Why not let taxes rise on the middle class?
Barring a last-minute breakthrough, taxes will go up for every U.S. taxpayer on Jan. 1 — and that’s a development conservatives should welcome.Don’t get me wrong: It would be better not to raise taxes on anyone, pursue pro-growth tax reform and cut the size of government instead. But that’s not what the American people voted to do last month. Americans cast their ballots for big government.
Now it’s time to pay for it.
Until now, the growth of government under President Obama has not hit the pocketbooks of most Americans. During Obama’s first term, federal spending grew to more than 24 percent of GDP — the highest it has been since 1946. Yet almost no one in the country (except smokers and those who frequent indoor tanning salons) saw their taxes rise. Quite the opposite: 160 million Americans saw their payroll taxes reduced from 6.2 to 4.2 percent.
How can we expect people to care about the growth of government if it doesn’t cost them anything?
Instead of paying for the current miasma of spending, we’ve been borrowing the money from our children and grandchildren. The national debt has grown by nearly $6 trillion in the four years since Obama took office. That generational theft cannot continue. We must not keep financing big government by passing the bills on to the next generation. Ideally, we would stop the spending binge and live within our means. But if the nation is not up to that, then we should all pitch in and pay for it — all of us.
Sorry, taxing the rich won’t solve our problems — that’s nothing but fiscal snake oil the president has been selling. He is demanding $1.3 trillion in higher taxes on the wealthy over 10 years. Imagine he got it. We are adding nearly that much to the national debt every single year. Taxing the rich would not put even a minor dent in our debt. It would pay for less than three weeks of federal spending every year. The only way to pay for the current expansion of government is to raise taxes on the middle class.
So let’s do it. Let’s all of us experience the true cost of big government in the form of a bigger tax bill.
It might well be that the biggest mistake Republicans made during Obama’s first term was forcing the president to extend the Bush tax cuts. At the time, it seemed like a major victory by the newly elected GOP House. But in truth, it was a victory for Obama. Extending the tax cuts shielded the economy from the full brunt of Obama’s economic failures and allowed him to put off job-killing tax increases until his second term. It’s ironic: Obama never passed up an opportunity to blame President George W. Bush for his economic woes, yet he rode the Bush tax cuts to reelection.
Extending the tax cuts also shielded Americans from the costs of Obama’s spending spree. Shopping on a credit card is fun until the bill comes due. But if the bill never arrives, what incentive do people have to stop the spending?
Big government is great if you don’t have to pay for it. Well, now it’s time to pay the bill. Maybe when the costs of the stimulus, Obamacare and exploding entitlements are finally deducted from their paychecks, Americans will rediscover the virtue of smaller government. If they don’t like paying higher taxes to allow for more spending, there’s a simple solution: Demand that politicians in Washington cut taxes and spending instead of expanding them. And if they won’t do it, elect men and women who will.
Until then, Republicans need to stop protecting Americans from the consequences of their decisions to elect profligate politicians.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-not-let-taxes-rise-on-the-middle-class/2012/12/28/b7f69ace-50fe-11e2-8b49-64675006147f_story.html
Sotomayor Ruled in Favor of Muslim Inmate’s Ramadan Dinner But Rejected Christian Hobby Lobby’s Appeal for HHS Exemption
The Supreme Court denied a request by Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned company, to shield the company from the controversial contraceptive mandate. Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected a request for an emergency injunction that would have shielded employers from the mandate. Hobby Lobby could face fines of up to $1.3 million a day if they do not comply to the Obama mandate.Yet, as Laura Ingraham pointed out, in a previous case Sotomayor ruled for a Muslim inmate who was denied Ramadan meals. In Ford v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 582 (2d Cir. 2003), Sotomayor wrote an opinion that reversed a district court decision holding that a Muslim inmate’s First Amendment rights had not been violated because the holiday feast that he was denied was not a mandatory one in Islam. Sotomayor held that the inmate’s First Amendment’s rights were violated because the feast was subjectively important to the inmate’s practice of Islam.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/12/sotomayor-ruled-in-favor-of-muslim-inmate-denied-ramadan-meal-but-rejects-hobby-lobby-christian-appeal-for-hhs-exemption/
Ron Paul: Dems, GOP 'Pretend They’re Fighting'
On Friday on CNBC Rep. Ron Paul “I think we have passed that point of no return where we can actually get our house in order. I believe there is too much bipartisanship on the spending. Nobody is talking about cutting any spending.”“Republicans and Democrats they pretend they’re fighting up there, but they really aren’t. They’re arguing over power, spin, and who looks good, and who looks bad, but they’re all trying to preserve this system where they can spend what they want, take care of their friends, and let the Fed print money when they need it.”
