Quote of the Day
Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Pelosi to Reid to Obama: Are They Trying to Buy Seniors' Votes With $250 Checks?
The Democrats, in a shameless last-minute attempt to pander for the votes of retired citizens, are promising to pass a $250 check per retiree to make up for the second year in a row without a cost of living adjustment (due to low inflation according to official government statistics). I have my own issues with government estimates, as I've explained in prior posts, given the loss of purchasing power of the dollar and related commodity price increases. However, the long recession and low-growth, jobless recovery have resulted in many eligible for early retirement at 62 exercising their option; that, in addition to reduced payroll tax revenues, has resulted in premature deficits and partial liquidation of reserves, hastening the day of reckoning with accelerating baby boomer retirements.
The Democrats had overwhelming numbers in Congress to address chronically underfunded entitlements like social security and Medicare and failed to do that. Worse, they decided to make deep, unspecified cuts in Medicare, not to shore up Medicare, which is in even worse financial condition, to pay for yet another health care entitlement we cannot afford. The Democrats continue to send out $250 checks to seniors--during last year's stimulus, Nancy Pelosi's desire to eliminate the "doughnut hole" in Medicare, and now this latest promise.
Nobody is questioning the worthiness of today's retirees or the rightful benefits to which they are entitled, having contributed (along with employer match) throughout their work career. But the Democrats are issuing checks that aren't paid for and thus are undermining the long-term solvency of these programs. Let's be quite clear about what these checks are about: it's not about whether conservatives love Grandma. It is about liberals pandering to senior citizens for purposes of their next election and putting it on the nation's credit card, while conservatives have to play bad cop and remind everyone that Christmas gift purchases show up on January's credit card statement. And consecutive trillion dollar-plus deficits require more and more interest money to be paid--money that can't be spent on national defense, infrastructure or social programs.
Isn't it time that senior citizens stand up and tell the Democratic Party that their votes are not for sale? That they want to leave a better world for their children and grandchildren, not an unmanageable mountain of debt that will remain after the Democrats in question retire from Congress? What senior citizens should demand is the long-term financial security of the system, not token checks hardly worth the paper they're printed on from politicians looking to score points...
O'Donnell and the Separation of Church and State
Christine O'Donnell had a Sarah Palin moment in today's debate with Chris Coons. (I haven't seen the full debate or read its transcript, but hopefully it didn't include a Palin-like "I don't care what you guys want me to talk about, but I'm going to use my time up here to talk about what I want to talk about.") I have been critical of the incompetent way she is being handled and prepared (see the political humor segment below, written prior to this discussion.)
I have never been a candidate for elective federal office, but I am utterly astonished how easily professional Democratic politicians have been able to get the Tea Party-supported candidates off message. Let me repeat, in the unlikely event any Republican candidate ever reads my posts, that the top 3 issues in the November 2 election are: the economy, the economy and the economy. The GOP needs to stay on message: it's more than just unwise tax hikes and globally uncompetitive business tax rates in a weak economy; it's the question of a more stable, predictable government, it's about getting government out of the private sector (AIG, the GSE's, the car companies, the community bank/small business TARP, etc.) nationalizing student loans and home mortgages; it's about the government not picking winners (e.g., heavily subsidized green energy, which accounts for about 3% of energy generation) and losers, it's about the need to streamline rules, regulations and reporting requirements, and it's about the failure of the Democrats to support pro-investment and other pro-business growth policies and by their adding more floors to their Ponzi scheme entitlement house of cards (see the above segment).
It's NOT about getting baited into arcane libertarian debates over the rationale behind FDR's New Deal or LBJ's Great Society initiatives; what you have to do is argue that misleading accounting, as in the recent case of the corrupt Senate health care law passed earlier this year, is something you cannot afford at a time the national debt is reaching the size of the economy. If some progressive wants to play the same old same old social welfare net game, you have to discuss the historical failure of these initiatives to achieve their goals and the necessity of reforming overly expensive, ineffective domestic spending programs, not throwing more and more good money after bad.
