Revival of Freedom

2013-03-17T20:52:00.002-04:00

Someone posted this comment, so I am copying the comment to a post:

AnonymousMarch 16, 2013 at 3:42 PM

Something happens to me every morning that never happened before, I wake up and wonder WTF is going to happen today to our country and it’s not just gun control.

When I was growing up in the 50′s there was no welfare and very limited unemployment. There was only a program by the government called “relief” that would keep food on your table while you got over the hump. If you were to collect any unemployment benefits you had to prove weekly that you had visited employers and they refused you a position “any position” that would provide for your family. No proof you got your butt out of bed and looked for work… no money. The relief system provided powdered milk, flour, dried beans, canned meat and some awesome government cheese. Not the best situation but it kept you from starving. You as a child were expected to go to school daily and try your best so you could go into college. The thing looming over your head constantly was the draft, if you did not go to college you were drafted into the military for a minimum of two years where they would teach you a trade and/or provide training on how to be mature, then you were cast out into the system to find a job. There were incentives for people to be active and responsible at all levels, something there is not in today’s society.

We are becoming a society controlled by the greedy needy. We elect people that do not go to washington with our concerns but only those of themselves and those that truly get them elected with campaign financing from special interest groups, such as green, gay, oil and protecting the very wealthy in our nation. Also those that service these groups are very well involved. It made my head spin when I found that these groups only comprise 30% of the population = 5% Gay+ 13.6% Black + 11.3% Hispanic. How does 30% of the total population of our country control the other 70%—————> FEAR and Intimidation and our elected officials are expert at spin and denial.

Another recent statistic that I found interesting was 57% of households in which immigrants live are collecting at least one welfare check. This number refers to both legal and illegal aliens living in the United States. The report found that the majority of people on welfare are not even residents or citizens of the country. Only 39 percent of Americans are receiving welfare compared to the totals for immigrants. Why does this happen? Because we allow it to happen.

We sheep have allowed the wolves to make the rules and regulations that allow such behavior and control by the minority of the population, when this is threatened they start scaring the crap out of the elderly and the groups that control and benefit from programs they administer.
It’s time to lead, follow or stand aside for the 70% of the population of our country, put prayer back in school along with a few ass whippings to get our youth back in line and if they don’t graduate put them humping it somewhere protecting our country and learning some discipline. Pass regulations eliminating unemployment benefits to those that sit on their proverbial fat asses unless they can prove that McDonalds refused them work (any job) and if you are not a citizen of our country, no drivers license, no federal or state welfare should be paid. We should also stop paying people to give birth into poverty……. beans and canned meat is good enough provided they can prove they are looking for work.

It’s time to put our fingers in our ears and stop listening to the threats and fear mongering our government spews daily from the hill and send our message to stop. The 70% must rise and take back our country.

Revival of Freedom

We are concerned Americans, concerned about the direction our country is heading, concerned about our future and the future of our children. What happened to freedom in this country? What happened to individual rights? In the name of tolerance, liberals have become intolerant, bigoted and agressively critical of anyone who dares to disagree with their ideology. Progressives, as they prefer to be called, control the mainstream media and entertainment industry resources and they use this control and power to demean and denigrate conservatives and to promote their politically correct socialist agenda. The fundamental principles this country was founded on are under full attack. We are truely facing a war of tyranny vs freedom -- of progressives vs conservatives. Something must be done to preserve our freedom and the integrity of our constutution. We must stand up and speak out now to preserve our basic rights. Stand up and be heard, not with violence or hatred, but with courage and wisdom!

Progressives Use Tragedy to Make Another Run at Gun Control

2012-12-31T14:01:00.002-05:00

Another worthwhile article by Bob Livingston:

The Gun Grab Cometh

December 31, 2012 by Bob Livingston

PHOTOS.COM

Whether the gun grabbers orchestrated the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre or just saw it as the perfect opportunity to rip the heart out of yet another Constitutional amendment, before the bodies of those slaughtered babies were even cold the 1 percent were signaling that 2013 is going to be a tumultuous year for gun owners — and liberty.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (Fascist-Calif.) announced on her website on Dec. 17 that she was introducing a bill in January to “stop the sale, transfer, importation and manufacturing of military-style assault weapons and high capacity ammunition feeding devises.” It will ban 120 specifically named weapons, including handguns and shotguns, and strengthen the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in 2004.
According to the outline of Feinstein’s bill, it will grandfather in all legally owned weapons, but it will require they be registered and the owner fingerprinted. It will require a $200 per weapon tax be paid. The guns will not be transferable, meaning that upon the death of the owner the guns will become the property of the Federal government. It will allow the sale of 900 specifically named weapons, but none that can accept a detachable magazine that holds more than 10 rounds.
She and her fascist cohorts in crime — New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer and Representatives Carolyn McCarty and Jerrold Nadler and West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller, among others — are calling for a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and any weapon that uses high-capacity magazines. Unfortunately, a vast number of the unwashed masses — in a fit of emotionalism resulting from the thought of all those dead kindergartners — are buying into the lie that one more law would have saved those innocents. The above-mentioned 1 percenters all indicated they would steal everyone’s weapons and magazines, placating themselves with the rationalization that it’s a gun and magazine buy-back program, if they thought they could get away with it.
Never mind that purported shooter Adam Lanza broke a half dozen or more laws before he ever shot the first child. Never mind that Connecticut is ranked fifth of the 50 States in gun control laws, according the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence because the State “has strong gun laws that help combat the illegal gun market, prevent the sale of most guns without background checks and reduce risks to children.” And never mind that, according to FBI homicide data, rifles of all types are the least-used guns when crimes are committed.
Of course, Feinstein, Schumer, et al. care not a whit about children, as I explained here. If they did, they’d be weeping over the hundreds of children killed by President Barack Obama’s drone attacks, those killed in car accidents because of corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards and government-mandated air bags, and the 2,000 aborted every day in America.
Instead, they try to turn reason on its ear by equating law-abiding Americans — who own certain semi-automatic weapons — with terrorists. So their answer is to add more layers of laws, bureaucracy and expense on the already burdensome exercise of acquiring weapons for protection (and yes, it can be burdensome in some States).
But you don’t need those scary-looking so-called “assault weapons” to protect yourself, they’ll say. Or, as President Barack Obama reminds us in typical straw man fashion, military-style weapons with high capacity magazines shouldn’t be in the hands of civilians.
Tell that to these men who were left to their own devices during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

