Lexington Libertarian

Democrats Blame Republicans For Tornadoes Because They Do Not Believe In Global Warming

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:06:00 +0000

The devastating and killing tornadoes in Oklahoma have brought out the man made Global warmers just as the shooting and killing at Sandy Hook brought out the gun banners. Liberals are so easy to see through. Every tragedy is politicized. It becomes a chance to advance their ideology which is often based on emotion and faith not facts.

First up was Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat, Rhode Island who blamed Republican refusal to accept anthropogenic global warming for extreme weather like this.

Catch his video where he bashes Republicans here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se3d9--KZe0&list=UUnG0N70SNBkNqvIMLodPTIA&index=1

Whitehouse tells us:

“So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves? I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests. So, like it or not, we’re in this together.”

“You drag America with you to your fate,” he continued. “So, I want this future: I want a Republican Party that has returned to its senses and is strong and a worthy adversary in a strong America that has done right by its people and the world. That’s what I want. I don’t want this future. I don’t want a Republican Party disgraced, that let its extremists run off the cliff, and an America suffering from grave economic and environmental and diplomatic damage because we failed, because we didn’t wake up and do our duty to our people, and because we didn’t lead the world. I do not want that future. But that’s where we’re headed. So I will keep reaching out and calling out, ever hopeful that you will wake up before it is too late.” (1)

The Senator isn’t the only one to use the ruins of Moore as a political soapbox. Here’s Glenn Thrush of Politico, via Twitter: “It is striking that Oklahoma’s senators are 1) a federal spending skeptic and 2) global warming denier.”

You’ve got to hand it to these primitives – they’re persistent about pushing their death cult. UNGA BUNGA! Sky gods angry! Sky gods send tornado to kill deniers! You pay or sky gods kill again!

Once again, for the benefit of anyone still in the sway of cult propaganda: There is no global warming. The “deniers,” like Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), were right all along. (2)

Meanwhile California Senator Barbara Boxer, another Democrat, took to the Senate floor to blame the tornadoes on Global Warming.

California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer blamed the tornado that devastated Oklahoma on global warming during a Senate floor speech Tuesday, using the opportunity to push her own plan to tax carbon dioxide emissions.

“This is climate change,” Boxer said. “This is climate change. We were warned about extreme weather: Not just hot weather, but extreme weather. When I had my hearings, when I had the gavel years ago — it’s been a while — the scientists all agreed that what we’d start to see was extreme weather.”

“Carbon could cost us the planet,” Boxer added, plugging her own carbon tax bill, co-sponsored by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. “The least we could do is put a little charge on it so people move to clean energy.” (2)

The Left will just not give up the ghost in regards to the hoax of man made Global Warming. The Left has two sacrosanct tenets to its catechism.

1) Abortion

2) Global Warming

(1) Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/20/democratic-senator-goes-on-anti-gop-rant-over-climate-change-as-tornadoes-hit-oklahoma/#ixzz2Tym12ONd

(2) DEM. LEADER (ALREADY) BLAMES TRAGIC TORNADO ON REPUBLICANS, John Hayward, Human Events - http://www.humanevents.com/2013/05/21/sen-sheldon-whitehouse-enters-the-tornado-politics-hall-of-shame/

Lois Lerner Will Plead Fifth

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:24:00 +0000

That paragon of public information, IRS official Lois Lerner, has decided she cannot testify to Congress. Nope, she is going to take the fifth! Once they start taking the fifth we have them on the run! Then we know the scandal is really a scandal!

Tuesday afternoon a bombshell was dropped into the already explosive IRS scandal when it was reported that Lois Lerner, a top IRS official in the non-profit division that paralyzed Tea Party groups with ongoing harassment, would invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions during Congressional testimony schedule before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

The LA Times reports that Lerner will refuse to answer any questions about what she knows about the targeting of conservative groups. She will also refuse to explain why she is refusing to answer questions. (1)

Lerner has already lied to us. She made believe that she gave up the information of the IRS’s harassment of Conservative groups on her own in answer to a question from the audience she was addressing. The question was a plant, she read from notes to answer it and this was all staged on a Friday afternoon so that it might just get tucked under the rug until a full report came out. Then the Administration could say, “well we already told you all about that.” Instead of the transparency that Obama promised we are now shrouded in a veil of camouflage.

(1) Top IRS Official to Plead Fifth, John Nolte, Breitbart - http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/05/21/IRS-Scandal-Lois-Lerner-To-Invoke-Fifth-Amendment

Save The Children

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:47:00 +0000

The Personal Story Of Our Government Agencie's Attack On Catherine Englebrecht

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:44:00 +0000

http://youtu.be/wrxI878HjKc

While much has been written about the IRS targeting the Tea Party and Conservative groups little has been reported about individual stories of how this actually took place in the life of an American citizen. Generalities never hit home as hard as specifics applied individually.

Here is the story of Catherine Englebrecht who with her husband Bryan started a precision metal cutting machine shop. Bryan started the business in his garage 20 years ago. Today, with 30 employees, Englebrecht Manufacturing runs a business in a metal building on the prairie outside Houston, Texas.

In 2008 Catherine joined the Tea Party and became active in policing voting, serving as an alternative Judge at the polls. Here she realized what all the fuss about voter fraud really meant.

Because of her experiences she formed two political groups, “King Street Patriots,” an educational discussion group and “True Vote,” working to eliminate voter fraud, bring voting rolls up to date and register voters.

Catherine filed for tax exempt status for her organizations and that is when the harassment began. Here is her story as told to National Review reporter Jillian Kay Melchier.

That winter, the Federal Bureau of Investigation came knocking with questions about a person who had attended a King Street Patriots event once. Based on sign-in sheets, the organization discovered that the individual in question had attended an event, but “it was a come-and-go thing,” and they had no further information on hand about him. Nevertheless, the FBI also made inquiries about the person to the office manager, who was a volunteer.

The King Street Patriots weren’t the only ones under scrutiny. On January 11, the IRS visited the Engelbrechts’ shop and conducted an on-site audit of both their business and their personal returns, Catherine says.

“What struck us as odd about that,” she adds,“is the lengths to which the auditor went to try to — it seemed like — to try to find some error. . . . She wanted to go out and see [our] farm, she wanted to count the cattle, she wanted to look at the fence line. It was a very curious three days. She was as kind as she could be, and she was doing her job . . . [but] it was strange.”

Bryan adds: “It was kind of funny to us. I mean, we weren’t laughing that much, but we knew we were squeaky clean. Our CPA’s a good guy. And who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor: I got a little bit of a refund.”

