets rewarded with wealth and/or political power.  The real reason that government never gets smaller is because the government funds (on a gigantic scale) a vast army of lobbyists who work night and day against the concept of reducing government.  As long as public sector unions have unfettered power to draw money from government workers and use it in support of those politicians who are willing to increase the power and size of government (and thus the power and size of the public sector unions, as well as other leftist groups), so will government continue to grow.   While Walker’s reforms did a lot of things the most important aspect of it was to liberate the workers of Wisconsin government from a de-facto requirement to be a member of the union.

As was reported a few days back, public sector union membership has collapsed in Wisconsin – all due to Walker’s reform which took away the union’s power to deduct dues automatically from and employees pay.  Now the unions have to rely on voluntary subscription…and the workers are showing they want nothing to do with the union.  It was this which really impelled the leadership of the left to go ballistic.  While rank and file liberals are still convinced that Walker just hates workers, the union bosses know that the real issue is whether or not workers like the union.  Events are showing that they don’t – and each person who quits the union takes one more bit of power from the union.  The power to influence elections and lobby for ever larger government is ebbing away from the unions, and thus from the overall left.

This is for the whole ball of wax.  If Walker wins, then the public sector unions are on the ropes – and it then becomes only a matter of time, given our budget crisis, that the rest of government funding for the left goes to the chopping block.  Think about this – the taxpayers provide a great deal of money for Planned Parenthood.  PP spends a great deal of money not only advancing abortion, as a cause, but also attacking Republicans in service of their cause.  Boiled down – though PP pretends to keep the funds separate – the tax dollars of pro-life Americans are being used to fund the political advancement of pro-abortion Americans.  On and on it goes through a whole host of groups…all of them leftist, all of them getting all or part of their funding from the taxpayers, all of them advancing causes which most of the taxpayers oppose.  With fear of the unions gone, more and more politicians will be willing to slaughter liberal sacred cows to balance the budget.

So, get ready first off for a lot of fun tonight – watching crestfallen liberals and making fun of their increasingly bizarre attempts to spin this as not a loss, at all.  But then watch them come blazing back on the attack, knowing that if Obama goes down to defeat, there will be nothing stopping the federal government from duplicating Walker’s efforts.

UPDATE:  So far reports indicate a very high turnout.

UPDATE II:  Still many reports of high turnout and some indications of Democrat ballot box stuffing efforts.  Drudge is saying that early exits indicate Walker by 5 – which is doubly encouraging because it appears that Democrat areas had the higher turnout early on.  It will be what it will be – and I expect Walker will win as his victory margin will be outside the Democrat “margin of fraud”.

Doomed to an Economic Depression?

Mark Noonan33 Comments

Lots of bad news out there, today – US unemployment rate rose to 8.2%, Eurozone unemployment rose to 11% (ours is probably right there, too, but the Eurocrats haven’t, it seems,  figured out how to fudge numbers as well as Obama’s Bureau of Labor Statistics has), a host of bad news out of China indicates a possible “hard landing” for that economy, which will take Australia and Canada (major commodity suppliers to China) down with it, what amounts to a bank run in Greece and the start of one in Spain…and, yesterday, I read an article which I hope was a bald-faced lie because it says the derivatives market (something I don’t fully understand but from what I can gather it is nothing but a bunch of ponzi scheme garbage) is leveraged to 10 times global GDP…and there’s simply nothing to back all that garbage up.  So, are we doomed to a Depression?

The answer is “yes” and, also, “it started in 2008”.  For you liberals out there, this will provide you a bit of comfort:  Obama is not at fault for it.  On the downside, though, just about everything he has done has ensured that it not only won’t get fixed, but will actually get worse.  He hasn’t been alone in this, of course – Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve (as well as other central bankers around the world) has piled on the harm with all his money printing.  The problems of the global economy are as follows:

The world uses fake money – money just printed up by central banks and backed by nothing.  Fake money allows insolvent banks and governments to keep themselves afloat but it works out to the systematic stealing of the money of wealth-creators.  If you work hard today and earn a dollar what will happen is a 100th of a penny of it will be stolen tomorrow…that 100th of a penny isn’t so bad, but after 10 years it works out to quite a lot of the dollar you earned.  Fake money essentially allows failure to be masked – what is economically counter-productive can be kept going because you can keep passing fake money through it.  That you are all the while eroding the entire economy does not show up for a while, but show up it will.