When society broke down, law enforcement was nowhere to be found. These business owners armed themselves to protect their property. But had a large crowd braved the guns they possessed and come to loot their stores, the double-barreled shotgun and bolt-action rifle being wielded would have been inadequate, where an AR15 and several 30-round magazines would have been quite a deterrent. As the reporter said at the end of the clip, more than 100 Korean-owned businesses had already been looted. Just not this one.
The gun grabbers will tell you that you no one needs an AR15 because they’re not used for hunting. That would be a surprise to the tens of thousands of deer and other small game felled by them each year.
But the 2^nd Amendment was not put in place just for hunters or for self-defense. It was put in place to protect Americans from totalitarians in government like Jerrold Nadler, who told CNS News: “One of the definitions of a nation state is that the state has a monopoly on legitimate violence. And the state ought to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. If the premise of your question is that people are going to resist a tyrannical government by shooting machine guns at American troops, that’s insane.”
Yes, it’s insane because Americans are prohibited from owning “machine guns” unless they first acquire a Class 3 Federal firearms license, an expensive and daunting undertaking. The weapons on the list to be banned are semi-automatic — one trigger pull, one round fired — not fully automatic. That meme is yet another straw man.
If the state has a monopoly on violence, that is full-blown tyranny. Americans would no longer be citizens, they would be subjects. Nadler has revealed the end game.
Folks, the Sandy Hook shooting narrative has more holes than a piece of hardware cloth, as do the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting, the Milwaukee Sikh temple shooting and the 1999 Columbine, Colo., massacre, for that matter. They’re likely all false flag events. And just like previous ones, they will lead to loss of liberty.
The fallout from these shootings is always the same: a call for stricter gun laws. As Nadler’s comment indicates, this time the gun grabbers are emboldened as never before. But why wouldn’t they be. It was just a year ago that they passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows for the indefinite detention, without charges or trial, of Americans on American soil. And they did so with barely a whimper out of the populace, which is becoming ever more docile and subservient by the day.
The psychopaths in the cesspool of Washington, D.C., realize there is no better time to strike than while Americans are emotionally drained from the visions of grieving parents and the sweet smiles of the dead children.
The truth is that of the 12,664 murders committed in the United States in 2011, rifles were used in only 323 of them. “Knives or other cutting instruments” were used in 1,694 murders; hands and feet in 726; and blunt objects like clubs and hammers were used in 496. A ban on knives and hands and feet would be far more effective in reducing murders, which Nadler claims is the goal.
But, of course, reducing murders is not the goal of the 1 percent. It’s total disarmament. That would give the state the long-awaited monopoly on violence.

The Real Cliff

2012-12-03T10:29:00.001-05:00

The Fiscal Cliff Is A Mirage, But A Real Cliff Is Ahead

Dec. 3, 2012

PHOTOS.COM

Don’t worry over the so-called fiscal cliff. It is just the latest in a long line of crises created by the elected sociopath class as another ploy to extract more wealth from the middle class and further advance its agenda.
The cliff you need to worry about is the one we are barreling toward regardless of how the fiscal cliff negotiations turn out. It’s the hyperinflation cliff. It’s dead ahead. It has become unavoidable. The Nation is in default.
The fiscal cliff is the term adopted to refer to the end of the misnamed George Bush tax cuts (which expire on Dec. 31) and sequestration ($1.2 trillion in cuts to social programs and defense spending that kick in on Jan. 1 barring a budget deal). It’s an unpalatable option to the political class because the political class hates cutting government — which reduces the power of the state — and uses a progressive tax rate to help reinforce the Hegelian dialectic.
President Barack Obama and his redistributionist minions have drawn a line in the sand over the misnamed George W. Bush tax cuts (because Obama extended them in 2010, we will rightly call them Obama tax cuts). Obama wants to end his own tax cuts on those making more than $200,000 ($250,000 for joint filers). This, despite his statement in 2010: “You don’t raise taxes in a recession.”
The United States remains in the old or has entered into a new recession. As John Williams of Shadowstats.com writes here¹ (subscription required): “[T]here has been no recovery in economic activity, since the economy plunged from 2006/2007 into mid-2009, just ongoing low-level stagnation. Reporting of retail sales, production and durable goods orders shows the economy turning down, once again, into what will become recognized as the second-dip of a double-dip recession, likely timed from third-quarter 2012. The reality remains that current economic woes are an ongoing part of protracted economic collapse, not the beginning of a new cycle.”
While the “official” phony-baloney government statistics show U.S. gross domestic product rising steadily since late 2009, real GDP growth remains stagnant, as it has since late 2009, and mirrors real unemployment, retail sales and housing starts.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has instituted QE3 to infinity. This will serve to prop up banks and the establishment, but it will hasten the demise of the dollar. (Watch the prices of gold and silver for confirmation.) It’s out-and-out theft from the American worker, saver and retiree.
QE3 and the unwillingness of the political class to make substantial and substantive cuts to government have prompted Williams to shorten his outer hyperinflation timeline from 2018 to 2014.
America is a warfare/welfare state². A full 20 percent ($718 billion) of the Federal budget in 2011³ was spent on perpetual war, defense and security-related international activities. “This portion of the budget is untouchable,” according the neocon/warfare wing of both parties.
Another 21 percent ($769 billion) went to Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). An additional 13 percent ($466 billion) went to safety-net programs like SSI, food stamps, school meals, housing and childcare assistance, etc. “These are untouchable,” according to redistributionist class of both parties.
And 20 percent ($731 billion) paid for Social Security, which provided retirement benefits to 35.6 million workers and other benefits to another 19.8 million spouses and children of retired workers, spouses and children of deceased workers, disabled workers and their eligible dependents. Social Security is considered an entitlement program, but it should not be since it is supposedly funded by money confiscated from workers — who had no say in the matter — to fund their retirement. The program was long ago looted by the elites and is the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. “Social Security is sacrosanct and untouchable,” leadership of both parties lie to you as they confiscate the funds faster than they pour in.
Obama and his redistributionist minions play the class-warfare game to perfection, pitting the poor against the so-called rich in order to steal more from the middle class. Their big lie is that the “rich” pay a lower percentage of income in taxes than the poor or middle class. The politics of envy — nasty, vile and green wealth envy that causes some to wish ill will or disaster on others who have enjoyed more success and has turned to hatred in the hearts of many — is advancing us toward total totalitarianism and one world governance.
And now Republicans — supposedly the party of low taxes and smaller government — are joining the growing ranks of redistributionists and feeding the dialectic. (Of course, anyone who has paid attention knows better than to fall for the big Republican lie⁴.)
According to Internal Revenue Service data⁵, the highest average tax rates in America are paid by those making between $1.5 million and $2 million. Their tax rate is 25.1 percent. Tax rates then begin to fall on incomes greater than $2 million, as a greater percentage of income comes from capital gains and dividends. Still, those making more than $200 million pay an 18 percent tax rate on their adjusted gross income.
Those making $1 million to less than $1.5 million pay a 24.9 percent tax rate. Those making $500,000 to less than $1 million pay 24.1 percent, and those in the $200,000 to less than $500,000 range pay 19.6 percent. Tax rates below $200,000 break down as follows:

$100,000 to less than $200,000 incomes pay 12 percent.
$50,000 to less than $100,000 incomes pay 7.5 percent.
$30,000 to less than $50,000 incomes pay 4.8 percent.
Those making less than $30,000 paid no Federal taxes⁶ after deductions and credits.

Representative Tom Price (R-Ga.) says Obama’s plan to increase taxes on the rich will generate only enough revenue to fund the Federal government for eight days⁷. What he doesn’t tell you is that income taxes don’t fund the government. They are simply a wealth redistribution/information gathering tool used by the government.
Price is one of the employees of the state who daily work to propagandize the masses on the idea that there is government debt and that money (sometimes called “revenue” to fool the people with doublespeak) to pay that debt must be confiscated from the masses. But there is no debt. Ask yourself this question: If you had a machine that would crank out an unlimited number of bills, would you have debt? Of course not. And that’s what government does.
Government debt is a world-class delusion. It is a tool used to justify theft and redistribution. And it has worked to perfection, pitting the have-nots against the haves, while the 1 percent (government workers and elected class) make out like the bandits they are. Meanwhile, many become ever more embittered over the idea that someone may have a greater pile of worthless green paper strips than they do.
It won’t be too much longer before people will be papering their walls with the green paper strips they’re so jealous of others for having. Study your history, and look to Weimar Germany as the example.
Workers were transporting wheelbarrows of cash to the store for bread, hoping to arrive before the prices changed. The price of coffee would triple between the time it was poured and the time it was consumed and the check arrived. Mothers prostituted themselves so their kids could be fed.
The next U.S. Great Depression is the cliff to be concerned with. Time is short. Store food (buying it now is also a hedge against inflation) and water, guns and ammunition, and personal hygiene items. Accumulate silver and gold. This Christmas, give silver as a gift that keeps giving — especially pre-1965 U.S. silver coins:

Dec. 1, 2000: silver $4.69/oz.; today: silver $34.28/oz.
Dec. 1, 2000: Dow Jones industrial average 14,053; today: DJIA 13,023.