Two months later, the IRS initiated the first round of questions for True the Vote. Catherine painstakingly answered them, knowing that nonprofit status would help with the organization’s credibility, donors, and grant applications. In October, the IRS requested additional information. And whenever Catherine followed up with IRS agents about the status of True the Vote’s application, “there was always a delay that our application was going to be up next, and it was just around the corner,” she says,

As this was occurring, the FBI continued to phone King Street Patriots. In May 2011, agents phoned wondering “how they were doing.” The FBI made further inquiries in June, November, and December asking whether there was anything to report.

The situation escalated in 2012. That February, True the Vote received a third request for information from the IRS, which also sent its first questionnaire to King Street Patriots. Catherine says the IRS had “hundreds of questions — hundreds and hundreds of questions.” The IRS requested every Facebook post and Tweet she had ever written. She received questions about her family, whether she’d ever run for political office, and which organizations she had spoken to.

“It’s no great secret that the IRS is considered to be one of the more serious [federal agencies],” Catherine says. “When you get a call from the IRS, you don’t take it lightly. So when you’re asked questions that seem to imply a sense of disapproval, it has a very chilling effect.”

On the same day they received the questions from the IRS, Catherine says, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) launched an unscheduled audit of their machine shop, forcing the Engelbrechts to drop everything planned for that day. Though the Engelbrechts have a Class 7 license, which allows them to make component parts for guns, they do not manufacture firearms. Catherine said that while the ATF had a right to conduct the audit, “it was odd that they did it completely unannounced, and they took five, six hours. . . . It was so extensive. It just felt kind of weird.”

That was in February. In July, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration paid a visit to Engelbrecht Manufacturing while Bryan, Catherine, and their children were out of town. The OSHA inspector talked with the managerial staff and employees, inspecting the premises minutely. But Bryan says the agent found only “little Mickey Mouse stuff, like, ‘You have safety glasses on, but not the right kind; the forklift has a seatbelt, but not the right kind.’” Yet Catherine and Bryan said the OSHA inspector complimented them on their tightly run shop and said she didn’t know why she had been sent to examine it.

Not long after, the tab arrived. OSHA was imposing $25,000 in fines on Engelbrecht Manufacturing. They eventually worked it down to $17,500, and Bryan says they may have tried to contest the fines to drive them even lower, but “we didn’t want to make any more waves, because we don’t know [how much further] OSHA could reach.”

“Bottom line is, it hurt,” he says. Fifteen thousand dollars is “not an insignificant amount to this company. It might be to other companies, but we’re still considered small, and it came at a time when business was slow, so instead of giving an employee a raise or potentially hiring another employee, I’m writing a check to our government.”

A few months later, True the Vote became the subject of congressional scrutiny. In September, Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) wrote to Thomas Perez, then the assistant attorney general of the civil rights division at the Department of Justice (who has now been nominated for labor secretary). “As you know, an organization called ‘True the Vote,’ which is an offshoot of the Tea Party, is leading a voter suppression campaign in many states,” Boxer wrote, adding that “this type of intimidation must stop. I don’t believe this is ‘True the Vote.’ I believe it’s ‘Stop the Vote.’”

And in October, Representative Elijah Cummings (D., Md.), the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, attacked True the Vote in a letter. He wrote that “some have suggested that your true goal is not voter integrity, but voter suppression against thousands of legitimate voters who traditionally vote for Democratic candidates.” He added that: “If these efforts are intentional, politically motivated, and widespread across multiple states, they could amount to a criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights.” He also decried True the Vote on MSNBC and CNN.

Catherine now says that she “absolutely” thinks that because she worked against voter fraud, the Left was irked and decided to target her.

The next month, in November 2012, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental agency, showed up for an unscheduled audit at Engelbrecht Manufacturing. Catherine says the inspector told her the agency had received a complaint but couldn’t provide any more details. After the inspection, the agency notified the Engelbrechts that they needed to pay for an additional mechanical permit, which cost about $2,000 per year.

Since then, the IRS has sent two further rounds of questions to Catherine for her organizations. And last month, the ATF conducted a second unscheduled audit at Engelbrecht Manufacturing.

Catherine says she still hasn’t received IRS approval for her nonprofits, though she filed nearly three years ago. And “the way all of these personal instances interweave with what was going on on the nonprofit side . . . it amounts to something. You can’t help but think that statistically, this has to be coordinated on some level.”

On behalf of the True the Vote and King Street Patriots, Representative Ted Poe (R., Texas) sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF, inquiring whether the organizations were under criminal investigation. A statement on Poe’s website states that “the reply from these agencies was that none of these individuals were under criminal investigation. Well, if they’re not, why are they being treated like criminals? Just because they question government.”

Catherine says she knows of at least one other group that received government inquiries about its relationship with True the Vote, and she suspects more did, too. And other Tea Party groups decided not to form nonprofits at all after learning about her experience, she says. “They were scared,” she explains, “and you shouldn’t be scared of your government.”

Meanwhile, Catherine says the harassment has forced her to seriously reconsider whether her political activity is worth the government harassment she’s faced.

True Scandal by Jillian Kay Melchior, National Review - http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348756/true-scandal-jillian-kay-melchior

DOJ Labels FOX News Journalist A Co-Conspirator ~ IRS Attacked 15 Top Romney Donors

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:24:00 +0000

5/20/13 - Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume had strong words to describe the news that his colleague James Rosen was subject to a federal leak investigation, telling America's Newsroom that the story may indicate that the Obama Justice Department wants to treat ordinary news-gathering activities as a crime. As we reported earlier this morning, Fox News' chief Washington correspondent Rosen was investigated in 2009 after being suspected by Justice of receiving secret information from government sources on North Korea. As part of their investigation, Justice tracked his movements within the State Department, traced the timing of telephone calls with State Department sources, and obtained a warrant to search his personal emails.

Hume told Fox host Martha MacCallum that this procedure was "unusual" because, in this case, "the investigation spilled over into a search through Rosen's personal emails." In order to obtain those, the DOJ had to go to a judge to issue subpoenas for the emails by alleging that Rosen was "involved in a criminal conspiracy" of sorts.

If the DOJ believed that, Hume said, this means "the Obama-Holder Justice Department is now prepared to treat the ordinary news-gathering activities of reporters trying to seek information from government officials as a crime."

"I'm not saying it's unprecedented," he cautioned, "but I can't think of a case where that's happened before... It takes the whole AP thing and casts a new light on the attitude of this Justice Department towards the news gathering activities of First Amendment-protected news organizations."

Hume noted that the DOJ "probably had a right" to search Rosen's movements within the State Department, given that is one of the purposes of having the access cards. However, "where this crosses a clear and bright line," he said, "is when they subpoenaed the phone records based on a pretext that this activity was criminal."

He reiterated: "That places this administration in the position of saying normal news gathering activities are criminal. That is chilling."

It is becoming increasingly evident that the Obama Regime has been using the full power of the federal government to target, attack and disarm all opposition.

