When the Associated Press turns against a Democrat, you know there’s cause for concern. Falsehoods and distortions dominated Obama’s State of the Union message:
FACT CHECK: Obama pushes plans that flopped before
Jan 24, 11:16 PM
By CALVIN WOODWARD
(AP) President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington,… Full Image
TurboTax® Free Edition – Simple Federal Returns Are Free to Prepare, Print & eFile! Start Now. TurboTax.com/fed-tax-return
Invest In Oil – Multi-Well programs mean diversity and higher probability for success! www.fossiloil.com
WASHINGTON (AP) – It was a wish list, not a to-do list.
President Barack Obama laid out an array of plans in his State of the Union speech as if his hands weren’t so tied by political realities. There can be little more than wishful thinking behind his call to end oil industry subsidies – something he could not get through a Democratic Congress, much less today’s divided Congress, much less in this election year.
And there was more recycling, in an even more forbidding climate than when the ideas were new: He pushed for an immigration overhaul that he couldn’t get past Democrats, permanent college tuition tax credits that he asked for a year ago, and familiar discouragements for companies that move overseas.
A look at Obama’s rhetoric Tuesday night and how it fits with the facts and political circumstances:
OBAMA: “We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising.”
THE FACTS: This is at least Obama’s third run at stripping subsidies from the oil industry. Back when fellow Democrats formed the House and Senate majorities, he sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request. He called again to end such tax breaks in last year’s State of the Union speech. And he’s now doing it again, despite facing a wall of opposition from Republicans who want to spur domestic oil and gas production and oppose tax increases generally.
—
OBAMA: “Our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program.”
THE FACTS: That’s only half true. About half of the more than 30 million uninsured Americans expected to gain coverage through the health care law will be enrolled in a government program. Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people, will be expanded starting in 2014 to cover childless adults living near the poverty line.
The other half will be enrolled in private health plans through new state-based insurance markets. But many of them will be receiving federal subsidies to make their premiums more affordable. And that’s a government program, too.
Starting in 2014 most Americans will be required to carry health coverage, either through an employer, by buying their own plan, or through a government program.
—
OBAMA, asking Congress to pay for construction projects: “Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.”
THE FACTS: The idea of taking war “savings” to pay for other programs is budgetary sleight of hand. For one thing, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been largely financed through borrowing, so stopping the wars doesn’t create a pool of ready cash, just less debt. And the savings appear to be based at least in part on inflated war spending estimates for future years.
—
OBAMA: “Through the power of our diplomacy a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one.”
THE FACTS: The world is still divided over how to deal with Iran’s disputed nuclear program, and even over whether the nuclear program is a problem at all.
It is true that the U.S., Europe and other nations have agreed to apply the strictest economic sanctions yet on Iran later this year. But the global sanctions net has holes, because some of Iran’s large oil trading partners won’t go along. China, a major purchaser of Iran’s crude, isn’t part of the new sanctions and, together with Russia, stopped the United Nations from applying similarly tough penalties.
—
OBAMA: “Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last – an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.”
THE FACTS: Economists do see manufacturing growth as a necessary component of any U.S. recovery. U.S. manufacturing output climbed 0.9 percent in December, the biggest gain since December 2010. Yet Obama’s apparent vision of a nation once again propelled by manufacturing – a vision shared by many Republicans – may already have slipped into the past.
Over generations, the economy has become ever more driven by services; not since 1975 has the U.S. had a surplus in merchandise trade, which covers trade in goods, including manufactured and farm goods. About 90 percent of American workers are employed in the service sector, a profound shift in the nature of the workforce over many decades.
The overall trade deficit through the first 11 months of 2011 ran at an annual rate of nearly $600 billion, up almost 12 percent from the year before.
—
OBAMA: “The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.”
THE FACTS: Obama is more sanguine about progress in Afghanistan than his own intelligence apparatus. The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan warns that the Taliban will grow stronger, using fledgling talks with the U.S. to gain credibility and stall until U.S. troops leave, while continuing to fight for more territory. The classified assessment, described to The Associated Press by officials who have seen it, says the Afghan government hasn’t been able to establish credibility with its people, and predicts the Taliban and warlords will largely control the countryside.
