Blogs For Victory

Victory!

A federal judge in Virginia has declared the Obama administration’s health care reform law unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson is the first judge to rule against the law, which has been upheld by two others in Virginia and Michigan.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed the lawsuit challenging the law’s requirement that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014.

He argues the federal government doesn’t have the constitutional authority to impose the requirement.

Other lawsuits are pending, including one filed by 20 states in a Florida court. Virginia is not part of that lawsuit.

The U.S. Justice Department and opponents of the health care law agree that the U.S. Supreme Court will have the final word.

Discuss.

A harbinger of things to come:

The federal budget deficit rose to $150.4 billion last month, the largest November gap on record. And the government’s deficits are set to climb higher if Congress passes a tax-cut plan that’s estimated to cost $855 billion over two years.

The Treasury Department says November’s budget gap was 25 percent more than the deficit in November 2009…

…analysts say the tax deal President Barack Obama reached with Republicans this week will give the 2011 budget year the largest deficit in history — $1.5 trillion, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase. It would mark the third straight year of trillion-dollar-plus deficits…

Before you liberals start screaming about how the “tax cuts for the rich” are going to push the deficit back to record levels, please understand that under the tax compromise rates stay the same. In other words, nothing is added to the 2011 deficit which had been projected, a couple months back, to come in at around $1.2 trillion. What changed? Obama’s proposal to lop off 2 percentage points on the payroll tax – that is the budget-buster.

And, remember, all the projections for 2011 and beyond have been made on the assumption that the economy is in recovery and thus revenues will grow pretty well. The fact that November’s deficit was a record for the month – 25% higher than a year ago, and one of the highest monthly deficits on record – should make everyone take the revenue predictions with a gigantic grain of salt. Maybe we get lucky and revenues grow – but, maybe we don’t. And what happens to our economy if, by summer, we’re facing a 2011 deficit of 1.6 or 1.7 trillion dollars?

Think “Greece”.

This over at CNBC:

The overdependence on new real estate in China, when the demand isn’t there, will cause the nation to eventually “hit a wall,” hedge fund manager James Chanos told CNBC Friday.

“Construction is 60-plus percent of GDP, compared to exports of 5,” said Chanos, who is the founder and president of Kynikos Associates…

China’s construction boom has resulted in whole cities being built – trouble is, no one is living in them. Buildings only a few years old are knocked down to build larger replacements. Real estate in China’s hottest markets goes for absurdly high prices. This is a bubble – and a huge bubble; maybe the largest ever seen in world history.

I can’t see any good way for this to end – China is a nation ruled by a corrupt oligarchy; it’s economy is riddled with corruption and bad debts; most of the population, even after this supposed boom of the past 10-20 years, lives in grinding poverty; China’s anti-human “one child” policy has set China on the path to demographic catastrophe. And, boys and girls, they are nuclear armed and feeling like they should take our place in the world. When the poop hits the fan, what will they do?

My worry is that they’ll engineer a war to distract and clamp down on their own people – but whatever happens, it won’t work to our advantage. We’ve got a huge mess over there, just waiting to come crashing in to world affairs.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

Some alarming news from the Washington Post:

Russia delivered at least 1,800 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles to Venezuela in 2009, U.N. arms control data show, despite vigorous U.S. efforts to stop President Hugo Chavez’s stridently anti-American government from acquiring the weapons.

The United States feared that the missiles could be funneled to Marxist guerrillas fighting Colombia’s pro-American government or Mexican drug cartels, concerns expressed in U.S. diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and first reported in the Spanish newspaper El Pais…

Chavez has many unsavory connections and while he appears a clown, he is a growing threat to the liberty and stability of south and central America. The missiles, in question, can shoot down jets at 19,000 feet – in the hands of drug cartels or Islamist terrorists such weapons have the capability of paralyzing air transport in the Americas…just a few jets downed by such weapons would pretty much do the trick.

What Russia is up to is clear – Putin, imagining that Russia is still a Great Power, is trying to tweak our nose. For Putin, this is payback, as he sees it, for our defense of Poland and other nations once in the Russian orbit. Chavez is useful in this asinine Russian policy. Unfortunately, unless we want to go to war with Russia, there’s not much we can do to stop Putin from sending arms to Chavez. So, our task becomes one of getting rid of Chavez.

As the Venezuelan economy falls further and further in to socialist poverty our ability to separate Chavez from the people of Venezuela will grow. Every bit of pressure which can be applied should be applied – including, and most especially, disrupting Venezuela’s ability to sell oil. The oil, of course, is all Chavez has really got – its how he pays his goon squads and how he buys the weapons. Cut in to that and we greatly diminish his power, as well as tip Venezuela in to acute economic crisis, thus putting more domestic pressure on Chavez’ regime.