Once again The Lexington Libertarian has to question the authenticity of Obama’s reelection.

RUSH: I just I want to remind you again, folks, that it was the Obama campaign website that targeted all of Romney's donors. It was Obama's website that named Romney's donors and then implied that they were criminal, implied that they were unsavory. That sent the signal to the freak extremists that make up the Democrat Party underground on the Internet to start getting everything into gear. The way it ended up, 15 top Romney donors were audited -- 15 of them, folks. Obama, on his campaign website, was constantly demanding that the IRS do what they did.

So many senators were doing it in a subtle way -- and Harry Reid wasn't so subtle, saying that Romney wasn't even paying his taxes. But all of these Romney donors are being slimed on the Obama campaign website. Of course the immediate purpose then was to have a negative impact on Romney's campaign to win in 2012, to limit the amount of money, to limit donors, to frighten other donors away. I mean, if Romney donors are being audited before the election, then the objective is to make sure Romney has fewer and fewer people willing to donate to him because they're afraid of the IRS, which makes total sense.

We literally do have, folks, banana republic-type government going on here. I don't know how else to describe it. Virtually every aspect of this administration is politically oriented toward eliminating opposition. None of what is publicly seen from this administration is aimed toward governing, and that is a fundamental point. It's a very key point to understand. This administration is not seen as governing. This administration is constantly on the attack. This administration is constantly attacking somebody.

They see what the IRS did to Tea Party organizations for 27 months. They see what's happening to Frank VanderSloot and Sheldon Adelson and 13 other Romney donors. They're just scared, which is exactly what this regime wants people to be. This administration wants people to fear it.

That's what sets it apart. That's what sets it apart from previous administrations. This campaign -- and that's what it is, frankly. It's not an administration. This campaign wants Americans frightened of it.

They want you to be intimidated into shutting up, not opposing them, not helping anybody else oppose them. They don't want any of opposition. They're attempting to intimidate anybody and everybody into just shutting up. No criticism whatsoever of the regime is tolerated. Anybody who criticizes the regime is gonna be targeted. Anybody who speaks up about this administration is gonna be named and targeted, and it's going to appear that the administration's going after them -- and who wants that? Particularly an average citizen!

"Fox News reports that three Fox staffers," not just James Rosen, the reporter. Now there are "three Fox staffers, two reporters and one producer, were targeted by Barack Obama's Justice Department. Fox doesn't have all the details yet on reporter William La Jeunesse and producer Mike Levine, but their emails showed up in a IG report regarding Fast and Furious. Either their emails were leaked by the Justice Department officials they were sent to, or the email accounts of both were subpoenaed and invaded by government investigators.

"The IG report does say that subpoenas were issued to obtain emails. Whose email was targeted is not yet known. The third staffer is reporter James Rosen. The Washington Post's story behind that is downright chilling. What we have here is a case of the Obama [regime] criminalizing reporting. In June of 2009, James Rosen of Fox News reported that North Korea might respond to an increase in United Nations sanctions with even more nuclear tests. Rosen added that the CIA had learned this information from their sources within North Korea.

Folks, Nixon only contemplated doing this. Nixon probably dreamed of doing this, but never got anywhere near doing this. Nixon bugged himself, but all he did was dream. These people are out bugging the AP. They're now bugging William La Jeunesse and James Rosen from Fox News and a producer -- three people-- and that's about the only way you can describe it is "bugging." You might want to say they got subpoenas to intercept e-mails.

They claimed he was a criminal -- and, of course, they didn't have to prove it. They just had to suspect it and the subpoena was granted, and they in effect were legally allowed to bug the Fox reporter James Rosen. "'Privacy protections limit searching or seizing a reporter’s work, but not when there is evidence that the journalist broke the law against unauthorized leaks. A federal judge signed off on the search warrant -- agreeing that there was probable cause that Rosen was a co-conspirator.'

The regime didn't like what Rosen learned, and so the regime is now saying that Rosen and his leaker are criminals, when all they're doing is engaging in journalism. Now, this kind of thing did happen routinely when Bush was in office. When this kind of thing was learned when Bush was in office, it was Bush who was the criminal in the eyes of the media. It's everyday journalism. The Obama administration is simply trying to quell American journalists, quash them from doing their jobs.

We've got Obama administration trying to criminalize journalism as practiced by Fox. We have the IRS scandal made public by IRS for the express purpose of frightening and scaring future donors away from the Republican Party and Republican candidates. We have learned that 15 top Romney donors were audited and the Obama campaign website alluded that eight of these 15 were criminals, thereby lighting a fire under these literally insane, extreme zombies that troll Democrat websites on the Internet.

Fox News reporters and a staffer were spied on by the Department of Justice. Five hundred conservative organizations were delayed, by the IRS, in their attempt to gain nonprofit status through two election cycles. We have the Department of Health and Human Services shaking down health care executives. Fast and Furious was an attempt to undermine the Second Amendment, and now the whistleblower of Fast and Furious is being smeared by the Department of Justice. Whistleblowers are being intimidated.

Ladies and gentlemen, do you remember the story of Gibson guitars? Do you remember when Obama and Eric Holder went after Gibson guitars? Do you remember what we were told was the reason why Gibson guitars was raided? That's right. We were told that they were using wood that was banned. They were violating environmental regulations in the manufacturing of their guitars. Well, now we've learned that the Gibson guitar CEO, Henry Juskowitz, is a Republican donor.

Remember when all of those GM dealerships were shut down after Obama took over General Motors on behalf of the government? All those dealerships -- the vast majority of them -- were Republican owned. Yeah. You remember Obama and Eric Holder's attack on Gibson guitars? That was back in 2009. They raided Gibson and demanded that its woodwork labor be done overseas. The original excuse by the regime for the raid was environmental concerns. Court documents, however, revealed the raid legal hassles were from a non-environmental question.

The CEO was a Republican.

The Obama Regime DOJ's Harassment of Fox News Ties into the IRS Attack on Republican Donors, Rush Limbaugh - http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/05/20/the_obama_regime_doj_s_harassment_of_fox_news_ties_into_the_irs_attack_on_republican_donors

Big Data to Drive More Oil Productivity Increases

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:19:00 +0000

With technology and the Internet now being integrated into the energy industry, the big data that results could aid oil and gas drilling in further driving productivity increases, says Mark Mills in Forbes.

In the past five years, technology has improved the productivity of America's shale fields by 200 percent to 300 percent, while the same jump in the productivity of wind turbines and solar cells took more than 20 years.
In just two years, oil output has risen faster than wind output by five times and solar output by more than 200 times.
The cost to find and yield a new barrel of oil has fallen to between $7 and $15 in America's oil fields while the global cost is at more than $25.