“I would raise the debt ceiling on one condition and that would be a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Barring that, people in Congress, those who I’ve met up here, they don’t deserve to manage any more money. They’re doing a bad job managing the money they have. We should not send them any more money. They’re not to be trusted with money.“
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/12/29/Ron-Paul-Republicans-and-Democrats-Only-Pretend-They-Are-Fighting
Obama signs executive order giving Biden, Congress pay raises
Government worker is one of the only occupations where you get a raise even if you screw up royally.Weekly Standard:
President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise. One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden.
According to disclosure forms, Biden made a cool $225,521 last year. After the pay increase, he'll now make $231,900 per year.
Members of Congress, from the House and Senate, also will receive a little bump, as their annual salary will go from $174,000 to 174,900. Leadership in Congress, including the speaker of the House, will likewise get an increase.
Here's the list of new wages, as attached to President Obama's executive order:
A new executive order has been issued providing for a new pay schedule beginning 'on the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning after March 27, 2013,'" reports FedSmith.com. "The pay raise will generally be about 1/2 of 1%."
As they say in the business, this one has "bad optics." With millions of Americans unemployed, underemployed, and whose pay has been cut over the last few years, it seems ridiculous that the architects of our problems are rewarded with pay raises - small though they may be.
Amazing that Obama was able to sign an executive order to boost the pay of Congress. The cowards couldn't bring themselves to raise their own pay.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/obama_signs_executive_order_giving_biden_congress_pay_raises.html
Hurricane Sandy Aid Bill Includes $150 Million for Alaskan Fisheries
One out of every $20 spent in a new bill to aid victims of Hurricane Sandy will go to "non-relief-related pork," says American Majority Action Spokesman Ron Meyer in an email to Breitbart News.On Friday, the U.S. Senate passed a $60.4 billion bill that contains expenditures for areas that were unaffected by the storm, including $2 million roof repairs for Smithsonian Institution museums, $150 million for Alaskan fisheries disasters, and $58 million in taxpayer dollars to plant trees on private property in areas where Sandy never touched down. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) attempted to remove the $150 million fisheries “pork” spending from the bill, but his amendment was defeated. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) tried to strike down the tree subsidies but his amendment failed as well.
“It’s disgraceful to load a bill like this that has good motives, that has good intentions that is going to help people, with pork,” said Mr. Meyer on Fox Business. “Why are you putting your own projects in it? It’s disgraceful. It’s typical of Washington.”
Particularly troubling, says Mr. Meyer, is the fact that 85% of the bill’s allocations do not kick in until after 2014. “That’s not immediate relief,” says Meyer.
The bill passed the Senate on a 61-33 vote. Twelve Republicans supported the bill.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/29/Hurricane-Sandy-Aid-Bill-Includes-150-Million-For-Alaskan-Fisheries
Tesla CEO Buys $17 Million Mansion; Got $465 Million Govt. Loan
Taxpayers footed the bill for a $465 million loan to troubled electric carmaker Tesla as part of President Barack Obama’s “green energy” stimulus. But Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk is now riding high with the purchase of his new $17 million mansion.Mr. Musk’s 20,248-square-foot hilltop mansion boasts breathtaking views, a two-story library with rolling ladder, a home theater, and a five-car garage to house his taxpayer-subsidized, pricey Tesla vehicles.
In September, the New York Times reported that Tesla had burned through cash and missed production targets, raising “questions about the long-term viability of the company” and igniting “ criticism of the government’s energy loan program, which has been heavily promoted by the Obama administration.” But Tesla says it has begun making payments on its government loan ahead of schedule.
Mr. Musk, who contributes to both Democrats and Republicans, donated over $100,000 to Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign.
