Why We Don't Need Universal Preschool

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said he wanted to “make high-quality preschool available to every child in America” and “make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind.”

So Heritage experts took a look at the President’s plan to see if it would actually help America’s needy children get ahead in the “race of life.”

Another government-controlled, top-down, one-size-fits-all program—what could go wrong?

Look at the government’s record. As Heritage’s Lindsey Burke, the Will Skillman Fellow in Education, and research associate Rachel Sheffield point out in their new paper, “Washington already has a poor track record for K–12 education, with federal spending nearly tripling over the past three decades while academic achievement and attainment languishes.”

Look at the government preschool we already have. There are already 45 government preschool programs run by numerous federal agencies, including the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, the Interior, and Housing and Urban Development. Burke and Sheffield note that these 45 programs “are estimated to cost taxpayers more than $20 billion annually. Many are duplicative and ineffective, failing to serve the needs of children from low-income families.”

Head Start, of course, has already shown us the ways government preschool can fail American children:

After nearly 50 years of operation, the federal Head Start program has failed to improve the educational outcomes and kindergarten readiness of participating children. Head Start should be eliminated, or at the very least it should be reformed, to allow states the flexibility to make their Head Start funds portable, allowing families to use their dollars to send their children to a private preschool of their choice.

The President’s new proposal wouldn’t help low-income children. Low-income families already have access to taxpayer-funded preschool through state programs and Head Start (which, if it continues to be funded, should be reformed to serve them better). President Obama's proposal would subsidize middle-income and upper-income families—with no new benefit to low-income parents.

Three-quarters of four-year-olds are already in preschool. Many parents prefer to care for their young children at home. But for those who want preschool programs, there are a variety of programs available. There is no public demand for new, large-scale government spending in this area. Burke and Sheffield report that “An estimated 74 percent of four-year-old children are enrolled in preschool, public and private, across the country.”

Look at the academic evidence. Do these formal preschool programs really help kids in their academic careers? Our authors write: “Evaluations of preschool programs consistently find that any gains children make as a result of preschool quickly fade away in their early elementary years.” The Obama administration turns to a 50-year-old evaluation of a high-intervention preschool program with 58 at-risk children to make his case for taxpayer-funded, universal preschool. That means President Obama is making what researcher Russ Whitehurst calls “a prodigious leap of faith.” The outcomes of that program, known as the Perry Preschool Project, have never been replicated.

It is far more likely that the President’s proposal will produce outcomes akin to Head Start, which, according to the scientifically rigorous evaluations conducted by Health and Human Services, are abysmal.

Everyone wants children to have the best start in life. Large-scale government preschool programs are not the way to ensure that happens.

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/03/15/morning-bell-why-we-dont-need-universal-preschool/?roi=echo3-14891037202-11841258-e9a03365aeb260ce61f75c1e9c11401e&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Time To Opt Out of Creepy Fed Ed Data-Mining Racket

By Michelle Malkin
Last week, I reported on the federal government's massive new student-tracking database, which was created as part of the nationalized Common Core standards scheme.

The bad news: GOP "leadership" continues to ignore or, worse, enable this Nanny State racket (hello, Jeb Bush).

The good news: An independent grassroots revolt outside the Beltway bubble is swelling. Families are taking their children's academic and privacy matters out of the snoopercrats' grip and into their own hands. You can now download a Common Core opt-out/disclosure form to submit to your school district, courtesy of the Truth In American Education group: http://truthinamericaneducation.com/uncategorized/ccss-parent-opt-out-form/

Parents caught off guard by the stealthy tracking racket are now mobilizing across the country. Echoing families across the city, Big Apple public advocate Bill de Blasio blasted the tracking database in a letter to government officials, according to the New York Daily News: "I don't want my kids' privacy bought and sold like this." On Wednesday, prompted by parental objections, Oklahoma state representatives unanimously passed House Bill 1989 -- the Student Data Accessibility, Transparency and Accountability Act -- to prohibit the release of confidential student data without the written consent of a student's parent or guardian.

As I noted in last week's column, the national Common Core student database was funded with Obama stimulus money. Grants also came from the liberal Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (which largely underwrote and promoted the top-down Common Core curricular scheme). A division of conservative Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. built the database infrastructure. A nonprofit startup, "inBloom, Inc.," evolved out of the strange-bedfellows partnership to operate the invasive database, which is compiling everything from health-care histories, income information and religious affiliations to voting status, blood types and homework completion.

