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The Welfare State and Military Power - WSJ.com
For our money, one of the better parts of President Obama's speech at West Point this week was his connection between a healthy economy and U.S. national security. To quote: "Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy." We only wish Mr. Obama understood the link between the larger welfare state he is trying to build at home and the economic weakness that will undermine our military power.
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We only wish Mr. Obama understood the link between the larger welfare state he
is trying to build at home and the economic weakness that will undermine our
military power. -
But except for the usual stalwarts—Britain and Poland—the allies are having
trouble meeting even this modest goal. Germany and France are reluctant to
contribute anything more to defeat the Taliban - 6 more annotations...
Note to Obama: Only Private Sector Creates Wealth, Jobs
President Barack Obama has little interest in, understanding of or affection for free markets, so he fails to understand that the fundamental relationship between government and the economy is that of parasite to host.
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But though government can consume wealth and redistribute wealth, it can't
create wealth. And unless wealth is created, there is nothing to consume or
redistribute -
The stimulus failed chiefly because it was designed more to reward the
president's political allies than to fight the recession. But the stimulus
failed also because stimulus funds were used to preserve jobs state and local
governments could no longer afford because of falling tax revenues. The private
sector has borne more than 100 percent of the job loss because state and local
governments have added 110,000 jobs, according to an August report by the Nelson
A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
Obama Juggernaut Meets Resistance
The Obama juggernaut is fragmenting upon the jagged outcroppings of American popular resistance. Yes, his health care catastrophe might just pass Congress. Accounting gimmickry, rhetorical appeals to Americans' most decent moral impulses, and $300 million bribes will do that for even the worst legislation. But the signs are all pointing toward a monumental collapse in public support for the president and his party.
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Obama Juggernaut Meets Resistance
Government Deficits and Private Growth - WSJ.com
For anyone who wondered if last winter's federal seizure of the financial services industry would have adverse economic consequences, an answer is now available. The credit market has been tilted to favor a single borrower with a huge appetite for money, Washington. Private borrowers, particularly small businesses, have been sent to the end of the queue.
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For anyone who wondered if last winter's federal seizure of the financial
services industry would have adverse economic consequences, an answer is now
available. The credit market has been tilted to favor a single borrower with a
huge appetite for money, Washington. Private borrowers, particularly small
businesses, have been sent to the end of the queue. -
Fed announcement last month that it will evaluate the salaries of bank officers
on how carefully they manage risk. - 7 more annotations...
Social Justice: Who Gives, Gets, Decides?
Do you have friends and colleagues who invoke the principle of "Social Justice" to justify new entitlement programs like the trillion dollar health care bill? Do their explanations of what constitutes Social Justice sometimes sound vague or situational, a bit like Justice Potter Stewart's infamous definition of what constitutes pornography? I can't define it but I know it when I see it.
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Do you have friends and colleagues who invoke the principle of "Social
Justice" to justify new entitlement programs like the trillion dollar health
care bill? Do their explanations of what constitutes Social Justice sometimes
sound vague or situational, a bit like Justice Potter Stewart's infamous
definition of what constitutes pornography? I can't define it but I know it
when I see it. -
An early advocate of FDR's New Deal, Coughlin elevated the principle of social
justice from a moral imperative to a political demand. - 2 more annotations...
Why Congress needs a pay cut, or threat of one - MarketWatch
Incentives are powerful things. Pay a man not to work, and that's what he'll do. Reward bankers for taking huge gambles with the balance sheet, and so they will. Guarantee public sector workers a job for life, even if they are lazy and incompetent, and watch what happens to productivity.
Acgtive Government = Unstable Economy
Every economic disaster during the last 100 years has its origins in bad government economic policies, from the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which triggered the Great Depression, to the Federal Reserve's excessive printing of money, which brought us the Great Inflation of the 1970s and the recent housing bubble.
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free markets
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free markets
- 5 more annotations...
Zakaria on the Return of the Right
The bottom line on last week's elections is simple—the Republicans did well. Yes, these were a grab-bag collection of races with local particularities and low turnout. But notice that independents, who had shunned the GOP over the last few years, voted for the party in large numbers. And the overall results are consistent with a surprising trend across the Western world—the rise of the right
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The bottom line on last week's elections is simple—the Republicans did well.
Yes, these were a grab-bag collection of races with local particularities and
low turnout. But notice that independents, who had shunned the GOP over the last
few years, voted for the party in large numbers. And the overall results are
consistent with a surprising trend across the Western world—the rise of the
right
Michael Barone: Tuesday's Biggest Loser: the Union Agenda - WSJ.com
But you missed seeing the guy who may have been the biggest loser of all-a man who according to recently released White House logs has been a guest in the White House 22 times since Barack Obama became president, more than any other single individual.\n\nThat man is Andy Stern, who has boasted that the Service Employees International Union, which he heads, ponied up something like $60 million for Barack Obama and other Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle. Altogether, Mr. Stern and other labor union leaders reportedly gave Democrats some $400 million last year. \n\n
John Steele Gordon: Obama and the Liberal Paradigm - WSJ.com
Thus the liberal paradigm divides the American body politic into sheep, wolves, and would-be shepherds. The shepherds must defeat the efforts of the wolves.\n\n
Nancy Pelosi's New Health-Care Bill - WSJ.com
Epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, rationed care, dishonest accounting: The Pelosi health bill has it all.