The Tesla Model S has a starting price of $57,000. Last quarter, Tesla produced just 359 cars.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/28/Tesla-CEO-Buys-17-Million-Mansion-Got-465-Million-Govt-Loan
We Can't Wait Until 2016
The early tremors of the 2016 presidential campaigns are already being felt. Rubio, Jindal, and others are positioning themselves to try once again to take the White House in four years. Republicans are basing their hopes on the fantasy of a much more economically devastated America coming to its collective senses and repudiating Obamanomics (including ObamaCare) and voting to install a "grown-up" in the Oval Office to lead the country.Why "fantasy"? Well, what evidence is there, currently, that leads anyone to believe that four years from now there will even be a United States of America in the form that Republicans envision? Not only is Obamanomics a problem, but the creeping (or perhaps "galloping" would be a more accurate word) statism that Obama is sponsoring will potentially last long after he is gone from office.
Couldn't happen, you say? Think back some seventy-five or eighty years and look at the statist New Deal policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Have they gone away? Or have they metastasized into more and more virulent forms that we now ignore as being simply part of the background of life in this country?
Things that were unthinkable prior to FDR's and the Progressive movement's power-grabs are taken for granted by the vast majority today. The Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are nowhere contemplated in the Constitution. In many ways, they were designed and implemented to effectively nullify the 9th and 10th Amendments. Yet today, only a small minority of our citizens even recognizes the problem, and even fewer speak out to fight it.
But the media, both the mainstream and alternative media, seem to be fixated on the 2016 presidential contenders. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden on the Democrat Party side (with the possible addition of a John Kerry quixotic second attempt) are frequently mentioned, and Rubio, Jindal, Nikki Haley, and Susana Martinez are viewed as possible candidates for the Republicans.
Are we supposed to just sit and suck our thumbs until 2016? Will some Republican's slim chance of defeating the Clinton machine be all that we can hope for?
The midterm election in 2014 will have either 19 or 20 Democrat Party senators coming up for re-election. The exact number, even excluding the deaths or resignations of any currently sitting senators between now and 2014, is not certain, since the nomination of John Kerry as Secretary of State leaves party control of his seat to the whims of the good people of Massachusetts in a special election.
But there are 20 theoretically possible seats for Republicans to pick up in the Senate. Of those 20, realistically there are seven or eight that might be picked up -- if candidates start campaigning today. The possible pickups:
Alaska. Senator Mark Begich defeated the late Senator Ted Stevens by only 48% to 47%, and with the scandal of the prosecutorial misconduct that sealed Ted Stevens's defeat, Begich should have a hard time claiming that he's squeaky-clean and deserves re-election.
Louisiana. Senator Mary Landrieu, of "Louisiana Purchase" fame, won her last election with a majority totaling only 52% of the vote. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican, is very popular, and Louisiana voters have come to recognize the ineptitude of Democratic legislators, mayors, and governors from their performance during Hurricane Katrina, even ignoring the mainstream media's constant refrain of "It's all George Bush's fault."
Michigan. Senator Carl Levin is a six-term "old bull" in his party, and although normally he would be considered a sure bet, Rich Snyder, Michigan's current governor, is a popular politician in a state that is turning slowly away from the crony capitalism of a union-dominated state. Governor Snyder's term expires in 2014, and although he can run for re-election, he might be persuaded to raise his sights from saving his state to saving the nation.
Minnesota. Senator Al Franken was elected six years ago amid countless court battles and recount after recount after yet more recounts. Although he won by the slimmest of margins (officially, Franken won by only 312 votes), it would seem that there is a potential pickup for Republicans here if they can sell a narrative that Franken slid by former Senator Norm Coleman by a hair's breadth and hasn't done much for the people of Minnesota while he's been in the Senate.
New Jersey. Senator Frank Lautenberg has not announced whether or not he intends to run for re-election. Senator Lautenberg will be 90 years old in 2014. Democrat and Newark mayor Cory Booker has already announced his plans to run for Lautenberg's seat in the Senate. If Governor Chris Christie could, like Michigan Governor Rich Synder, be persuaded to change his goal from saving New Jersey to saving the nation, he would more than likely win against either Lautenberg or Booker.
Oregon. Senator Jeff Merkley won election by only a plurality of votes cast (49%), not a majority. While running, Merkley was endorsed in December 2007 by the Oregon AFL-CIO, the state's largest labor federation. The union's leaders cited Merkley's 97% record of voting "in the interests of working families." With union endorsements carrying less weight and with changes in public perceptions of unions deteriorating, this might also provide a window of opportunity for Republicans.
