Tag Archives: Politics

Media, Politics

Logic? Of The Anti-Gun Lobby

And by ‘Lobby’ I mean most of the media and lefty talk-radio. It’s about calling names and using hyperbole for measures that no one is advocating. It’s what the Left does. Not necessarily democrats. Just those that hold this ‘ban all guns’ and ‘ban assault weapons’ agenda.

For example . . .

It’s not just the ranters on the left, like MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who recently called National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre “the lobbyist for mass murderers.” O’Donnell is a controversialist who says things like that all the time. So is CNN’s Piers Morgan, who told the Gun Owners of America chief Larry Pratt, “You are an unbelievably stupid man” and “You shame your country.”

And . . .

when a Republican congressman, Georgia’s Jack Kingston, argued on MSNBC recently that tough gun control laws haven’t prevented mass shootings in some European countries, the network’s anchor, Thomas Roberts, responded, “So, we need to just be complacent in the fact that we can send our children to school to be assassinated?”

semi-auto-rifleThen there’s Lefty talker Stephanie Miller and the Media Matters crowd that say, in response to NRA President Wayne LaPierre’s suggestion that there be a police presence in schools, (like we have here in Pensacola, FL, they are called ‘resource officers’),  “oh sure, like we can afford to have a cop in every classroom.” Nobody suggested a cop for every classroom. Proving that the Left will say whatever they need to say if it will advance their agenda. The facts don’t matter.

There are ways to save lives without banning guns. Do away with so-called ‘gun-free’ zones and get real with lawful ‘concealed carry.’ It’s already against the law for a mentally unstable person to buy a gun. But clearly, improvements can be made in the mental health field if it weren’t for the ACLU. Groups like them advocate for part of the Constitution. Not all of it. Make punishment meaningful for crimes committed with guns. A bad person with a gun can be stopped by a good person with a gun. Whether the good person wears a badge or a pocket protector, lives of fellow citizens can be protected.

Economy, Fair Tax, Politics

Chambliss, Woodall Advance FairTax Legislation

This is good news. A small step forward. But it is a step forward. It brings the FairTax to a place in the legislative process that it has never been before. Many thanks sponsors Chambliss and Woodall and to the thousands of FairTax advocates throughout the country. Our work is finally beginning to pay off. Emphasis on beginning.

For Immediate Release:

Chambliss, Woodall Call for FairTax Consideration

Send letter to Joint Committee on Taxation

 

WASHINGTON- Today, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Ga-7, asked the Joint Committee on Taxation to produce a revenue estimate of H.R. 25 and S. 13, the FairTax bill. This estimate will allow the FairTax to be considered during congressional negotiations for tax reform.

Chambliss and Woodall have long urged Congress to support the FairTax legislation, which would implement a simpler, less-cumbersome tax code. Chambliss and Woodall have sponsored legislation in both the House and the Senate.

“The current tax code has become too burdensome and complex, and is filled with provisions that benefit only a few Americans at the expense of everyone else. That’s simply not right,” said Chambliss. “Now is the time to enact the FairTax, which would create a fairer, simpler tax code that allows every American the freedom to determine his or her own priorities and opportunities.”

“No matter what they do, honest, hardworking Americans are punished under our current tax code. Pass the FairTax, and we can unshackle America’s job creators and jump start this economy. Pass the FairTax, and we can reward all Americans who contribute to our economy—not just those who can afford the best tax lawyers and accountants,” Woodall said. “We, as a nation, can do better than relying on a tax code that picks winners and losers. Let’s level the playing field with the FairTax and restore more freedom to our economy, not more government.”

The FairTax would shift the federal government’s method of revenue collection from income to personal consumption. It would repeal all federal personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, capital gains taxes and gift and estate taxes, and would replace those with a revenue-neutral, personal consumption tax on all retail sales of new goods and services.

Text of the letter is below: Continue reading Chambliss, Woodall Advance FairTax Legislation →

Economy, Politics

The Tipping Point Of Welfare Spending

Here’s some stats that will blow your mind. It should answer the question to whether the ‘war on poverty’ is lost. Or, raise the question whether it was ever intended to be ‘won’ in the first place.

welfare_spending

According to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee, welfare spending per day per household in poverty is $168, which is higher than the $137 median income per day. When broken down per hour, welfare spending per hour per household in poverty is $30.60, which is higher than the $25.03 median income per hour.