Times will be especially difficult for the unprepared and those who depend upon the system for sustenance.

Wisdom of our Forefathers & Ronald Reagan

2012-11-10T22:52:00.000-05:00

It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.
George Washington

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
George Washington

We are persuaded that good Christians will always be good citizens, and that where righteousness prevails among individuals the Nation will be great and happy. Thus while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government it's surest support.
George Washington

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
Thomas Jefferson

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Thomas Jefferson

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.
Ronald Reagan

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald Reagan

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.
Ronald Reagan

The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
Ronald Reagan

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.
Ronald Reagan

Sitting Duck!

2012-11-10T21:40:00.000-05:00

Remember when Iran tested a short range ballistic missile and America dismissed it as insignificant? Remember when some Republicans proposed that if we're going to spend all that stimulus money, that a significant portion should be spent on the electrical grid/infrastructure, which is in dire need? America is a sitting duck! One EMP (electromagnetic pulse) blast from one short range ballistic missile fired from a barge or non-military ship off our coast would cripple us and send us back to the 19th century. The results --- Our communication systems would be shut down; our military capability would be set back to WWI standards; air travel would be halted; banks would be shut down; inventory and distribution systems would be shut down.

So why is this more of a threat now than ever before? Because Obama was reelected as Commander in Chief. He continues to talk about negotiating with Iran. Iran's leader has repeatedly made his intentions clear -- He believes if he destroys the Great Satin (USA) and Israel that he will earn and preserve his place in heaven. He believes it is his duty to destroy us to pave the way for the muslim savior to return and lead muslims to victory over all non-muslims. So why would he want to negotiate with us about anything? So what is Obama's motivation? He is either extremely naive, extremely incompetent, shares the same belief system as such extremists, or has another set of beliefs that support the destruction of America.

Perspective on Romney's Defeat

2012-11-08T22:17:00.001-05:00

Good Read:

Hello, I’m Wayne Allyn Root for Personal Liberty. What a stunning and miserable day. Ronald Reagan gave us “Morning in America” — as in a new sunny morning. I feel like I just woke up in “Mourning in America” — as in mourning for the loss of this great country. And it’s all because, in politics, “nice” doesn’t work. Mitt Romney is a nice guy, a gentleman. But in politics, nice guys often finish last.
To win the election, and beat a sitting President, Romney needed to do more than nicely debate Barack Obama.
He needed to indict Obama.
Here is the speech that Romney should have given. Had he given this speech, we’d all be waking up to “Morning in America” — as in a bright, sunny day filled with opportunity.

Let me start by stressing that President Obama may be a nice man. He may be a good husband and father. He may love this country. He may think he is doing what is right. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nice or not, Barack Obama believes government has the answer to every problem. He believes in punishment of the successful. He believes in income redistribution. He believes in massive spending and debt. He believes in so many rules, regulations and mandates that no one can open a lemonade stand anymore without permission from government.
Those beliefs destroy economies and kill jobs everywhere they’ve ever been tried. The U.S. economy under Obama is in crisis and free fall. You don’t need to look far to prove Obama’s policies are dangerous and deadly. Europe has been following Obama’s plan for decades: big government, big unions, big spending, big taxes, big entitlements, big pensions, free healthcare, too many government employees and unlimited spending on green energy and high speed rail. The result? Economic disaster on a grand scale. Greece, Italy and Spain are enduring a tragedy few can comprehend. France is next. Someday, we will read about this in history books.
America, under Barack Obama, is following the exact same path.
This is the state of the U.S. economy under Obama. Judge for yourselves:

As of Election Day, unemployment is officially listed at 7.9 percent, the highest for any incumbent since FDR.

More importantly, the real unemployment rate (including the under-employed and those who have given up looking) is in the range of 15 percent — higher than in most years of the Great Depression.

Unemployment in the black community is 14.3 percent.

Unemployment and under-employment for college graduates is a staggering 53 percent.

The Labor Force Participation Rate among men is the lowest since 1948.

Food stamp growth is 75 percent greater than job growth under Obama. Forty-six million Americans are now on food stamps.

The record 11 million Americans on disability is larger than the population of a majority of U.S. States.

Over 100 million Americans get entitlement checks.

One-sixth of all personal income in the United States is now provided by government.

The housing collapse is now deeper than at the peak of the Great Depression.

The net worth of the average American is down 40 percent.

New business startups are at the lowest level in 30 years.

The U.S. credit rating has been downgraded for first time in history.

We are experiencing unimaginable economic wreckage, crisis and collapse from coast to coast.
None of this is a coincidence.
With 60,000 new rules, regulations and mandates in only three years, Obama has turned the entire U.S. economy into a “hostile work environment”:

With Obama demonizing the wealthy and taunting entrepreneurs and financial risk-takers with “You didn’t build that.”

With the Environmental Protection Agency attempting to put the coal industry completely out of business and end oil drilling.

With thousands of new Internal Revenue Service agents hired to harass and intimidate business owners.

With massive new tax increases looming.

With 3,000 pages of Obamacare, containing 23 new taxes.

With 2,000 pages of Dodd-Frank, making it much harder for banks to lend or for businessmen to raise money.

With $115 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities at the Federal level.

With States, counties and cities even more broke and insolvent than the Federal government. The debt in Cook County, Illinois (Obama’s Chicago), is now an unimaginable $108 billion.

You have to question if this is incompetence or a purposeful plan to overwhelm the system with debt and entitlements, to collapse the U.S. economy and weaken faith in capitalism, to turn America into a European social state.
Obama tells us that he “saved” the auto industry. It’s his one and only accomplishment, so he repeats it 100 times a day. The reality is that he merely stole $25 billion from you and me (the taxpayers) to protect the pensions of auto union members who contributed tens of millions of dollars to his election. Now your children owe that $25 billion, plus interest – and you don’t even get a car! But Obama allowed private sector autoworkers to lose their pensions (because they didn’t contribute to him), while closing only auto dealerships owned by Republican contributors. This is all immoral, if not criminal.
Ladies and gentleman, we have to change direction:

Before we have no country left to defend.

Before we have no economy left to rebuild.

Before unions strangle the life out of the private sector.

Before taxpayers are sucked dry to pay for a food stamp and unemployment benefits economy.

Before “free” healthcare adds trillions of dollars in debt to our children’s burden.

Before Obama’s extreme views on energy leave us all dependent on nations that hate America and support terrorism.

Before Obama uses executive orders to render Congress and the Constitution meaningless.

Before every terrorist attack is given a politically correct name.

Before more victims are blamed when Islamic radicals slaughter them over a cartoon, book or film.

Before every Bible is permanently removed from our military bases and hospitals.

Before all religious celebrations, except Ramadan, are permanently removed from our White House.

Or before 6 million Israelis are wiped out in a second holocaust due to a foreign policy of apology, appeasement and indifference.

This is our last stand. For capitalism. For small business. For the American Dream. For our Judeo-Christian values. For our small businesses. For our children and grandchildren’s future. For the survival of the American Dream. And yes, for our guns and Bibles.
When you walk into that polling place to vote, remember that Osama bin Laden is dead. And so is a U.S. border agent who died in the Fast and Furious scandal. And so is our Ambassador and three heroes abandoned and left to die at our Libyan embassy. And so is the U.S. economy.
Remember that even at this moment, as broke as America is, Obama is giving $450 million of your taxpayer money to the radical Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
Remember Obama denigrates those who cling to old-fashioned ideas: God, country, faith, family, capitalism and our American exceptionalism.
Remember Obama presided over a Democratic convention that booed God three times.
Forgive, but never forget. Now, let’s go out and reclaim our country. God Bless America.