—
OBAMA: “On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories.”
THE FACTS: He left out some key details. The bailout of General Motors and Chrysler began under Republican President George W. Bush. Obama picked up the ball, earmarked more money, and finished the job. But Ford never asked for a federal bailout and never got one.
—
OBAMA: “We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation.”
THE FACTS: With this statement, Obama was renewing a call he made last year to require 80 percent of the nation’s electricity to come from clean energy sources by 2035, including nuclear, natural gas and so-called clean coal. He did not put that percentage in his speech but White House background papers show that it remains his goal.
But this Congress has yet to introduce a bill to make that goal a reality, and while legislation may be introduced this year, it is unlikely to become law with a Republican-controlled House that loathes mandates.
—
OBAMA: “Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households.”
THE FACTS: It’s true that a minority of millionaires pay a lower tax rate than some lower-income people. On average, though, wealthy people pay taxes at a much higher rate than middle-income taxpayers.
Obama’s claim comes from a Congressional Research Service report that compared federal taxes paid by people making less than $100,000 with those paid by people making more than $1 million. About 10 percent of families with incomes under $100,000 paid more than 26.5 percent in federal income, payroll and corporate taxes. And about a quarter of millionaire taxpayers paid a rate lower than that.
—
OBAMA: “We can’t bring back every job that’s left our shores…. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.”
FACT CHECK: Many of the jobs U.S. companies have created overseas won’t return because they were never in the United States in the first place.
As Obama said in his speech, U.S. workers have become more productive and labor costs have fallen.
But there are powerful forces pushing the other way: Many of the overseas jobs in U.S. companies weren’t transferred from the U.S. They were created in fast-growing markets in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere to serve customers in those markets. Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index now earn more than half of their revenue from overseas.
That has fueled more job creation abroad. U.S. multinationals cut more than 800,000 jobs in the United States from 2000 to 2009, according the Commerce Department. They added 2.9 million overseas in the same period.
—
OBAMA: “Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned doesn’t know what they’re talking about … That’s not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Cape Town to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they’ve been in years.”
THE FACTS: Obama left out Arab and Muslim nations, where popular opinion of the U.S. appears to have gone downhill or remained unchanged after the spring 2011 reformist uprisings in the Middle East. A Pew Research Center survey in May found that in predominantly Muslim countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Pakistan, views of the U.S. were worse than a year earlier. In Pakistan, a major recipient of U.S. foreign aid that went unmentioned in Obama’s speech, just 11 percent of respondents said they held a positive view of the United States.
As usual, Ann Coulter must reveal what Obama’s lackeys in the mainstream media will not. Read on for the bottom line about Mitt and Bain:
STRONGEST CASE AGAINST ROMNEY A FEW SHEETS SHORT OF A REAM
January 18, 2012
Mitt Romney has spent more than 20 years in private enterprise, making thousands of business decisions affecting hundreds of companies that led to more than 100,000 new jobs and billions of dollars for employees and investors. So you can see why the left despises him.
Among Romney’s thousands of business decisions, the one I gather his opponents consider his absolute worst was the decision to close a paper plant in Marion, Ind. Which wasn’t his decision at all.
It was labor trouble at the Marion plant of a Bain-acquired company, Ampad, that formed the basis of Teddy Kennedy’s desperate 11th-hour attack on Romney in their 1994 Senate competition. Plant worker Randy Johnson was featured in Kennedy campaign commercials against Romney and disgruntled workers were lavished with Dickensian lachrymosity in The Boston Globe.
In the current presidential campaign, Democrats — and some Republicans — have returned to Ampad and the Marion plant as their case in chief against Romney.
The “King of Bain” movie that a pro-Newt Gingrich super-pac just bought with money donated by a gambling magnate (with money acquired honestly in the open market from people driven by their gambling addictions) cites only one company closed by Bain when Romney was even there.
Guess which one? That’s right: Ampad.
The Democratic National Committee has retained Johnson to go on tour in order to more fulsomely describe the horrors perpetrated by Bain Capital on workers at that plant. As salt-of-the-earth Johnson explains, he lost his job at Ampad because Romney “didn’t care about the worker.”