We allow governments to pile up debt.  Government debt is not an “investment”.  An investment is when you take some of your own money and provide it to someone else who has worked out a plan to generate more wealth than was put in to it.  So, I have $100,000.00 and I see some guy in a garage with what I think will be a great product and I give the $100,000.00 to him to start up manufacturing – next year, the guy in a garage is a guy in a factory and he pays me back $125,000.00 while he, himself, is worth $250,000.00.  Government spending can provide some useful things, of course, but even when it does it isn’t like that.  A road facilitates commerce but it doesn’t actually return money on the money spent.  If the government spends a billion dollars building a new road its not like the government will get 1.5 billion dollars back on it next year.  True, the economic activity stimulated by the good road will result in a broader tax base but its still not an “I loan you money for your wealth-producing enterprise and I get paid back with interest while your wealth-producing enterprise just goes on and on making more and more wealth”.  So, even in the best of circumstances (a needed road), government spending is not an investment; even less so is government spending an investment when it goes in to things like high paid bureaucrats, subsidies to favored groups, welfare, etc, etc, etc.  It still might be something desired overall but it isn’t an investment.

Even worse, though, when the government spending is not out of current revenues but is borrowed against future revenues.  When we spend tomorrow’s money today on government we are not only not investing but we are de-investing…because every cent borrowed by the government is a cent which can’t be borrowed by persons and enterprises in the private economy who would use that borrowing to create new or expanded sources of wealth creation.  Whatever benefit you might get from such borrowing will be short lived, at best, and may actually harm the economy because the money borrowed by government is all too often to be wasted by the sundry sorts of graft common to government.

What started in 2008 and continues to this day – masked by a gigantic amount of fake money and government debt – is the logical and easily predicted outcome of a system which has at its bottom fake money and government debt.  I’m only astounded that it has kept going as long as it has.  Shows the power of people to blind themselves to reality – and our short-sightedness.  We listen with amusement to tales of what prices used to be…never thinking for a moment that, hey, the reason prices used to be lower is that our money was worth more and what the heck happened to our money?  It is when we create wealth that we get prosperous – when, that is, we make, mine and grow things.  Nothing else does it.  10,000 law degrees, 100 government departments and bureaus and the next 50 social media sites – not a single bit of wealth being created.  The next time a farmer plants a corn crop?  Wealth created.  The next time a miner digs in the earth?  Wealth created.  The next time someone makes a pair of pliers?  Wealth created.

In order for this wealth creation to happen we mush have three things:

1.  Investment money for wealth-creators to start up or expand their wealth creating enterprises.

2.  Reliable money which holds its value over time so that investors can safely invest for long term wealth creation (fake money, on the other hand, moves investors to protect their wealth by looking for the highest rate of short term gain).

3.  A tax and regulatory system which encourages money to flow in to wealth creating enterprises while laying the burden of proof for new regulations upon those who would impose them (not, as now, simply imposing them and then asking the victims to prove they aren’t necessary).

Investment money will primarily come from paying down government debt.  We’ve got $15 trillion of potential investment money sitting in the form of US government bonds.  Entirely wasted there – we need to balance our budget as swiftly as possible so that each year more and more of the $15 trillion becomes available to the private economy.

Reliable money would best come from returning to the gold standard but people have been so relentlessly propagandized against such currency that it would be a hard sell.  Our best option, for now, is to require Congressional action for increasing the supply of money – whatever we do, don’t leave in the hands of central bankers to go “cntrl-p” whenever their Bankster buddies are in trouble.

As you can easily see, neither of those things can be fixed as long as liberals have any say in the matter, let alone any real efforts to tackle tax and regulatory reform.  Essentially, fixing the problem requires a clean sweep of our liberal Democrats – though even if we did that we’d have no end of trouble from the RINOs.  What needs to be done to fix things, after all, is the gutting of a politico-economic which the current beneficiaries don’t want to let go.  A long, hard war is required – but we take each battle as it comes.  The first one comes on November 6th – then we can start actually fixing our economy and emerging from the Depression.

 

The Bankrupt States of America

Mark Noonan53 Comments

From USA Today:

…The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.

The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government’s books… (emphasis added)

The report goes on to note, among other things, that for Social Security to be solvent we’d need to have $22.2 trillion set aside and earning interest.  Clearly, that is an impossible sum – we don’t have it and we can’t get it, ever.  And that is just Social Security – it doesn’t count the cost of Medicare, Medicaid, the upcoming ObamaCare bill, other entitlements and, of course, all the other bloated, wasteful spending which is built in to our government.  And it entirely leaves aside the amount of debt our State and local governments have accrued.  The bottom line:  the United States is bankrupt.