But it gets worse. Research fellow Joy Pullmann at The Heartland Institute points to a February Department of Education report on its data-mining plans that contemplates the use of creepy student monitoring techniques such as "functional magnetic resonance imaging" and "using cameras to judge facial expressions, an electronic seat that judges posture, a pressure-sensitive computer mouse and a biometric wrap on kids' wrists."

The DOE report exposes the big lie that Common Core is about raising academic standards by revealing its progressive designs to measure and track children's "competencies" in "recognizing bias in sources," "flexibility," "cultural awareness and competence," "appreciation for diversity," "empathy," "perspective taking, trust (and) service orientation."

That's right. School districts and state governments are pimping out highly personal data on children's feelings, beliefs, "biases" and "flexibility" instead of doing their own jobs imparting knowledge - or minding their own business. And yes, Republicans such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush continue to falsely defend the centralized Common Core regime as locally driven and non-coercive, while ignoring the database system's circumvention of federal student privacy laws.

Why? Edu-tech nosy-bodies are using the Common Core assessment boondoggle as a Trojan horse to collect and crunch massive amounts of personal student data for their own social justice or moneymaking ends. Reminder: Nine states have entered into contracts with inBloom: Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Louisiana and New York. Countless other vendors are salivating at the business possibilities in exploiting public school students.

Google, for example, is peddling its Gmail platform to schools in a way that will allow it to harvest and access families' information and preferences -- which can then be sold in advertising profiles to marketers.

The same changes to federal student privacy law (known as FERPA) that paved the way for the Common Core tracking scheme also opened up private student information to Google. As FERPA expert Sheila Kaplan explains it, "Students are paying the cost to use Google's 'free' servers by providing access to their sensitive data and communications."

It's a Big Brother gold rush and an educational Faustian bargain. Fortunately, there is a way out. It starts with parents reasserting their rights, protecting their children and adopting that old motto from the Reagan years: JUST SAY NO.

http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/03/15/time-to-opt-out-of-creepy-fed-ed-datamining-racket-n1534759/page/full/

Pandering to Millennials Will Ruin the GOP

Editor's Note: Rush Limbaugh's article was written in response to PolicyMic Pundit Alex Smith, National Chairman of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). In her op-ed, "Millennials Are a Tremendous Opportunity for the Republican Party," she calls on millennials to fight to re-invent the Republican Party to represent young people.

I'm a baby boomer, so I'm allowed to begin this by talking about myself. I have only one request and that is before you read this, please put out of your mind everything you have heard about me in the media, everything you think you know about me, and just read this self-contained for what it is. In order to absorb this in total objectivity, try to imagine that you have no idea who wrote it. And for those who post comments, likewise: respond to the content alone, devoid of all emotionally-based bias you might have towards me. (For those of you who don't know who I am, you are ahead of the game for this exercise. Congratulations.)

As I said, I'm a baby boomer but I don't think of myself that way very often, and when I do, I'm mostly embarrassed. My generation is a self-absorbed bunch who never really had to grow up. We had it SO MUCH EASIER than our parents and grandparents! Heck, we had to invent our own traumas to convince ourselves we were struggling.

On the other hand, my parents struggled through the Great Depression, my dad fought in World War II (he flew the P-51 Mustang, China/Burma Theater), and then had to work and raise a family under threats by the Soviet Union to destroy America — threats which WERE taken seriously by everyone. The Soviets were serious, they meant it. The point is that my parents knew when they were 18 that life was bigger and about much more than themselves. When they were 40, their lives were set. That was it, they were done; they had fought their battles. They didn't ponder getting rich, maximizing opportunity, etc. They were worn out, totally focused on trying to make my life better than theirs.

I've had it so comparatively easy that I'm 62 and still feel 18 some days; I feel like I am going to live another 70 years. I didn't have to grow up nearly as fast as my parents did. And I'm nowhere finished growing, nowhere near stopping, retiring, and letting you take over. But that doesn't mean you aren't going to try. And you should, by all means.