It is beyond journalistic malpractice for media outlets showcasing the bitter and lying Johnson to neglect to mention that he was the union president who led the strike that forced Ampad to close the plant.
And yet The New York Times, MSNBC and others who have publicized Johnson’s sob story regularly refuse to convey that crucial fact. This would be as if a judge excluded the fact that the defense’s principal witness is the defendant’s mother.
By 1994, the unionized Marion plant was becoming a losing operation to every company that owned it. It was a paper plant, and in the early 1990s, the paper business was beginning to go the way of the buggy whip, as the world became computerized.
(Randy Johnson suffered? Paper magnate Peter Brant nearly lost Stephanie Seymour over the collapse of the paper market.)
Bain Capital specialized in rescuing troubled companies, so in 1992, it bought the faltering paper-based office products business, Ampad, from the Mead paper company. Far from shutting down Ampad, Bain started buying up more firms in the industry to add to Ampad’s portfolio, hoping to create efficiencies and synergies.
In July 1994, Bain-controlled Ampad bought Smith-Corona’s struggling paper business — home to the famed Marion plant.
(Despite shedding its paper business, Smith-Corona went bankrupt the next year. Nobody uses typewriters anymore. Ironically, a century earlier, people said Smith-Corona typewriters would never replace the pen. They probably railed against Smith-Corona as “vulture capitalists” destroying the pen industry.)
Seeking to succeed where Smith-Corona had failed, Bain’s Ampad sought to renegotiate a suicide pact-union contract at the Marion plant. But instead of renegotiating, union president Randy Johnson thought it would be a great idea to immediately go on strike.
As long as the nation is still in the fifth stage of grief over Steve Jobs’ death, with gushing tributes to his contributions to our wonderful new world of computerized books, letters, memos, newspapers, CDs and classified ads, ask yourselves: Would the mid-1990s have been a good time for workers in an industry made vulnerable by the new, paperless information age to stage a long, acrimonious strike?
Union president Randy Johnson thought it was. The Democrats (and some Republicans) apparently do, too.
Romney wasn’t even at Bain during Ampad’s acquisition of the Smith-Corona business, much less for the strike at the Marion plant. He was on a leave of absence from Bain to run against Sen. Ted Kennedy. Nonetheless, a dozen workers fired from Ampad’s Marion plant showed up in Massachusetts to bird-dog Romney in the final months of his campaign.
It worked. Romney’s lead disappeared and, after celebrating with a few cocktails, Kennedy returned to the Senate to continue wrecking the country.
About six months later, Ampad closed the Marion plant for good. As Ampad’s president, Charles Hanson, explained at the time, the company had “sustained severe economic damage as a result of our inability to manufacture products at our Marion plant.” Apparently, the only thing this ruthless capitalist lackey cared about was that the factory actually produce product!
In any event, it’s highly unlikely that Bain would have anything to do with a day-to-day management decision to close a plant, anyway.
Bain led Ampad to thrive over the next few years, buying up more companies in 1995, hiring more workers and making investors nearly $100 million. By 1996, Ampad was being described in Chief Executive magazine as “a stronger, profitable competitor in a consolidating — and reviving — domestic industry.”
Alas, people kept using those damn computers and shopping for discount paper at Staples and similar stores, and in 1999, Ampad had to file for bankruptcy protection.
Contrary to every single news report on Bain’s involvement with Ampad, Bain did not drive the company to bankruptcy by looting it. To the contrary, Bain built up the company, added other companies to it, turned it into a “profitable competitor” that paid handsome dividends for a few years. (And by the way, the company would have gone bankrupt a lot sooner if it hadn’t closed down the non-producing Marion plant.)
But in the end, that wasn’t enough.
If years of furious acquisition, followed by bankruptcy nearly a decade later had been Bain’s secret plan all along, Bain would be the most ham-fisted looter in history.
Politicians’ morbid fear of technological advances in the free market has real-world consequences. You will recall that the mainstream media-adored FBI agent Colleen Rowley’s main indictment of the bureau after 9/11 was that the FBI had really old computers, preventing it from anticipating the greatest terrorist attack in world history.