That was the speech Romney should have given. The American people needed to hear the raw, unvarnished truth without sugar-coating.
The key to Romney’s getting elected as President wasn’t to debate Obama. It was to indict Obama. Being “nice” and refusing to offend anyone just re-elected Obama. It may lead to the end of America as we know it.
Well, I’m not Romney. I’m not waving any white flags. I’m a Tea Party conservative. I’m going to fight hard and aggressively. And I’m going to help take back our country. This battle has only just begun.
I’ll be back next week with my commentary on what went wrong and why and what the GOP must do moving forward to build a winning coalition. I’m Wayne Allyn Root for PersonalLiberty.com. God Bless.

Obama Wins Re-Election?

2012-11-06T23:38:00.002-05:00

Really? Can this be happening? So there will not be any Revival of Freedom in this country. We allowed the media to propagate lies and get away with it. We allowed the democratic machine to vote illegals and steal votes in many precincts. We were too timid, too quiet, too politically correct. It's over unless some miracle happens that we don't know about yet. So here's a website to visit to pick a better country because the United States of America is no longer a great country: http://www.worldaudit.org/home.htm. The choice is to stay until America collapses or to find a better place to live. Plato said that when the masses discover the purse strings all democracies will fall. We have fallen -- Obama will finish the job. I am angry, hurt and totally demoralized. That's probably quite obvious at this point.

Election Day. Down to the Wire.

2012-11-04T21:03:00.000-05:00

Just two more days till America decides. If everyone analyzed the facts and made a rational decision, it would be a landslide for Romney. But the majority of media sources in this country refuse to present the facts and have worked to propagate Obama's agenda. Liberals know only the politically correct ideology they have been sold and many blacks cannot see past the color of Obama's skin. They are all so proud to have a black president that they are blinded by the rhetoric of Obama's agenda. Truth and facts have no color, but the liberals are incapable of seeing truth and facts. They don't think; they feel. They choose their elected officials with their emotions. It's ironic that the liberals have argued since the early sixties that conservatives are bigots, yet liberals tend to be the most bigoted of all, refusing to hear or consider any idea other the liberal perspective. At this point, all we can do is hope and pray for America.

UN Election Monitors Coming to America!

2012-10-28T20:18:00.000-04:00

So we are allowing UN election monitors to come into our country to monitor our US elections for the purpose of making sure that election officials in various locations do not require identification at the polls. You have to show an ID to cash a check, buy alcohol or tobacco, buy a gun, enter the US Justice Department, but somehow the Eric Holder, who is protected by such ID verification in his Ivory Tower Justice Dept. Bldg., and his socialist allies have the audacity to try to convince the American public that it would be a violation of individuals' civil rights to require them to show a valid ID to vote in our most important national election. The Justice Dept. and the UN are not concerned about Union intimidation at the polls or armed Black Panther members intimidating voters in PA, but they don't want anyone asked to show an ID to vote. Let me repeat that the United Nations is sending election monitors into the United States of America and our Justice Dept. is allowing and supporting them in doing so!!!!

Biden Laughing Throughout Debate

2012-10-12T23:25:00.001-04:00

http://youtu.be/PCtemaHgjyA

Obama Administration Tells Defense Contractors to Ignore Federal Law

2012-10-04T20:45:00.000-04:00

Outrageous! How much more can the Obama Administration get away with? Read Fox News Article below:

The Obama administration has advised defense contractors not to warn employees of looming layoffs 60 days in advance, as specified in the law, as Congress and the White House hurtle closer to a deadline for avoiding severe defense spending cuts in January. Both sides of the aisle say they intend to prevent those cuts from happening, though they face an uphill climb to reaching an agreement.
Republicans particularly object to promises made to the contractors to pick up the cost -- at taxpayer expense -- of any financial liability the contractors incur for withholding the layoff notifications.
"Companies have a choice whether to rely on (the Office of Management and Budget's) politically-motivated guidance or to comply with the law," McCain, the Arizona Republican, said. "But I can assure them that I will do everything in my power to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to compensate contractors who do not comply with the law."
Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the notice amounted to a "threat" to contractors. And warned that the administration was using tax dollars to win over companies to follow the "dubious" and "politically motivated" guidance to ignore the federal law known as the WARN Act.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., also said it was "troubling that the Obama administration would openly encourage the violation of federal law and offer to pay the legal fees that resulted."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., claimed Obama was trying to prevent layoff notices from hitting mailboxes "right before the election."
"This is typical Barack Obama politics -- being supportive of the WARN Act when convenient and against it when it creates political downside," Graham said. "This is the most outcome-based White House in memory."
Lockheed Martin has reportedly already backed off threats to issue thousands of layoff warnings ahead of the election, in response to the administration's latest assurances and guidance.
The offer to pay the legal fees was included in a memorandum issued by the administration Friday that also restated the Labor Department's position from July that contractors should not issue written notices to employees because of the "uncertainty" over the across-the-board cuts to the defense budget and other federal spending that will occur Jan. 2 unless Congress reaches a new deal.
The notices are required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act and generally require employers with more than 100 employees to provide 60-day notices of "mass layoffs if they are reasonably foreseeable."
The projected $500 billion in Pentagon cuts under the so-called sequestration will occur because Congress failed to agree on a deficit-reduction plan in the wake of the deal last summer to raise the debt ceiling. The guidance issued by the Labor Department this summer stated "it is neither necessary nor appropriate" for federal contractors to issue the warnings.
The latest memorandum states the federal government would cover employee compensation under the WARN Act -- "irrespective of the outcome" as long as the contractor follows the Labor Department guidelines.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/03/mccain-vows-to-block-funds-linked-to-possible-warn-act-suits/#ixzz28NfZNYDN

Voter ID Laws

2012-10-02T19:19:00.002-04:00

How can any rational, intelligent human being believe that laws requiring voters to verify their identity before voting are designed to violate any citizen's civil rights? Do the politicos who make such accusations believe any part of what they are saying? Can they really be that ignorant or are they that evil -- so evil that they will do anything to win this election? Requiring identification can only contribute to the sanctity and integrity of the election process. No legal citizen, regardless of race, age, gender, national origin, religion, or even sexual preference would be prevented from voting in any state by any voter ID law under attack by Eric Holder's "Justice" Department. All legal citizens have the right to obtain an official ID from their respective State and all have had the opportunity to obtain an official ID. The fact is that voter ID laws do not discriminate and the only reason for opposition is to ensure that people who are not legally eligible to vote can still vote because the Democrats plan to steal this election if that's what it takes to win. The media has allowed the liberals to take demagoguery to an extreme during this campaign. Every American who cares about freedom, liberty, democracy and the principles of our founding fathers should be outraged. The power of evil men lives on the cowardice of good men. For too long, good people have been too complacent and too afraid to stand up. My God, how far do we have to go before people wake up? Perhaps Americans are just too brainwashed, politically correct, complacent and cowardly to even stand up for their freedom. If so, Americans deserve everything they will get in the near future.

Arab Spring Turns Against US?