The incredible rises are due to the integration of information technology. Seismic imaging, which is used to detect oil in the ground, benefits greatly from fiber-optics, which allows companies to record and interpret massive amounts of data that were previously not possible.

While many have claimed that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are the reasons for the U.S. oil boom, it is in fact advances in 3D seismic mapping technologies that let oil companies know exactly where and how far to drill.
Seismic technology uses acoustic vibrations to determine where pockets of underground oil are.
Modern computer analysis now quickly computes massive amounts of data that took the first 3D seismic survey mainframe computer more than two years to interpret.

More data, better computers and better sensors have enabled companies to drill horizontally and use hydraulic fracturing with increasing precision, which saves precious time and resources.

Today, every major oil service company offers microseismic technologies that allow geophysicists to listen to how and where fluids are flowing.
But even today's best-in-class technologies still have a lot of room to advance -- sensors need to be at least 100 times more sensitive and record 100 times the bandwidth.

This means that the likelihood of peak oil is very slim, given that inevitable advances in technology will lead to further increases in productivity and proven oil reserves.

Source: Mark Mills, "Big Data and Microseismic Imaging Will Accelerate the Smart Drilling Oil and Gas Revolution," Forbes, May 8, 2013.

Tax and Expenditure Limits Are Ineffective

Leaving Canada for Medical Care, 2012

Data Shows Great Variation in College Results, Earnings

Supporting Small Business Is the Way to Economic Recovery

The Case for Eliminating Farm Subsidies

Big Data to Drive More Oil Productivity Increases, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23189&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Krauthammer: If White House Had Any Connection To IRS Scandal, It Will Be 'Fatal Problem' For Obama

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 04:23:00 +0000

Obama's 'Rain' Of Terror

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 04:11:00 +0000

The Cruel Things Obama Is Doing to the Labor Market

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 04:04:00 +0000

ObamaCare mandates will destroy job opportunities for young, unskilled workers in cities and towns across the country, says John C. Goodman, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis.

With respect to the new health law, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of the minimum benefit package that everyone will be required to have will be $4,750 for individuals and $12,250 for families.
That translates into a minimum health benefit of $2.28 an hour for full-time single workers and about $3 an hour for someone working 30 hours a week.
For family coverage the cost is $5.89 an hour for a 40-hour-a-week employee and $7.85 an hour for a 30-hour-a-week employee.

These are not small changes, and in some instances they can double the cost of labor. Employers have four ways to reduce this burden:

The mandate doesn't apply to firms with fewer than 50 workers.
The mandate doesn't apply to employees who work fewer than 30 hours.
The employer doesn't have to offer or subsidize family coverage.
Rather than provide health insurance, the employer can pay a $2,000 per (full-time) worker fine.

Employers are already reacting to ObamaCare. In fact, there was a huge shift to part-time employment in the fast-food industry beginning in January. The reason: ObamaCare will employ a 12-month "look back." That is, in deciding whether a worker is full-time or part-time next January (when the mandate becomes effective) the government will look at the average weekly hours worked in the previous year.

One fast-food restaurant owner said that the average workweek for his employees has been reduced to 25 hours this year -- compared with 38 last year.
Employees may be able to work part-time at two different restaurants -- both of which avoid the mandate by switching to part-time labor.
On the other hand, they may choose to work fewer hours because as their income rises their marginal tax rate will increase and public assistance subsidies and health insurance exchange subsidies will go down.

Letting part-time workers work more hours can be expensive.

If a 29-hour-a-week employee works one more hour for 50 weeks, that will trigger a $2,000 fine.
Dividing the fine by the additional hours of work, that works out to a $40-an-hour penalty.

Source: John C. Goodman, "The Cruel Things Obama Is Doing to the Labor Market," Forbes, May 27, 2013 (print edition).

Wind Farms Get Pass on Eagle Deaths
Hispanic College Enrollment Rates Pass White College Enrollment Rates
Student Loan Forgiveness Not the Answer
Fisker Loan Failure Highlights Uncle Sam's Poor Investment History
European Carbon Market in Trouble

The Cruel Things Obama Is Doing to the Labor Market, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23182&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Wind Farms Get Pass on Eagle Deaths

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 03:53:00 +0000

It happens all too frequently: A soaring golden eagle slams into a wind farm's spinning turbine and falls, mangled and lifeless, to the ground. Killing these iconic birds is not just an irreplaceable loss for a vulnerable species. It's also a federal crime, a charge that the Obama administration has used to prosecute oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, and power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines, says the Associated Press.

But the administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly. Instead, the government is shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret.

The result is a green industry that's allowed to do not-so-green things. It kills protected species with impunity and conceals the environmental consequences of sprawling wind farms.

More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country's wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife Society Bulletin.
Getting precise figures is impossible because many companies aren't required to disclose how many birds they kill. And when they do, experts say, the data can be unreliable.

When companies voluntarily report deaths, the Obama administration in many cases refuses to make the information public, saying it belongs to the energy companies or that revealing it would expose trade secrets or implicate ongoing enforcement investigations.

Nearly all the birds being killed are protected under federal environmental laws, which prosecutors have used to generate tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements from businesses, including oil and gas companies, over the past five years.

By not enforcing the law, the administration provides little incentive for companies to build wind farms where there are fewer birds. And while companies already operating turbines are supposed to avoid killing birds, in reality there's little they can do once the windmills are spinning.

Source: Dina Cappiello, "Wind Farms Get Pass on Eagle Deaths," Associated Press, May 14, 2013.

Hispanic College Enrollment Rates Pass White College Enrollment Rates
Wind Energy Cannot Compete in Free Market
The High Cost of Low-Value Wind Power
Green Jobs Haven't Lived up to Obama's Promise
Penalty Could Keep Smokers out of Health Overhaul

Wind Farms Get Pass on Eagle Deaths, NCPA -
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23185&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Texas and California: A Tale of Two Oil States

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 03:39:00 +0000

Texas and California offer competing visions for how an economy should be organized. Both states benefit from vast natural resources, including two of the largest oil reserves in the country. Despite this similarity, Texas and California have drastically different economies and economic outlooks, says the Wall Street Journal.

Because of California's environmental restrictions, the state is no longer among the top three oil-producing states in the country.
Texas has more than doubled its oil output since 2005 and now pumps more than 2 million barrels a day, which could double by 2016.
More than 400,000 Texans are employed by the oil and gas industry with an average salary of $100,000 a year.

The oil industry in Texas generates $80 billion a year in economic activity and generated more than $12 billion in taxes in 2012. The tax revenue from oil production helps the state avoid levying an income tax, which encourages business growth. In California, the picture is much different -- oil output is down 21 percent from 2001.

Despite the rising price of oil, which now trades around $95 a barrel, California has continually shunned exploitation of its vast offshore reservoirs.
According to the Department of Energy, the Monterey shale off California's coast could contain twice as much oil as the Bakken shale in North Dakota, which has brought significant wealth to the state in a short period of time.