I understand the desire and need for people of younger generations to be heard and acknowledged. I totally get that. But the truth is that it is up to you to be heard, up to you to get noticed, up to you to stand out. You are not entitled to be respected just because of your age. The only exception is the Seasoned Citizen population, which is the greatest collection of wisdom in the country (I don't expect you to believe that). You can demand to be respected, recognized, and listened to all day long, but understand that no one has any obligation to listen to you. You are going to have to make them want to ... by virtue of your achievements. By demonstrating potential. By being interesting. Yes, even by being provocative. Fearless. Everyone has the right to speak, but we do not have a right to be listened to. No one has a constitutional right to be heard. In other words, don't sit around and wait and hope or demand that somebody listen to you. Take action. Be heard, but above all, make something happen.

The Republican Party right now is scared. It doesn't know what it wants to be, nor does it know what it should be. It has lost its confidence and too many in the party think they have to become more moderate, or more like Democrats, in order to be liked and popular. Well, here is an undeniable truth for you: The pursuit of being liked can be the greatest prison you ever put yourself into, because you will be afraid to be who you really are. You will be trying to assess what everyone wants you to be, and you'll end up thinking that who you are isn't good enough. I know it is hard because we are all raised wanting to be loved. Many people compromise their core beliefs in pursuit of it. But once you know what you believe, once you have established your core, stick with it. Then make your move on the Republican Party, which is ripe for you to define it.

I think a political party that reaches out to groups and demographics with ideas that lack cohesion is a party destined to lose because it will fragment. A party has to be about a universal set of principles and ideas that attract all kinds of people from all walks of life. All ages, all genders, all orientations. It has been done recently. Ronald Reagan won two landslide elections in 1980 and 1984. You can tailor your message for individual groups, but not your principles.

At the same time, you must be honest with yourselves and understand exactly what it is the Democratic Party seeks to do. If you are serious about all this, you must resolve that the Democratic Party is to be defeated, not compromised with. You rightly note the challenges you face: Rising stifling debt. Rising unemployment. Rising deficits. No economic growth. The state is getting bigger and the private sector, where you work, is getting smaller. Not cool. And many of you probably would say that the Republican Party contributed in part to all of this, and you would be right.

But one simple fact remains, and that is that the ideas and policies that led to this mess are rooted in the left ... the Democratic Party.

You, through no fault of your own, are in the midst of an ideological war in America today. It is not just a battle between two parties. Principles, ideas, and philosophy are being fought over. Many people are uncomfortable hearing this and facing it. But you must if you want to grow and live in the America you've always believed in. Because it won't exist as founded for very much longer if these battles are lost. And this is up to you because you are the unfortunate heirs of this disaster. You have lots of allies among us who are your elders, and we are eager and hopeful you will join us. Because these battles are being undertaken for you and your future. And your kids.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/29905/pandering-to-millennials-will-ruin-the-gop

Insecure Social Security

House Oversight Committee investigating fraud and waste in Social Security program

Fraud could be a major reason that the number of people enrolled in Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) has risen so dramatically over the past 10 years, according to two letters written by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The number of enrollees in the program grew by almost 60 percent between 2003 and 2012, from 5.58 million to 8.82 million people, the March 11 letter to acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration Carolyn Colvin says. This rate of growth is twice what the previous decade experienced.

The increase is likely not coming from people who actually need the care, the letter contends. Fraudulent enrollment and improper payments are pushing up the numbers.

The letter, signed by Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) and two subcommittee chairmen, points out “significant management problems that lead to misspending within the program.”

The letter says many ineligible people are receiving benefits citing a 2010 Government Accountability Office report.

For example, some people receive SSDI before receiving a Commercial Drivers License, which requires a rigorous physical exam—indicating that they are not disabled. And some people simply lie about their income to receive the benefits, according to the chairmen.

The letter to Colvin also points out structural flaws in the whole SSDI program that make it better to stay on the program than return to work, citing a paper written by MIT economist David Autor.

The SSDI “program is ineﬀective in assisting the vast majority of workers with less severe disabilities to reach their employment potential or to earn their own way. In fact, the program provides strong incentives to applicants and beneﬁciaries to remain out of the labor force permanently,” Autor writes in his 2011 paper.

Andrew Biggs, a former principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration and a current scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed with Autor’s assessment.

“There is unquestionably a strong disincentive for individuals on disability to return to work, since if they earn more than $1,040 per month they lose their disability benefits entirely. The U.S. doesn’t allow for partial disability, so you’re either disabled or you’re not, despite the many gradations of disability that people suffer from in the real world,” he wrote in an email to the Washington Free Beacon.

