Archive for category Entitlements
Time For Debate on the Role of Government
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Democrats, Entitlements, Fiscal Policy, National Character, National Debt, Politics, Republicans on January 3, 2012
Considering our current state of affairs, I’m beginning to think that the only course of action is to force a national debate on the role of government. As the current president and his party are for big government, maximum entitlements and dependency, and generation choking deficits, the opposing candidate should present the exact opposite. The Republicans or Independents should nominate a pure candidate that presents clear issues and choice. A brokered Republican convention or third party candidate may provide a way to offer that debate. A centrist candidate will not offer the clear choice we need.
Consider the WSJ editorial, The Spenders Won in 2011. Republicans controlled the House yet failed to get any significant reduction in spending. Deficits generated by a Democrat controlled Congress were $2.98 Trillion in 2008, $3.52 Trillion in 2009, $3.45 Trillion in 2010; and even with a Republican House are $3.59 Trillion in 2011 and projected to be $3.65 Trillion in 2012. We are over $15 Trillion in national debt. This is debt that we will pass onto our children and grandchildren. How moral is that? We take handouts that our grandchildren will pay for!
There must be a debate on the role of government. It does everything as Obama, Pelosi and Reid propose. Or is is limited as our constitution suggests. If the nation opts for the “free lunch,” our nation will become another Greece. If the nation chooses the moral course of eliminating the “free lunch” our children and grandchildren will have a chance to live productive lives in this country.
Short of a moral decision in an election on that all-encompassing issue, those of us who want a better future for our children are left with only two options: revolution or individual expatriation! The only alternative is to continue on the current unsustainable path with either party in control or gridlocked by the other. This is Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom!
The centrist position, the middle ground, is what constantly gets us into trouble. In essence, Republicans equal Democrats; neither party can say no; neither can cut spending. We need to get off the treadmill. We are stealing from our grandchildren. This is immorality near its height.
The World’s Policeman Has Become the World’s Enabler
Posted by Tom in Defense, Deficit, Democrats, Entitlements, Europe, Fed, Financial Policy, Fiscal Policy, Foreign Policy, Military Policy, Statism on January 1, 2012
It can’t continue. It has got to stop. Since the end of WWII we have been the western world’s policeman, unpaid despite the sacrifice of our blood and treasure. We rebuilt Europe and Japan following the war then we paid for and continue to pay for their defense. As a consequence we have enabled the socialistic welfare states of Europe to increase their welfare. Now, to the point where the weaker ones are bankrupt. To top that off our president is taking the country in the same welfare state direction and the Fed is attempting to continue helping Europe kick the can down the street supporting the zombie European nations.
I was impressed with Ed Crane’s comment in a WSJ op-ed on Ron Paul that the U.S. spends more than the rest of the world on defense–in essence defense of the western world! ”…an overreaching military presence around the world is inconsistent with small, constitutional government at home. The massive cost of these interventions, in treasure and blood, highlights what a mistake they are, as sensible people on the left and right recognized from the beginning. Of course we want a strong military capable of defending the United States, but our current expenditures equal what the rest of the world spends, which makes little sense. It is futile to try to be the world’s policeman…”
My point is that to the extent we overspend on defense, Europe doesn’t need to spend. Their taxes to the extent paid go to increase statist expansions and welfare in countries like Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain.
To top that off, our Fed seems to think it legitimate to help finance Europe’s profligate ways. Jerry O’Driscoll exposes Bernanke’s covert effort to bail out the ECB in his recent WSJ op-ed highlighted in our blog. This is clearly ultra vires, beyond the legal power of the Fed and against what its chairman has publicly stated.
In effect we have given Europe the leeway to expand its welfare state beyond its capacity to pay for that expansion. Our president who has no concept of economics admires the European model and seeks to expand our own welfare state beyond its capacity to pay for the expansion. His statist stimulus expenditures were nothing more than payments to increase the size and scope of government. His Obamacare takeover of medicine is nothing more than an unsustainable entitlement addition to the already unsustainable entitlements of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
We have enabled Europe’s welfare/statist addiction at a time when we can’t afford our own addiction. That latter addiction is theft from our grandchildren. Immorality par excellence! It must stop!
