Tag Archives: ethics

Winston Churchill’s Advice to Americans

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OK, actually he was talking to his party about how to talk with the British public at the end of WWII, but the advice is valid here, too.  Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney’s choice for his Vice Presidential running mate indicates that he’s following the first part of Churchill’s advice.  Now the team needs to follow the rest—that seems to be their intent—and we need to support them in that.

This is no time for windy platitudes and glittering advertisements.  The Conservative Party had far better go down telling the truth and acting in accordance with the verities of our position than gain a span of shabbily-bought office by easy and fickle froth and chatter.

All my experience of the British people, which is a long one, convinces me that never at any moment more than this have they wished and meant to face realities, and woe betide those public men who seek to slide into power down the slippery slope of vain and profligate undertakings.

This is no time for humbug and blandishments, but for grim, stark facts and figures, and for action to meet to immediate needs.

What he said.  Americans aren’t as dumb as the Progressives insist on making us out to be.

 

h/t Power Line

Subsidy and Food

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Here are some minor facts concerning a particular subsidy, courtesy of an The Wall Street Journal op-ed.

USDA lowered its 2012 corn forecast by 13% from last year’s, to 10.8 billion bushels, the shortest harvest since 2006, even though the planted acreage is the highest since 1937 and 4% more than last year.

only 24% of the corn crop is in good or excellent condition in the 18 major corn belt states, down from 72% just since June.

USDA’s world agricultural outlook board estimated that global corn consumption will be reduced by 38.9 million tons, with US problems responsible for ¾ of the shortage.

As a result,

Corn futures are up nearly 50% over the last six weeks.  The US accounts for 60% of global exports, and corn feeds cows, pigs, chickens, and humans through its role as a key ingredient in a broad range of foods.

Those corn futures will be realized as actual, sharp price increases that consumers will pay.  The price increase wouldn’t be so bad, but for a certain Federal subsidy.

The food-to-fuel mandate, Renewable Fuels Standard, requires 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol to be blended into the gasoline supply this year, rising to 36 billion gallons by 2022.  Fully 40% of 2011’s corn production went to ethanol, and courtesy of our EPA (though the subsidy originated in an earlier administration), and now more corn is devoted to fuel than to livestock or other foods.

But not to worry.  Despite the drought, the resulting corn crop failures, and the succeeding price increases driven by the crop failure, despite all of these hardships and negative impacts on the food supply, the ethanol makers got theirs.  The Renewable Fuels Association put out a statement, without a trace of irony, that there’s no danger of an ethanol shortage:

obligated parties under the RFS will have every opportunity to demonstrate compliance this year.

Helps to have your priorities straight.

“Ryan Budget” in a Nutshell

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Here’s a summary of the budget that the Progressives have begun demagoguing the moment Congressman Paul Ryan (R, WI) was asked to run for Vice President.

  • The latest full-scale version of the plan, unveiled in March, vows to cut spending by $5 trillion over the next decade, compared against President Obama’s plan.
  • The plan would, a decade from now, give seniors the option of taking a government payment to purchase health insurance. That payment could be used to buy a private insurance plan, or go toward the traditional Medicare plan. The plan calls for extra assistance to help low-income beneficiaries and those with “greater health risks.”
  • The plan would overhaul Medicaid by turning it into a block grant system for states.
  • The plan would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. It would implement two individual income tax brackets — 10 percent and 25 percent.
  • The plan would head off the scheduled automatic defense cuts, first by diverting the planned $55 million defense cut in 2013 by implementing those cuts elsewhere.
  • The plan vows to bring the size of government to 20 percent of GDP by 2015.

Of what are the Progressives so terrified in this budget?  Ryan put his finger on it two years ago in the summary paragraph of his Wall Street Journal op-ed, reprinted by the WSJ over the weekend:

The contrast with our budget couldn’t be clearer: We put our trust in citizens, not government.  Our budget returns power to individuals, families and communities.  It draws inspiration from the Founders’ belief that all people are born with an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. Protecting this right means trusting citizens, not nameless government officials, to decide what is in their best interests and make the right choice about our nation’s future.

With the people in charge, Progressives won’t have anything to do.

Progressives and the Republican VP Choice

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The immediate, and so far sole, response to the Republicans’ selection of Congressman Paul Ryan (R, WI) as their Vice Presidential Candidate has been to attack the man and the man’s budget—which one branch of Congress thought well enough of to pass twice, and from which the Do-Nothing Democrat-controlled Senate has run screaming, not even allowing a debate of it.

Here’s a sampling of the Progressives’ response.

  • A claim that the Ryan budget (summarized nearby) would increase taxes on the middle class so millionaires can continue to get tax cuts.  Their position is, then, that reducing the existing 6 tax brackets to two—10% and 25%—is a tax increase.
  • Obama Campaign Manager, Jim Messina:
    • [the Ryan budget will] end Medicare as we know it and slash the investments we need to keep our economy growing the all while cutting taxes for those at the very top [and]
    • doubled down on his commitment to take our country back to the failed policies of the past
    • Mitt Romney has chosen a leader of the House Republicans who shares his commitment to the flawed theory that new budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy, while placing greater burdens on the middle class and seniors, will somehow deliver a stronger economy
  • Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid echoed Messina’s claim:
    • doubled down on his commitment to gut Social Security and end Medicare as we know it
  • Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (D), continuing the Medicare theme:
    • a strong commitment to end Medicare as we know it

What are the Progressives’ alternatives?  Raise taxes on a group of Americans whom they routinely vilify.  Block all efforts to reform, and so save, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security (and yes, the reform will change these programs “as we know it;” that’s kind of the nature of reform.  Without reform, though, these programs will be bankrupt in 10-20 years).  Otherwise, the Progressives’ alternatives—since they decry earlier policies—seems to be to continue their current, destructive policies; policies that over the last three years have exploded our deficit, exploded our debt and earned our nation its first credit rating downgrade, suppressed an economic cycle recovery and held us in a post-recession recession with 8.1+% unemployment the entire three years, stalled GDP at 1.5%-1.8% growth that doesn’t even keep up with population growth,….