The second letter from the Oversight Committee, addressed to New York Regional commissioner Beatrice Disman and also sent on March 11, notes where the program’s exposure to fraud is the greatest.

“In recent years, Puerto Rico has emerged as ‘one of the easiest places’ in the country to qualify for and receive benefits through SSDI,” the chairmen write, referencing a Wall Street Journal article. New York’s Social Security commissioner oversees the programs in Puerto Rico.

Nine of the top 10 zip codes for people receiving SSDI benefits were in Puerto Rico, the letter notes, while Puerto Rico’s acceptance rate into the program is higher than in any state and the percentage of the working-age population receiving benefits is twice the national average.

“It is unacceptable that taxpayers have been left to pick up the tab for the mismanagement of federal funds and lack of competent government oversight of SSDI in Puerto Rico,” the chairmen write.

The program’s growth threatens to bankrupt it.

“The Social Security Board of Trustees and the Congressional Budget Office estimate that, without reform, the SSDI trust fund will be depleted within the next four years,” the letter to Colvin states.

The letter to Colvin notes that the Social Security Administration has failed to implement several recommendations from the Office of the Inspector General. The recommendations include conducting disability reviews of both recipients’ medical state and income and seeking criminal prosecutions against fraudsters.

Even when the Social Security Administration agreed with the recommendations, the Office of the Inspector General told the committee that they might not be implementing them, according to the letter.

The federal government overall has forfeited more than $67 billion in potential savings by not implementing the recommendations of the agencies’ inspectors general.

“Disability insurance badly needs reform and there should be places where Republicans and Democrats can work together, but no one seems to want to do the hard work of getting reform done. But we only have a couple years left before disability insurance goes insolvent,” Biggs said.

“Since it is difficult and costly to recover money improperly spent, the best way to maximize SSDI program integrity is to prevent misspending in the first place by ensuring that only individuals meeting eligibility criteria are permitted into the program,” the chairmen write.

“The truly disabled are the individuals who will be harmed most without program reform.”
A Social Security spokeswoman declined to comment on the letters, saying the administration would respond directly to the committee.

However, she pointed to the testimony of Social Security’s chief actuary from Thursday. The actuary testified that while the program is headed toward insolvency, a one-time shift in either program costs or revenue would solve the problem.

The actuary also blamed Social Security’s financial woes primarily on demographic shifts, not on structural problems. The actuary’s testimony makes no mention of fraud.

http://freebeacon.com/insecure-social-security/

Obama's green energy mania trumps his attacks on Wall Street

For years, Barack Obama has attacked the "fat cats" on Wall Street. For years his Democratic allies in Congress attacked "securitization" -the packaging of contracts into securities that could be traded. Securitization of mortgages was criticized as a high-falutin' concept that enriched Wall Street but led to financial Armageddon.

Now in one more ironic and hypocritical flip-flop by Obama (example #345,678) he and his team now seem to be on the verge of embracing a financing technique they spend years condemning: all for the sake of the Holy Grail of Green Energy.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Obama administration and some on Wall Street are laying the groundwork for bundling renewable-power contracts into securities, part of an effort to make it cheaper to finance alternative energy.

The initiative aims to extend to renewable energy a financial tool already used in the mortgage and credit-card industries. The securities could be sold to pension funds or other investors, who would receive a return funded by payments from users of electricity where solar panels or other equipment is installed.

As the EU and others have learned, "green energy" is just is not economically feasible and the push to develop "renewable" or "clean energy" has wasted tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars (Solyndra was just one example).

But the Obama team never learns. President Obama himself announced after his reelection that he intended to expand and deepen his commitment to green energy - apparently, regardless of the costs (since he never seems to consider the costs of anything which is what happens when one plays with Other People's Money).

But it is telling that these efforts are compelling him to work with "fat cats" on Wall Street that he previously has demonized -while collecting donations from them on the side.

Note these efforts constitute another end-run around Congress:

The actions fit with a broader strategy by the Obama administration to use executive authority to advance policy goals. Congress soured on government help for renewable-energy projects after the 2011 bankruptcy of U.S.-backed Solyndra LLC, and big-ticket spending programs have expired.

The Wall Street Journal article outlines the myriad green energy ventures have burned taxpayers and investors.