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Epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, rationed care, dishonest
accounting: The Pelosi health bill has it all. -
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she's prepared
to lose seats in 2010 if that's what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little
wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which President Obama
hailed as a "critical milestone," may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal
legislation ever introduced. - 12 more annotations...
Dismantling America: Part II
The memory of that long-ago episode has come back more than once while observing both the actions of the Obama administration and the fierce reactions of its supporters to any questioning or criticism.\n\nAlmost never do these reactions include factual or logical arguments against the administration's critics. Instead, there is indignation, accusations of bad faith and even charges of racism.\n\nHere too, it seems as if so many people have invested so much hope and trust in Barack Obama that it is intolerable that anyone should come along and stir up any doubts that could threaten their house of cards.\n\n
Dismantling America
Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?\n\nDid you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers-- that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?\n\n
Daniel Henninger: Michael Moore's 'Socialist' President - WSJ.com
Barack Obama has an identity problem. When this column has suggested that Barack Obama is not a standard-brand socialist, some readers have attached nuclear warheads to their emails, which scream of course Obama is a socialist (you idiot).
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Michael Moore's 'Socialist' President
Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?
Today, however, the conservative movement has been thrown off balance, with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas. The leading conservative figures of our time are now drawn from mass media, from talk radio and cable news. We've traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites.
Why Democrats Will Target the Investor Class in 2009 - Capital Commerce
There are at least two pretty effective ways to turn someone into a Republican: (1) get them married with kids and (2) get them to invest in the stock market. So, if I were a highly paid Democratic political strategist, I would make sure to spend a few minutes every day thinking of ways to get Americans out of the stock market-the faster, the better. And that's why if Barack Obama is elected president next week, 2009 may well bring a concerted and all-out effort by the Obama administration and a Democratically dominated Congress to turn the generally pro-Republican Investor Class into an endangered class by, among other tactics, raising investment taxes and ending the tax preferences for 401(k)'s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts. Here is the emerging battle plan for Operation Investor Class Rollback:\n\n
Congress Faces Backlash on Overhaul - WSJ.com
And so they are in the great health debate. Most analysis, though, has focused on only one side of the political poker game now under way: Will lawmakers pay a political price if they vote for a health bill that proves unpopular?
There's also a flip side to that question, which is about to get a lot more attention: Will lawmakers also pay a political price if nothing gets done -- that is, if the effort to pass a health bill collapses in failure?
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And so they are in the great health debate. Most analysis, though, has
focused on only one side of the political poker game now under way: Will
lawmakers pay a political price if they vote for a health bill that proves
unpopular?There's also a flip side to that question, which is about to get a lot more
attention: Will lawmakers also pay a political price if nothing gets done --
that is, if the effort to pass a health bill collapses in failure? -
"There's great political peril in not acting," one senior Obama adviser
asserts, a message likely to be sent with increasing frequency and urgency. - 3 more annotations...
Conservatives Gather in Capital - WSJ.com
In interviews, they gave an almost uniform diagnosis of the country's problems: The Obama administration and congressional Democrats are spending too much money on programs that insert government too far into people's lives. And Washington, they say, ignores or vilifies those who object.
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Conservative activists from around the country are gathering in Washington on
Saturday, seeking to continue their momentum in shaping the national debate on
everything from health care to White House staffing. -
White House officials on Friday professed to know nothing of the planned
demonstrations. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs queried reporters about
the planners and their issues. "I don't know who the group is," he said with a
shrug. - 2 more annotations...
You can blame Pelosi for Democrats? stumbles - CNN.com
Well, that didn't take long. Three weeks into the new administration and the Democrats are squandering their advantage and threatening to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Credit House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for getting the ball rolling. Under her leadership, House Democrats excluded Republicans from having any voice in crafting the stimulus package.
A Bipartisan Plan to Wreck the System - WSJ.com
What follows is a leaked first draft of President Obama's speech on health care tonight, complete with instructions for Democrats in the audience.
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On one hand, we enlarge the government's role in providing health care, making
more and more voters dependent on Washington. -
To the American people I promise tonight, whatever compromises lay ahead,
whatever the arduous negotiations, Democrats and Republicans will work together
to continue to drive the current system off a cliff. (Applause from
Democrats in the audience; Nancy Pelosi beams.) - 3 more annotations...
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