Now it's the 43 percent: Fewer paying no income tax
That "47 percent" quote that helped sink Mitt Romney's presidential hopes? Better make that 43 percent now.
The share of households who aren't paying any federal income tax has fallen, and a new analysis from the Tax Policy Center predicts that it will continue to shrink in years to come.
That's partly because a slew of temporary tax cuts enacted during the Great Recession have started to expire. And it's partly because an improving economy means people's incomes should slowly start to increase, adding to their income tax bill.
By 2024, the tax policy think tank projects that only about one-third of households won't be paying any federal income taxes. The improvements might take a while because the economy has been adding new jobs at a painfully slow pace, and many workers aren't yet seeing much bigger paychecks
Romney made "the 47 percent" famous during his 2012 Republican presidential campaign, after he was secretly recorded at a closed-door fundraiser saying that 47 percent of the population is dependent on government, believes the government has a responsibility to care for them "and will vote for this president no matter what."
"These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax," Romney said in the secretly recorded video, which was obtained first by Mother Jones and later by NBC News.
Romney was widely believed to have been referencing an earlier analysis released by the Tax Policy Center, which estimated that 47 percent of households paid no federal income taxes in 2009.
Roberton Williams, a senior fellow with the Tax Policy Center, notes that households that pay no federal income tax are very likely to still be paying other taxes. Those include payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security, sales taxes and other state and local taxes.
"These people are taxpayers. That's an important point to make, I think," Williams said.
So who makes up the 43 percent?
Williams' analysis found that about 29 percent of all households include people who are working, and subject to payroll taxes, but don't have a federal income tax bill. That could be because of deductions or other tax breaks.
Another approximately 10 percent are elderly, and they likely aren't paying federal income taxes because they don't have much income beyond Social Security.
A smaller portion—about 3 percent—are making less than $20,000 a year and therefore aren't subject to federal income tax because they are too poor.
That leaves about 1 percent of taxpayers who have other special circumstances, such as they are already paying foreign taxes.
Those who pay no federal income taxes aren't all low wage earners. Thousands of people who have income of more than $200,000 a year have been able to zero out their federal income tax bill, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service.
Williams also noted that many people who are part of the 43 percent may not even know it, since most people don't do their own taxes and those that do can easily get lost in the complexities of our famously dizzying tax code.
"I don't really know whether people are aware of it or not," he said.
Want more detail? Watch the Tax Policy Center's whiteboard video.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101015065
Katie's already previewed the president's big week ahead, as a Congressional vote on intervening in Syria looms. According to NBC's whip count, things are looking dicey on Capitol Hill: As of this writing, 27 Senators are solid/lean "no" votes, 23 are committed or lean in favor of intervention, and 49 are undecided. In the House, the picture is bleaker for the administration. Fully 235 members are strong or likely "no's" at the moment, well past the requisite threshold (217) to defeat the resolution. Twenty-six House members support the resolution, or lean that way, with 172 undecided. The president aims to shift the momentum with a speech tomorrow night at 9pm ET. In the interim, however, the White House is botching politics 101, spurning and ignoring potential allies from across the aisle:
Blowing off a young, conservative former fighter pilot as votes slip away? Smooth. Meanwhile, despite more than a week of salesmanship, the public remains unsold on a Syria strike. CNN's latest poll contains some interesting data:
How is the Obama administration brain trust responding to these concerns? Not well. Secretary of State John Kerry is vowing that any potential American action would be "unbelievably small." That's a verbatim quote. He's trying to build support for a war by promising that it won't really accomplish anything. How does this assertion jive with these reports? Plus, one wonders how that statement might impact the super-majority of Americans who don't believe an attack would "achieve significant goals" -- or, say, the military. Speaking of goals, here's how an unnamed US official describes the Obama administration's "objective" (I use the term loosely) in Syria. Again, this is not a parody:
The president already has a high bar to clear to rally support for his proposed action; his own team's stumbles have now raised the bar even higher, thanks to rank incompetence. Incidentally, here's another Kerry gaffe, which the State Department is trying to mop up. Smart power. I'll leave you with the Los Angeles Times laying waste to the White House's incoherent case for war in Syria:
I'd add, "we don't need Congress' authorization, but it's also not a show vote" to the list of contradictions.
UPDATE - Pew has released a new poll showing opposition to military force spiking 15 points since last week. The administration's lobbying efforts are going swimmingly:
It must be acknowledged from the start that Obama might now be the victim of unrealistic expectations stoked by his media allies, who once called him a "lightworker" and "almost a god." But then again, when you promise to stem the rise of the oceans, you are auto-inflating a myth that cannot be sustained. He is thus both the victim and perpetrator of unrealistic expectations.
But to be frank, unrealistic expectations have nothing to do with his Syrian predicament. His behavior has been well below minimal expectations of a president. With Russian warships assembling off Syria, his apparently off-the-cuff ultimatum is proving to be a historic blunder, not a matter of failing to be a superman.
Barack Obama now finds that the items in his toolbox that got him to the Oval Office no longer work. Take oratory, for example. Presidential speeches are, as Brit Hume observed on Fox News Sunday, a "depreciating asset" whose effectiveness diminishes with use. And in Obama's case, as Peggy Noonan pointed out, it is depreciating faster than most other presidents:
But President Obama's address to the nation Tuesday night and his round of network anchor interviews today (snubbing MSNBC!) will be watched by a lot of Americans. Issues of war and peace have a way of focusing minds, though perhaps not Obama's when it comes to thinking through the implications of his words and deeds on the world stage. He is entirely unaccustomed to the notion that he cannot talk his way out of a problem, that he can't finesse those who oppose him with more words.
Throughout his rise to prominence, through elite schools and with no particular professional achievements other than rocketing through elective office to the presidency, Barack Obama has never had to face serious consequences for foolish utterances. He has been protected by his race; leftist actor Ed Asner recently admitted, "A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama." This same sentiment no doubt existed throughout his journey through higher education as student and lecturer. I doubt anybody ever laid a glove on him intellectually, forcing him to defend himself in an academic disagreement. To even the limited extent words ever have consequences in academia, Obama was able to check the résumé box of academic position at a prestigious university without ever actually defending a thesis, presenting or publishing an academic paper, or even engaging in faculty lounge discussions. He was a loner, outside the faculty social group at the University of Chicago.
In making his case for an act of war upon Syria and its allies, Obama has fastened on the concept of enforcing a norm, a term straight out of Sociology 101. Syria never signed the chemical warfare treaty, so "norm" is about the strongest term he can use. George Homans explained what a norm is in The Human Group, the classic study continuously in print since 1950: "...norms are ideas. They are not behavior itself, but what people think behavior ought to be." Norms exist only in the minds of members of a group; if they are written down, they become rules, laws, regulations, and other things, and are no longer norms.
But Homans points out that something can be a norm "only if the norm is followed by some punishment." That punishment is up to members of the group, and can vary from a cross look to acts of war, depending on the context. In other words, there's more than one way to enforce a norm.