Applaud Inequality And the Freedom to Stretch Its Limits!
Posted by Tom in Corporate Welfare, Entitlements, Freedom, Government Regulation, Individual Freedom, National Character, Poverty, Socialism, Welfare on December 17, 2011
So much is being made of OWS’s dichotomy, the 99% versus the 1%, by the mainstream media, the unions and Obama, that it has become mind numbing. Today Charles Blow in his NYT op-ed, Inconvenient Income Inequality, even analogizes it to global warming! In it he pitied the ignorant public for its declining opinion the country is divided into “haves” and “have nots.” He then goes on to prove that income inequality is increasing and concludes that Americans are the equivalent of climate change deniers! So much for the intellectual level of the NYT editorial staff.
The suppressive equality argument that a desperate president is trying to sell to distract attention from his miserable performance in office is falling flat on its face. Why, you ask? Because it is against the very core of human nature. Man by nature wants to grow, to improve, to succeed. That nature demands the hope that this core need can be met by individual effort. Essential to that hope is the freedom enshrined in law to pursue dreams, to succeed and yes to fail. Obama’s equality argument dims that hope, puts a lid on that freedom, turns success into something to be condemned. He has traveled the country railing against the successful.
Ryan Streeter posits a kinder opinion for the OWS misfits’ protests in his Indystar post, How to succeed by merit. He suggests that what the protestors really oppose is unearned wealth: “America isn’t a land divided by the 99 percent and the 1 percent. It’s a land divided by those who earn their success day after day and those who don’t. This class distinction has nothing to do with how rich or poor you are. It has everything to do with what kind of person you are.”
Streeter contrasts Steve Jobs with Bernie Madoff then gives examples of unearned success: lottery winners, Fannie and Freddie executives, unionized public employees, ineffective tenured teachers, spoiled rich kids, and too-big-to fail corporations. Trying to put a good face on and ascribe good intentions to “the bearded misfit sitting in a festering tent on public property” Streeter suggests that what he really objects to is this “unearned success.”
In a hopeful conclusion he argues: “It’s time to stop protesting a false premise and focus instead on promoting earned success. Do we need to end too-big-too-fail policies? Yes. Do we need to end harmful welfare programs? Yes. But most of all, we need to encourage earned success in our own homes. That’s where the real change begins.”
Now I would submit that income inequality is good. It sets the ever changing level to which to aspire. The lower views the higher status as something to be strived for and eventually attained. Even if not in his current generation so long as his children will be in positions to continue to improve. Challenge to improve is key to success; the lower the position on the income scale the greater the challenge.
The beauty of inequality is that it exists all up and down the income scale. It causes challenge, effort and either success or failure up and down the ladder. Those close to the top want to leapfrog into the number one position. And once that is attained someone below will always be striving to leapfrog again.This in turn promotes an aggregate rise in the standard of living for the whole of society. It’s Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” at work.
So we should reject Obama’s socialistic, big-government equality hogwash and promote freedom to succeed with fewer limits and less government.
Is Papandreou the Only European Leader With Balls?
Posted by Tom in Economics, Entitlements, Europe, Financial Crisis, Socialism, Welfare on November 2, 2011
Is Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou the only European leader with “balls?” With Germany and France continuing to kick the can down the road and none of the nations calling for a referendum on the can kicking, it seems that the Greek Prime Minister is the only one with any sense. He has called for a referendum from the voters on whether to accept the latest edition of the European bank bailout. These are the same voters who have been rioting. The same voters who have been sucking money out of Germany. The same voters who are accustom to handsome entitlements while cheating on their taxes. Politically, Papandreou is smart in letting the socialists rioters make their own democratic decision. Admittedly, it will not be a well informed decision. But then, in a socialist nation, how could it be?
The point for Europe, America, Asia and the world is the same: the sooner a real resolution is reached, the sooner a real recovery can commence. The contrary example is the real estate market in the U.S. where reaching the market bottom has been forestalled by Obama and the socialist left. The result has been the stagnation and real estate depression that we now witness. By the Greek call for a referendum, Papandreou has cut to the chase. And done so where democracy was born!
