Kickstands up at 11 am, Saturday, July 21. Please support this worthy cause.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Big Nick’s Ride: please support military families and wounded warriors
This weekend, bikers will rally on Cape Cod in memory of Corporal Nicholas G. Xiarhos, USMC, who was killed in battle in Afghanistan on July 23, 2009. Big Nick’s Ride for the Fallen is a 35-mile, police-escorted, motorcycle-only procession from the Barnstable County Sheriffs' Correctional Facility in Bourne to the Flax Pond Recreation Area in South Yarmouth. The ride will pay tribute to those who gave the last full measure of devotion for our freedom. It will also raise awareness of the Nicholas G. Xiarhos Memorial Fund, which supports local military families in need of financial assistance and wounded warriors and their families.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
But what about all that other spending?
My point is that the president’s Roanoke speech was somewhat disingenuous. He argued that businessmen are not paying their fair share to cover government services that benefit them, such as education and roads. But the rich pay more than enough to cover these things – they’re not that big a part of the federal budget. The revenue problem is due to the many other things the government does which neither benefit business nor are proper functions of government. I realize my data set is incomplete – it does not break out all government spending that benefits business – but I think it’s sufficient to illustrate my point.
Data Sources: 2011 data. Office of Management and Budget Historical Table 4.1-Outlays by Agency 1962-2017.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Missed Opportunity
Photo source: CBS News
The Obama campaign ad said, “Mitt Romney’s firms shipped jobs to Mexico. And China.” The Romney campaign's response: an analysis by FactCheck.org that explained the outsourcing of jobs, conducted by firms controlled by Romney’s Bain Capital, took place after he had left the company in 1999 to turn around the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. But since Romney continued to own Bain for another three years, an extremely fruitless debate followed as to what his role was during that period. Accusations that Romney “committed a felony” and that Obama was running a “dishonest campaign” filled the airwaves.
By distancing himself from these decisions, Romney leaves Obama’s premise unchallenged: that outsourcing is bad. Nothing could be further from the truth. Outsourcing, in this context, is just free trade with foreign countries – trade that would not take place unless both countries were better off. As scientist and writer Matt Ridley noted in his book, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, “The message from history is so blatantly obvious – that free trade causes mutual prosperity while protectionism causes poverty – that is seems incredible that anybody ever thinks otherwise. There is not a single example of a country opening its borders to trade and ending up poorer.”
The attack on Romney goes to show – yet again – that Obama doesn’t understand where prosperity comes from. Romney missed an opportunity to set him straight.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Psychic Libs
Personally, I thought it was a gutsy and principled speech.
Mitt Romney stood up in front of the NAACP yesterday and said that free enterprise was in the best interest of America in general and the black community in particular. He didn’t adjust his message to an audience he knew was overwhelmingly liberal. While I've long been skeptical about Romney’s commitment to free enterprise, when he tells a roomful of Obama supporters that “free enterprise is still the greatest force for upward mobility, economic security, and the expansion of the middle class,” I start to believe he really means it. Maybe we’ll finally get the debate between capitalism and socialism that the pandering weasel John McCain should have given us, but didn't.
Of course, what made headlines in the mainstream media was not Romney’s eloquent defense of free enterprise, but the boos he received when he promised to repeal the Unaffordable Care Act (The standing ovation he received at the end of his speech received less coverage from the fair and impartial MSM. A search of Google News for “Romney NAACP boos” returned 109,000 hits, compared to 23,100 for “Romney NAACP ovation.”).
According to numerous liberal commentators, the boos were part of the Romney Master Plan. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and TheGrio.com's Goldie Taylor were typical. “It was a calculated move on his part to get booed,” said the former speaker in an interview with Bloomberg Television (don’t you love that phrase – “former speaker”?). Ms. Taylor got her turn when asked by Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC whether it was “too cynical to think that the Romney campaign actually went in that room today with the hope of getting booed, at least three times, because they want the video of their candidate being booed by the NAACP to play in certain racist precincts where that will actually help them.”
“I don’t think you’re being too cynical at all,” Ms. Taylor replied.
What amazes me is the certainty with which the liberals know what Romney was thinking. Now they could be right about Romney’s Machiavellian intent. Or it could be, as an anonymous Romney advisor told Buzzfeed.com, that the candidate just wanted to “send a message that he's going to be president of the entire United States.” Fortunately, we know the answer thanks to the ability of liberals to read other people’s thoughts. This ability is central to their being: it takes formidable mental powers to detect racism where no one else can see it. Their powers also come in handy for staffing bureaucracies with clairvoyants able to make economic decisions better than all the millions of producers and consumers interacting in markets, combined.
Photo sources: rantersbox.blogspot.com, The Inquisitr
It’s too bad that liberals disdain markets – and the profits that go with them – because they could profit handsomely from their psychic powers. Since the voters took her oversized gavel away, Nancy Pelosi no doubt has some free time on her hands; she should consider a second career as a psychic. She could set up a 900-number (do people still use 900-numbers?) and guide callers to the hiding place where poor-departed Uncle Albert concealed the stock certificates. Also, I invite Ms. Taylor to come with me to Las Vegas. If we pooled my knowledge of probabilities with her ability to read minds, we could really clean up at the poker table.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Read the Declaration of Independence on July 4
The genius of the Declaration of Independence is the notion that government exists to protect rights we already have rather than distribute rights at its pleasure. It’s a vision that has kept Americans free for over 200 years, and if properly understood can keep us free for another 200. That’s why I’m heartened by the movement I’ve seen this year – partly promoted by Right-wing pundits, partly grass roots – to encourage people to read the Declaration of Independence on July 4. I hope you’ll make it your new tradition. For your convenience, I’ve included the text below, copied from the National Archives site:
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
Monday, July 2, 2012
Governor Voldemort and the Order of the Sebelius
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One of my Facebook friends asked me today what I thought about Florida Governor Rick Scott’s decision to opt out of certain provisions of ObamaTax (formerly Obamacare). Of course other governors have made similar decisions – notably Bobby Jindal of Louisiana – but Gov. Scott did get a great deal of publicity. Perhaps his resemblance to Voldemort makes him a more effective bogeyman for the MSM than the Jimmy Stewartish Jindal. In any case, my friend was curious whether I “would applaud this as appropriate civil disobedience or a somewhat futile attention grab.” |
I did a little research and here’s what I found out:
There are two provisions from which Florida will opt out.
The first is of little consequence: setting up a state health insurance exchange. The federal government will set up exchanges for states that decline to do so.
The second is where the controversy lies: Florida will opt out of an expansion of the state Medicaid program. Most of the criticism of Gov. Scott has centered on this because it also means passing up new Federal funding that goes with it. The governor’s news release explains that “even though the federal government has promised to initially pay 100% of the increase in Medicaid payments for the first three years of ObamaCare, the burden increasingly shifts to Florida taxpayers in future years.” The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that in the out years, the state’s share is 10%. That seems small, but 10% of a big number is still a big number; it will cost Florida taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Although ObamaTax authorized HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to levy heavy penalties on states that declined to participate in the Medicaid expansion, that part of the bill was thrown out by last week’s Supreme Court decision. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that it represented too “dramatic” a change to fall within the federal government’s authority to unilaterally amend the program. Participating in the Medicaid expansion is, therefore, entirely voluntary on the part of the states. In deference to this sensible bit of federalism, I’ve refrained from using the #JohnRobertsIsSoDumb hashtag on Twitter all day.
Anyway, it seems to me then that Gov. Scott’s decision is neither civil disobedience – since the law allows him to do this – nor grandstanding. The chief executive of the Sunshine State is simply trying to keep the budget under control.
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