In the end, by focusing on attacking the Republican ticket and the only budget passed by one house of Congress, without offering any meaningful alternatives, the Progressives are simply confessing that they have no alternatives.  That they have no idea at all about how to fix our country’s ills.  That they have no clue about how to put Americans back to work in a burgeoning, free economy.

More on the Integrity of the Left

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Here are some of the more egregious examples.  The primary Obama-supporting SuperPAC, Priorities USA, is planning to run an ad—an ad that’s already on the Internet—that accuses Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney of being personally responsible for an ex-steel worker’s wife’s death from cancer.  The ad itself is dishonest:

  • The man’s wife died five years after GST, the steel company for which the man worked, filed for bankruptcy.
  • Romney had long since left Bain Capital at the time of her death.
  • His wife had her own health insurance after the man had left GST.
  • The man’s wife died at a time when Bain actually was being run by a major Obama bundler.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has been dishonest in connection with this ad:

  • Obama denied, through his Deputy Campaign Manager, Stephanie Cutter, that he “doesn’t know the facts” about the steelworker or his story, doesn’t know when the man’s wife became ill or anything about the man’s insurance coverage.  Yet last May, Cutter hosted a conference call in which the man detailed his story, including the specifics now appearing in this ad.
  • Obama, through his campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt, insisted that “we can’t coordinate with super PACs and didn’t produce” the ad.
  • Obama has given the green light for members of his cabinet to attend fundraisers for his political action committees.
  • The existence of the conference call, followed by its information appearing in Priorities USA’s ad, together with the SuperPAC fundraising efforts, demonstrate that all of this has occurred: coordination, the Obama staff’s role in the ad’s production, and active Obama White House participation in the “independent” SuperPACs’ efforts.
  • As recently as Friday, Obama still was denying, through his press spokesman, Jay Carney, any involvement or knowledge of the sordid affair.

And there’s this.

Lauren Gray is a dancer who turned 21 last Wednesday and has lived in the US as a legal resident alien since she was 4 years old, having come here when her parents came from England on work visas.  As an adult in her own right, she now must get her own visa in order to stay.  She was on track to get her green card when her priority was dumped, without explanation, into a two-year wait—which means she would have had to return to England—a nation that’s hers by birth but not by loyalty, life, or anything that matters.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Obama’s immigration fiat, though, gives those who are in the US illegally a prompt stay—they have only to aver having themselves come here as children and having stayed out of trouble since, and they get, promptly, documents allowing them to continue staying in two-year increments.

Gray has been working with “her” Congressmen (Senator Claire McCaskill, D; Senator Roy Blunt, R; and Congressman Sam Graves, R) from Missouri, the state in which she’s been living her life, seeking assistance, and at the last minute Senator McCaskill was able to get permission for Gray to stay in the US legally until her green card request works its way through the system.  Gray will get a work visa, renewable every two years.

But why did a United States Senator have to get involved?  How many others here legally are being forced out—because they’ve outgrown their parent’s visas, or their student visas or their H-series visas have expired, or…?  This is an outcome of Obama’s immigration amnesty by fiat program—as Obama knew when he issued his “Dream Act” edict; he is, after all, a highly intelligent man and a Harvard-trained lawyer.  He knew full well what the results of his Presidential Bull would include.

Finally, there’s this:

The law breakers that were in the defunct Occupy Wall Street crowd are getting a pass from the Democratic Candidate’s White House.  Emails from the General Services Administration (remember this gang of partiers?) obtained by Fox News indicate that, on orders from the White House, the GSA instructed Federal law enforcement in Portland, OR, not to enforce curfews on protesters camped out on Federal property.  This exchange between DHS’ National Protection and Programs Directorate Chief of Staff, Caitlin Durkovich, and GSA’s Public Buildings Service Commissioner, Robert Peck, illustrates:

Durkovich: They have chained themselves to a large drum filled with concrete. GSA controls the permits and has asked [Federal Protective Services] not to enforce the curfew at park and the prohibition on overnight encampments…. Our FPS Commander in Portland says they are standing down and following GSA’s request to only intervene if there is a threat to public safety.

Peck: Caitlin: yes, that is our position; it’s been vetted with our administrator and Michael Robertson, our chief of staff, and we have communicated with the [White House], which has afforded us the discretion to fashion our approach to Occupy issues….  The arrests last week were carried out despite our request that the protesters be allowed to remain and to camp overnight….

Never mind that “the arrests last week” were these:  25 demonstrators arrested after they refused to leave Jamison Square in the Pearl District after the park was closed after “an intense standoff.”  And never mind the impact that waiving the law and letting lawbreakers, en masse, go free has on “public safety.”