It is about not letting your opponent define you, e.g., by being baited into a debate over peripheral issues like the merits of carrying a rapist's child to term, evolution in the classroom (why in the world are we still reenacting the Scopes trial 85 years later?) or discussing gays in the military. Yes, senators do vote on Supreme Court nominations. In this context what O'Donnell needs to do is to stay on point is to preserve the balance in our federal system (e.g., the tenth amendment, a salient point in the health care debate, and the threat to individual rights over the mandate on insurance) and to point out the disingenuous back-door progressive policymaking through the court systems, instead of through the legislative process.
Hearing the law school audience openly laugh at O'Donnell's tenuous, wavering, uncertain handling of the separation of church and state and the meaning of the First Amendment was both embarrassing and disheartening. First, the separation of church and state is NOT in the Constitution. I don't want to get into the weeds here, but what the First Amendment establishes, among other things, is that the national government cannot establish an official religion (e.g., like the Church of England) or prohibit individuals from worship as they prefer. However, the states, at the time, had more latitude and Jefferson's letter, which had the first reference to "the separation of church and state", decades later cited by a Supreme Court justice, was in response to one denomination's complaints about a state's default designation of a different denomination for disbursements of religious tax collection. Jefferson, as an ideological supporter of states' rights (versus federal authority), responded in a nuanced fashion; Jefferson was really talking about was the need of the state to be impartial in fact and appearance (i.e., no presumptive assignment of religious tax revenues), not whether the state should be collecting religious taxes. In fact, Jefferson used to attend religious services within the Capitol itself.
So I question how Jefferson's distinction morphed into a situation where display of a Nativity on public grounds or posting of the Ten Commandments in a court hallway are all but prohibited; I think that reflects an intolerance of religious speech, an unconscionable double standard.
Personally, I've made my position on this topic quite clear in past posts. I don't like the intermingling of church and state, but it has more to do with my belief in limited government, and I believe that the institutions should stick to their distinctive core competencies. I do not support faith-based challenges to school curricula (e.g., evolution or sex education), although I see education as more of a local than federal issue. I accept brief, general religious speech in a public setting, e.g., introductory prayers at public events.
The paternalistic, disrespectful treatment of Christine O'Donnell by both Chris Coons and the audience reflects the progressive groupthink pervading academia and a fundamental ignorance of our nation's heritage.
Recommendation: George Will podcast
Any faithful reader of this blog knows George Will is among my favorite conservatives. He gave a great keynote address at this past spring's Milton Friedman Prize Dinner; you can download the podcast here (May 18, 2010).
Political Humor
"They asked her to name a Supreme Court case that she disagreed with; she said Kramer vs. Kramer." –Bill Maher on the recent Coons-O'Donnell debate
[Who could expect her generation's version of Harold Stassen, 3-time Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, to answer such a question? I mean, how could Christine answer a question that Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin herself couldn't answer during the 2008 general election campaign? Of course, nobody took notes... Not only can't the Tea Party Express vet candidates: they can't prep their candidates for debates, either. Christine, the next time you run for the US Senate from Delaware, memorize this: Kelo v the City of New London. It has to do with private property rights vs. the local government's audacious legal authority to do whatever it takes, including steamrolling private citizens, to lure additional business tax revenue.]
"'Jackass 3D' just opened. It's the life story of New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino." –David Letterman
[Now, Dave, you must know, just like Obama knows 'D' on an automatic transmission stands for 'Democrats' and R for 'Republicans', a jackass is defined as a 'stupid person' or 'male ass or donkey'. The donkey is the symbol of Democrats. Hence, it is intuitively obvious that 'Jackass 3D' must be about 3 male Democrat incumbents: I haven't seen the movie trailer, but I would think there must be cameo appearances by Alan Grayson, Harry Reid, and Barney Frank.]
Musical Interlude: The "British Invasion" of the 1960s Series
The Mindbenders, "A Groovy Kind of Love"
