Tag Archives: political parties

Econ 101

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Milton Friedman had some thoughts on basic economics.

The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.

There is all the difference in the world…between two kinds of assistance through government that seem superficially similar: first, 90 percent of us agreeing to impose taxes on ourselves in order to help the bottom 10 percent, and second, 80 percent voting to impose taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 percent….  The first may be wise or unwise, an effective or ineffective way to help the disadvantaged—but it is consistent with belief in both equality of opportunity and liberty.  The second seeks equality of outcome and is entirely antithetical to liberty.

Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own.  So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.

And [emphasis added]

The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-union-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning.  It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system.  And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes.  Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline.

Stated Differently™, bailing out losing firms assures us of mediocre economic growth.  Winston Churchill also had a thought on this matter.

When losses are made, under the present system these losses are borne by the individuals who sustained them and took the risk and judged things wrongly, whereas under State management all losses are quartered upon the taxpayers and the community as a whole.  The elimination of the profit motive and of self-interest as a practical guide in the myriad transactions of daily life will restrict, paralyze and destroy British ingenuity, thrift, contrivance and good housekeeping at every stage in our life and production, and will reduce all our industries from a profit-making to a loss-making process.

 

™Judge Andrew Napolitano

 

h/t Power Line

Lies of the Democrats, Part 5

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This is Part 5 of my series on the lies told by Democrats during the present administration’s term in office.  As I said earlier, I’m not concerned with his broken campaign promises so much as I am with the dishonesty while in office.

There’s this from State in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on our Consulate in Benghazi that included the murders of our Ambassador to Libya and three of his staff.  Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice on 16 Sep, five days after the attack:

Putting together the best information that we have available to us today, our current assessment is that what happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video….

Yet we know from sworn testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee the day prior to the Vice Presidential debate last Thursday that the intel community had concluded that it was a terrorist attack within 24 hours—four days before Rice’s claim.

Next, in that Vice Presidential debate, Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden said in all seriousness that the reason security for the Ambassador, or for the consulate in Benghazi, had not been beefed up was because no such requests for added support had been made.

Yet we know from sworn testimony at that same hearing that repeated requests for additional personnel and equipage had been repeatedly denied.  LtCol Andrew Wood, former head of our Tripoli embassy’s military security, expressed his frustration at not only not getting the additions he’d been requesting but getting the assets he already had materially reduced:

We were fighting a losing battle. We couldn’t even keep what we had[.]

Eric Nordstrom, erstwhile head of regional security for State, testified that he asked for a team of 12 diplomatic security agents to replace departing commandos, but he was told “you’re asking for the sun, the moon, and the stars,” and his request was denied.

Now, assume Biden is telling the truth on this, that he wasn’t lying.  What does that say about how isolated from what’s actually happening in—forget the world—Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s own administration that his Vice President can be so uninformed?

Lies of the Democrats, Part 4

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This is Part 4 of my series on the lies told by Democrats during the present administration’s term in office.  As I said earlier, I’m not concerned with his broken campaign promises so much as I am with the dishonesty while in office.

In the aftermath of the first Romney-Obama debate, Democrats are asserting that the only way Romney could possibly have won is that of course he lied.

On the subject of Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney’s remarks about “the 47%,” CNN’s Soledad O’Brien had this exchange:

So, to me, that is you say one thing for a certain audience to get them to support you and then you say something different, maybe completely contradictory, to another audience which some could define as lying[.]

Romney said that his remark was “inelegant,” then later called it “just plain wrong.”  Yeah—couldn’t possibly be an admission of a mistake.  Of course it’s a lie.  Good to know, though, that the Democrats think Romney is perfect and never makes mistakes.  Except by lying.

Then there’s Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s senior campaign advisor, David Axelrod.  In a CBS Face the Nation interview, Axelrod had this on the debate’s outcome:

I think [Obama] was a little taken aback at the brazenness with which Gov Romney walked away from so many of the positions on which he’s run, walked away from his record[.]

And

When he said he never proposed $5 trillion in tax cuts, that was dishonest.  I’m saying that he was dishonest in his answers.

Never mind that Axelrod just makes his bald claim, with no specifics.  Or that Romney has been constant as the northern star concerning all of his positions save abortion, where he has evolved his position—which is OK for the Democratic candidate….

Never mind that there is no $5 trillion, and the only study that said so has been publicly debunked—including by its own authors who said their underlying assumptions were mistaken.

And Congressman James Clyburn (D, SC) had this:

Romney’s performance featured a rather dramatic departure from his public record and campaign proposals, and he displayed a reckless disregard for bedrock American values of truth and honesty.

This is the pot calling the kettle black.  Recall that Clyburn also lied about spitting and racial epithets in April 2010 in the aftermath of Obamacare’s passage.  In the present case, as then, Clyburn has chosen to offer no specifics, no evidence, beyond his bald declaration that Romney was dishonest.