It is understandable that Barack Obama might have warm and fuzzy feelings for norms as a means of social control. Throughout his life he has benefitted from norms concerning race. To merely criticize him has been to be called a racist by his supporters until fairly recently. His media supporters have enforced norms against investigating too closely into his past. Borne of collective guilt over the nation's past, these norms have served to advance Barack Obama's political career at warp speed. His empty résumé, full of titles and no actual accomplishments, was accepted with no questions asked.
But these norms are an American phenomenon. They don't apply to the group consisting of nation states, especially at the apex of that group's power and influence. In that society, slavish domestic media mean nothing. The members of the superpower (and wannabe) club speak a language of power and they play for keeps.
Not only is Barack Obama unprepared for the responsibilities that lie on his shoulders, he has no experiential base to use as a referent. So he is flailing, while the danger mounts and damage to America deepens.
That "47 percent" quote that helped sink Mitt Romney's presidential hopes? Better make that 43 percent now.
The share of households who aren't paying any federal income tax has fallen, and a new analysis from the Tax Policy Center predicts that it will continue to shrink in years to come.
That's partly because a slew of temporary tax cuts enacted during the Great Recession have started to expire. And it's partly because an improving economy means people's incomes should slowly start to increase, adding to their income tax bill.
By 2024, the tax policy think tank projects that only about one-third of households won't be paying any federal income taxes. The improvements might take a while because the economy has been adding new jobs at a painfully slow pace, and many workers aren't yet seeing much bigger paychecks
Romney made "the 47 percent" famous during his 2012 Republican presidential campaign, after he was secretly recorded at a closed-door fundraiser saying that 47 percent of the population is dependent on government, believes the government has a responsibility to care for them "and will vote for this president no matter what."
"These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax," Romney said in the secretly recorded video, which was obtained first by Mother Jones and later by NBC News.
Romney was widely believed to have been referencing an earlier analysis released by the Tax Policy Center, which estimated that 47 percent of households paid no federal income taxes in 2009.
Roberton Williams, a senior fellow with the Tax Policy Center, notes that households that pay no federal income tax are very likely to still be paying other taxes. Those include payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security, sales taxes and other state and local taxes.
"These people are taxpayers. That's an important point to make, I think," Williams said.
Williams' analysis found that about 29 percent of all households include people who are working, and subject to payroll taxes, but don't have a federal income tax bill. That could be because of deductions or other tax breaks.
Another approximately 10 percent are elderly, and they likely aren't paying federal income taxes because they don't have much income beyond Social Security.
A smaller portion—about 3 percent—are making less than $20,000 a year and therefore aren't subject to federal income tax because they are too poor.
That leaves about 1 percent of taxpayers who have other special circumstances, such as they are already paying foreign taxes.
Those who pay no federal income taxes aren't all low wage earners. Thousands of people who have income of more than $200,000 a year have been able to zero out their federal income tax bill, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service.
Williams also noted that many people who are part of the 43 percent may not even know it, since most people don't do their own taxes and those that do can easily get lost in the complexities of our famously dizzying tax code.
"I don't really know whether people are aware of it or not," he said.
Want more detail? Watch the Tax Policy Center's whiteboard video.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101015065
Obama’s “Inside Job” Destroying America
By Wayne Allyn Root
Have you seen the movies “Olympus Has Fallen” or “White House Down“?
These movies are about terrorists taking over the White House and
kidnapping the President. But those movies are based on attacks from
outside.
Barack Obama proves you don’t need
Russia, or China, or North Korea, or radical Muslim terrorists to take
down the White House. Obama is doing more damage from the inside,
without firing a shot, than our worst enemies could ever imagine.
At Columbia University (Class of 1983),
my fellow classmates admitted they hated America, hated “the rich,” and
despised Judeo-Christian values. We spent our days discussing and
debating their plan to destroy capitalism and radically change America
from within by electing one of their own to the Presidency.
Once elected, the plan was to overwhelm
the system with spending, taxes, entitlements and debt. Capitalism
would topple, business owners would lose everything, and Americans would
be brought to their knees, begging for government to save them. In that
way America would become a socialist nation.
Recognize that plan? It’s happening
right in front of our eyes. Barack Obama was one of my Columbia
classmates. No one ever saw him, he rarely if ever attended class, even
professors don’t remember him. Maybe he was too busy attending socialist
or communist meetings and studying this plan. Because it is clear he
learned well.
What is happening to America right in
front of our eyes is this exact plan. Real life is replicating the
silver screen. With economic and moral carnage from coast-to-coast, and
now throughout the Middle East, it is clear the White House is down, and
Olympus has fallen, from within.
Just look at the facts:
In Egypt seventy churches have been burned and Christians killed by the Muslim Brotherhood, yet Obama says nothing. As a matter of fact, Obama’s White House spokesman made a joke about the killing of Christians in Egypt.
While the murder of Christians does
not pass any “red line,” Obama is mortified when radical Muslims murder
other radical Muslims in Syria. That passes Obama’s “red line” and
triggers a desperate desire for America to go to war, and risk the lives
of our brave soldiers to defend our sworn enemy, Al Qaeda, and risk
starting World War III.
The President of the United States seems to be a friend of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.
He’ll meet with them, praise them, fund them, and even invite friends
of theirs to the White House. Now he wants to enter a civil war in Syria
on their behalf. But make friends with Republicans? Actually sit down
with Republicans at the White House? Listen to the concerns of
Republicans? Now that is too much to ask.
Unimaginable. Until Obama came along.
When George Zimmerman
was found innocent of the death of Trayvon Martin, Obama quickly
weighed in. Yet our President says nothing about the black-on-black
genocide in the streets of Chicago (his hometown), or the out-of-control
black-on-white crime wave happening across America.
Just in the past few days a white Australian baseball player was murdered by black youth in Oklahoma; a white 88-year old World War II veteran was murdered by black youth in Spokane; and 12 black youths participated in a brutal gang rape in a Wilmington, Del. park.
I’m waiting for Obama to call a press
conference and say, “These two women gang raped by black youth in that
park could have been my daughters. This violence by black youth must
stop.”
I fear I’ll be waiting for…eternity.
After all, this is the same President whose Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission recently ruled that it is racist for employers to conduct criminal background checks on black job applicants, because they might find out the applicant is a criminal. But the EEOC says it’s fine to do it for white job applicants.
Unimaginable. Until Obama came along.
Under Obama our nation is so broke we
no longer have the money for White House tours, or to properly staff air
traffic controllers, or to keep open our Top Gun training for Navy
fighter pilots, or to keep illegal immigrant felons behind bars, or to
keep pools open for military families.
Yet somehow we have tens of millions
of dollars so our President can vacation in Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard
and go on countless golf outings. We somehow have $100 million for him
and his family to take a trip to Africa, where he pledged $7 billion of
our money to provide electricity for the citizens of Africa. And, what
about the millions for the IRS to spend on lavish conferences and the
billions Obama is giving the Palestinians and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Oh, and don’t forget the billions
Obama has spent to arm Al Qaeda and Hezbollah rebels in Libya and Syria,
who will later use these same weapons to kill us. Actually they already
have- see Benghazi.
Unimaginable. Until Obama came along.