In 2010, we can’t afford an insane, heavily armed dictatorship in South America. We’ve got enough problems in the world and we’ve allowed the Chavez problem to fester long enough.

When political correctness runs wild:

Sorry I missed this one – originally hit the ‘net on December 2nd, and got quite a bit of commentary from December 7th on. My excuse: I have been busy! From e21 commenting on a San Francisco Federal Reserve study on the affects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:

The study uses this resulting variation in state-level stimulus funding to determine what impact ARRA funding had on employment — including both the direct impact of workers hired to complete planned projects, as well as any broader spillover effects resulting from greater government spending. Administration economists have repeatedly emphasized the importance of this indirect employment growth in driving economic recovery.

The results suggest that though the program did result in 2 million jobs “created or saved” by March 2010, net job creation was statistically indistinguishable from zero by August of this year. Taken at face value, this would suggest that the stimulus program (with an overall cost of $814 billion) worked only to generate temporary jobs at a cost of over $400,000 per worker. Even if the stimulus had in fact generated this level of employment as a durable outcome, it would still have been an extremely expensive way to generate employment…(emphasis added)

It likely didn’t work, at all, and even if you still want to massage the numbers to make it “work”, you’re still going to come out with a program vastly more expensive than just leaving the money in the private sector.

Once again – the government can’t create jobs. If the government spends money to “create” a job, it means that it has to take the money from somewhere else in the economy (either in the form of taking money directly today, or taking it from tomorrow by borrowing). This means there is less money for private sector job creation. While government action can temporarily give you a bloom of health, the long term effects are bad.

People should note the fact that after each major war in American history – ie, after each time when there was a massive increase in government spending which “created” jobs to serve the war effort – there was a recession (recessions following wars – 1815-21; 1865-67; 1918-21; 1945/48-49; 1953-54; 1973-75). You spend a lot of money via government, you get a short-term boom but then, at the end of it, the piper has to be paid and the various economic activities which are merely government-based prove themselves incapable of self-sustaining growth.

There is only one way to economic growth – hard work, savings and careful investment. And there is also the necessity that the hard work involve genuine wealth creation – making, mining or growing things. If you’re not doing that, you’re just wasting time and resources, in an economic sense. Government can foster these activities, but it cannot force them through – even if you want to create a government farm to produce more food (in itself, a good thing), the fact that government is doing the spending means that some other private activity is now curtailed because of lack of funds. Government’s role in the economy must be limited to ensuring fair play for all people entering the market – fight against monopolies, fraud and other actions which tend to distort the natural allocation of labor, capital and resources.

The economic model we’ve lived under since the New Deal has failed – it is time to rip it out, root and branch, and start to build a new American economy.

HAT TIP: Gay Patriot

Third Sunday of Advent is already here. Ponder what you did this past week. Praise God for giving you the strength you showed in your good deeds, crave pardon from God for those moments when you failed to heed the call. The week was like that for me – I did some things well, but failed in many actions, too. Never lose heart at your errors; ask forgiveness, and move on and do it right, next time because while there is life, there is hope:

The desert and the parched land will exult;

the steppe will rejoice and bloom.

They will bloom with abundant flowers,

and rejoice with joyful song.

The glory of Lebanon will be given to them,

the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;

they will see the glory of the LORD,

the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the hands that are feeble,

make firm the knees that are weak,

say to those whose hearts are frightened:

Be strong, fear not!

Here is your God,

he comes with vindication;

with divine recompense

he comes to save you.

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,

the ears of the deaf be cleared;

then will the lame leap like a stag,

then the tongue of the mute will sing.

Those whom the LORD has ransomed will return

and enter Zion singing,

crowned with everlasting joy;

they will meet with joy and gladness,

sorrow and mourning will flee. – Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10

Revolution, indeed:

Two African-American Democrats on Thursday announced that they were joining the Republican Party.

Hall County Commissioner Ashley Bell and former state executive committee member Andre Walker said the Democratic Party had grown too liberal and they are finding a new home with the Republicans…

It must be understood that on social issues, African-Americans are at least as conservative as most Republicans. On economic issues there might be more of an emphasis on what government can do to help – something not necessarily opposed by Republicans, depending on circumstances and the programs in question – but there is plenty of things to agree upon. This is also true with Americans of hispanic ancestry.

Does this mean the GOP will win a majority of black votes in 2012? Of course not – but if we can even win the support of 20% of African-Americans it will constitute a political revolution. So many Democrats at the State and federal level are dependent upon a huge black turnout going 90% or better Democrat that even a relatively small shift here would be devastating for the Democrat party. And, in the end, I do believe that we can compete for a majority of black votes. That will be the task for a generation of hard work, but it can be done.