The universe of means-tested welfare spending refers to programs that provide low-income assistance in the form of direct or indirect financial support—such as food stamps, free housing, child care, etc.—and which the recipient does not pay into (in contrast to Medicare or Social Security). For fiscal year 2011, CRS identified roughly 80 overlapping federal means-tested welfare programs that together represented the single largest budget item in 2011—more than the nation spends on Social Security, Medicare, or national defense. The total amount spent on these federal programs, when taken together with approximately $280 billion in state contributions, amounted to roughly $1 trillion. Nearly 95 percent of these costs come from four categories of spending: medical assistance, cash assistance, food assistance, and social / housing assistance. Under the President’s FY13 budget proposal, means-tested spending would increase an additional 30 percent over the next four years.

This so-called war is never-ending, with the purpose of creating as many voters dependent on government as possible. And look how successful it has become under the current Commander-in-Chief. Will Americans vote themselves a decrease in benefits after they’ve already voted for keeping them, and soaking the rich to ostensibly sustain them?

Link:‘Welfare Spending Equates to $168 Per Day for Every Household in Poverty’

Economy, Politics

Food Stamps And The Dependent Society

The administration is having great success in their ad campaign to spread the wealth around.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been running radio ads for the past four months encouraging those eligible to enroll. The campaign is targeted at the elderly, working poor, the unemployed and Hispanics.

Hispanics here and in Mexico.

The most recent data on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) participation were released Friday, and showed that 47,710,324 people were enrolled in the program in September, an increase of 607,559 from the 47,102,765 enrolled in August.

The increase is just as much a matter of policy as it is the poor economy. Obama’s poor economy. In The White House, they call it ‘street money.’ Well, they won’t really say that. But that’s what it is. Creating a dependent society, fundamental change in America, is moving right along.

Economy, Fair Tax, Politics

Action Alert, Time For Bold Tax Reform

Tax reform is, like it was last election season, and the one before that etc., once again on the minds of politicians in Washington. But for very different reasons than why it is on our mind.

We see the current IRS code as an impediment to starting or building a business and/or providing for our family. They see it as a means to get re-elected.  I’m on the side of the people, not the government.

There is a way to fund the government that simultaneously promotes our personal and national economy. And not just for one class, but for every class. It’s called the FairTax as represented in legislation H.R. 25 in the House and S.13 in the Senate.

There are 80 Representatives and Senators that are on the side of the people. But that’s not near enough to bring the FairTax to fruition. The time is now, more than ever, to speak up. Let your Senators and Representative know that you want bold tax reform. Not more tax deform. You want the FairTax.

Contact Link

Links: FairTax.org | FairTax FAQ  | Senate Bill S. 13  |  House Bill H.R. 25

Media, Politics, Race Relations

Government Response Sandy, Katrina

There’s no question that the media response to both storm disasters are different. And so was, is, the government’s response to them. There’s also no question that there is no interest in why this is.

First and foremost in the Katrina storm coverage was the racial aspect of its inhabitants and Bush (R) didn’t care about them, for a couple ‘reasons.’ They’re Black and for the most part, democrats. The media pushed the race card narrative, and paid less attention to the interference of the state’s own politicians.

New Orleans population is about 250, 000 and 67% Black. Staten Island’s population is twice that, about 500,000, and 9.5% Black. Not saying that the racial disparity between both disasters is material to the government’s poor response to the people in Staten Island. The disparity in the media’s response and coverage is perhaps more political than racial now that there’s a D in The White House, who also happens to be a White-Black (by NYTimes definition). Who knows? I’m just say’n.

What is obvious is that the government response, FEMA and the rest, is no where near as efficient in Staten Island as it was in New Orleans. Same with the media’s coverage of it, which, aside from FOX News, has been pretty much forgotten.

It’s easy to assume that the government is overwhelmed and unable to respond like it did after Katrina. What’s not so easy is for the media or The White House to admit it. The photo ops have been done. Obama is going on his Hawaiian vacation. That must mean the disaster relief is complete. Just don’t ask anyone, Black or White,  in Staten Island if they think so.

Immigration, Politics

Dems Oppose Immigration Reform

Democrats say NO to accomplished potential immigrants here with valid visas like foreign-born graduates with  master’s and Ph.D.s in science, tech, engineering and math fields, STEM. Those who add value to the country.

How many times have we heard President Obama talk about bi-partisanship in doing those things that both sides can agree on? Lamenting the deadlock in Washington. That Democrats could not agree on this bill, demonstrates that they not only prefer deadlock and a “do-nothing Congress,” but that they also prefer low and no-skilled illegals receiving government benefits that legal citizens may receive. AKA undocumented democrats.