In response to Rowley’s charges, for example, the Times’ Maureen Dowd denounced federal law enforcement agencies for being “antiquated,” “inept” and “bloated.” (She also said: “I want to see some agents lose their jobs.” Maureen Dowd: Inadvertent Romney Supporter.)
Of course, if the Democrats, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry were running things, the FBI would still be using paper and pens — maybe quill pens — all in order to save Randy Johnson’s union job! Instead of a Xerox machine, they’d have a monk in the back room creating copies of documents by hand so as not to be accused of “vulture capitalism” for eliminating the monk’s job.
I don’t know how Mitt Romney is supposed to explain free market capitalism to career politicians, much less describe the intricacies of a thousand business decisions in two minutes during a debate.
But we know that Bain’s acquisition of Ampad is the left’s best shot against Romney’s business career. We may presume they don’t have anything better, or we’d be hearing about it.
The anti-Romney hysterics don’t get to come back later with another company allegedly looted by Bain that I’ll have to spend another week researching. Henceforth, I shall refer you back to the Ampad example — their smoking gun — which, as we have seen, is not even a water pistol.
President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama has been increasing the national debt during his presidency by an average of $4.24 billion per day ($4,240,506,004.34) putting him on a pace to increase the national debt by $6.2 trillion ($6,195,379,272,340.74) by the end of his term on Jan. 20, 2013, according to the debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury.
That $6.2 trillion is more debt than was accumulated by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined.
In fact, the U.S. national debt did not eclipse the $6.195 trillion level—the amount Obama is on pace to increase it in one term—until August 19, 2002, during President George W. Bush’s second year of office.
The national debt was $10.6 trillion ($10,626,877,048,913.08) on Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama was inaugurated. As of the close of business on Jan. 11, 2012, it was $15.2 trillion ($15,236,307,075,631.58.) In Obama’s first 1,087 days in office, the debt increased $4.6 trillion ($4,609,430,026,718.50)—or an increase of $4.24 billion ($4,240,506,004.34) per day.
At that daily rate, the debt would increase a total of $6.2 trillion ($6,195,379,272,340.74) over the entire 1,461 days of Obama’s four year term.
At the close of business Aug. 19, 2002, the total national debt was $6.195 trillion.
Finally, a thinking man addresses greed. Thank you Walter Williams!
I Love Greed
Jan 04, 2012
What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It’s really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it’s human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I’m talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves. Let’s look at it.
This winter, Texas ranchers may have to fight the cold of night, perhaps blizzards, to run down, feed and care for stray cattle. They make the personal sacrifice of caring for their animals to ensure that New Yorkers can enjoy beef. Last summer, Idaho potato farmers toiled in blazing sun, in dust and dirt, and maybe being bitten by insects to ensure that New Yorkers had potatoes to go with their beef.
Here’s my question: Do you think that Texas ranchers and Idaho potato farmers make these personal sacrifices because they love or care about the well-being of New Yorkers? The fact is whether they like New Yorkers or not, they make sure that New Yorkers are supplied with beef and potatoes every day of the week. Why? It’s because ranchers and farmers want more for themselves. In a free market system, in order for one to get more for himself, he must serve his fellow man. This is precisely what Adam Smith, the father of economics, meant when he said in his classic “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” (1776), “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” By the way, how much beef and potatoes do you think New Yorkers would enjoy if it all depended upon the politically correct notions of human love and kindness? Personally, I’d grieve for New Yorkers. Some have suggested that instead of greed, I use “enlightened self-interest.” That’s OK, but I prefer greed.
Free market capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one’s fellow man. Capitalists seek to discover what people want and then produce it as efficiently as possible. Free market capitalism is ruthless in its profit and loss discipline. This explains much of the hostility toward free market capitalism; some of it is held by businessmen. Smith recognized this hostility when he said, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” He was hinting at government-backed crony capitalism, which has come to characterize much of today’s businesses.