Economically, socialism doesn’t work, the European welfare state doesn’t work, and need I say that the American welfare state will not work? We cannot borrow and regulate ourselves into prosperity as Obama would have us believe.
Europe is broke. We are almost as broke. We have the advantage in that our fiscal policy and monetary policy are structured under one federal government. Europe, on the contrary, is a mess simply because it lacks that structure.
Hopefully the can kicking will stop and serious plans will be made to reorganize Europe so that it or its component nations can prosperously function in this economically interdependent world in which we live.
Individual Responsibility and Death
Posted by Tom in Entitlements, Individual Freedom, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, Nationalized Health Care, Subsidiarity, Welfare on September 17, 2011
Jonathan Cohn’s TNR post, Why We Don’t Let People Die, treats Wolf Blitzer’s question whether Ron Paul was prepared to let an uninsured 30-year old with cancer die just because he could not afford the treatments. Paul talked about individual responsibility and some of the audience shouted “yes.”
Cohn points out that “As a practical matter, few of us are prepared to allow a somebody die when life-saving treatment is available, just because that person isn’t prepared to pay the bills.” He goes on to point out that hospitals cannot legally refuse emergency medical treatment and that doctors are obliged to render aid under their professional oath.
He treats individual responsibility, “whether it’s the responsibility to stay healthy, the responsibility to seek timely medical care, or the responsibility to make the right choices about health insurance.” And he points out that luck, misfortune plays a significant role in medical problems and their outcomes.
Cohn concludes: “My definition of a decent society is one that protects people not only from bad luck, but also, in some circumstances, from their own bad judgment.”
It’s hard to fault his good will but not his argument. His problem is the fallacy of equating “society” to “government.” Society is composed of individuals, families, neighborhoods, communities, synagogues, churches, mosques, social service organizations, and charitable organizations. Society has moral obligations and norms. Society enforces social obligations with association and ostracization.
Government is the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, and societies. Government creates legal obligations and regulations. Its laws and regulations are frequently broad and of the “one size fits all” variety. Government enforces these obligations with civil and criminal penalties. What it extracts, it extracts at the point of a gun.
What is a social obligation is not necessarily a government obligation. Cohn misses the principle of subsidiarity, that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent social unit closest to the particular issue. Families, charities, social groups, hospitals can handle the case of the 30 year old with cancer who can’t afford treatment. Those groups close to the problem can make case-by-case judgments on the cancer patient’s misfortune or bad judgment. In short, they, better than the government can handle Cohn’s “in some circumstances” hedge. Likewise those groups can better handle the obese patient or alcoholic that refuses a life style change, which is the side of universal health care or health insurance that Cohn doesn’t mention.
The money that government doesn’t extract by legislating and enforcing universal health care or health insurance is money that subsidiary social groups will have to provide the necessary care in appropriate cases.
S&P Downgrade Is Merely a Symptom
Posted by Tom in Budgets, Deficit, Entitlements, Europe, National Debt, Welfare on August 8, 2011
Despite today’s worldwide market plunge and the pundits attributing it to the loss of the U.S. AAA rating, that loss is only a symptom of the underlying disease: major deficits for as far as the eye can see, resulting accumulated debt as an increasing percentage of GDP, and staggering unfunded (and undisclosed) liabilities. The U.S. is basically headed toward bankruptcy. If downgrades continue bond purchasers will demand more returns which in turn increase the deficits and debt.
On a macro basis we have two major customer economies in the dumps, Europe and the U.S., and one major exporter and lender, China, all suffering. Europe is of greater concern than the U.S., even though neither has cogent plans for a solution; it’s just that the U.S. has a better political structure to affect an eventual solution.
So, forgetting about the market, the real economy is facing a recession. Joe Morabito CEO of an international executive relocation business reports that the typical summer peak time has turned into a downer. Gene Humphrey CEO of a chip technology company reports that industry leaders are forecasting a downturn for the next two quarters because consumers have retreated from the market. This is “real economy” evidence that we are looking at a probable double dip, a second recession.