Amazingly, while our President arms
Muslim rebels, he wants to disarm American citizens. Even that pales
next to the arming of our own government agencies. Even the Agriculture
Department and Department of Education now have militarized SWAT teams.
The Department of Homeland Security just bought 1.6 billion rounds of
hollow point bullets- enough to fight 30 years of the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars.
Does the U.S. government fear its own citizens? Is Obama preparing for a revolution in the streets? Civil war?
Unimaginable. Until Obama came along.
In California, Democrats have proposed
a bill to allow illegal immigrants to serve on juries. Obama spends
millions of our taxpayer dollars for advertising in Mexico telling
illegal immigrants in America they are eligible for food stamps.
Billions in welfare payments are given to illegal immigrants disguised
as “earned tax credits” even though they pay no taxes in the first
place. Our government pays commissions to “recruiters” to inform
Americans it is their “patriotic duty” to sign up for food stamps.
Patriotic duty? Sounds like Soviet-era communist propaganda, doesn’t it?
Unimaginable. Until Obama came along.
Obama hands out free “Obama phones.” The catch is they are all bugged. Big Brother listens to your every word.
Unimaginable. Until Obama came along.
And then there’s Obamacare.
It’s such a train wreck even Obama’s most loyal supporters – unions –
want out. The head of the IRS testified he wants out. Even the company
Obama hired to promote Obamacare relies on part-time workers, who have
no health benefits. Economic disaster looms.
Unimaginable. Until Obama came along.
None of this should come as a
surprise. Remember Democrat delegates booed God three times at Obama’s
Presidential convention. And only days ago in Iowa, a Democrat activist
opened a meeting with prayer – thanking God for the “blessing” of
abortion.
Yes my fellow Americans, the White
House is down, Olympus has fallen, and America is being destroyed from
within. Who needs terrorists? Obama’s plan is so much more efficient.
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/obamas-inside-job-destroying-america/
Change: Democrats Suddenly Pro-War, For Some Strange Reason
Katie's already previewed the president's big week ahead, as a Congressional vote on intervening in Syria looms. According to NBC's whip count, things are looking dicey on Capitol Hill: As of this writing, 27 Senators are solid/lean "no" votes, 23 are committed or lean in favor of intervention, and 49 are undecided. In the House, the picture is bleaker for the administration. Fully 235 members are strong or likely "no's" at the moment, well past the requisite threshold (217) to defeat the resolution. Twenty-six House members support the resolution, or lean that way, with 172 undecided. The president aims to shift the momentum with a speech tomorrow night at 9pm ET. In the interim, however, the White House is botching politics 101, spurning and ignoring potential allies from across the aisle:
“I don’t even know who my White House liaison is,” a frustrated Representative Adam Kinzinger, who supports military action in Syria, said on This Week this morning. The Illinois Republican told George Stephanopoulos that his office reached out to the White House to help “round up support” for authorization last week. “I haven’t heard back from the White House yet — I haven’t heard back from anyone,” he said. Kinzinger praised President Obama’s assessment of this situation in Syria, but said the “trust deficit” with Congress will prevent it from passing.
Blowing off a young, conservative former fighter pilot as votes slip away? Smooth. Meanwhile, despite more than a week of salesmanship, the public remains unsold on a Syria strike. CNN's latest poll contains some interesting data:
(1) Overall, 59 percent of the public opposes Congress authorizing the use of military force, with 39 percent in support. Perhaps most alarming for the White House is that the question wording included all the caveats the president is likely to employ in his major address (no ground troops, limited action, chemical weapons used by Assad against civilians).
(2) Every political cohort polled opposes action...except for Democrats, who back the war 56/43 (nearly the exact reverse of the general populace's attitude). Political independents are driving the opposition (29/67 opposed). In a deeply ironic shift, backing an unpopular Middle Eastern war is becoming a litmus test of Obama *support* among Democrats.
(3) Even if Congress authorizes the strikes, a majority (43/55) would still oppose them. A massive 71 percent majority would oppose military action if Congress votes down the resolution. The White House has insisted that the president would still have the authority to override Congress and order the bombing anyway, though they've begun to suggest that he won't -- perhaps because of polls like this one.
(4) Eight-two percent of Americans believe it's likely or certain that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against civilians. So people are aware of Assad's atrocities, but still don't want to intervene. Why? A mere 26 percent of respondents say American strikes would effectively "achieve significant goals." Seventy-two percent say it won't. Almost as many have determined that an attack on Syria would not serve the US national interest.
How is the Obama administration brain trust responding to these concerns? Not well. Secretary of State John Kerry is vowing that any potential American action would be "unbelievably small." That's a verbatim quote. He's trying to build support for a war by promising that it won't really accomplish anything. How does this assertion jive with these reports? Plus, one wonders how that statement might impact the super-majority of Americans who don't believe an attack would "achieve significant goals" -- or, say, the military. Speaking of goals, here's how an unnamed US official describes the Obama administration's "objective" (I use the term loosely) in Syria. Again, this is not a parody:
The strike, as envisioned, would be limited in the number of targets and done within a day or two. It could be completed in one fell swoop with missiles, said one senior official familiar with the weapons involved. A smaller, follow-on strike could be launched if targets aren't sufficiently damaged. A second senior official, who has seen the most recent planning, offered this metaphor to describe such a strike: If Assad is eating Cheerios, we're going to take away his spoon and give him a fork.
Will that degrade his ability to eat Cheerios? Yes. Will it deter him? Maybe. But he'll still be able to eat Cheerios. The two officers with current and recent service in the Middle East say the term "degrade" is so vague that it could be used to describe the effect of a single cruise missile strike.
The president already has a high bar to clear to rally support for his proposed action; his own team's stumbles have now raised the bar even higher, thanks to rank incompetence. Incidentally, here's another Kerry gaffe, which the State Department is trying to mop up. Smart power. I'll leave you with the Los Angeles Times laying waste to the White House's incoherent case for war in Syria:
The planned military strikes on Syria would be “targeted, limited” and wouldn’t seek to topple the government of President Bashar Assad or even force it to peace talks. They would also be punishing and “consequential” and would so scare Assad that he would never use chemical weapons again. U.S. airstrikes would change the momentum on the battlefield of the Syrian civil war. But the war will grind on, unchanged, perhaps for years. As administration officials lay out their case in favor of a punitive attack on Syria, they have been making all of these seemingly contradictory contentions, confusing supporters and providing rhetorical weapons to their opponents.
I'd add, "we don't need Congress' authorization, but it's also not a show vote" to the list of contradictions.
UPDATE - Pew has released a new poll showing opposition to military force spiking 15 points since last week. The administration's lobbying efforts are going swimmingly:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/09/09/change-democrats-suddenly-prowar-for-some-strange-reason-n1695282
Why Obama is Floundering
The sheer ineptitude of President Obama's handling of his Syria red line has made jaws drop all across the political spectrum. The man who garnered so much admiration for his oratorical brilliance, personal charm, and political genius has managed to make matters worse with every step he has taken. This dramatic and historic collapse demands explanation.It must be acknowledged from the start that Obama might now be the victim of unrealistic expectations stoked by his media allies, who once called him a "lightworker" and "almost a god." But then again, when you promise to stem the rise of the oceans, you are auto-inflating a myth that cannot be sustained. He is thus both the victim and perpetrator of unrealistic expectations.