For now, we’re able to play around with this – pretend, that is, that we’re not bankrupt and that money will be there for everything.  But the reality is there – Paul Ryan is right:  we’re heading for the most predictable financial disaster in human history.  Unless we take charge of our nation and reform our taxing, spending and regulations, we’re doomed to an economic wipe out which will make the Great Depression seem like small potatoes.  If you want to see where we’re heading, look at Greece…and land of riots, bank runs and a government which can’t even pony up for the prescription drugs they promised the people of Greece; and I don’t mean “having trouble paying”…the Greek government simply stopped paying for the drugs.  They are out of money.

We’re probably three to five years away from that point…maybe as many as 7 years if we really go flat out with money-printing and financial gimmicks (which would also be disastrous in terms of rapid inflation and other dislocations).  But unless we fundamentally change how things are done, we’re doomed sooner or later (and I think sooner – the latest data from Europe and China indicates they are in recession and I bet we’ve been in recession for a couple months now, but the data are being fudged…they were being fudged in Europe and, especially, China, too…but you can’t “hide the decline” forever).  This is why November 6th is so crucial – a re-elected Obama, even if he’s set with a fully GOP Congress, simply will not make any move to disturb business as usual.  Even if he’s not able to increase spending the fact that we won’t have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate will prevent any budget from being passed…and we’ll be saddled with year after year of “continuing resolutions” which lock in place the bonanza of extra spending Reid and Pelosi piled on in 2009.  Obama must go if America is to avoid catastrophe.

Romney, on the other hand, is enough of a business man to know we can’t go on like this – and while he might want to compromise more with the left than we’d like, an increasingly conservative/libertarian Congress will ensure that a lot of really good policies are enacted.  Additionally, the force of circumstances will push Romney and the Congress towards the radical solutions needed.  It won’t do anyone any good getting a good write-up about bi-partisanship in the Washington Post if failure to act responsibly leads to35% unemployment in 2014.  With their backs against the wall, a GOP government has a good chance of doing something worthwhile.

This is serious, good people – we’re in quite a fix and like Obama’s old preacher used to say, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost”.  We’ve spent too much for too long while harrying wealth creators with a regressive tax and regulatory system.  It is change it, or die.

 

Gingrich Gets it Right

Mark Noonan165 Comments

From CNN:

“I am not for a narrow victory,” he said. “I am for crushing the left in every single way.”

Gingrich was, of course, Matt’s first choice for nominee – he was my 2nd or 3rd (Santorum was always my first).  For me, Romney was a bit back there in the pack but always with the understanding that the crucial necessity is to ensure that Obama leaves office on January 20th, 2013.

The capstone for getting rid of Obama came, in my view, just recently – when it was revealed that in 1991 he was described as being born in Kenya.  Naturally, the Obamatons leaped to in action when this came out and called it a “mistake”.  But I don’t buy that – I call it a lie, instead.   Here is the key to Obama:  he’ll say or do anything to advance himself.  Back when he was just starting out being from an upper class, white Hawaiian family just didn’t cut enough liberal ice – being a foreign born son of a radical anti-British communist!  Well, that did the trick quite nicely.

From “composite” girlfriends in his autobiography (which, it would seem, millions of liberal pinheads bought but few read) to joining Wright’s racist church, Obama has merely crafted a narrative for himself as best suited his immediate needs.  And the cruelty with which he tosses aside old friends like Wright (say what you will about Wright, but have some sympathy:  for 20 years Obama and Wright were close and then Wright got in the way of the newest narrative, and he had to go) is just another indicator of the wrongness of Obama.

I don’t really know what Obama is up to – he’s up to radical leftism, but with what goal in mind, I don’t know:  I suspect there isn’t one in the traditional, political sense.  All we’re seeing now is yet another narrative, this one designed to get Obama re-elected.  After that, he’ll just go on to the next narrative – whatever makes him continue to rise up the ladder in his own estimation.  The trouble is that we need a President – someone who cares less about himself and more about the United States.  A re-elected Obama will not just pursue stupid, destructive policies, but he’ll also ignore any problem which can’t lead to more glory for Obama – and that is a recipe for national and global catastrophe.

Gingrich sees this – and sees more:  Obama must go, but the left as a whole must be crushed.  Our only task as conservatives, patriots and Americans from now until November 6th is to beat these people.  Because if we don’t, we’re going to pay too high a price for failure.