Politically, the parties blame one another. But the tea party gets the most blame. In fact, the tea party should get the most credit. Someone must yell from the rooftops STOP, CUT BIG GOVERNMENT!
Serious cuts in entitlements must start now. Gen involved. Call your representatives Convince your neighbors. Save your grandchildren.
From the Greatest to the Worst Generation?
Posted by Tom in Entitlements, National Character, National Debt, Welfare on August 6, 2011
Our fathers came home from WWII where they lost friends and limbs; they worked in jobs and completed their educations. They married their sweethearts and raised their families. Attended their churches or synagogues. They did not go on welfare. Healthcare was something they only used when necessary and when they used it, they paid for it. They saved mainly for their family but also for retirement. A family car was a luxury and there was only one. They read the newspapers and maybe a magazine. They were intent on providing a good life for their children, insisting on education. They were charitable, giving to those in need. They participated in the community social organizations, churches, county and city governments. As products of the depression, they were frugal and believed others should also be such. While superlatives are often misplaced, they were indeed a very great generation, a humble, independent, family oriented and charitable generation.
They paid taxes on their incomes; there were few who did not. They did not expect to receive social security, Roosevelt’s first insurance entitlement. They did not go on the dole, get welfare. There was no such thing as Medicare, Medicaid, or Obamacare.
Contrast my generation, now the so-called millennials and boomers, those born to that WWII generation: We were reared, nurtured, educated, helped and pushed to succeed. Pride and joy of the “greatest generation” we were urged to be greater yet. Our parents wanted better for us. They sacrificed to better our lot. We were the beneficiaries of their family focus and their support and charity. We enjoyed the benefits of their hard work and sacrifice.
Our military challenge, Viet Nam, paled in significance to Germany, Japan and Korea. Some of us honorably served, others ducked service. “Deferees” and “Dodgers” joined protestors to pillar the returning vets who courageously fought in an unpopular war. We lost our parents’ concept of patriotism and service. We were children of the sixties, the protesting, free-loving, pot-smoking, flower children, free of morality and constraint.
We are the pampered. We demand a government that provides everything, minimum wages, unemployment compensation, welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and yes now Obamacare! Fully half the population pays no taxes and likes it that way. Others should pay. What others do not pay we insist the government borrow. That borrowing has increased to 40 cents of every dollar spent. In essence we are borrowing money that we cannot repay. We will leave that debt to our children.
How do we rate vis a vis the next generation, no the next several generations? What will our children and grandchildren say about us? It’s patently obvious that we are borrowing money that we cannot pay back, to fund entitlements, to promote dependency for fully half of the population. We are loading this unsustainable debt on our children and grandchildren! We are in effect stealing from future generations! Will we be called the worst generation? Don Brookins’ video DOORBELL suggests the answer:
You can bet on it!
Class Warfare: Politics of Victimhood
Posted by Tom in Democrats, Economics, Entitlements, Justice, National Character, Socialism, Welfare on August 6, 2011
Barack Hussein Obama is the master of class warfare; his background is community organizing, pitting sub class against sub class and class against class. As such he doesn’t relate to all classes, his politics are dependent on his ability to divide and thus to create more dependency, pushing victimhood, resentment and class warfare.
Kyle Meintzer alerts us to this in Bill Whittle’s video Rich man, poor man?. Bill uses Heritage Foundation data to show that while the rich get richer, the “poor” get richer also. In fact, the definition of poor is suspect. But Obama and the Democrats need to expand the definition of poor just to keep up with those becoming non-poor, and this, just to buy votes. Enough said, here’s the video:
Marco Rubio On Fire
Posted by Tom in Budgets, Congress, Deficit, Democrats, Entitlements, Fiscal Policy, Welfare on August 1, 2011
Ron Tomsic sent this. We need more Rubios is leadership positions.
Paul Ryan on Medicare Reform
Posted by Tom in Entitlements, Medicare, Nationalized Health Care on May 25, 2011
This is worth broad distribution. Please pass on.