But to be frank, unrealistic expectations have nothing to do with his Syrian predicament. His behavior has been well below minimal expectations of a president. With Russian warships assembling off Syria, his apparently off-the-cuff ultimatum is proving to be a historic blunder, not a matter of failing to be a superman.
Barack Obama now finds that the items in his toolbox that got him to the Oval Office no longer work. Take oratory, for example. Presidential speeches are, as Brit Hume observed on Fox News Sunday, a "depreciating asset" whose effectiveness diminishes with use. And in Obama's case, as Peggy Noonan pointed out, it is depreciating faster than most other presidents:
"I think every president in the intense media environment we have now, certainly every two-term president, gets to a point where the American people stop listening, stop leaning forward hungrily for information. I think this president got there earlier than most presidents. And I think he's in that time now."In fact, so strong is the public aversion to more Obama windbaggery that when the president gave an exclusive interview with CNN's morning show New Day a couple of weeks ago, a mere 323,000 people -- one tenth of one percent of the population of the United States as noted by Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters -- tuned in. More than three times as many watched Fox and Friends.
But President Obama's address to the nation Tuesday night and his round of network anchor interviews today (snubbing MSNBC!) will be watched by a lot of Americans. Issues of war and peace have a way of focusing minds, though perhaps not Obama's when it comes to thinking through the implications of his words and deeds on the world stage. He is entirely unaccustomed to the notion that he cannot talk his way out of a problem, that he can't finesse those who oppose him with more words.
Throughout his rise to prominence, through elite schools and with no particular professional achievements other than rocketing through elective office to the presidency, Barack Obama has never had to face serious consequences for foolish utterances. He has been protected by his race; leftist actor Ed Asner recently admitted, "A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama." This same sentiment no doubt existed throughout his journey through higher education as student and lecturer. I doubt anybody ever laid a glove on him intellectually, forcing him to defend himself in an academic disagreement. To even the limited extent words ever have consequences in academia, Obama was able to check the résumé box of academic position at a prestigious university without ever actually defending a thesis, presenting or publishing an academic paper, or even engaging in faculty lounge discussions. He was a loner, outside the faculty social group at the University of Chicago.
In making his case for an act of war upon Syria and its allies, Obama has fastened on the concept of enforcing a norm, a term straight out of Sociology 101. Syria never signed the chemical warfare treaty, so "norm" is about the strongest term he can use. George Homans explained what a norm is in The Human Group, the classic study continuously in print since 1950: "...norms are ideas. They are not behavior itself, but what people think behavior ought to be." Norms exist only in the minds of members of a group; if they are written down, they become rules, laws, regulations, and other things, and are no longer norms.
But Homans points out that something can be a norm "only if the norm is followed by some punishment." That punishment is up to members of the group, and can vary from a cross look to acts of war, depending on the context. In other words, there's more than one way to enforce a norm.
It is understandable that Barack Obama might have warm and fuzzy feelings for norms as a means of social control. Throughout his life he has benefitted from norms concerning race. To merely criticize him has been to be called a racist by his supporters until fairly recently. His media supporters have enforced norms against investigating too closely into his past. Borne of collective guilt over the nation's past, these norms have served to advance Barack Obama's political career at warp speed. His empty résumé, full of titles and no actual accomplishments, was accepted with no questions asked.
But these norms are an American phenomenon. They don't apply to the group consisting of nation states, especially at the apex of that group's power and influence. In that society, slavish domestic media mean nothing. The members of the superpower (and wannabe) club speak a language of power and they play for keeps.
Not only is Barack Obama unprepared for the responsibilities that lie on his shoulders, he has no experiential base to use as a referent. So he is flailing, while the danger mounts and damage to America deepens.
America the ignorant
Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin has another great report which follows a recent speech by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’connor. In it, Her Honor laments the general ignorance of Americans when it comes to critical matters of how their own nation works, and wonders how we’re supposed to govern ourselves out of our problems if we don’t even know the rules of the game we’re playing.Two-thirds of Americans cannot name a single Supreme Court justice, former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told the crowd that packed into a Boise State ballroom to hear her Thursday.
About one-third can name the three branches of government. Fewer than one-fifth of high school seniors can explain how citizen participation benefits democracy.
“Less than one-third of eighth-graders can identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and it’s right there in the name,” she said.
O’Connor touted civics education during her keynote address at the “Transforming America: Women and Leadership in the 21st Century” conference, put on by the Andrus Center for Public Policy. She also described being a female lawyer in the 1950s, and challenged her listeners to help the next generation of leaders reach their goals….
“The more I read and the more I listen, the more apparent it is that our society suffers from an alarming degree of public ignorance,” O’Connor said.I’m not sure which of the many historical surveys O’Connor was relying on for her numbers, but they certainly sound about right. One of the frequently depressing things you encounter when writing about politics and government, or talking to the sorts of people who read about it on a daily basis, is the false impression you form that everyone knows this stuff. Those of you who read Hot Air or any of the other many political sites each day also watch the news and debate issues of the day with each other. You’re forced to collect information to defend your views and are exposed to the ideas of others with different opinions. But I’m sorry to report that you are in a shockingly tiny minority.
Earlier this year, Richard Winchester, writing at The American Thinker, noted some very recent studies which should trouble you.
It doesn’t take much effort to describe the typical citizen’s political ignorance. The Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, for example, has plumbed random samples of the public’s public affairs knowledge about twice a year since 2007. The questions have varied in substance and format, but the results have been uniformly dismal. The average correct score is usually just above 50% which, if judged by the usual academic standard –90+% = A, 80-89% = B, 70-79% = C, 60-69% = D, <60 be="" br="" f.="" f="" would="">
Since people who cannot be contacted or refuse to take part in polls are more politically ignorant than those who do, these are generous estimates of the public’s political knowledge. It’s estimated that 25% to 33% or more of the adult populace is “missing in action” when poll results are reported. Were these people’s ignorance added to poll results, pollsters tell us that the public’s grade would be F-.The questions being asked in some of these polls were not rocket surgery. In one of them, more than 60% of respondents did not know how many justices were on the Supreme Court. Roughly 30% didn’t know who the Vice President was, and that’s a problem no matter what you think of Joe Biden. But how do we address that, if it’s even possible? Should we be pushing for more civics instruction in the public education system? That might be nice, but how to square it with the need for students to concentrate more in math, science and engineering disciplines needed to compete in the modern job market? You can’t cover everything.
More from Somin:
That is not to suggest that we should simply give up on efforts to increase political knowledge. It may be possible to increase it at the margin by improving education, or by other means. But we should combine such reforms with efforts to shrink and decentralize government, so that we can make more of our decisions by “voting with our feet,” and fewer at the ballot box. Foot voters have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information and evaluate it rationally than ballot box voters do.Uninformed people are not somebody else’s problem and the issues they cause are not only visited upon their own house. Uninformed people frequently show up to vote. They pick up the phone and give answers to pollsters which politicians then react to. Heck, they even drive cars. And as near as I can tell, it’s a problem which is completely out of reach of any solution.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/07/america-the-ignorant/
Suckers!