But, nevertheless, Obama is now willing to go to extraordinary lengths to again expose people to financial risks to please his well-heeled cronies peddling pie-in-the sky green schemes.

Caveat Emptor.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/03/obamas_green_energy_mania_trumps_his_attacks_on_wall_street.html#ixzz2NdIAc2zJ

PK'S NOTES: And of course earlier: making good on its threats the North Koreans cancelled the 1953 armistice ending the Korean war. It has also threatened a nuclear attack against the United States.

US bolsters missile defences in face of North Korea nuke threat

The US is set to bolster its missile defences in the face of growing threats from North Korea which sparked outrage today by firing missiles into the sea of Japan.

The controversial move comes in response to recent aggression from the pariah state led by tyrant dictator Kim Jong-un

Earlier today the communist nation caused international anger when it reportedly fired short-range missiles close to Japan.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is expected to reveal tonight the deployment of 14 ground based missile interceptors on the US West Coast.

The move will also involve the re-opening of a missile field in Alaska, and some based in California.

It would take two years for all of the systems to come online.

Today's short-range missiles launches into the sea of Japan are the latest in a string of aggressive acts by Kim Jong-un and is sure to further escalate tensions in the region.

And although no one is thought to have been killed the missile firing has enraged the international community.
It comes just a week after Kim Jong-un vowed to launch a nuclear strike on the US and a month after they conducted secret underground nuclear tests, causing a huge earthquake.

The missiles used in this firing are presumed to be the KN-02 short-range type, which have a reach of about 75 miles.

Details were apparently leaked to a South Korean news agency by a source within the South’s military.
They said: “The launch was seen as testing its capability for short-range missiles.

“It seemed to be conducted on a military-unit level, not at a national level.”

This would apparently indicate that the launch was not ordered by Kim Jong Un directly.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4844010/North-Korea-fires-off-missiles-into-sea-of-Japan.html#ixzz2NdofXr2H

Video: Every Senate Budget Committee Democrat Votes 'No' on Balancing the Budget

Their own plan doesn't even come close to balancing, of course, and they're not interested in other ideas to get there. The first Republican amendment they torpedoed yesterday called for increasing federal spending at a clip of "only" 3.4 percent per year over the next decade, rather than the major acceleration that Democrats have advanced. The second proposed making it more procedurally difficult to pass a budget that does not balance with ten years. Watch as each Democrat-aligned committee member votes in lockstep against these provisions. Make no mistake, they are explicitly rejecting a balanced federal budget (the roll call begins at the 1:15 mark):

If these Senators appear slightly perturbed in the clip, it might be because they'd just endured a contentious mark-up hearing. Politico describes the acrimony:

During Thursday morning’s hearing, Republican members came out swinging, using time that was allocated to ask technical questions of the staff to make the case that the budget lacks any deficit reductions and instead grows the size of government. “I would really appreciate it if you would stop claiming $1.85 trillion in deficit reduction. It’s false. It’s false,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said after a series of tense exchanges with a budget staffer. “It’s not false,” the staffer responded. “It’s false, I’m done,” Johnson shot back. The fight centered around how the budget is calculated and whether there should be assumptions made that the sequester will be replaced or spending for the war in Afghanistan will drop substantially. All told, Democrats made the case that the 10-year deficit reduction in the budget would be $1.85 trillion. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican, led the opposition, arguing the baseline, the assumption about the cost of government, was out of line.

“You can’t flip-flop baselines around here all over the place,” Sessions told the staff. When a staffer compared the Senate base to Ryan’s baseline, Sessions wasn’t pleased. “Mr. Ryan’s budget is honest and it’s paid for and this is not,” Sessions shot back. Sessions argued that the Democratic proposal would only reduce the deficit by $700 billion. “When the American people are hearing this, they’re hearing our colleagues announce with great pride that they’re reducing the deficit by $1.85 trillion,” Sessions said. “I’m deeply disappointed it does not do that. It makes no change in the debt course of America, leaving us on an unsustained path.” Sessions repeatedly called the budget proposal a “lie” and “false.” Murray, presiding over the meeting, tried frequently to cut off debate to allow for questions and eventually she seemed exhausted by the effort.