Watch out, Democrats – your efforts to divide and conquer the American people; your efforts to split us along racial lines, are starting to fail. Your hour has struck – and unless you change your ways, you are doomed.

Seems like a no-brainer, right? These Democrats – a total of 21 up, 10 of them almost certain to face a tough, tough battle to be re-elected – would naturally back the President an agree to extend the tax cuts. But, will they? Rich Baehr over at Pajamas Media points out their quandary:

…If the Democratic incumbents were assured they would be re-nominated, they could begin to position themselves early on for their re-election fight and move a bit towards the center to improve their chances with independents. Independent voters broke sharply for the Republicans in the 2010 midterms, with one of every three independents who voted with the Democrats in 2008 moving to the GOP in 2010. But there are now looming threats from the progressive wing of the party if some of these incumbents are seen as straying from the ideological path favored by the left on the tax bill…

My thinking has been that the 2012ers, especially the most vulnerable, would see this thing trough – and I’m still holding to that. Talk of primary challengers from the left is, for me, just so much talk – most of the time we can count on left wing servility to ensure against such a thing. I realize that they did go after Lieberman in 2006 and thus such things are possible, but the fact that such corrupt Democrats as Barney Frank and Harry Reid were unchallenged in the 2010 primaries indicates to me a continuing, slavish devotion to the leadership on the part of the left wing base.

But…

It could happen – and that means that these 2012ers do need to look over their shoulder to the left as well as to the right. At least until such time as it becomes harder and harder for a credible primary challenger to arise (anyone seriously considering it would have to start getting busy by, say, August of this year; earlier in the early primary States). Not a comfortable position to be in – and, actually, going against this tax deal might be a cheap way for them to lock down some support (or, at least, ensure neutrality) on the part of the left.

This next week could be mighty interesting…

A lot of comment has been made over the past couple days over a report that marriage is declining among the American middle class. While among the very rich and very poor there has long been a slackness in matters of pre-marital sexuality and, when marriage occurs, an easy willingness to have a divorce, the middle class was thought to be rather safe from it. Turns out, of course, that the middle class has not been immune to our societal shifts. While still far more traditionalist in such matters than the poor, there has been a rapid shift away from traditional morality. Some are wondering if we’re in some way doomed – that the die is cast, and the old ways are gone forever.

Such talk is nonsense. Here is what happened:

1. Government social programs have tended to subsidize irresponsible behavior.

2. Tax and regulatory policy have tended to destroy the jobs of the middle class (ie, jobs which are well paid and open to people who either cannot obtain or do not want a lot of formal education).

3. Relentless propaganda in favor of moral depravity has slowly eroded public morality.

As far as subsidizing irresponsible behavior, we have a situation now where some of the unemployed have received years of benefits and, often, those benefits exceed minimum wage employment (or, at least, don’t go enough over it to convince someone to get up every morning and go to work). If we were to simply make it so that after, say, 90 days of unemployment benefits you had to present yourself to your local government for use as day labor, such absurdities would end – rather than work as graffiti removers or trash collectors, people would go find some other work…and if there truly wasn’t any work, at all, to be had, then at least the unemployed would feel they were contributing…the whole psychology of it would change. And this is just one of a hundred examples of the way we subsidize irresponsible behavior.

Regarding tax and regulatory policy, it is just flat out nonsense to say that the United States cannot make something like a hammer cheaper than it is made in China and then shipped to the United States. But our policies, on the one hand, overburden anyone who wishes to make things (or mine or grow things) in the United States while, on the other hand, the provide a positive incentive for boneheaded corporate bosses to see shipping jobs to China or India as a good idea (talk about killing your own golden goose!). Reform tax and regulatory policy to free up making, mining and growing things and we’ll swiftly start to rebuild such enterprises, thus providing middle class jobs for the American people.

And, finally, we’ve got the moral depravity. For half a century now we’ve endlessly instructed everyone that marriage is a drag, sex is the most important thing, the personal happiness of the individual trumps all. It is no surprise, at all, that after such a campaign we’re finding more and more people falling for such idiocy. In this, we just need a bit of courage – those of us who haven’t entirely fallen for it need to stand up and demand that it stop. First amendment? Certainly – but no one charged a line of bayonets so that pornography could be readily available. Be sensible – don’t fall for an argument which says that free speech is doomed unless we allow a pornographer or Hollywood huckster to make a buck off of filth.

We’ve got all sorts of problems to deal with in America. We have made one huge mess of our nation. But we can put it back together, again. It won’t happen overnight as what took decades to develope won’t be undone in a day. But it can be managed – if we just use our common sense and stop falling for what amounts to a con stating we must forever support layabouts, must forever have Big Government and Big Corporation ruining the economy and must forever allow garbage to be spewed all over our nation.