How dishonest is that?

Benghazi: Fail

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Stephen Hayes, of The Weekly Standard, writes

At the [Vice President] debate, moderator Martha Raddatz noted “there were no protesters” that day in Libya, and asked Biden why the administration’s talk of protests “went on for weeks.”

Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden had the answer:

Because that’s exactly what we were told by the intelligence community.  The intelligence community told us that.  As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.

Fully five days after the terrorist attack on our Benghazi consulate, on 16 Sep, State’s UN Ambassador Susan Rice (stop me if you’ve heard this part before) said on five different national television shows that a YouTube movie short was responsible.

Yet, as Hayes notes,

Intelligence products published on September 12, sources tell us, included detailed evidence that al Qaeda-linked jihadists were involved in the Benghazi attacks

and

Senior State Department officials were in contact with security agents on the ground in Benghazi, in real time, as the attacks unfolded.

and

On September 12, the New York Times[!] reported: “American and European officials said that while many details about the attack remained unclear, the assailants seemed organized, well trained and heavily armed, and they appeared to have at least some level of advance planning.”

and

Congressman Adam Smith (D, WA) of the House Armed Services Committee, said: “This was not just a mob that got out of hand.  Mobs don’t come in and attack, guns blazing.  I think that there is a growing consensus it was preplanned.

and then on 18 Sep, on the Late Show with David Letterman

[Democratic Presidential Candidate President Barack] Obama: You had a video that was released by somebody who lives here, a sort of shadowy character who is extremely offensive video directed at Muhammad and Islam.

David Letterman: Making fun of the Prophet Muhammad.

Obama: Making fun of the Prophet Muhammad.  And, so, this caused great offense.  In much of the Muslim world.  But, what also happened was extremists and terrorists used this as an excuse to attack a variety of our embassies, including the consulate in Libya.

Wait, what?

And Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama insists through his Deputy Campaign Manager, Stephanie Cutter, that the Republicans are politicizing the murder of our Ambassador to Libya.

Hmm….

Lies of the Democrats, Part 3

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This is Part 3 of my series on the lies told by Democrats during the present administration’s term in office.  As I said earlier, I’m not concerned with his broken campaign promises so much as I am with the dishonesty while in office.

Today, it’s the Democratic Party’s war on women, which they’re mischaracterizing and dishonestly attempting to attribute to the Republicans.  Last March, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blast emailed these missives:

First we learned that Mitt Romney wanted to “get rid of” Planned Parenthood.

Now, there are news reports that Republicans in Congress will oppose re-authorizing the Violence Against Women Act.

…
Americans deserve to know that Mitt Romney and Republicans in Congress are willing to put women’s lives in danger

And this:

Here’s Mitt Romney’s proposal for reducing the deficit, according to an interview he gave yesterday:

“Planned Parenthood, we’re going to get rid of that.”

That’s right, he said he’d get rid of Planned Parenthood….

…

Mitt Romney’s actually willing to cut off women’s access to health care to help fund tax benefits for millionaires and billionaires.

They’ve continued in this vein, but those are the core.  Let’s look at some actual facts.

Regarding the VAWA, there’s this:

On March 12, 2012, the Judiciary Committee voted on the reauthorization of S1925, the Violence Against Women Act, introduced by Senator Leahy [D, VT].  [This time,] S1925 contained provisions that had never appeared in past authorizations of VAWA.

This Leahy version, though, contained a number of immigration amendments, wholly unrelated to violence against women, cynically inserted specifically to blow up the bill and score talking points for the coming campaign, or to backdoor Democratic Party immigration “reform” measures which the Congress already had explicitly rejected.  In a clear break from long-standing criminal law precedent, Leahy’s version also transferred criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian individuals on reservations to Indian Tribes, and it allowed the Tribes to expel non-Indians from their own privately held land.

Of course, with these poison pills in the bill—carefully inserted, as I said, for this election year—of course Republicans refused to swallow.  Indeed, Senator Chuck Grassley (R, IA) offered his own amendment, which essentially stripped the Leahy amendments and offered VAWA in its original, and intact, form.  Neither version actually made to the floor in Senator Harry Reid’s (D, NV) Senate for open debate and an actual vote.

On Planned Parenthood, there are two lies in that short email, and they’re even more obvious.  The first lie is that a President Romney will “get rid of” Planned Parenthood. No.  What Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has proposed is that the Federal government has no business spending taxpayer dollars on Planned Parenthood, or any other women’s health counseling and aid organization—these are better left handled by the individual states for the needs of their specific citizenry.  The second lie is that “Mitt Romney’s actually willing to cut off women’s access to health care to help fund tax benefits for millionaires and billionaires.”  So removing Federal funding from Planned Parenthood is cutting off women’s access to health care.  How amusing.  How Democratic.