Massachusetts. Although Senator Scott Brown lost to Elizabeth Warren, the nomination of John Kerry gives Brown a chance for a metaphorical rematch. Brown lost to Warren in November but still managed to increase his vote total from 1,168,107 in 2010 to 1,458,048 in 2012 -- an increase of nearly 290,000 votes, or a 24.8% increase from 2010 to 2012. An increase of that magnitude, in a deep blue state like Massachusetts, labels Brown as a very strong candidate.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Senator Kay Hagen of North Carolina, Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia might also be vulnerable.
If Republicans were to net six seats in 2014, Harry Reid would lose his position of Senate majority leader and end his stranglehold on power in the Senate. With Republicans holding the majority in the House and the speakership, the Congress would be in a much better position to stop Barack Obama's ideological drive toward essentially transforming America into a statist wonderland.
Gluttons for Pain: NY newspaper to publish more addresses of gun owners
Hubris or stupidity? Probably both.Reuters:
A suburban New York newspaper that sparked an uproar among gun enthusiasts by publishing names and addresses of residents holding pistol permits is now planning to publish even more identities of permit-toting locals.
Further names and addresses will be added as they become available to a map originally published on December 24 in the White Plains, New York-based Journal News, the newspaper said.
The original map listed thousands of pistol permit holders in suburban Westchester and Rockland counties just north of New York City.
Along with an article entitled "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your neighborhood," the map was compiled in response to the December 14 shooting deaths of 26 children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, editors of the Gannett Corp.-owned newspaper said.
The next batch of names will be permit holders in suburban Putnam County, New York, where the county clerk told the newspaper it is still compiling information.
Some 44,000 people are licensed to own pistols in the three counties, the newspaper said. Owners of rifles and shotguns do not need permits, the newspaper said.
The publication prompted outrage, particularly on social media sites, among gun owners.
There has been a lot of back and forth about whether this is illegal or not. Since the information is publicly available, it may be legal to publish it. In order to prosecute, however, you would need a district attorney willing to do it."Do you fools realize that you also made a map for criminals to use to find homes to rob that have no guns in them to protect themselves?" Rob Seubert of Silver Spring, Maryland, posted on the newspaper's web site. "What a bunch of liberal boobs you all are."
Efforts are underway to keep permit holder's information private. But it will be too late for the residents of Putnam County and elsewhere in New York where an irresponsible newspaper editor is putting people's lives at risk.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/gluttons_for_pain_ny_newspaper_to_publish_more_addresses_of_gun_owners.htm
Laws Are for Little People
By Mark Steyn
A week ago on NBC’s Meet the Press,
David Gregory brandished on screen a high-capacity magazine. To most
media experts, a “high-capacity magazine” means an ad-stuffed double
issue of Vanity Fair with the triple-page perfume-scented
pullouts. But apparently in America’s gun-nut gun culture of gun-crazed
gun kooks, it’s something else entirely, and it was this latter kind
that Mr. Gregory produced in order to taunt Wayne LaPierre of the NRA.
As the poster child for America’s gun-crazed gun-kook gun culture, Mr.
LaPierre would probably have been more scared by the host waving around a
headily perfumed Vanity Fair. But that was merely NBC’s first
miscalculation. It seems a high-capacity magazine is illegal in the
District of Columbia, and the flagrant breach of D.C. gun laws is now
under investigation by the police.
This is, declared NYU professor Jay Rosen, “the dumbest media story of 2012.” Why? Because, as CNN’s Howard Kurtz breezily put it, everybody knows David Gregory wasn’t “planning to commit any crimes.”
So what? Neither are the overwhelming majority of his fellow high-capacity-magazine-owning Americans. Yet they’re expected to know, as they drive around visiting friends and family over Christmas, the various and contradictory gun laws in different jurisdictions. Ignorantia juris non excusat is one of the oldest concepts in civilized society: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Back when there was a modest and proportionate number of laws, that was just about doable. But in today’s America there are laws against everything, and any one of us at any time is unknowingly in breach of dozens of them. And in this case NBC were informed by the D.C. police that it would be illegal to show the thing on TV, and they went ahead and did it anyway: You’ll never take me alive, copper! You’ll have to pry my high-capacity magazine from my cold dead fingers! When the D.C. SWAT team, the FBI, and the ATF take out NBC News and the whole building goes up in one almighty fireball, David Gregory will be the crazed loon up on the roof like Jimmy Cagney in White Heat: “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” At last, some actual must-see TV on that lousy network.