As a point of fact, Johnson and Sessions are correct on these counts. The Hill and other news organizations have confirmed that Democrats' budget numbers register at most $800 billion in deficit reductions over ten years, even setting aside its accelerated spending course. Their exploitation of the unrealistic CBO baseline -- which we explained yesterday -- renders a number of their "cut" claims even more dubious. Especially dishonest was Murray's statement (not included the shortened version of the video), er, "in rebut" to Sessions' amendment, in which she claimed that the new budget, plus previous savings, add up to the Simpson-Bowles recommended level of $4 trillion in deficit relief. Between phony gimmicks and double-counting, she's not even in the ballpark of $4 trillion, which is probably why Sessions felt compelled to use words like "lie" throughout the hearing. I'll leave you with liberal commentator Ezra Klein expressing...some skepticism over the Democrats' first budgetary offering since 2009:

...The problem with Murray’s budget is that it is almost entirely devoted to saying what it won’t do, and it gets very vague when the topic turns to what it will. In the “Reducing Health Costs Responsibly” section, for instance, the Senate Democrats’ budget says, “first and foremost, the Senate Budget rejects the approach taken by House Republicans when it comes to cuts to health care.” Fair enough. But it never really says, with any specificity, what Senate Democrats will do. The budget speaks of “$275 billion in savings by further realigning incentives throughout the system, cutting waste and fraud, and seeking greater engagement across the health care system,” but at no point across its 114 pages does it name these savings. There’s talk of building on the Affordable Care Act’s efforts, but few specifics. Similarly, the tax reform section is a lengthy defense of the need for more tax revenues, and the idea of closing loopholes, but in the end, it punts on the specifics, saying simply that ”the Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax legislation, could generate this additional revenue through a variety of different methods.”

This isn't merely an unbalanced tax-and-spend document, it's a uselessly vague, unbalanced tax-and-spend document. We waited four years for this? Yup. It was advanced out of committee last night on a party-line, 12-10 vote.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/03/15/video-every-senate-budget-committee-democrat-votes-no-on-balancing-the-budget-n1534679

Karl Marx and the American Dream

You cannot use Karl Marx's ideas to help the middle class.

You can't do it.

Anyone who claims otherwise is stupid, ignorant, crazy, a liar, or some combination of the above. Even the laziest student can open a copy of the Communist Manifesto and read the first page, where Marx launches in to an attack on the middle class (the "bourgeoisie," as he calls them) -- an attack that continues to the end of his article. At no point does Marx say anything good about the middle class. Never does Marx propose a way to help the middle class. The whole Manifesto is a recipe for destroying the bourgeoisie and the economic system that creates and supports them (capitalism).

Basically, Marx advocated a return to the medieval lifestyle: a time when the barons and princes looked out for and took care of the happy serfs, who spent their days dancing around the maypole and praising their lords. Marx saw it as a time when everyone shared, everyone took pride in what he did, and everyone looked out for his neighbor.

But there was a problem in this paradise. It was the evil middle class who, unhappy and ungrateful in their place, rose up and destroyed the perfect social order.

The only problem with trying to return to the middle-age way of doing things is that Marx and his friends might not be at the top of the pecking order. Thankfully, Marx had a solution for this, too: "the people" would get together and, after voting, put Marx (and his friends) in charge. After all, someone has to lead these unwashed idiots. There would be only one vote: the one where Marx is elected king. After that, everything would be said to be the "will of the people."

This is why you'll never run into a follower of Marx. Communism/Socialism are completely followerless movements. If you ever talk to a Communist or a Marxist, you'll get the same story -- when the revolution comes, my friends and I will be in charge. You'll never hear a Marxist smile and say, "When the revolution comes I'm going to polish the leader's boots".

Marx wanted his system immediately -- preferably consisting of a violent destruction of the middle class, with blood running like rivers in the streets. But being a pragmatic man, he was willing to wait.

The true genius of the modern Marxists is that they have managed to convince a majority of middle-classers that Marx's ideas really can help the bourgeoisie. And it's hard to distinguish between those who actually believe that Socialism is a viable system and those opportunists who are simply planning to use such a system to their own ends.

How many of these modern Marxists are really this ignorant of their document? How often do we hear that "[this Marxist idea] needs to be done to help working families" or "[that Marxist idea] needs to be implemented to help the middle class"?