Much of the difference between Texas' and California's extraction of oil and gas is due to political culture. Californians have elected politicians who believe that fossil fuels are dirty energy. They have also passed cap-and-trade legislation and wagered on many green companies that have gone bankrupt.

California's green energy agenda is in stark juxtaposition to Texas, which has removed barriers to oil production.
Since the recession, Texas has led the nation in job creation with a jobless rate of 6.4 percent while California has the nation's third highest at 9.4 percent.

California has the oil and gas reserves to attain the prosperity that Texas has enjoyed but must first ditch the ultra-green agenda.

Source: "A Tale of Two Oil States," Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2013.

Parent Trigger Laws Empower Parents for School Change
California Mulls Expanding Role for Nurse Practitioners
Part-Time Workers to Lose Pay under Affordable Care Act
European Carbon Market in Trouble
Physicians Misdiagnose at an Alarming Rate

Texas and California: A Tale of Two Oil States, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23179&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

How We Underestimate Long-Term Unemployment

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:39:00 +0000

During normal economic recoveries, the unemployment rate drops rapidly as employers begin hiring many of those individuals who lost their jobs during the recession. Recovery from the Great Recession has been atypical, with slower than hoped job creation. Unfortunately, the official long-term unemployment statistics underestimate the current problem, says Keith Hall of the Mercatus Center.

Millions of people are not considered unemployed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government agency in charge of tracking labor statistics.
The main reason for the discrepancy between the actual number of those without jobs and the official number is slow economic growth in the recovery, which has created a difficult job market.
Currently, there are 4.6 million long-term unemployed in the United States.

To be counted as long-term unemployed, an individual needs to have had no work whatsoever for six months, be nearly instantly available if offered work and be actively looking for work. More than 66 percent of the 4.6 million long-term unemployed in the United States have been jobless for more than 1 year.

The problem with the official statistic is that it does not account for people who have dropped out of the labor force altogether after becoming discouraged by their job search.
Millions of people that were struggling to find work have stopped looking at all, and even if they browse the newspaper, they are not considered actively seeking work.
To be actively seeking work, an individual must send out a resume, interview for a job, engage an employment agency or engage in some other sort of activity that, by itself, could result in employment.

In 2007, the average unemployed person who dropped out of the labor force looked for a job for nine weeks; by 2011, that figure had risen to over 21 weeks. Because the economic recovery has been so slow, the millions of people who have dropped out of the labor market have lowered the unemployment rate while joblessness has gone up.

In a typical recovery, many of the long-term unemployed would have been rehired. Despite this, the labor market has actually outperformed gross domestic product growth. A more vibrant private market, not greater government spending, will catalyze continued employment growth.

Source: Keith Hall, "The Truth About Long-Term Unemployment," U.S. News & World Report, April 29, 2013.

Hispanic College Enrollment Rates Pass White College Enrollment Rates
Unlike Boomers, Millennials Appear to Be Super Savers
Manufacturing Sector: Key to Economic Recovery
Food Stamp Use Swells as Unemployment Recedes
Women to Pay Higher Premiums for Long-Term Care

How We Underestimate Long-Term Unemployment, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23151&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

England's National Health Services Offers Future Vision of ObamaCare

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:27:00 +0000

For those curious what the future of the American health care system will look like after the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare"), the British National Health Service (NHS) provides a good reference point. The NHS provides free or heavily subsidized care to all registered residents. The number of emerging problems with the British health care system suggests that the Affordable Care Act may fall short of its goal of reducing the cost of health care, says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute.

From 2005 to 2012, British hospital emergency room visits rose from 18 million to 22 million -- a 22 percent increase in only 7 years, a period during which the population grew by only 4 percent.
This should concern supporters of ObamaCare who claim the health care mandate will reduce the number of hospital emergency room visits and lower the national cost of health care.
The increased visits in Britain are due to fewer physicians, an aging population and increased patient demand, all problems America is currently facing.

Like complaints about the Canadian system, patients in the NHS can expect long waits for non-emergency appointments and surgeries, which are sometimes rescheduled abruptly because of a lack of the correct medical equipment. Family doctors, known as general practitioners, are typically booked up weeks in advance and reserve only a few slots every day for emergencies.

General practitioners also ration specialist services so that without a referral, no specialist appointment can be obtained, a practice that has led to wrongful death.
ObamaCare will not lower emergency room visits because many people will choose to stay uninsured, thereby incurring a tax and saving the costs of ObamaCare-mandated insurance.
Others who can't afford insurance will receive federal subsidies but anyone who has a family member who accepts single coverage from his or her employer will no longer be eligible for the subsidies, which decreases the use of preventive care and increases emergency room visits.

In Britain, insurance companies and private hospitals have become a popular alternative for many patients seeking to avoid the long lines of the NHS. Concierge medical services and walk-in clinics are already popular in the United States and likely to expand as lengthy waits develop for doctors and specialists as ObamaCare crowds the health care system.

Source: Diana Furchtgott-Roth, "For an ObamaCare Preview, Look to England," Real Clear Markets, April 30, 2013.

The Federal Financial Triangle

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 01:56:00 +0000

Before the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, hundreds of national banks in towns and cities across the United States were issuing dollar bills. In 1913, the Federal Reserve was created as America's central bank to control the issuance of paper money. The Federal Reserve, now a huge investor in real estate loans, props up the U.S. Treasury which backs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage originators who guarantee the real estate loans the Federal Reserve buys. The arrangement creates a financial triangle between the three actors that needs to be examined, says Alex Pollock, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

The Federal Reserve owns more than $1.1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities, which are guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the same government-sponsored enterprises that collapsed during the 2007 financial crisis.
Following their collapse, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were given new capital by the U.S. Treasury, which gives the mortgage guarantors infinite leverage.
The potential for trouble is created because the U.S. Treasury gets much of its money from the Federal Reserve, which also holds more than $1.8 trillion in Treasury debt.

The Fed, by buying long-term mortgage-backed securities and long-term Treasury debt, is creating interest rate risk on its own balance sheet, which is leveraged more than 60 times the size of its equity. The Fed's balance sheet has $3.3 trillion in total assets and $55 billion in equity.

If, and eventually when, interest rates rise, the Fed will have to stop buying because its assets will depreciate.
An interest rate hike of 2 percent would trigger the Fed's $1.1 trillion portfolio to lose about $169 billion in market value, and in the long-term cause the Fed to take losses of an estimated $285 billion on its Treasury security portfolio.
When rates rise, many of the underwater investments might need to be sold, which could result in the Fed having a negative market-to-market net worth of $206 billion.