Free market capitalism has other enemies — mostly among the intellectual elite and political tyrants. These are people who believe that they have superior wisdom to the masses and that God has ordained them to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider to be good reasons for restricting liberty, but every tyrant who has ever lived has had what he considered good reason for restricting liberty. A tyrant’s agenda calls for the attenuation or the elimination of the market and what is implied by it — voluntary exchange. Tyrants do not trust that people acting voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. They want to replace the market with economic planning and regulation.
The Wall Street occupiers and their media and political allies are not against the principle of crony capitalism, bailouts and government special privileges and intervention. They share the same hostility to free market capitalism and peaceable voluntary exchange as tyrants. What they really want is congressional permission to share in the booty from looting their fellow man.
So California’s Governor Jerry Brown wants to raise taxes? What’s new? America’s political reality is, no matter how much revenue flows to governments, it’s never enough. At least with this proposed tax increase the voters can say “No!”
Brown Seeks 7% California Spending Boost
By Michael B. Marois and James Nash – Jan 5, 2012 4:51 PM PT
California Governor Jerry Brown said he’ll spend much of 2012 campaigning for a ballot initiative to boost income taxes on those earning at least $250,000 and raise levies on sales to 7.75 percent from 7.25 percent, to erase the most-populous state’s $13 billion budget deficit. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
California (STOCA1) Governor Jerry Brown proposed $92.6 billion in spending for the year starting in July, an increase of about 7 percent, which will count on voters approving $7 billion of higher taxes in November.
The spending plan foresees a deficit of $9.2 billion through the next 18 months. Almost half of that is in the current fiscal year, he said. He called for $4.2 billion in cuts, mostly to welfare and programs for the poor. If the tax increase isn’t passed, Brown’s plan would cut another $4.8 billion in support for public schools and community colleges.
“The state of California (STOCA1) is a very generous, compassionate political jurisdiction,” [generous with other peoples money] Brown said. “When we have to cut spending, that spending is going to come from programs that are doing a lot of good. It’s not nice. We don’t like it. But the economy and tax statutes of California make just so much money available.”
Brown, a 73-year-old Democrat, wants to raise income taxes on individuals making at least $250,000 a year to 10.3 percent from 9.3 percent, and would boost sales levies to 7.75 percent from 7.25 percent.
The most-populous state cut aid last year to universities, shifted responsibility for nonviolent prisoners to counties and dissolved local redevelopment agencies. Last month, Brown had to make $1 billion in additional cuts he built into the current year’s budget after revenue fell below his estimates. [Because productive Californians are leaving the state!]
Early Release
Brown had been scheduled to release his general-fund budget Jan. 10, but was forced to unveil it today after it was inadvertently posted to the Finance Department’s website.
The spending plan assumes the state will sell about $5.2 billion of municipal bonds through December, said Brown’s finance chief, Ana Matosantos.
California is Standard & Poor’s lowest-rated state, at A-, six levels below AAA. Moody’s Investment Service grades it A1, four steps below the top rating, tied with Illinois (STOIL1) for the worst credit rating among states.
California debt yields about 1.11 percentage points more than top-rated municipal debt, compared with a peak yield spread (165M10Y) in the past year of 1.47 percentage points in June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Is anybody listening? How long will we let this go on?
Obama to ask for debt limit hike: Treasury official
WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 27, 2011 11:33am EST
(Reuters) – The White House plans to ask Congress by the end of the week for an increase in the government’s debt ceiling to allow the United States to pay its bills on time, according to a senior Treasury Department official on Tuesday.
The approval is expected to go through without a challenge, given that Congress is in recess until later in January and the request is in line with an agreement to keep the U.S. government funded into 2013.
The debt is projected to fall within $100 billion of the current cap by December 30, when the United States has $82 billion in interest on its debt and payments such as Social Security coming due. President Barack Obama is expected to ask for authority to increase the borrowing limit by $1.2 trillion, part of the spending authority that was negotiated between Congress and the White House this summer.
Under the agreement struck in August during the showdown over the government’s debt limit, the cap is automatically raised unless Congress votes to block the debt-ceiling extension. Lawmakers have 15 days within receiving the request to vote, which is largely symbolic because the president can veto it and Congress would be unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority to override it. Moreover, the U.S. House of Representatives also is in recess until January 17.