I’m thinking of carrying Wall Street Journal economic writer Stephen Moore’s latest column
in my pocket. Then when leftists tell me about “equality,” and “income
disparity,” I can take it out, roll it up, and beat them across the nose
with it shouting, “What did you do? What did you do?” Asking them to
read it would probably be a waste of time.
The point of the piece is that “those who were most likely to vote for Barack Obama in 2012 were members of demographic groups most likely to have suffered the steepest income declines,” since he took office.
Which is to say that young people, single women, those with only a high school diploma or less, blacks and Hispanics have all gotten the business end of the O shaft.
Steve writes with great clarity so there’s no point in my rephrasing him. Read this:
People like me tend to make esoteric arguments for the free market — private property is the basis of freedom, equality is the trait of slaves and so on. But it is also true that, with light, smart regulation, free markets work better than anything else. For those blacks, Hispanics, young people and single women who were convinced otherwise? Wakey-wakey, sweethearts. You’ve been had.
http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2013/09/06/suckers/
The point of the piece is that “those who were most likely to vote for Barack Obama in 2012 were members of demographic groups most likely to have suffered the steepest income declines,” since he took office.
Which is to say that young people, single women, those with only a high school diploma or less, blacks and Hispanics have all gotten the business end of the O shaft.
Steve writes with great clarity so there’s no point in my rephrasing him. Read this:
According to the Sentier research, households headed by single women, with and without children present, saw their incomes fall by roughly 7%. Those under age 25 experienced an income decline of 9.6%. Black heads of households saw their income tumble by 10.9%, while Hispanic heads-of-households’ income fell 4.5%, slightly more than the national average. The incomes of workers with a high-school diploma or less fell by about 8% (-6.9% for those with less than a high-school diploma and -9.3% for those with only a high-school diploma).
To put that into dollar terms, in the four years between the time the Obama recovery began in June 2009 and June of this year, median black household income fell by just over $4,000, Hispanic households lost $2,000 and female-headed households lost $2,300.
The unemployment numbers show pretty much the same pattern. July’s Bureau of Labor Statistics data (the most recent available) show a national unemployment rate of 7.4%. The highest jobless rates by far are for key components of the Obama voter bloc: blacks (12.6%), Hispanics (9.4%), those with less than a high-school diploma (11%) and teens (23.7%).
This is a stunning reversal of the progress for these groups during the expansions of the 1980s and 1990s, and even through the start of the 2008 recession. Census data reveal that from 1981-2008 the biggest income gains were for black women, 81%; followed by white women, 67%; followed by black men, 31%; and white males at 8%.
In other words, the gender and racial income gaps shrank by more than in any period in American history during the Reagan boom of the 1980s and the Clinton boom of the 1990s. Women and blacks continued to make economic progress during the mini-Bush expansion from 2002-07. “Income inequality” has been exacerbated during the Obama era.The whole gobsmacking thing is here.
People like me tend to make esoteric arguments for the free market — private property is the basis of freedom, equality is the trait of slaves and so on. But it is also true that, with light, smart regulation, free markets work better than anything else. For those blacks, Hispanics, young people and single women who were convinced otherwise? Wakey-wakey, sweethearts. You’ve been had.
http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2013/09/06/suckers/
Global warming cleverly hides itself with 1 million sq miles more arctic ice
The science isA chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 60 per cent.
The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013.
Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores.Good news for polar bears, if nothing else. But talks of a clear Northwest Passage seem to have fallen by the wayside. In fact, a few people who were counting on it rather heavily are left sort of… stuck.
Only six years ago, the BBC reported that the Arctic would be ice-free in summer by 2013, citing a scientist in the US who claimed this was a ‘conservative’ forecast. Perhaps it was their confidence that led more than 20 yachts to try to sail the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific this summer. As of last week, all these vessels were stuck in the ice, some at the eastern end of the passage in Prince Regent Inlet, others further west at Cape Bathurst.
Shipping experts said the only way these vessels were likely to be freed was by the icebreakers of the Canadian coastguard. According to the official Canadian government website, the Northwest Passage has remained ice-bound and impassable all summer.Some of the analysts currently scratching their heads over how the planet stubbornly refuses to do what they insist it must are apparently now reflecting on some much older data. Reports are available which indicate a massive melting of the arctic ice sheet in the 1920′s and 30′s, long before the era of global climate studies. But then, it crashed into another period of increased freezing and expansion. The current photo has a few of them wondering if we might be in danger of heading into another ice age, which would be disastrous for mankind.
This just in from Jeff Dunetz.
Today’s UK Daily Mail gives more evidence that would have made my mother, of blessed memory issue a major Jewish Mother Sweater Alert because the Arctic Ice cap grew by 60% this past year and more scientists are warning of the coming ice age.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/08/global-warming-cleverly-hides-itself-with-1-million-sq-miles-more-arctic-ice
Clinton. Christie. Cringe.
By George F WillOn Jan. 20, 1981, Michael Deaver, a political aide, peered into a bedroom in Blair House, across from the White House, and said to the man still abed, “It’s 8 o’clock. You’re going to be inaugurated as president in a few hours.” From beneath the blankets, Ronald Reagan said, “Do I have to?”
Some are so eager to be inaugurated in 2017 that the 2016 campaign has begun 28 months before the 1.4 percent of Americans who live in Iowa and New Hampshire express themselves. It is, therefore, not too soon to get a head start on being dismayed. Consider two probable candidates.
Hillary Clinton comes among us trailing clouds of incense, so some acolytes will call it ill-mannered, even misogynistic, to ask: What exactly is it about the condition of the world, and about America’s relations with other nations, that recommends the former secretary of state for an even more elevated office?
Granted, neither she nor any other U.S. official can be blamed for the world’s blemishes. To think otherwise is to embrace what Greg Weiner, an Assumption College political scientist, calls “narcissistic polity disorder.” It is the belief that everything everywhere is about us. Today, it is the delusion that, although events in Egypt and Syria look like violent clashes between Egyptians and Syrians concerning what those countries should be, the events really are mostly about what America has or has not done.
That said, however, this also should be said: Clinton’s accomplishments are not less impressive than those of many who have sought, and some who have won, the presidency. But the disproportion between the thinness of her record and the ardor of her advocates suggests that her gender is much of her significance.
That contemporary feminism is thin gruel is apparent in the fact that it has found its incarnation in a woman who married her way to the upper reaches of American politics. There her wandering husband rewarded her remarkable loyalty by allowing her the injurious opportunity to produce a health-care proposal so implausible that a Democratic-controlled Congress (56 to 44 in the Senate, 256 to 178 in the House) would not bring it to a vote. Still, the world’s oldest political party might not allow a contest to mar the reverent awarding to her of its next nomination.