It is unclear what it would mean for the world's principal central bank to have negative net worth. Luckily for the Fed, it controls its own accounting so regardless of what happens in the future it will always have a positive capital.

Source: Alex Pollock, "The Federal Financial Triangle," The American, April 24, 2013

Federal Student Loan Programs Subsidize Waste
Regulations Reduce Community Bank Lending
Five Myths about the Federal Housing Administration
Colleges Cut Prices by Providing More Financial Aid
Gas Tax on Mileage as an Alternative to Current Federal Gas Tax

The Federal Financial Triangle, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23129&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Green Jobs: Illusive and Costly

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 01:37:00 +0000

Americans, and the world, have been concerned about the environment for most of the latter half of the 20th century. The concern has resulted in significant environmental achievements that are cause for celebration. While the improvements are beneficial to the environment, they have not brought the significant job growth promised by President Obama, says Kathleen Hartnett White, director of the Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Environmentalists have always envisioned green policies being the overriding principle of the economy. If the entire economy could be made into one environmentally-friendly machine, then the world would be a better place. These policies, which were the dream of presidential hopeful Al Gore, among many, are now being enacted by President Obama and other green elites.

President Obama promised that the federal government would create enough green jobs to replace the millions of jobs lost in the great recession of 2009 and 2010.
Funds authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 soon funneled toward green companies and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was tasked with counting the green jobs created by these funds.
The BLS did tally more than 3 million jobs, but only after including school bus drivers, the Salvation Army and steel manufacturing, hardly "green" jobs.

Under Obama's sequester, the BLS program to count green jobs has been eliminated, noting the harsh reality that solar generation accounts for only 500 jobs and wind technologies account for only 2,700 jobs.

In the past few years, the largest amount of job growth has occurred in the industry most vilified by environmentalists, the oil and gas industry, which created more than a million jobs with average salaries several times the average wage.
The increase in oil and gas employment is the direct result of the free market, of the development of innovative technologies that American businesses have spent decades to create.
The government's foray into subsidizing green jobs has been and will continue to be a failure for the same reason the private market is a success: only the market and the demands of consumers can propel real sustainable change.

Source: Kathleen Hartnett White, "Green Jobs Versus Real Jobs," Texas Public Policy Foundation, April 22, 2013.

How the Wheels Came Off for Fisker

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 01:28:00 +0000

One year ago, one of the highlights of any electric car aficionado's garage would have surely been the Fisker Karma, a $100,000 plug-in hybrid electric car with great aesthetic beauty. But for all its beauty, the car is riddled with software errors, design flaws and malfunctioning parts. Fisker, like many other companies that received U.S. loans for green-friendly initiatives, is on the brink of failure, says the Wall Street Journal.

Many buyers of the high-priced vehicles have demanded refunds as stagnant gas prices have simultaneously reduced demand for electric cars.
Fisker, based in Anaheim, California, recently missed a loan payment and has already dismissed most of its staff and hired bankruptcy lawyers.
Only a last-minute rescue could save Fisker from failing like other automobile upstarts like DeLorean Motor Co. or Tucker Corp.

The failure of Fisker represents yet another example of the federal government's poor ability to pick winners and losers in the private market, particularly with firms that seek to limit fossil fuel use.

Originally, Fisker planned on starting small in Finland but the U.S. government convinced the company to think bigger and bring the operation to the continental United States.
At the height of its fundraising, Fisker was one of the largest U.S. venture capital backed companies ever with more than $1 billion raised from private sources and more than $529 million in loans from the U.S. government.
The loans were made with the understanding that the U.S. government would help fund the development of the Karma if the company developed a lower cost model.

The fuel spike and global cash crunch that occurred in 2007 helped lure investors to Fisker's luxury plug-in company, which received $450 million more in loans than did rival Tesla Motors. Even with the enormous amount of funding available, the Fisker Karma had plenty of problems with its suppliers, software and meeting regulatory requirements.

In early 2011, the Obama administration froze disbursements to Fisker after the Solyndra scandal, and in fall of 2011 Fisker notified its battery supplier that it could not take deliveries because it was out of cash.
In July of 2012, the company stopped production to renegotiate a cost-saving contract and has not produced a car since.

Source: Yuliya Chernova and Mike Ramsey, "How the Wheels Came Off for Fisker," Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2013.

Fisker Loan Failure Highlights Uncle Sam's Poor Investment History
Fisker May Never Build Electric Cars in United States
WHEELS OFF: HOV LANES AND ACCIDENTS
Daschle's "Lexus" Remark Turns Out To Be Wheels-Off

How the Wheels Came Off for Fisker, NCPA, http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23125&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Obama Budget Proposals Raises Taxes on Middle Class

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 01:11:00 +0000

Higher taxes on the richest Americans are supposed to support middle- and lower-income Americans. Ironically, Obama's new budget proposal for 2014 will target middle-class taxpayers more than any of his previous proposals, says Politico.

The new proposal calls for a cap on deductions, changes the way some tax benefits are calculated and includes a big increase in cigarette taxes.
These proposals would fall disproportionately on middle- and lower-class Americans.
For the first time in his presidency, Obama is proposing to raise taxes on people below the $250,000 threshold.

Some state and local Democratic leaders are afraid that the new taxes will affect their constituents who earn decent money but do not consider themselves rich. Capping the mortgage tax deduction will increase the tax liabilities of many middle-income Americans at a time when the housing market is finally beginning to gain momentum.

Obama's budget proposal seeks to change the way inflation is calculated, which would reduce the annual growth rate of federal programs like Social Security and subsidies like the Earned Income Tax Credit.
The proposal also seeks to cap deductions, which would affect people with taxable income as low as $183,000.

Along with his new proposals that target the middle class, Obama's proposal continues to push for higher taxes on the wealthy.

The proposal seeks to install the Buffett rule, which is a minimum 30 percent tax on income exceeding $1 million and also seeks to limit the amount of tax-advantaged contributions that can be funneled into Individual Retirement Accounts.
Taxpayers earning more than $1 million would see their tax liabilities soar by an average of $82,604 in 2015.

Under the budget proposal, those earning between $75,000 and $100,000 will pay an additional $74 in taxes and those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 will pay an additional $149 in taxes, on average.

The budget also seeks to raise the federal cigarette tax from $1.01 per pack to $1.95 per pack to fund education.
Twenty-nine percent of adults who live at or below the poverty line smoke while only 18 percent of the overall population smokes, meaning the new tax would be incredibly regressive.