The deal called for raising the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion to serve the nation’s borrowing needs into 2013 and also included mandatory cuts to the federal budget deficit. Since then, the extension has been increased twice by a total of $900 billion.
The debt limit currently stands at $15.194 trillion and would increase to $16.394 trillion with the request.
Whether or not you support Mitt Romney for President, his most recent campaign article clearly posits the paths American voters must choose between next November. It all boils down to this: do we want an Entitlement or Opportunity society. Well worth the read:
Romney: What kind of society does America want?
By Mitt Romney
In less than a year, the American people will go to the polls and choose a new president. A matter of great moment is at stake in this election. The question we will decide is this: Will the United States be an Entitlement Society or an Opportunity Society?
In an Entitlement Society, government provides every citizen the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to innovate, pioneer or take risk. In an Opportunity Society, free people living under a limited government choose whether or not to pursue education, engage in hard work, and pursue the passion of their ideas and dreams. If they succeed, they merit the rewards they are able to enjoy.
Over the past three years, Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an Entitlement Society. The federal government has insinuated itself more and more deeply into health care, finance, energy, industry, the environment and labor. As a result of one of the most dramatic expansions of Washington’s power in our nation’s history, federal spending under Obama is now nearly a quarter of our GDP, and has risen to the highest level since the national emergency of World War II.
With the growth of government has come an inevitable contraction of the private sphere. The American economy, once the envy of the world, has fallen into disrepute. Unemployment stuck over 8% for 34 months — the longest such spell since the Great Depression— is only one symptom of the profoundly disturbing transformation of American society that the Obama administration has pursued.
Glimpsing the future
If we continue on this course for another four years, we may pass the point of no return. We will have created a society that contains a sizable contingent of long-term jobless, dependent on government benefits for survival. Many more in the middle class will be pushed into poverty. And there is the special problem of America’s young people. What social and political path will newly minted college graduates follow when they are unable to find jobs in which to put their energy and talents to use? It will be a tragedy if we have to find out the answer.
It will not only be a tragedy; it will be a needless tragedy because we can extricate ourselves from this distress. America is a fabulously rich country. Yet our wealth consists not only of material things, but also our ideas and our traditions and our founding principles. These principles empower our people and have made America the strongest nation in the world.
Our first principle is freedom. If we remove the shackles of government, if we unburden ourselves from the mountain of debt that we have been saddled with, we can become the Opportunity Society that we once were. America has historically rewarded hard work, education, industry, thrift and daring. The Founders called this a God-given right to the “pursuit of happiness.” We call it opportunity.
Limited government
The first step in returning to an Opportunity Society is scaling back our vast federal government. I will put every single government program to a simple test: Is this program so critical to our nation’s future that we should borrow money from China to pay for it? But my objective is not merely to cut unnecessary spending. As president, I hope to accomplish something far larger.
America has tremendous dynamic potential. Just in the past decades, America pioneered the computer revolution and the Internet revolution that have profoundly changed the world. Equally important revolutions are under way in American laboratories in fields ranging from biotechnology to nanotechnology to energy. Our potential as a nation is boundless. We need to unleash it again.
Building ever costlier government entitlements is not the way to go about that. Quite the contrary; the dead hand of bureaucratic Washington can only stifle entrepreneurship. Government dependency can only foster passivity and sloth. We need to rein in government and unleash the extraordinary vitality and creativity of the American people.
We must not wait to suffer a crisis like Greece’s or Portugal’s to right the ship of state. With the proper policies and strong leadership, we can once again become a society that rewards merit, that welcomes innovators and new ideas, and is capable of creating undreamed of opportunities for all who seek them. That is what the election of 2012 is all about.
Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, is seeking the Republican nomination for president.
The latest money grabbing scheme by the United Nations should remove all doubt about the true motives of the global warming crowd. As wild and crazy as the idea sounds, hang onto your wallets:
“International Climate Court of Justice” would force western nations to pay “climate debt”
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Friday, December 9, 2011
Bureaucrats at the UN Climate Summit in Durban have outlined plans for the most draconian, harebrained and madcap climate change treaty ever produced, under which the west would be mandated to respect “the rights of Mother Earth” by paying a “climate debt” which would act as a slush fund for bankrolling an all-powerful world government.