The Marxists espouse this nonsense because people believe it. Middle-classers have now become the ones voting for and supporting these ideas. Arrest records from the Marxist celebration of Occupy Wall Street show that most of those involved in that movement are from comfortable (dare we call them "bourgeoisie"?) backgrounds. But it goes deeper than that. In any given poll, middle-class people overwhelmingly like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, government subsidies of education and housing -- the list is endless, and the demands are never-ending.

But none of these programs is designed to help the middle class -- not any more than a drug dealer despite giving out medicines is interested in the health and well-being of his clientele. A little bit always leads to a demand for more. And after decades of calls for more, more, more, we get what we're looking at in 2013: the imminent total collapse of capitalist system.

When was the last time you heard some politician calling for any of the following?

1)      A heavily progressive income tax. The more you make, the more they'll take. The rich are to pay their "fair share." We just had one of the biggest tax increases in American history starting January 1, but this hasn't stopped liberal politicians from demanding more hikes.

2)      Seizing of inheritances. One of the most insidious taxes around is the death tax. Grieving families are forced to give half or more of their loved ones' property to the government. Interestingly enough, this idea is now working its way into gun control legislation. There are calls for "assault weapons" being forfeited at their owners' death.

3)      Government takeover of the credit system. Already the government owns loans on a lot of houses. ObamaCare mandates that only the government can now give student loans. Meanwhile, the government is its own biggest debtor, swelling the amount we owe to levels never before seen in world history.

4)      A takeover of the media. From "non Citizen" legislation, which would stop groups and businesses from speaking during elections to media "bailouts," which would come with government strings, or just outright nationalizations of media outlets, the government has big ideas for a "transformation" of the meaning of "free speech."

5)      Overhaul of transportation. How often do we hear the phrase "shovel-ready jobs" or "roads and bridges"? They are pushing a train from Las Vegas to LA and another train that will run down the California coast. Transportation projects are a popular subject, even as the government coffers shrink and the costs of such projects explode.

6)      Regulations of industry, especially in an environmental sense. Obama has one of the most active and overbearing EPAs since that agency was founded.

7)      Expansion of education. Everyone shall go to school -- kindergarten through college -- and it will all be paid for by the government.

8)      Government ownership of business. We've already watched the government gobble up the banks and auto-makers. Now we're watching them take over the medical system. Gun companies are probably on the horizon as well.

How many of these ideas sound familiar? Every single one of them is laid out in the Communist Manifesto as a way to destroy the middle class. Every single one. Forget good-sounding talk about "fair shares" and making the evil rich pay. They're coming after you, Mr. and Mrs. American.

Marx gave those ideas above their own bullet points in the Manifesto, but he had other ideas. Would you like to hear some of those?

1)      Abolition of borders. The lower class (the "proletariat," as Marx called them) need to be free to move to other nations -- the better to corrupt the vote in those places.

2)      A takeover of education. Not just through government ownership, but through like-minded Communists and Socialists populating the educators and lecturing students about the goodness of Marxism. The results have made a profound difference in our culture.

Every single time these ideas are implemented, the middle class takes more damage, which in turn leads to the bourgeoisie Marxists calling for more Marxism -- and the little merry-go-round keeps spinning in the halls of our government.

All of this is culminating exactly as Marx envisioned: a healthy, prosperous ruling elite lording it over a rapidly growing population of serfs. This hasn't been lost on the people paying attention: California is becoming a feudal society. There are stories leaking out that the same thing is happening in other liberal Marxist enclaves like New York and Washington, D.C.

This is a huge problem for our government, our system, our culture, and our society -- namely because the United States is a middle-class dream. The Founding Fathers were all from the "bourgeoisie" who rebelled because the government in England didn't feel that it had to respond to the concerns of peasants and underlings.

The idea that someone can start with nothing and, using hard work, creativity, and ingenuity, raise himself to a higher level is the American Dream. To own one's own house, own one's own car, to start a business, to work where one chooses, to take risks and reap the rewards of those risks -- that's the American Dream. It's why immigrants used to sacrifice everything to come here: the idea that one's birth wouldn't dictate his entire life and how far he could go. People are still willing to risk their lives for this. People are not locked into a caste system in America.

And all of that is anathema to the Marxist vision. Even Marx himself admits this:

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages. (The Communist Manifesto)

There is a small bright spot, however. Right now, we're still mostly a middle-class society. In a system where the vote is everything, there is still a chance to stop all of this destruction. But the first thing we as a society have to do is start being honest with ourselves. We cannot use Marx's ideas to obtain the American Dream.