Source: Steven Sloan, "Taxes: President Obama's Budget Would Hit Middle Class," Politico, April 23, 2013

The Cruel Things Obama Is Doing to the Labor Market
Regulations Reduce Community Bank Lending
Federal Student Loan Programs Subsidize Waste
Five Myths about the Federal Housing Administration
Oil Boom Raises North Dakota Wages

Obama Budget Proposals Raises Taxes on Middle Class, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23116&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

House Republicans Working to Craft ObamaCare Alternative

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 00:31:00 +0000

Republicans are building consensus around an alternative to ObamaCare that will hopefully lead to the bill's revocation. Rising costs following the initial stages of ObamaCare implementation demonstrate that the necessity for reform is greater than ever, says Joel Gehrke, a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

In 2009, an estimated 30 percent of health care spending was money wasted, totaling over $750 billion, including $210 billion for unnecessary services and $190 billion for excessive administrative costs.
To reduce costs, Republicans are coalescing around two ideas: reducing the third-party payment system in health care and providing patients with additional information related to health care quality and cost.
ObamaCare furthers the current third-party insurance system by forcing more of the uninsured into the exchanges to receive insurance coverage.

John C. Goodman, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, says that Americans mainly pay for the care the same way people all over the developed world pay for care at the time they receive it -- with time, not money.

Because the third-party payment system isolates patients from actually paying the bills they incur, doctors do not compete on the basis of price.
According to Goodman, when price is irrelevant, patients tend to use more services and doctors have no incentive to raise the quality of care.
The third-party system also limits access to care by ensuring that services are only covered and paid for when they meet third-party standards.

To lower spending, Medicare will have to reduce fees paid to doctors, hospitals and other providers, which will force many seniors to visit community health centers and the emergency room of safety net hospitals for care.

Source: Joel Gehrke, "House Republicans Laying Groundwork for ObamaCare Replacement," Washington Examiner, April 25, 2013.

The Cruel Things Obama Is Doing to the Labor Market
Gas Tax on Mileage as an Alternative to Current Federal Gas Tax
Part-Time Workers to Lose Pay under Affordable Care Act
England's National Health Services Offers Future Vision of ObamaCare
Streamlined ObamaCare Application Leaves Program Open to Insurance Fraud

House Republicans Working to Craft ObamaCare Alternative, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23110&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Revisiting the High Tax Rates of the 1950s

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sun, 19 May 2013 00:16:00 +0000

It is sometimes claimed that the 1950s were the Golden Age for taxes. It is said that the wealthy paid more taxes and the system was fairer following World War II. However, an examination of the facts suggests otherwise, says Arpit Gupta, a doctoral candidate in finance and economics at Columbia University.

In the 1950s, very few people paid the very high income tax rates that were aimed at the wealthiest Americans.

While the top tax bracket faced a marginal tax rate of 91 percent, less than one-tenth of one percent of Americans paid this rate.
While the tax rates were very aggressive for higher income earners, average tax rates have remained relatively steady from 1960 to 2004.

The "extreme individual income taxes" of the 1950s and 1960s, which pro-tax advocates use as evidence that higher taxes accompany economic growth, were lower than is thought due to lower rates on capital gains, as well as deductions for interest payments and charitable contributions.

Because of these loopholes and deductions, the income tax rate structure of the 1950s was similar to today.
High corporate income and estate taxes, which fall disproportionately on the wealthy because capital income is concentrated at the top, are the reason why proponents of higher taxes say Americans paid higher taxes in the 1950s.
The entire burden of corporate tax rates do not fall on bodiless entities but on real individuals, and not solely on investors but also on employees.

Despite these reasons why claims about the 1950s and higher taxes are false, there is an even more basic reason why higher taxes did not contribute to economic growth.

Following World War II, postwar industrial capitalism created a period of high corporate earnings and rapid economic growth that we are unlikely to replicate in the future.
The past is not a model for today's revenue debate because the progressiveness of the income tax rate has remained relatively stable despite higher corporate income tax rates.

Source: Arpit Gupta, "Revisiting the High Tax Rates of the 1950s," Manhattan Institute, April 2013.

Hispanic College Enrollment Rates Pass White College Enrollment Rates
Federal Student Loan Programs Subsidize Waste
Data Shows Great Variation in College Results, Earnings
Five Myths about the Federal Housing Administration
Pell Grants Fund Remedial Education with Poor Results

Revisiting the High Tax Rates of the 1950s, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23113&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Danes Overhaul Generous Welfare State

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sat, 18 May 2013 23:46:00 +0000

More than a year ago, a political stunt by a Danish politician revealed the lavish quality of life for Danish welfare recipients. A liberal member of parliament convinced a political opponent to visit a single mother of two on welfare to see how difficult it was. The revelation, that the woman was living better than many full-time workers, has led the Danes to rethink their welfare system, says the New York Times.

The 36-year-old single mother of two, nicknamed Carina, had been on welfare since she was 16 and was receiving about $2,700 a month.
The story of Carina helped tip the scales of the political debate about whether the Danish welfare state had become too generous.
To avoid undermining the country's work ethic, Denmark has been overhauling entitlements with little political opposition.

Denmark, a country with an aging population and high unemployment, has like the rest of Europe suffered from a depressed economy. The result has been a low labor force participation rate as many university students, young pensioners or welfare recipients rely on government aid.

The reforms have opened the eyes of many unemployed who no longer expect the generous subsidies that have made the Danish population "the happiest in the world."
Denmark has one of the highest marginal income tax rates in the world, with the top bracket of 56.5 percent kicking in on incomes more than about $80,000.
The high tax rates allow the country to provide free health care, free university and hefty payouts to every citizen.
Parents receive quarterly checks for childcare and the elderly get free maid service under the current system.

Demographic changes and the generous benefits have led the Danes to tinker with corporate tax rates, consider new public sector investments and begin efforts to wean citizens off government benefits.

Only 47 percent of the total population worked in 2012 and many of those who did worked short hours with all the perks, including an unofficial $20 an hour minimum wage.
Only three of Denmark's 98 municipalities will have a majority of residents working in 2013, suggesting that the current welfare state cannot continue forever.

The government has already reduced various early retirement plans and plans to cut subsidies for students, reduce the welfare rolls by cutting grants and stricter reviews and eliminate disability payments in favor of rehabilitation.

Source: Suzanne Daley, "Danes Rethink a Welfare State Ample to a Fault," New York Times, April 20, 2013.

A Revealing Look at a State Flagship
Rather than Government, Private Philanthropy Should Expand Pre-K
State Solutions Can Improve Medicaid
ObamaCare Rule Creates Health Care Disparities among States
A War on Coal?

Danes Overhaul Generous Welfare State, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23114&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

The Impact of School Vouchers on College Enrollment

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sat, 18 May 2013 23:17:00 +0000

In the late 1990s, a group of philanthropists created the New York School Choice Scholarships Foundation (SCSF), which offered three-year vouchers worth up to $1,400 annually through a lottery system and set of qualifications that determined need. A new study continues the program's rigorous assessment by evaluating the college enrollment rates of voucher recipients, say Matthew Chingos, a fellow in the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy, and Paul Peterson, a professor of government and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

The study tracks 2,637 SCSF scholarship applicants through the National Student Clearinghouse, which has data representing 96 percent of all college students.
The study finds that college enrollment increased by 0.7 percentage points when a voucher was offered, which is statistically insignificant.
However, when broken down by race, African American college-enrollment increased by 9 percentage points, an increase of 24 percent, when a voucher was used for a private school.