Republicans seem destined not for a staid coronation but for an invigorating brawl, and brawling is Chris Christie’s forte, even his hobby. Americans sometimes vote for the opposite of what has disappointed or wearied them, so they might want to replace Barack Obama, who is elegant but hesitant, with someone who is conspicuously neither. Christie, who is evidently cruising to gubernatorial reelection in blue New Jersey, can then say:
“Eighteen states and the District of Columbia, with 242 electoral votes, have gone Democratic in six consecutive elections. Unless the Republican nominee breaks this ‘blue wall,’ the Democratic nominee will spend autumn 2016 seeking 28 electoral votes and will find them. My brand of politics is entertaining and, perhaps for that reason, effective with people who considered Mitt Romney robotic.”
There can, however, come a point at which the way a politician acts becomes an act, a revival of vaudeville, and a caricature discordant with the demands of the highest offices. Christie, appearing recently on a sports talk radio program, erupted like Vesuvius when asked about a New York sportswriter who had criticized Christie’s friend Rex Ryan, coach of the New York Jets:
“Idiot. The guy’s a complete idiot. Self-consumed, underpaid reporter. . . . The only reason he’s empowered is because we’re spending all this time this morning talking about Manish Mehta, who, by the way, I couldn’t pick out of a lineup, and no Jet fan really gives a damn about Manish Mehta.”
Mehta’s tabloid, the Daily News, filled a page with the words, “Who you calling an idiot, fatso!” Great fun. But who wants to call the person “Mr. President” who calls a sportswriter an “idiot”?
Americans want presidents to understand and connect with ordinary people, but not to be ordinary. Because presidents are incessantly on view in Americans’ living rooms, decorum is preferable to drama. Americans want presidential toughness, which Christie has demonstrated admirably in confrontations with government employees’ unions. But because he has demonstrated it abundantly, he does not need to advertise it gratuitously.
He should heed another politician who had a flair for fighting. “Being powerful,” Margaret Thatcher said, “is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-clinton-christie-promise-2016-follies/2013/09/06/d440b3d6-1660-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html
The Right Medicine
Despite Democratic claims to the contrary, conservatives have their own plans for reforming health care
Lanhee Chen, policy director for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, voiced frustration with the GOP for failing to cohere around a single reform strategy.
“I feel very strongly that Republicans have to be able to articulate an alternative to Obamacare,” said Chen. “I don’t think it’s enough for us to say Obamacare stinks and we don’t like it. I think everybody gets that.”
Avik Roy, a healthcare expert at the Manhattan Institute, concurred that this has been a problem.
“It hasn’t been a policy priority for conservatives,” Roy said.
Several Republican legislators have taken on the challenge of introducing actual legislation since Obamacare has become the law.
Rep. Tom Price (Ga.) reintroduced his “Empowering Patients First Act” this year, while the Republican Study Committee will release its own legislation as Congress comes back from the August recess, although details have been kept tightly under wraps.
Both of these proposals begin by replacing Obamacare.
“It sets up an alternative, a positive alternative,” said Price. He touted his reform as the “most comprehensive” alternative to Obamacare.
Price’s bill sets up a tax credit to help low-income individuals buy health insurance. It also helps people keep their insurance when they move across state lines, reforms the legal system to reduce doctors’ malpractice liability, and expands the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), which are untaxed savings accounts people can use for their health costs.
Price’s bill also addresses the problem of preexisting conditions by allowing people to pool together to buy insurance. “It would solve overnight the problem,” he said.
Price’s plan “dramatically expands the utility of HSAs,” which increase the ability of people to save their own money, Roy said. But expanding a realm of untaxed saving is effectively a tax cut. “You have to pay for that somehow,” Roy said.
While Price’s bill reforms much of the healthcare system, two areas that go unaddressed comprehensively are the tax code’s treatment of health insurance and entitlements, especially Medicare and Medicaid.
All healthcare experts interviewed by the Washington Free Beacon said the first place to start in reforming America’s healthcare system is by reforming the tax code.
Currently health insurance provided by an employer is an untaxed benefit, meaning that there is a tremendous advantage to getting health insurance through work rather than on the individual market.
“The present system penalizes those who buy health insurance on their own,” said Chen. The current system makes it harder to jump between jobs, creating “job lock.”
Medicare is also in desperate need of reform, they said.
“You can’t fix the rest of healthcare without dealing with Medicare,” said Tom Miller, a healthcare expert at the American Enterprise Institute. Medicare pays for so much of total healthcare costs in America that the way that system functions impacts the rest of the healthcare system.
The various proposals all seek to give individuals control over their insurance, increasing competition among private insurance companies for people’s business. This competition would then drive down costs.
“I think competition does work,” said James Capretta, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He pointed to the success of Medicare Part D as evidence for the efficacy of competition.
Part D requires seniors to pick a private supplemental insurance plan to cover prescription drugs and this competition has kept premiums well below the expected levels.
However, while there is agreement on reforming the tax code and improving competition, further ideas for reform diverge.
The libertarian proposal is to give people a tax break for putting their money into HSAs. This change would replicate the current tax break but give individuals control over their own money, said Michael Tanner, a healthcare expert at the libertarian Cato Institute.
Tanner would also change Medicare into a system more like Social Security, where the elderly would simply get a check and be trusted to buy their own health insurance. He would additionally move toward granting Medicaid money to the states in a block so they have total control over how to use the dollars.
Capretta and Robert Moffit, a healthcare expert at the Heritage Foundation, together wrote an article for National Affairs in which they outlined a different proposal for reforming the healthcare system.
Their plan involves giving every American a tax credit with which to buy health insurance and eliminating the preference for employer-sponsored health insurance. They would also give seniors on Medicare financial help so they can buy health insurance on the private market, and require states to set up a kind of information center where people can go to find information on health insurance.
“The key to building a competitive program is that concept: a fixed, defined contribution [from the government] that provides a good level of support but the beneficiary has to be cost conscious on the margins,” Capretta said, describing what is often called “premium support.”
Capretta and Moffit solve the dilemma of people with pre-existing conditions by tying legal benefits to continuous insurance coverage. As long as you maintain insurance coverage, you cannot see your rates run up because of a pre-existing condition under their plan.
This plan, Capretta contends, is close to a universal coverage plan, because the tax credit would completely pay for at least some health insurance plans. The coverage is further enhanced by an auto-enrollment feature, where individuals are automatically enrolled in a private plan where the tax credit fully covers the cost.
Capretta’s plan mirrors in many ways the plan that Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), and Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) offered in 2009, “The Patients’ Choice Act.” Ryan’s plan moves toward a premium-support model for Medicare and has an automatic enrollment feature.
Capretta acknowledged that parts of his plan, especially the exchanges, mirror parts of Obamacare. But he contended that his plan prioritizes individual responsibility and market competition over mandates and central control from Washington and state capitals.
In theory, Obamacare’s exchanges are a conservative idea in that they try to harness market competition to drive down prices, Roy said.
However, in practice, “the Obamacare exchanges are heavily regulated, and that as a result doesn’t make the plans as affordable as they ought to be,” Roy said.
Roy argued that some parts of Obamacare, like the exchanges and the tax on comprehensive “Cadillac” insurance plans, can be leveraged to achieve the conservative vision for healthcare reform—all without actually repealing Obamacare.
“We’re likely to be stuck with it,” Roy said. “Repeal is unlikely to happen.”