2012-09-12T19:33:00.003-04:00

Are the liberals really surprised? Don't they know that the attack and murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others in Libya is just the beginning? The last time a US Ambassador died at the hands of terrorists was in 1979 when Jimmy Carter was President and there are a lot of similarities between Jimmy Carter's Presidency and Obama's Presidency. Both men systematically moved to weaken our military strength, slashing military spending among other things. Both men insisted that all foreign relations issues could be solved through peaceful negotiations. Peaceful negotiations do not work when dealing with Islamic extremist, but these two Presidents refuse to face this truth. Both Presidents supported terrorist regimes that turned more violent and oppressive than the governments they overthrew. I think the biggest difference between Carter and Obama lies with their motivation. Carter was just naive. Obama purposefully plans to level the playing field among the nations so the USA will not be superior to third world countries. When the USA shows weakness, our enemies respond. Peace can only be achieved and maintained through strength. With a President like Obama, our strength will be diminished one step at a time.

Congress Todd Akin Gaffe

2012-08-21T19:45:00.000-04:00

Will the real Mitt Romney, please stand up? I think he just did. Yes, the real politically correct, afraid of the liberal media, moderate Mitt Romney promptly jumped on the politically correct bandwagon to condemn Congressman Akin's comments and call for him to step down from his candidacy for the US Senate. Yes, Mitt Romney would apparently prefer to have Claire McCaskill reelected than to defend the right of free speech. Not one of the news reports I heard yesterday, including Fox News presented Congressman Akin's comments in context and I doubt that Mitt Romney cared about the context. Mitt Romney cared about how quickly he could distinguish himself from Congressman Akin to avoid the tide of media criticism during the media frenzy against Congressman Akin. I am confident that if Mitt Romney will disavow a conservative candidate under shark attack that quickly as a Presidential candidate, he will cave into the liberally biased media when it counts as President should he be elected.

I am a woman who has truly experienced sexual discrimination in my lifetime and I am a strong advocate of equal rights for women, but I am just as much a strong advocate for liberty and freedom of speech. The liberals have worked tirelessly to end individual rights in favor of their politically correct agenda. They are quite bigoted about attacking anyone who has any beliefs other than their own socialist ideas and their double standards are outrageous.

The sad truth is that there is actually some factual basis to Congressman Akin's comments. It is only when his comments are taken out of context and assumptions are added that his comments become so offensive. His attackers want us to believe that Congressman Akin was implying that if a woman gets pregnant and claims she was raped that she wasn't actually raped. That's not what he said. He said there is some medical evidence to suggest that a women's body sometimes reacts against the rape, preventing pregnancy. This is not a new medical theory because I have heard and read it before. There have been actual medical studies that support this claim. But of course that does not mean a woman cannot become pregnant as a consequence of a rape and Congressman Akin acknowledged this in his next sentence. If you want to attack him for believing that abortion is wrong even in the case of rape, then attack his belief -- his opinion on the abortion issue. Attacking him and labeling him as a stupid extremist by taking his words out of context and denying the evidence that supports his statement is nothing more than the same old demagagory that liberals always use. They are agressive, relentless and bigoted in their shark attacks against conservatives and Mitt Romney was quick to jump on the media frenzy bandwagon.

I know that Obama is destroying this country. His record demonstrates that he does not value liberty and freedom. However, I am concerned that if we elect Mitt Romney, he will not take the necessary steps to turn things around and that whatever he does will only be too little too late because he will fear being labeled an extremist by the media. I do not believe Mitt Romney has the courage to be the leader this country needs. America will fall and Mitt Romney will be blamed if he is in office and the liberals will be only too happy to say, "See, we told you so." If I sound cynical, it's because I am cynical. We know Obama will destroy the country if reelected; he has already laid the framework. But Mitt Romney is an establishmet Republican who lacks the conservative values and courage to take the bold action needed to save America.

I admire Paul Ryan greatly, but Paul Ryan is not the Presidential candidate. I do not agree with Congressman Akin's opinion on abortion, but this election is not and should not be about abortion.

Below is an article from the Yahoo headlines today about Congressman Akin's comments that sheds a little more light on the issue.

Akin releases new campaign ad asking for ‘forgiveness’ (VIDEO)

Facing a fury of calls from his own party to drop out of the Missouri Senate race—and a 5 p.m. (CT) deadline to do so—embattled Republican Rep. Todd Akin released a new campaign ad early Tuesday apologizing for his comments about "legitimate rape" and asking for forgiveness.
"Rape is an evil act," Akin says in the 30-second ad. "I used the wrong words in the wrong way and for that I apologize. As the father of two daughters, I want tough justice for predators. I have a compassionate heart for the victims of sexual assault. I pray for them. The fact is rape can lead to pregnancy. The truth is rape has many victims. The mistake I made was in the words I said, not in the heart I hold. I ask for your forgiveness."
On Monday, Republican leaders called for Akin to abandon his campaign against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill, and Mitt Romney condemned the "legitimate rape" remarks.
"Congressman Akin's comments on rape are insulting, inexcusable and, frankly, wrong," Romney said. "Like millions of other Americans, we found them to be offensive."

[Related: Will Todd Akin drop out of Senate race?]
Akin then canceled a scheduled interview with CNN's Piers Morgan. Still, Morgan proceeded to open his primetime show with a shot of Akin's empty chair, calling the embattled Republican Senate candidate a "gutless little twerp" for canceling the sit-down.
"Congressman, you have an open invitation to join me in that chair whenever you feel up to it," Morgan said. "Because if you don't keep your promise to appear on the show, then you are, what we would call in Britain, a gutless little twerp."
Earlier Monday, several news outlets—including BuzzFeed—reported that Akin would withdraw from the race before Tuesday's deadline.
[Also read: Obama on Akin: 'Rape is rape']
In an interview on Mike Huckabee's radio show, Akin apologized for his "legitimate rape" comments but said he wouldn't drop out of the race. "I'm not a quitter," he said.
Following the Huckabee interview, Akin tweeted: "I am in this race to win. We need a conservative Senate."
Akin's new campaign ad hits the airwaves a day after the powerful conservative super PAC Crossroads GPS announced it was pulling its advertising money from the Missouri Senate race amid the political firestorm Akin's comments created.
"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy after rape] is really rare," Akin told St. Louis' KTVI-TV Fox affiliate in an interview broadcast on Sunday. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin said that even if a rape victim does somehow become pregnant, "there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."

Allen West: Obama ‘doesn’t have a vision for the black community’ in America

2012-07-02T22:09:00.001-04:00

Allen West: Obama ‘doesn’t have a vision for the black community’ in America

WAKE UP AMERICA

2012-07-02T20:42:00.000-04:00

Facts to Wake Up America

The U.S. is 244 years old and more than one-third of the national debt has been created in the past three years.

· Gold has skyrocketed a whopping 514 percent in the last five years, from a low of $281.50/oz. to $1,731/ oz.

· China and Japan are now planning to trade the Yuan and Yen WITHOUT using U.S. Dollars for the first time in history.

· The International Monetary Fund is openly campaigning for the U.S. Dollar to be replaced by SDRs (Special Drawing Rights)—a hybrid composed of the U.S. Dollar, the Euro, the Yen and the British Pound. The Obama administration has ALREADY stated their support for adding the Chinese Yuan!

· In mid-2011, China announced it was going to start reducing its foreign currency reserves. In plain English, they want to dump the dollar because they're worried about U.S. government spending and a Fed that's ready to start printing more money on a moment's notice.

· China is quietly purchasing massive amounts of gold. In October 2011 alone, Chinese imports jumped a whopping 4,000 percent over the previous year. Thanks to a secret Chinese communication released by WikiLeaks, we now know that this is a DELIBERATE attack aimed directly at the dollar.

· Want to know what China really thinks about the U.S. Dollar, and our government's efforts to control spending and STOP printing money? Ask Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner about his recent speech to the students at Peking University.