Increased African American college enrollment was found across all types of colleges, whether private, four-year or selective. Full-time college enrollment increased by 7 percentage points and an 8 percent increase in students who attended private school was observed with vouchers being offered.

The study found insignificant results for Hispanics with the voucher offer, presumably because Hispanics were more likely to attend college without the voucher opportunity.
Another reason for the disparity between African American and Hispanic college enrollment is the greater likelihood Hispanics already attended higher quality schools.
Students from other ethnic backgrounds were less numerous and less likely to use the voucher when it was offered to them, and were thus outside the scope of the study's results.

The study duplicates results from studies examining Washington, D.C.'s federally funded voucher program, which also found a higher impact for African American students.

Source: Matthew Chingos and Paul Peterson, "The Impact of School Vouchers on College Enrollment," Education Next, Summer 2013.

Hispanic College Enrollment Rates Pass White College Enrollment Rates
Parent Trigger Laws Empower Parents for School Change
Federal Student Loan Programs Subsidize Waste
Data Shows Great Variation in College Results, Earnings
Colleges Cut Prices by Providing More Financial Aid

The Impact of School Vouchers on College Enrollment, NCPA - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23105&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Reasons to Reject the Law of the Sea Treaty

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:54:00 +0000

Oceans cover 71 percent of Earth's surface. As the new focal point of the environmental agenda, oceans are the subject of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty, called LOST. With Secretary of State John Kerry recently outlining the importance of oceanic conservation, a new attempt to ratify LOST should not be surprising, though its ratification would be a disaster, say Iain Murray, an adjunct fellow, and H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow, at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

LOST intends to socialize/internationalize the ocean by declaring the world's oceans "the common heritage of mankind."
Under LOST, any development of ocean resources on the seabed outside the 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone off the coast of every sovereign state would require a permit from the treaty's new governing organization called the International Seabed Authority.
The Authority would require payments or contributions from states or their sponsored contractors to support developing countries.

LOST is essentially a new world government of the sea that redistributes wealth and seeks to control supply and demand of oceanic resources.

The Authority believes that it can create worldwide growth through production and price controls, which will ensure supplies to consumers while promoting just and stable prices.
The Authority also has the ability to set up its own company, like a nationalized industry, that would directly explore and exploit resources for the international organization.
Central economic planning by the Authority would obstruct free market forces and almost certainly result in the misallocation of resources.

Only the free market is best suited to pick winning or losing proposals. LOST seeks to stop seabed mining, which will result in more mining on land. The end result will be interference in the free market, which subsidizes land-based mining operations and denies the entire world access to seabed resources.

The treaty also gives international environmental lobbyists the power to stop economic development and establishes a permanent court to police the treaty.
If LOST is ratified into law, its binding directive would provide the platform the environmental movement to minimize emissions of carbon dioxide.
The funds transferred from LOST to developing countries could subsidize dangerous regimes in countries that have no access or history of activity on the ocean.

For these reasons, the United States should reject the treaty.

Source: Iain Murray and H. Sterling Burnett, "Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) Should Walk the Plank," Master Resource, April 19, 2013. Iain Murray, "LOST at Sea," National Center for Policy Analysis, March 25, 2013.

The Emerging Shape of Immigration Reform

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:11:00 +0000

The Know Nothing Administration

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:16:00 +0000

The President constantly doesn’t seem to know anything about the scandals popping up all around him. He doesn’t know anything about Benghazi; he doesn’t know anything about the IRS scandal; he doesn’t know anything about the seizure of AP phone records – he’s a regular Sergeant Schultz prompting this question…………..

So what do you do around here?

Homeland Security Says Conservatives Are Terrorists, Sharia Muslim Supremacists Are Not To Be Criticized

noreply@blogger.com (The Lexington Libertarian) — Sat, 18 May 2013 05:04:00 +0000

It's not only the IRS persecuting Conservative Groups. Janet Napolitano and Homeland Security have been tucking it to Conservatives for years. Right Wing Extremists they call us because we read the Bible, some of us being Christian, believe in the Constitution, limited government, free markets, the rule of law. We are to be feared and to be exposed. Even veterans returning from Iraq were classified as possible extremists. And the Veterans Administration has recently ruled that veterans returning from combat are too unstable to be allowed to possess a gun. The only terrorists in the United States says Janet Napolitano are US citizens who are Right Wing extremists, gun toting, bible carrying, Right Wing extremists.

But radical Muslims who want to impose Sharia Law on the United States, well they are not extremists and should not be criticized.

The Department of Homeland Security, which under Secretary Janet Napolitano has shown a keen interest in monitoring and warning about outspoken conservatives, takes a very different approach in monitoring political Islamists, according to a 2011 memo on protecting the free speech rights of pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists.

In a checklist obtained by The Daily Caller entitled “Countering Violent Extremism Dos and Don’ts” the DHS’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties notifies local and national law enforcement officials that it is Obama administration policy to consider specifically Islamic criticism of the American system of government legitimate.

This policy stands in stark contrast to the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis’ 2009 memo “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” [pdf], which warned of the dangers posed by pro-life advocates, critics of same-sex marriage and groups concerned with abiding by the U.S. Constitution, among others.

The advice of the Dos and Don’ts list is far more conciliatory. “Don’t use training that equates radical thought, religious expression, freedom to protest, or other constitutionally-protected activity, including disliking the U.S. government without being violent,” the manual’s authors write in a section on training being “sensitive to constitutional values.”

The manual, which was produced by an inter-agency working group from DHS and the National Counterterrorism Center, advises, “Trainers who equate the desire for Sharia law with criminal activity violate basic tenets of the First Amendment.”

The checklist also advised against using moderate Muslim “trainers who are self-professed ‘Muslim reformers’” because they “may further an interest group agenda instead of delivering generally accepted, unbiased information.”

The Homeland Security document also seems to discount evidence unearthed by the Justice Department about the aims of some mainstream Muslim organizations, warning law enforcement not to rely on “unsubstantiated theories” and “conspiracies,” such as the belief that “many mainstream Muslim organizations have terrorist ties” or are “fronts for Islamic political organizations whose true desire is to establish Sharia law in America.”

Homeland Security guidelines advise deference to pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists, Charles C. Johnson, The Daily Caller

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/17/homeland-security-guidelines-advise-deference-to-pro-sharia-muslim-supremacists/#ixzz2TbNDAo2i

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