They can conquer who believe they can.
Virgil
Valentine's Day Disaster:
President Obama's Budget
Last year the spendthrift Democratic President and Congress passed an ominous benchmark: in roughly a $14.6T economy, the national debt passed the critical 90% line. Reinhart and Rogoff explain:
Our analysis was based on newly-compiled data on forty-four countries spanning about two hundred years. This amounts to 3,700 annual observations and covers a wide range of political systems, institutions, exchange rate arrangements, and historic circumstances. Above the threshold of 90% [of GDP], median growth rates fall by 1%, and average growth falls considerably more. The threshold for public debt is similar in advanced and emerging economies and applies for both the post World War II period and as far back as the data permit (often well into the 1800s).We now have a revised estimate of a $1.65T deficit for our current fiscal year (ending in September) and at some point over the coming months, our debt will exceed GDP.
There are a couple of excellent summary articles published by the Americans for Tax Reform. First, Ryan Ellis looks at the new taxes that President Obama wants to establish, roughly amounting to $1.5T over the coming decade. Basically, Obama is once again pursuing class warfare tax increases, including the very same tax cut extensions he finally compromised on in December: he wants to go back to the 39.6% tax bracket, a general increase in investment taxes, increasing the death tax by 10 points while lowering the exemption, capping mortgage interest rate deductions, new business and energy taxes, etc. These increases, if they were to pass, would be intrinsically anti-growth.
Mattie Corrao exposes the President's misleading rhetoric on his record spending plan. Federal revenues amount to just over $2T while the President's new budget pushes the $4T ceiling. He stresses savings from the deficit over the coming decade--but doesn't mention that new spending swamping the savings by over 10 times--and the new class warfare taxes only cover a similarly small percentage of new spending. Once again, the President refuses to address the elephants in the budget (social security and Medicare), he wants to lock in a roughly 25% increase in domestic spending since Bush, and he plays a bit of a shell game with military spending. His token budget cuts are, of course, denounced by progressives, but not serious from a materiality standpoint. In short, the President once again fails to lead, transfers the real costs of his Presidency to future generations and wants to run against House GOP spending cuts for his reelection battle next year.
Michael Gerson
Catholic Republicans' political beliefs, challenged by their faith:
Thumbs DOWN!
For a non-Catholic, former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson seems oddly obsessed with Catholic Church social teachings and their implications on political matters. Gerson finds meaning in George Bush's version of "compassionate conservatism", including expansions of domestic spending, ramp-ups of humanitarian aid (especially in Africa), a new entitlement (Medicare drug coverage), immigration reform, and No Kids Left Behind. For many of us conservatives, the issue isn't so much for the former President's intent and motives, but with his policy inconsistencies from a conservative perspective: adding a new entitlement without legitimate funding, radically increasing the involvement of the federal government in education, which is normally handled at the local/state level, expanding domestic expenditures at a time of weak economic and job growth, and nearly doubling the national debt.
As a Catholic conservative/libertarian, I find it rather amusing that Gerson is trying to lecture me and over 60 Catholic GOP legislators. As a former Democrat, a few years back I decided to purchase a book written by David Carlin, a former 12-year Rhode Island Democratic state senator, called Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?. Here's a quote from the product description:
On issues of human life, sex, faith, morality, suffering - and the public policies that stem from them - the modern, secularist Democratic Party has become the enemy of Catholicism.Let us not forget: many educated, prosperous Catholics get a college degree where only 1 of 7 professors they meet on average is conservative. In previous posts, I have cited some of Arthur C. Brooke's research on charity:
Brooks shows that those who say they strongly oppose redistribution by government to remedy income inequality give over 10 times more to charity than those who strongly support government intervention, with a difference of $1,627 annually versus $140 to all causes.In fact, I've sometimes called these liberals modern-day Scrooges whom think they have done their humanitarian duty by stripping other people of their property to feed an inefficient, ineffective, unresponsive government bureaucracy. I personally believe that the Christian response fundamentally reflects individual responsibility and action (Matthew 22:21).
It is true that some Catholic clergy meddle outside their area of distinctive competency, without broad knowledge and skills of business and economics. Ironically their Democratic and public school teacher union allies use sham excuses to prevent competitive school choice, even though Catholic schools operate at far lower costs and parents have to bear full costs out of their own pockets, on top of their property taxes funding public schools. I personally submit any prelate supporting local education monopolies, resulting in ill-prepared graduates, is advocating counter-productive policies.
The botton line is that Gerson is making a straw man out of conservatives and libertarians. We oppose progressive policies not because we are indifferent to the plight of other people, but because we think decades of massive spending in cities and public schools have not worked, and we believe that progressive policies lead to moral hazard and the law of unintended consequences. The idea that throwing money away on ineffectual programs is a moral imperative is quite frankly absurd.
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Donald Trump and Ron Paul have been feuding since Donald Trump at CPAC argued Ron Paul couldn't win the Presidency. I'm not sure about Trump's odds given the fact that Trump's casinos have gone bankrupt 3 times. When others suggested "three strikes and you're out", Trump denied that the bankruptcies had anything to do with union problems...
- It was Valentine's Day at the White House. After populist cable news anchor Bill O'Reilly suggested in a Super Bowl Day interview that many American people hate the President, Senator Stuart Smalley was leading the President in his daily affirmations: "I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me."
The Bee Gees/Barbra Streisand, "Woman in Love".
I love this song (perfect arrangement, vocals, and performance) but there's something a little odd about guys writing a love song from a woman's perspective. I found an amusing follow-up clip where the brothers tease each other and Barry does an admirable job with the chorus...