The Chinese laughed Tim Geithner off the stage!

After reaffirming his faith in the ongoing strength of the U.S. Dollar, Geithner went on to say that "...Chinese assets are very safe." HE WAS INSTANTLY INTERRUPTED BY THUNDEROUS LAUGHTER from the usually polite Chinese audience.

Did you ever hear about it? There were a few brief mentions in the mainstream media. But they all focused on the humor of the situation. It was a convenient distraction from the REAL story you're NOT being told...

The Chinese students were RIGHT. The almost 50-year reign of the U.S. Dollar as the World Reserve Currency is cracking apart. The next step is hyperinflation... and a $500 bill for filling your car with gas.

· The early signs of hyperinflation have already begun. The United
  States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that BEEF prices
jumped a whopping 10.2 percent in 2011. Eggs climbed 9.2 percent
and cooking oils soared 9.3 percent. That's a HUGE increase in just 12
months.

· The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is an outright LIE. Starting in 1980, the government actually began CHANGING the formula used for calculating the CPI so the inflation numbers wouldn't look so bad. (Note: Jimmy Carter was president in 1980; Ronald Reagan didn’t take office until 1981.)

Why would they do this? It's those annoying "Cost-of-Living-Increases" for Social Security checks, pensions and other obligations.

If Uncle Sam can't afford to pay you, no problem! Just LOWER the CPI (artificially) and VOILA, everything's taken care of. Except it's NOT really taken care of. That's why so many seniors can't afford to make ends meet on Social Security anymore. Just how ignorant do our politicians think we are!

Today, the CPI is basically useless as a measure of your rising costs. Last year, the "official" CPI was about 3 percent. If you use the "old" 1980 formula, the REAL CPI was closer to 12 PERCENT. Now that explains your grocery and gas bills.

· Last year, the "official" deficit was reported to be a "mere" $1.3 trillion. That's pure fantasy from politicians who don't want you to know the truth. If you use Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)—the same principles corporations are REQUIRED to use—the actual deficit is almost $5 TRILLION. That's four times worse than you're being told.

And the grand total for our Federal debt?
How does $15 trillion sound? But wait, it gets worse...

That $15 trillion does NOT include our TOTAL obligations (like Social Security). It's almost impossible to get a REAL number on this but shadowstats.com, one of the most reliable monitors of government spending, estimates the true debt to be in excess of $80 TRILLION.

You could confiscate the wealth of every
last man, woman and child in America and
still not pay for this debt!

· What can Washington do or more accurately, what is the Obama Administration doing? They'll try "buying" their way out by printing MORE MONEY, devaluing every dollar you own and triggering a hyperinflation crisis.

In fact, some people believe the government is already printing special RED dollars to handle the crisis...

Why? Because it's just not practical to carry $50,000 in your wallet for everyday expenses. (Can you believe we're even THINKING about this?) So you'd need a SPECIAL currency—such as a $10,000 bill, or even higher.

· No WONDER the Chinese are dumping dollars and buying TONS of gold.

· No wonder nations are starting to ignore the U.S. Dollar for bilateral trading.

· No WONDER the IMF wants to replace the dollar with SDRs and eventually a "global currency."

· No wonder OIL is being traded more and more using gold instead of dollars. Example: Iran is now trading oil to the Chinese for Gold, not US Dollars.

The ENTIRE FINANCIAL WORLD is losing faith in the dollar. The dollar is now a financial house of cards ready to collapse (and trigger) hyperinflation with a single breath. That means...

Washington desperately needs your money, and they know where to find it: In your pension plan...

In November 2008, Congress held a little-publicized meeting to discuss the COMPLETE confiscation of all private retirement accounts... (Note: both the House and the Senate had strong Democratic majorities in 2008).

Think the Federal government can't confiscate private wealth? FDR did it in 1933 by ORDERING all citizens to turn over their gold for PAPER MONEY that's WORTHLESS by today's standards. But that couldn't possibly happen today, right?

Argentina grabbed all private pension plans in 2008, and Obama and his union friends are watching.

In 2008, Argentina's President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner confiscated the entire $24 billion pension industry and immediately used the money for social programs that helped her maintain power and then provided subsidies to "favored" industries. ALL for the good of the people, of course.

How did it work? It worked great for Fernandez. By "spreading the wealth" through confiscation, she won reelection in a landslide. (Obama has been taking notes!) But things aren't working out so well for the people in her country.

The Argentine Peso is now in freefall—losing 25 percent of it's value against the dollar and the people are getting restless. No problem for Christina though. She's now imposing government controls on capital, nationalizing private property and making it illegal to hold a public protest (under the guise of fighting terrorism). By the way, she's also seized control of the media as well.

· The Obama Administration has already laid the legal groundwork to do the same with laws and Executive Orders already quietly put in place within the last 3 years. Do you really believe that legal framework was laid without a plan? If reelected, we will all see Obama’s real plan.

Source: Bob Livingston, Liberty.com.

American Muslims Stone Christians in Dearborn, MI (Original edit)

2012-06-27T21:16:00.001-04:00

More Class Warfare from the Left

2012-03-27T20:40:00.000-04:00

The Trayvon Martin Story...

If you doubt that the media and the left have intentionally put a spin on the Trayvon Martin story to stir up racial and class conflict, compare the pictures used by the media of Trayvon Martin and of Zimmerman to recent photos of both men. How old was Trayvon in those early photos released by the media -- 12 maybe, but on the day he died, he was 6'2" and all grown up. And could they have found a worst picture of Zimmerman? The article below summarizes the biased presentation of this story very well. Please read.

The Blog

Media Trayvon Martin, the media and the regression of U.S. race-relations

Posted on March 27, 2012 at 11:13am by Meredith Jessup
Print »
Email »

Conservative author Victor Davis Hanson has a thought-provoking column out this morning which examines the public uproar over the Treyvon Martin case and what it means for race relations in the United States today:

The Trayvon Martin tragedy, by the time the entire process is played out, will reflect poorly on lots of people and groups, who in mob-like fashion have weighed in before all the facts in the case are fully aired. We have reached the nadir when the civil-rights community decries the release of further pertinent information about Mr. Martin as gratuitously defaming the deceased — with the implicit understanding that incomplete and leaked information so far has been welcomed if it reflected poorly on the alleged perpetrator.
The narrative of the shooting unfortunately changes every 24 hours, which suggests the media saw a preliminary narrative it liked and then adorned it in a manner to ensure sensationalism and polarization. …

This is a key point — What role has the media played in fanning the flames of racial tension? Bernie Goldberg takes a good, hard look:

It is understandable why so many Americans would demand justice for Trayvon Martin. But the hypocrisy and the high profile sanctimony of the oh-so-concerned media and the civil rights establishment is downright galling.
Let’s not be naïve: If Trayvon Martin had been shot that night by another black teenager there would be have been nothing from president Obama, no nationally televised demonstrations, no demands for justice by prominent civil rights leaders, and nobody outside his immediate circle of family and friends would even know his name.
We know about Trayvon Martin only because the man who shot him looks white. Actually, Zimmerman’s mother is Peruvian, which makes him half Hispanic, a fact you might not have known if you get your news from the usual places. That would only detract from the storyline: black kid shot by overzealous (and probably racist) white vigilante. For what it’s worth, the New York Times refers to him as a “white Hispanic,” a politically correct description to make sure we know Mr. Zimmerman is a white man – and not “a person of color.” You think the Times would call him a “white Hispanic” if he had won a Nobel Prize for curing cancer?