THE HOUSE: Convened at 9 and has just cast the week’s final vote – with 27 Democrats joining all but five Republicans to pass legislation that would give permanent residency to 55,000 foreigners each year once they get advanced degrees from U.S. schools in science, technology, engineering and math. (The tally was 245-139.) But the bill is going nowhere in the lame-duck Senate because most Democrats, Obama included, oppose it for two reasons: They want to hold the measure (which the business community is eager for) hostage until negotiations on an immigration overhaul next year, when they’ll be pushing to give illegals a path to citizenship. And they don’t like that the STEM visas would be made available by ending the annual green-card lottery for people in countries with traditionally low immigration rates.

Links: House GOP bashes Democrats for opposing immigration bill   |  H.R. 6429: STEM Jobs Act of 2012

Economy, Politics

Fiscal Cliff Political Snake Oil

It’s not as though our journey to the so-called fiscal cliff was a surprise or accident. This journey was planned, voted and approved by a congress that can’t say NO. And it didn’t start with the Obama administration. It started with the Johnson administration fifty years ago by raiding Social Security to fund new so-called entitlement programs he called The Great Society. It was that short-sightedness and the continued expansion of government overhead since then that has brought us to where we are today.

The fix is simple. Any head of household knows what it is. You don’t spend more than you have. You budget what you do have to last until your next paycheck, or in this case, the next April 15th. Like the game of golf the concept is simple. Hit the ball into the hole. The hard part is gaining the skill to do it.

The administration today champions higher taxes. They like the tax rates under the Clinton administration. They conveniently forget the part where Clinton’s spending didn’t exceed the revenue and how that came to be.

Again, the fix is simple but it requires decisions that are not politically easy to make. Make and pass a budget, something the Obama administration has so-far neglected to do. And make it a revenue-priority budget, not a spending-priority budget. To support a sustainable economy and society, it means when your money runs out on paper, you’ve spent enough. As opposed to borrowing to keep up with your spending and entitlement programs. Or to put it another way, making promises you can’t keep.

Above all else, you don’t grow government. What the politicos in Washington fail to understand is that growing government is increasing our (taxpayers’) overhead. And when you’re going out of business, you don’t increase your overhead. Any politician that suggests anything to the contrary is pushing snake oil.

[polldaddy poll=6722354]

Economy, Fair Tax, Politics

President Obama Gets His Wish For Input On Taxes

The administration’s position on taxes is clear. Higher taxes are more important than higher revenue. The mixing of ‘fairness’ to economic principles is counter-productive. The President rejects out-of-hand ‘dynamic scoring’ despite evidence that from a purely economic standpoint, it is what happens in real life.

Whenever the President has his political back against the wall, he talks a good game. He says how open he is to advice on taxes from all areas, all industries, and all citizens. Two weeks before the election, on the campaign trail and with NBC’s Brian Williams, President Obama said “You know me, I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.”  This is his chance to prove that his word is his bond.

This challenge is made by Mr. Kerry Bowers,  a man I know to be an expert on not only how the FairTax works and how much better it is for the economy, working people, and business than the current IRS code, but he can explain it in a way understandable to the economically savvy and economically challenged among us, including President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker John Boehner.

Please distribute this video to your federal representatives, news media, politically connected groups and people, and suggest to them that this meeting take place.

The FairTax will fuel economic recovery and economic stability like no other proposal out there. And it will do it without increasing the debt. It will eliminate the FUD factor, the anchor dragging the economy and killing jobs along the way. It will effectively un-tax the poor and increase economic upward mobility from poor to middle, and middle to upper class. It will put in to action what the President says he wants. Which is, to restore the American Dream.

Links: FairTax.org | FairTax FAQ

Politics, War On Terror

Leading From Behind Cost Lives

At one of President Obama’s rare press conferences yesterday, the closest he got to addressing the government’s reaction to the Benghazi massacre was as ambiguous as could be.

Q. On 9/11, as Commander-in-Chief, did you issue any orders to try to protect their lives?

A. I can tell you that immediately upon finding out that our folks were in danger, that my orders to my national security team were do whatever we need to do to make sure they’re safe.

We still don’t know when and how it was that he ‘found out.’ So far, we only know that the Consulate was attacked on two previous occasions in the preceding months. No steps were taken afterward to beef up security there, or to leave the city like the Brits and the Red Cross. He left the decision-making up to others. No help was sent. And our Ambassador and three other Americans were killed after a seven-hour-long battle.

He didn’t say anything like, ‘I told my national security team to get air support there. Get boots on the ground there.’ Nothing like that. What he did was cede his responsibility as Commander-in-Chief to his ‘national security team,’ leaving it up to them to give the orders that were his responsibility to give.

Turning over Commander-in-Chief responsibilities to unelected subordinates who are there to advise and take and execute orders is not only a neglect of duty, but irresponsible. And in this case, fatal.