The first step to fixing a problem is to admit that you have one.

Your surprise ObamaCare taxes of the week

Wow, hey, whaddya know? Starting in 2014, your employer (and, by extension, you) will begin paying a fresh new $63 annual ObamaCare fee, to cover the extra cost of insuring other people’s pre-existing conditions. The Associated Press describes how this little “unexpected expense” popped out of recently unearthed regulations:

The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.
Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a “sleeper issue” with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers.

“Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, [companies will] be hit with a multimillion-dollar assessment without getting anything back for it,” said Mr. Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary.

Based on figures provided in the regulation, employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.

The Obama administration says it is a temporary assessment levied for three years starting in 2014, designed to raise $25 billion. It starts at $63 and then declines.

Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.

A small price to pay for the Big Government takeover of health insurance, run by the same people who lost a couple thousand guns across the Mexican border, spent a few million dollars a pop creating “green jobs,” and couldn’t manage to keep White House tours running when faced with a 2 percent deceleration in spending!

Does anyone remember Barack Obama saying we’d all get hit with a special “temporary” tax (stop sniggering, dear reader), on top of skyrocketing insurance premiums, to fund the re-definition of “insurance” into something that provides guaranteed benefits to people with pre-existing conditions? No, of course not. You remember him saying the cost curve would be bent down, not a dime would be added to the deficit, and if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.

Every turn of the crank on the ObamaCare jack-in-the-box releases another evil clown puppet of taxation. We’re still reeling from the last surprise tax, exposed just a few days ago, in which veterinary bills are going up under the President’s health-care boondoggle. Yes, veterinary bills. Stunned pet owners discovered they would have to pay more when taking Fido and Mister Tinkles to the vet, because of ObamaCare’s medical device taxes:

A dog owner was surprised after her veterinarian posted a notice to her Facebook page warning customers of the rising costs they will encounter due to Obamacare, CBS Miami reports.

The notice read: “Because medical equipment and supplies will be going up in cost, that extra expense will have to passed on to the customers.”

In order to help pay for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the new health reform will include a 2.3 percent excise tax on certain medical devices. Manufacturers of the instruments pay the tax, but a recent survey found more than half plan to pass it along.

“I’m extremely concerned how this is going to be a hidden tax to our consumers that is going to be passed on,” veterinarian Mike Hatcher told CBS.

There will surely be more to come, since (a) ObamaCare’s laughable deficit projections were blown into orbit upon contact with reality, and (b) there are more regulations to be written. There will probably always be more regulations on the way. Just wait until the “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens merges with the crumbling infrastructure of the decrepit government-run health care highway. The next off-ramp after that will be single-payer socialized medicine – the final dissolution of American independence from the State.

These tax eruptions highlight both the flaws in ObamaCare, and the utterly fraudulent promises it was sold with. The program cannot do what Obama promised it would do, for anywhere near the cost he estimated. Or maybe he’ll pull out the tried-and-true “Incompetence Defense” technique pioneered by his Administration, and claim this is all a big surprise to him, too.

It’s also a grim lesson – delivered, perhaps, too late to make a difference – in the folly of giving the government open-ended control over major sectors of American life, and our economy. They’re not bound by any of the promises they make when engineering such a takeover. No degree of failure will be interpreted as a breach of contract with the American people. You can’t sue the people who inflicted ObamaCare upon you for fraud, or force them to deliver the promised services at the agreed-upon price.

No matter how tattered that contract might be – no matter how much of it stands redacted with black marker, scribbled in pencil, or edited with red ink – the American people are forever enslaved to it. One presidential election after ObamaCare passed, we are lectured that we never get to vote on this again. It’s sad that so many people are willing to sign their liberty away under conditions that would make them laugh in surprise and disgust, if offered by a private business.

Notice, also, how the growth of government has given it many tiny tendrils it can use to drain away our money. A few bucks here, a couple of dollars there, a fee on this, a surtax on that… it all adds up, but each tendril is small, and sinks without much discomfort into a different vein. In this way, the true cost of government is hidden from people who can’t figure out why their dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to, and so many things don’t seem to work right any more.

http://www.redstate.com/2013/03/15/your-surprise-obamacare-taxes-of-the-week/