But, even if we’re denied that pleasure, the “dumbest media story of 2012” is actually rather instructive. David Gregory intended to demonstrate what he regards as the absurdity of America’s lax gun laws. Instead, he’s demonstrating the ever greater absurdity of America’s non-lax laws. His investigation, prosecution, and a sentence of 20–30 years with eligibility for parole after ten (assuming Mothers Against High-Capacity Magazines don’t object) would teach a far more useful lesson than whatever he thought he was doing by waving that clip under LaPierre’s nose.
To Howard Kurtz & Co., it’s “obvious” that Gregory didn’t intend to commit a crime. But, in a land choked with laws, “obviousness” is one of the first casualties — and “obviously” innocent citizens have their “obviously” well-intentioned actions criminalized every minute of the day. Not far away from David Gregory, across the Virginia border, eleven-year-old Skylar Capo made the mistake of rescuing a woodpecker from the jaws of a cat and nursing him back to health for a couple of days. For her pains, a federal Fish & Wildlife gauleiter accompanied by state troopers descended on her house, charged her with illegal transportation of a protected species, issued her a $535 fine, and made her cry. Why is it so “obvious” that David Gregory deserves to be treated more leniently than a sixth grader? Because he’s got a TV show and she hasn’t?
Anything involving guns is even less amenable to “obviousness.” A few years ago, Daniel Brown was detained at LAX while connecting to a Minneapolis flight because traces of gunpowder were found on his footwear. His footwear was combat boots. As the name suggests, the combat boots were returning from combat — eight months of it, in Iraq’s bloody and violent al-Anbar province. Above the boots he was wearing the uniform of a staff sergeant in the USMC Reserve Military Police and was accompanied by all 26 members of his unit, also in uniform. Staff Sergeant Brown doesn’t sound like an “obvious” terrorist. But the TSA put him on the no-fly list anyway. If it’s not “obvious” to the government that a serving member of the military has any legitimate reason for being around ammunition, why should it be “obvious” that a TV host has?
Three days after scofflaw Gregory committed his crime, a bail hearing was held in Massachusetts for Andrew Despres, 20, who’s charged with trespassing and possession of ammunition without a firearms license. Mr. Despres was recently expelled from Fitchburg State University and was returning to campus to pick up his stuff. Hence the trespassing charge. At the time of his arrest, he was wearing a “military-style ammunition belt.” Hence, the firearms charge.
His mom told WBZ that her son purchased the belt for $20 from a punk website and had worn it to class every day for two years as a “fashion statement.” He had no gun with which to fire the bullets. Nevertheless, Fitchburg police proudly displayed the $20 punk-website ammo belt as if they’d just raided the Fitchburg mafia’s armory, and an obliging judge ordered Mr. Despres held on $50,000 bail. Why should there be one law for Meet the Press and another for Meet Andrew Despres? Because David Gregory throws better cocktail parties?
The argument for letting him walk rests on his membership of a protected class — the media. Notwithstanding that (per Gallup) 54 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the NRA while only 40 percent have any trust in the media, the latter regard themselves as part of the ruling class. Which makes the rest of you the ruled. Laws are for the little people — and little people need lots of little laws, ensnaring them at every turn.
There are two possible resolutions: Gregory can call in a favor from some Obama consigliere who’ll lean on the cops to disappear the whole thing. If he does that, he’ll be contributing to the remorseless assault on a bedrock principle of free societies — equality before the law. Laws either apply to all of us or none of us. If they apply only to some, they’re not laws but caprices — and all tyranny is capricious.
Or he can embrace the role in which fate has cast him. Sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive. Eleven-year-old girls fined for rescuing woodpeckers, serving Marines put on the no-fly list, and fifth-generation family cats being ordered into separate compounds with “electric wire” fencing can all testify to how near that point America is. But nothing “raises awareness” like a celebrity spokesman. Step forward, David Gregory! Dare the prosecutor to go for the death penalty — and let’s make your ammo the non-shot heard round the world!
Also Read:
The Schoolmarms Tell the Terrorists to Play Nice
"The entertainment director on the ship of fools that constitutes so much mainstream analysis of the Middle East—I refer, of course, to Thomas Friedman—has produced a wonderful paragraph that beautifully characterizes the problem, exquisitely expressing a Western mentality that not only makes it impossible to understand the Middle East but even to set up the question in a way people that could help people even begin to confront the truth. So perhaps it is worth disassembling"
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