Roy wants to strengthen the good parts of Obamacare while whittling off the bad parts, what he calls the “Obamacare jiu-jitsu” approach.
“The Paul Ryan plan for Medicare is very similar to the Obamacare exchanges,” Roy said.
While there are several approaches to improving America’s healthcare system, Miller said there is room for other ideas as well.
“We need to think about how we improve health at the front end stage,” he said. Focusing on early education and responsibility as well as thinking about ways to connect families and communities to people’s health could help reduce healthcare costs by making people healthier.
“We have this narrow mindset of what are the only levers we can pull,” Miller said.
http://freebeacon.com/the-right-medicine/
Rebutting Retroactive Racism
I intend to see 12 Years a Slave; it sounds like a very good movie. But I was somewhat daunted by the discordant note struck at its debut in Toronto:
This, of course, translates as "you whites are all descendants of slave owners and should be ashamed of it." I feel obliged to protest this sort of innuendo by dissecting Mr. Cameron's remark.
First of all, ancestral guilt is nonsense. Going back five hundred years or so, each of us has about a million ancestors. Probably, every one of us has a rotten apple or two among them. However, if one of mine committed a murder in 1625 -- or managed a slave plantation in 1740 -- I refuse to feel the least bit guilty about it and I dismiss Mr. Bailey's remark as gratuitous racist sniping.
But it was also inaccurate. Even if the audience was entirely American, about half of them would have been descendants of post-emancipation immigrants, and therefore free from any taint of slave-trade ancestry. Next, consider the ante bellum ancestors of the remainder. Half of these came from the North and may well have been members of the abolitionist movement or of the million and a half men who fought in the Union army to end slavery. Mr. Bailey owes those ancestors, and their descendants, an apology.
In fact, Mr. Bailey had better check up on his own lineage. Before Americans ever set foot in Africa, native tribes were busily enslaving one another. Moreover, the rounding up of slaves for export to America was a collaboration in which Arabs and tribal chiefs enthusiastically participated. Chances are that Mr. Bailey's ancestors were involved in slavery in more ways than one.
Or perhaps, Mr. Bailey means -- as some black activists imply -- that any white person is accountable for anything any other white person ever did. This is racism in its purest and most concentrated form. If it were true, then I would expect Mr. Bailey to publish an abject apology for the massacres in Rwanda and turn himself in for punishment.
In any case, his remark was mean-spirited and ill advised; perhaps that's why most newspapers ignored it. But I don't think that we should. Considering how black activists have hounded Paula Deen for having once used "the N word", and how they almost cost David Howard his job for using an innocent but similar word, I think we should protest every time that one of them utters anything as nasty and stupid as Mr. Bailey did.
Toronto festival artistic director Cameron Bailey, who is black, introduced the film by noting its personal significance. "My great, great, great grandparents were involved in plantation slavery," he said. "And chances are, many of your ancestors were involved in it as well ... one way or another." The uncomfortable laughs were the last the audience would have for a while... [itallics mine]
This, of course, translates as "you whites are all descendants of slave owners and should be ashamed of it." I feel obliged to protest this sort of innuendo by dissecting Mr. Cameron's remark.
First of all, ancestral guilt is nonsense. Going back five hundred years or so, each of us has about a million ancestors. Probably, every one of us has a rotten apple or two among them. However, if one of mine committed a murder in 1625 -- or managed a slave plantation in 1740 -- I refuse to feel the least bit guilty about it and I dismiss Mr. Bailey's remark as gratuitous racist sniping.
But it was also inaccurate. Even if the audience was entirely American, about half of them would have been descendants of post-emancipation immigrants, and therefore free from any taint of slave-trade ancestry. Next, consider the ante bellum ancestors of the remainder. Half of these came from the North and may well have been members of the abolitionist movement or of the million and a half men who fought in the Union army to end slavery. Mr. Bailey owes those ancestors, and their descendants, an apology.
In fact, Mr. Bailey had better check up on his own lineage. Before Americans ever set foot in Africa, native tribes were busily enslaving one another. Moreover, the rounding up of slaves for export to America was a collaboration in which Arabs and tribal chiefs enthusiastically participated. Chances are that Mr. Bailey's ancestors were involved in slavery in more ways than one.
Or perhaps, Mr. Bailey means -- as some black activists imply -- that any white person is accountable for anything any other white person ever did. This is racism in its purest and most concentrated form. If it were true, then I would expect Mr. Bailey to publish an abject apology for the massacres in Rwanda and turn himself in for punishment.
In any case, his remark was mean-spirited and ill advised; perhaps that's why most newspapers ignored it. But I don't think that we should. Considering how black activists have hounded Paula Deen for having once used "the N word", and how they almost cost David Howard his job for using an innocent but similar word, I think we should protest every time that one of them utters anything as nasty and stupid as Mr. Bailey did.
U.S. Failed to Reduce ‘Food Insecurity’ Despite Spending Billions More
Levels of food insecurity not reduced by a statistically significant amount
The USDA says its food programs “increase food security.” However, the agency’s spending through the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) increased by $6.4 billion from 2011 to 2012 with no statistically significant change in the level of food insecurity.
“Food and nutrition assistance programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) increase food security by providing low-income households access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education,” the USDA said in a report released this week.
By the agency’s own measure the change in food insecurity from 2011 to 2012 was near zero.
According to the USDA, 14.5 percent of households faced food insecurity at least sometime during the year. “The change in food insecurity overall (from 14.9 percent in 2011) was not statistically significant,” they said.
Additionally, the “very low food security” category remained unchanged (5.7 percent) from the previous year, and “food-insecure” children also remained the same (10 percent).
The FNS budget increased by billions in that timeframe.
In 2011, the FNS reported spending $107.5 billion on its 15 food assistance programs. The 2012 budget estimate showed an increase to $113.9 billion.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) makes up the bulk of the FNS budget. The program spent $78.4 billion in 2012, a $2.7 billion increase from the previous year. An average of 46.6 million people were enrolled in the program each month.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said had it not been for food stamps, “food insecurity” would be on the rise.
“Food insecurity remains a very real challenge for millions of Americans,” he said in a statement, Wednesday. “Today’s report underscores the importance of programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that have helped keep food insecurity from rising, even during the economic recession.”
Vilsack also urged against cuts to the food stamp budget, which has increased 108 percent since 2008.
Food stamp spending was $37.6 billion in 2008, but jumped to $53.6 billion in 2009. The program has continued to grow each year, reaching $78.4 billion in 2012.
“As the recovery continues and families turn to USDA nutrition programs for help to put good food on the table, this is not the time for cuts to the SNAP program that would disqualify millions of Americans and threaten a rise in food insecurity,” Vilsack said.
The USDA based its findings on an annual Census Bureau survey, which asks 18 questions about a family’s eating habits to figure out if they are “food secure.”
“In concept, ‘food secure’ means that all household members had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life,” the agency explains.
One of the survey questions reads: “‘We couldn’t afford to eat balanced meals.’
Was that often, sometimes, or never true for you in the last 12 months?”
Another question asks, “In the last 12 months, did you ever eat less than you felt you should because there wasn’t enough money for food?”