Even as the tattered shreds of whatever credibility global warming alarmists had left evaporate in the aftermath of Climategate 2.0, the monstrous bureaucracy behind ManBearPig continues to lurch forward.
“Here – and, as always, you heard it here first, for the mainstream media have conspired to keep secret the Madness of King Rajendra and his entire coterie of governmental and bureaucratic lunatics worldwide – is what the dribbling, twitching thrones and dominions, principalities and powers of the world will be asked to agree to,” he writes, adding that actual climate science has not been a topic of debate at the summit.
- The treaty calls for the west to achieve a 50% CO2 emissions reduction within the next eight years, a feat that would completely bankrupt the global economy and spark a new great depression, as well as a “more than 100%” reduction by 2050, which presumably could only be accomplished by killing billions of humans to prevent them from exhaling carbon dioxide.
“So, no motor cars, no coal-fired or gas-fired power stations, no aircraft, no trains. Back to the Stone Age, but without even the right to light a carbon-emitting fire in your caves,” writes Monckton.
- The text calls for a 2 degree Celsius drop in global temperatures, which as Monckton points out “would kill hundreds of millions” and herald a new ice age.
- The reduction in CO2 concentration the text calls for would actually begin to kill all plant life and trees on the planet because they need levels of carbon dioxide above 210 ppmv to survive.
- All military forces would be abolished because they contribute to climate change. Presumably the United Nations would then take on the role of world army to police the globe.
- The process will be enforced by an “International Climate Court of Justice” under a bureaucracy of world government that will force western nations to pay “climate debt,” as well as reparations to third world nations to pay for carbon cuts that wouldn’t be as drastic. The burden of “historical responsibility” has been applied to industrialized nations, implying they are guilty for whatever the weather decides to do and must be punished for it.
- All the money will be collected by the UN and whatever is left after they have taken their considerable cut will be doled out according to the wishes of UN bureaucrats. “As a senior UN diplomat told me last year, “The UN exists for only one purpose: to get more money. That, and that alone, is the reason why it takes such an interest in climate change,” writes Monckton.
- Environmental enforcement arms of the UN will be given the power of a global government in the name of fighting climate change. “The draft “agrees that common principles, modalities and procedures as well as the coordinating and oversight functions of the UNFCCC are needed” – in short, global centralization of political, economic and environmental power in the manicured hands of the Convention’s near-invisible but all-powerful secretariat. No provision is made for the democratic election of key members of the all-powerful secretariat – in effect, a world government – by the peoples of our planet,” writes Monckton.
- This world government will mandate that western nations submit reports every two years on their progress and then implement the measures demanded by the world government.
- The UN will create several new slush funds from which to enrich its coffers, including a tax on shipping and aviation fuel, a new “green climate fund” and a worldwide cap and trade. Most of the costs will be handed down to taxpayers.
This merely scratches the surface of what the UN is trying to include in its “legally-binding treaty,” which represents eco-fascism on steroids. Despite press reports that the text is once again likely to be rejected, Monckton points out that UN bureaucrats are confident they can get some form of deal rammed through on this occasion.
Jesus said, “If anyone wants to sue you, and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.” (Matthew 5:40) Here’s a real life and rare fulfillment that is heartwarming, challenging, and just downright wonderful to contemplate:
A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
StoryCorpsMarch 28, 2008
Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.
But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.
He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.
“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’” Diaz says.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”
The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, “like what’s going on here?” Diaz says. “He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?’”
Diaz replied: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.
“You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help,” Diaz says.
Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.
“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?’”
“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.’”
Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”
“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.
Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. “He just had almost a sad face,” Diaz says.
The teen couldn’t answer Diaz — or he didn’t want to.
When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill ’cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”
The teen “didn’t even think about it” and returned the wallet, Diaz says. “I gave him $20 … I figure maybe it’ll help him. I don’t know.”
Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen’s knife — “and he gave it to me.”
Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, “You’re the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.”
“I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”