“Very low” food security is defined in the report as “the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food.”
http://freebeacon.com/u-s-failed-to-reduce-food-insecurity-despite-spending-billions-more/
Americans Being Forced to Pay for Al Jazeera
Two weeks ago, Al Jazeera America launched, beaming into 48 million homes across the country. The media company that allowed Osama bin Laden to use it as a vehicle to communicate with jihadists around the world is now on your TV screen and you are paying for it. The network pushed its way onto basic cable packages with several providers. If you subscribe to Verizon, Comcast, Dish Network or DirecTV, you are forced to subsidize Al Jazeera's propaganda as part of your cable bill whether you like it or not.I represent a district about 70 miles north of where the Twin Towers once stood. Thousands of my constituents commute to Manhattan every day. People from this area perished in the savage attacks of September 11, 2001. Serviceman from our community made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting to prevent another attack. Four Marines I served with left everything they had on the battlefields of Iraq. When constituents contacted my office to express outrage that Al Jazeera America is now part of their basic cable package, I took it very seriously.
We should not have to fund Al Jazeera through our cable bills. Americans do not want to pay for their vile propaganda. I'm launching a petition drive calling on cable companies to drop Al Jazeera from their basic cable packages.
Al Jazeera was founded in 1996 by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and is owned by his government. Some have claimed that Al Jazeera is independent of the dictatorship that runs Qatar. But the emir's cousin Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim al-Thani runs the network despite not having a journalism background.
In late 2012 former vice president Al Gore and his partners put their fledgling liberal television network Current TV up for sale. Gore and company accepted Al Jazeera's offer of a half billion dollars on January 2nd 2013. A spokesman for Gore's group said they chose Al Jazeera because "Al Jazeera was founded with the same goals we had for Current," which was "to give voice to those whose voices are not typically heard" and "to speak truth to power."
Verizon, Comcast, DirecTV and Dish Network already carry Al Jazeera America, and Al Jazeera has plans to force their way onto more cable bills. Time Warner Cable, which carried Current TV, dropped Al Jazeera America. AT &T U-Verse was originally going to carry the network but backed out and is now being sued by Al Jazeera for breach of contract. Cablevision and Cox Communications do not air Al Jazeera America.
My constituents and I are alarmed that as subscribers, we are being forced against our will to pay for a network that is owned by a foreign dictatorship and has a long history of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and support for Islamic terror.
For example, Al Jazeera America has already run a show about closing Guantanamo, painting terrorists as victims and the US as oppressors. The Arabic Al Jazeera threw a birthday party for terrorist Samir Kuntar, celebrating him as a "pan-Arab hero." Kuntar murdered an Israeli father and his 4-year-old daughter in their home. The Israeli family's mother accidentally suffocated their toddler son as she tried to muffle his cries while hiding from Kuntar. Al Jazeera paid for fireworks to celebrate Kuntar's release from prison. In the days after September 11th, Al Jazeera reported as fact the anti-Semitic lie that Jewish Americans had been told not to come to work at the World Trade Center on 9/11. CNN reported that a document found in bin Laden's compound following his death referenced a meeting with the Al Jazeera bureau chief in Pakistan.
Al Jazeera's parent dictatorship Qatar does allow the US military to conduct operations within its borders. However, according to leaked cables and multiple reports, Qatar's record of counter-terrorism efforts was the "worst in the region." According to the New York Times, Qatar is "hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals." Qatar also funds Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Why should subscribers be forced to purchase a network owned by a foreign government that either appeases or subsidizes Islamic terrorists?
Some have suggested that Al Jazeera has a right to access American television sets just as the BBC, Fox News and MSNBC. Nonsense. Since when does a foreign power have a right to pipe its worldview into American living rooms? The Fox News Channel haters love to point out that a member of the Saudi royal family is the second largest shareholder of Fox's parent company News Corp. It's troubling, but that is far different than the Islamic dictatorship of Qatar owning 100% of Al Jazeera.
To be clear, this is not a First Amendment issue. The free press and free speech clauses of First Amendments do not protect foreign powers who wish to broadcast propaganda into our country. Moreover, at this time my constituents and I are not objecting to the existence of the channel. We object to Al Jazeera America's inclusion as a basic cable channel that subscribers are forced to pay for and receive rather than as an a la carte channel that can be added to a basic package. In short, we are pro-choice when it comes to Al Jazeera.
Some say that we should just ignore Al Jazeera America and it will go away as a result of low ratings. But it is not clear that Al Jazeera America is a profit-making venture for Qatar, which has the second highest GDP in the world and can absorb the losses for years if not decades. Whereas most cable networks have 12 minutes of commercials per hour, Al Jazeera America has only 6 minutes. Many, if not most of the ads are promos for the network rather than paid spots. If indeed Al Jazeera is not about making money, their presence on the basic cable dials is even more disturbing.
I have written to the four major media companies carrying Al Jazeera America and requested that they drop the notoriously anti-American and anti-Semitic Al Jazeera from their basic cable packages. Should they refuse to remedy this problem by September 11, 2013, we will begin encouraging subscribers to drop their services.
Because cable companies are granted regional monopolies by local governments, customers don't necessarily have the option to switch providers. Consequently, we will also begin working with municipalities to revoke the cable monopolies if they don't make Al Jazeera America optional by the 9/11 anniversary.
Meanwhile, we have launched this petition to show that Americans do not want to be forced to pay for a propaganda arm of an Islamic dictatorship. Sign the petition and tell TV providers you do not want to be forced to pay for Al Jazeera's foul propaganda.
Federal Appeals Court Hears Case on Internet Regulation
Can the federal government legally control access to the Internet? That’s the question before a top federal appeals court this week.On Sept. 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear arguments in Verizon v. FCC. At issue is the legality of the Federal Communication Commission’s net-neutrality rules, which regulates Internet traffic and thus asserts government authority to control individual Americans’ access to the Internet.
Net neutrality has been a priority for the Obama administration, and these regulations were enacted only when President Obama’s appointees became a majority of the FCC. The regulations themselves sound innocuous to casual observers, since they speak about Internet Service Providers (ISPs) being required to treat all content equally and not differentiate between certain types of content or certain sources.
But in order for the FCC to promulgate such rules, the FCC must have legal authority to regulate the Internet. So if these regulations stand, it represents a vast expansion of federal authority over all forms of communication over the Internet (both webpages and email)—authority the government could then exercise in any manner it chooses at any time in the future.
In 2010, the D.C. Circuit held in Comcast v. FCC that the Communications Act of 1934 did not give the FCC such sweeping authority, concluding that the relevant federal law applied only to radio and TV broadcasts. Thus, the appeals court invalidated the FCC’s order against Comcast that had sparked that lawsuit. Having decided that federal statute did not authorize the agency assert such authority, the court did not need to reach any broader question as to whether such authority would also violate the First Amendment to the Constitution.
It is possible that the Comcast decision—and a recent follow-up case involving the same issue—could be controlling precedent in Verizon’s lawsuit. A decision is expected by early next year.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/08/Federal-Appeals-Court-Hears-Case-on-Internet-Regulation
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