While white-on-black crimes tend to throw the media into a frenzy, Goldberg notes how thousands of other crimes go unnoticed because there is no attention-grabbing angle for the media to exploit:

Delric [Waymon Miller IV] was a 9-month old baby – a 9-month old African American baby – who was sleeping on a couch at home in Detroit a few weeks ago, when in the early morning hours, someone fired 37 shots from an AK-47 into the house. One shot killed Delric Waymon Miller IV. …
Police think the shooting may have been an act of retaliation stemming from a fight between rival gangs a few days earlier at a bar.
So of course there would be no national outcry, no comments from the president, no rallies led by Al Sharpton demanding justice for Delric, no pieties from Jesse Jackson about how “blacks are under attack” in America. It’s a safe bet the shooter was black. This was just one more case of black on black crime, the kind of story that gets ink in the local papers but that’s about it. …
Journalists who work for the national news networks, or major American newspapers with a national reach, don’t spend a lot of time shining a spotlight on dysfunctional behavior in parts of black America. Stories about such things in black neighborhoods, imposed on black people by black people, would be tantamount to airing dirty laundry in front of the whole country. And that is something liberal journalists who are proud of their good racial manners (along with their friends in the civil rights establishment) do not want to do.

So what does all this mean for race relations in the U.S.? Davis explains (emphasis mine):

The net result of the demagoguery will be more racial polarization, as African-Americans believe that young black males are unfairly stereotyped by society and treated less fairly by police, while non-African-Americans will only be further convinced that the African-American leadership is not concerned with the vastly inordinate rates of black violent crime, given the small percentage of the African-American community within the general population, much less the much higher rates of black-on-white crime – and as both sides argue either for more money to be invested in social programs, or that too much has already been spent in counter-productive fashion.

Obama's "Buffett Rule"

2012-02-05T20:22:00.000-05:00

January 27, 2012

“Buffett Rule” Will Boost Top Dividend Rate to Over 62%, Highest in OECD

by Scott A. Hodge

Lost in the intense scrutiny of the 15 percent tax rate that Mitt Romney paid on his capital gains and dividend income is the fact that capital gains and dividend taxes are a second layer of tax on corporate profits. In other words, before a company distributes $1 of profits to its shareholders, it must pay the 35 percent federal income tax on that profit. Individual shareholders, then, must pay the 15 percent personal tax rate on that dividend income.
When both of these taxes are added together, along with state-level taxes, the U.S. currently has the fourth-highest overall tax rate on dividend income among the leading economies at 52.1 percent, according to the OECD. As the table below indicates, this is actually an improvement over 10 years ago when the U.S. had the second-highest dividend rate at 67.3 percent. The improvement is the result of the Bush-era tax cuts that lowered the tax rate on dividends from 39.6 percent - equal to the top individual tax rate in 2000 - to 15 percent, equal to the tax rate on capital gains.
Ten years ago, the simple average dividend tax rate for OECD nations was over 49 percent. Today, the simple average has fallen to around 41 percent. This is largely due to the dramatic decline in corporate income tax rate across the OECD. These figures for 2011 do not account for the most recent corporate rate cuts in Canada, the United Kingdom, nor the forthcoming cut in the Japanese corporate rate.
President Obama's proposed "Buffett Rule" would undo the modest improvement the U.S. has made in lowering the total cost of capital over the past decade. The Buffett Rule would effectively raise the tax rate on dividend income for millionaires from 15 percent to 30 percent. As the chart below illustrates, this policy would give the U.S. the highest overall dividend rate at 62.1 percent.
Capital is the most mobile factor in the global economy and highly sensitive to tax rates. The Buffet Rule would surely make the U.S. a less attractive place for investment and undermine our competitiveness. Other nations will gladly accept the capital that is unwelcome in the U.S.

Overall Statutory Tax Rates on Dividend Income (Corporate & Individual Rate)
Country	2011 Rate%	2011 Rank	2000 Rate %	2000 Rank	Change in Rate 2000 to 2011	Change in Rank 2000 to 2011
France	57.8	1	63.2	5	-5.4	4
Denmark	56.5	2	59.2	8	-2.7	6
United Kingdom	52.7	3	47.5	20	5.2	17
United States	52.1	4	67.3	2	-15.3	-2
Germany	48.6	5	60.9	7	-12.3	2
Sweden	48.4	6	49.6	17	-1.2	11
Ireland	48.4	7	57.4	9	-9.1	2
Norway	48.2	8	28.0	33	20.2	25
Canada	48.0	9	61.0	6	-13.0	-3
Korea	47.8	10	44.6	24	3.1	14
Australia	46.5	11	48.5	19	-2.0	8
Japan	45.6	12	66.7	3	-21.1	-9
Belgium	43.9	13	49.1	18	-5.3	5
Austria	43.8	14	50.5	16	-6.7	2
Netherlands	43.8	14	74.0	1	-30.3	-13
Spain	43.3	16	52.7	12	-9.4	-4
Israel	43.0	17	52.0	14	-9.0	-3
Luxembourg	42.5	18	52.2	13	-9.7	-5
Portugal	42.3	19	51.4	15	-9.1	-4
Chile	42.2	20	45.0	22	-2.8	2
Finland	40.5	21	29.0	32	11.5	11
Switzerland	36.9	22	56.5	10	-19.6	-12
Italy	36.6	23	44.9	23	-8.3	0
Iceland	36.0	24	37.0	29	-1.0	5
Slovenia	36.0	24	47.5	21	-11.5	-3
Poland	34.4	26	44.0	25	-9.6	-1
Turkey	34.0	27	65.0	4	-31.0	-23
New Zealand	33.0	28	39.0	28	-6.0	0
Greece	32.5	29	35.0	30	-2.5	1
Hungary	32.0	30	55.7	11	-23.8	-19
Czech Republic	31.2	31	41.4	26	-10.2	-5
Mexico	30.0	32	35.0	30	-5.0	-2
Estonia	21.0	33	26.0	34	-5.0	1
Slovak Republic	19.0	34	39.7	27	-20.7	-7
Simple Average=	41.1		49.3

Source: OECD tax database http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/26/51/33717596.xls

Class Warfare and Demagoguery From the Left

2012-01-25T19:40:00.000-05:00

It's not enough for Republicans and Conservatives to just accuse Obama and the Democratic Socialist Party of engaging in class warfare. We have to educate ourselves and speak out to set the record straight and to do our part to stop the the liberals from perpetuating more lies. Recently a news reporter asked a liberal democratic congresswoman from Florida how she would explain to her constituents back home how the average American pays 28% in income taxes, yet Mitt Romney, a millionaire, only pays 15%. The liberal congresswoman used the question to perpetuate more lies and demagoguery. Here are the facts: 87+% of Americans pay less than 15% in federal income taxes. Mitt Romney paid 15% capital gains tax, not income tax. Capital Gains taxes are taxes on investment, not earned income. Capital Gains taxes are double taxes because taxes have already been paid on the invested money and then the interest/profits are taxed again. So as you can see, the liberal media is clearly propagating class warfare with lies and deception and it's just beginning. Investment that results in capital gains taxes often leads to the creation of jobs. President Obama has used this kind of deception, calling it the Buffett rule (for Warren Buffett), to make the argument that the rich should pay 30% in taxes so they will be paying as much as the working class. Never mind the fact that Mitt Romney's 15% in Capital Gains taxes equaled several million dollars. History has clearly demonstrated that a capital gains rate of 30% is a deterrent to investment and to the creation of new jobs. Help stop the lies by speaking out and sharing the facts with everyone you know who might be misled by these lies. The real income tax rates are listed below and clearly show that the rich do pay a higher percentage on earned income, which is very different from capital gains. This was borrowed from Forbes website on today's date:

MoneyBuilder

making sense of your finances

+ Follow on Forbes

Personal Finance

9/30/2011 @ 4:34PM |122,762 views

2012 Federal Income Tax Brackets (IRS Tax Rates)

Nickel, Contributor

+ Comment now

Federal Income Tax Brackets for 2012
Here’s a quick rundown of what the Federal income tax brackets are expected to look like in 2012:

Tax Bracket	Married Filing Jointly	Single
10% Bracket	$0 – $17,400	$0 – $8,700
15% Bracket	$17,400 – $70,700	$8,700 – $35,350
25% Bracket	$70,700 – $142,700	$35,350 – $85,650
28% Bracket	$142,700 – $217,450	$85,650 – $178,650
33% Bracket	$217,450 – $388,350	$178,650 – $388,350
35% Bracket	Over $388,350	Over $388,350

And here are a few related points:

The personal and dependency exemption will rise to $3,800
The standard deduction for married filing jointly will rise to $11,900
The standard deduction for singles will rise to $5,950

Looking ahead, last year’s fighting resulted in a two year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, which means that they’re currently set to expire at the end of 2012. As for what 2013 has in store for us, your guess is as good as mine.

"Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good." Buddha

2012-01-10T19:37:00.000-05:00

Another Town Hall article worth reading:

Complacent Conservatism Is Allowing America To Slide Into The Abyss

John Hawkins
John Hawkins is a professional blogger who runs Right Wing News

Conservatism is more relevant than ever to American life, but much of the conservative movement has grown complacent, lazy, rigid, and out-of-touch. Too many conservatives went to D.C. to make a difference and hung around to make a few bucks. Too many conservatives have given up on moving America to the right and are now content to just hold the line so we don't move any further backwards. That's one of the dirty little secrets on the Right; real grassroots Tea Party conservatism FRIGHTENS a lot of conservatives, especially the ones in D.C. It's not so much because they disagree with the sentiment, but because they've become so demoralized that they instinctively recoil from any meaningful effort to move the country to the right, rather than just stopping the movement to the left.
If you want to see a great example of how weak kneed much of the conservative movement has become, look back to the Bush years when the GOP controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House. What did the GOP do to move the country to the Right? Nothing of consequence besides the Bush tax cuts, which weren't even permanent. In fact, you could make a good argument that the most significant piece of legislation during the Bush years was Medicare Part D, which moved the country to the LEFT, not the right. During the Bush years, there was even a push for comprehensive immigration reform, which was a politically suicidal attempt to pass legislation that was anathema to conservatives, would have hurt America, and would have handed several million additional votes to the Democratic Party. That is how cowed and intimidated many conservatives have become.
The refusal of conservatives in power to show the courage it takes to move the ball forward for conservatism puts the rest of the movement in an impossible position. We're like a football team with a great defense and a mediocre offense that's down by 21 points at the start of the fourth quarter. How do we catch up? We end up throwing Hail Marys in hopes that we'll get lucky. We get overly excited about incendiary rhetoric, "pure" but unelectable candidates, or huge, almost impossible-to-pass bills. We propose Balanced Budget Amendments, the Fair Tax, The Ryan Plan -- and it's not that these are bad ideas. To the contrary, they’re great ideas that would be phenomenal for the country if they passed. But, there’s the rub. The American people are instinctively skeptical of big changes, every Democrat will oppose these bills, and we'd probably need 65 Republicans in the Senate to pass anything of consequence because they're so meek. So, in the end, we propose these massive changes, we talk about them endlessly, and yet very few small steps to the right actually happen in practice. This is the political logjam conservatives have lived with from the late-nineties onward.
Liberals understand this process better than conservatives and play for the long-term. It's how they changed America's immigration system from something that was designed primarily to benefit America to a system that’s primarily designed to benefit them politically. It's how they took control of the colleges. It's what they're doing with gay marriage, right now. The idea is not to force something through; it's to take it one step at a time until it's so much of a no-brainer that even the other side feels heavy pressure to vote for it. The Democrats suffer when they move away from this model, too. Look at their latest “Hail Mary” of the sort conservatives always seem to be advocating, Obamacare. In large part, as a result of that "success," the Democrats had their worst election cycle in half a century and it's still up in the air whether the program will ever fully go into effect. The GOP has had real long-term victories on gun control, taxes, and against the Soviet Union. But, the conservative movement has become too reflexive, too content to rest on its laurels, and too slow moving to follow up. Simply put, the Left seems to want to turn this nation into a godless European welfare state -- more than the Right wants to pulls us towards the principles and policies that have made America great. If you don't believe that, consider how much ground we've ceded to the Left over the last few decades without a fight.
We complain that blacks and Hispanics vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, there's not a single significant conservative outreach effort going on anywhere and there aren't likely to be any soon because we've set up a no-win situation for ourselves. White conservatives won't do outreach because they know they'll be called racist no matter what they say; yet we give scant support to conservative race-based groups because we refuse to veer away from colorblindness. In other words, we're essentially abandoning a quarter of the American electorate to the Democratic plantation without a real fight.
When a school is playing Al Gore's movie, pushing gay propaganda, or teaching little kids about anal sex, where are the conservative parents? All too often, they're missing in action and if you're not willing to fight for your own kids, how are you going to fight for the country? The same goes for colleges. We have 18 year old kids going to universities where they're being taught by Communists and actual left-wing terrorists like Bill Ayers and then we're surprised to find out that they sound like Karl Marx when they graduate? Even if the parents won't stand up, where are the conservative donors refusing to give money to these universities as long as they employ people like that? Where are the conservative state legislators? How can you, in good conscience, vote to funnel taxpayer money to schools that are teaching students to hate people like you?
Other than Fox News, the Washington Times, and a few other exceptions to the rule, the media is controlled by liberals who are almost uniformly hostile to Christianity, conservatism, and capitalism. How does this happen in a country where 40% of Americans are conservative? It's no different in Hollywood. Have you noticed that directors and actors, whose entire careers are dependent on Americans of both political parties going to see their movies, don't seem to have any fear of insulting conservatives? Will they insult liberals? Nope. Muslims? Nope. Christians and conservatives? Sure -- because despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, we're the tolerant ones. We're the ones who'll spend $10 a ticket at the theater to see a film featuring an actor who just made headlines by falsely calling us racists.
We complain that liberals get away with everything from leaving a woman to drown to death to running a prostitution ring and then half the time, we won't even defend the people we agree with when they come under attack by the Left, mostly because THEY'RE BEING EFFECTIVE. We stand by, shrug our shoulders, and say "not my problem" when someone who's doing good work is slandered under the flimsiest pretexts. Then we wonder why there's no one left but establishment Republicans who are afraid to rock the boat when we need someone to stand up for the conservative cause.
Along those same lines, how is it that moderates detested by the GOP base can raise tens of millions of dollars to run for office and enormous sums can materialize practically out of thin air to feed the Occupy crowd, but almost every small independent conservative organization I know of is running on a shoestring? How is it that liberal bloggers can get their stories pushed at mainstream media outlets, when few big name conservative radio hosts and media outlets do anything to promote anyone other than themselves? It's largely because liberals tend to view themselves as part of a growing, thriving movement while conservatives are much more likely to view themselves as part of a stagnating movement; so the people on our side often act like they’re protecting their own little fiefdoms and trying to get as much as they can before it all goes bad.
Last but not least, look at the churches. That's the one major institution in American life, other than perhaps the military, that's instinctively pro-conservative. Yet, what do we hear, even from many conservatives? We need to keep religion out of politics. Really? Because politics sure isn't staying out of religion. There's a non-stop, day-in-and-day-out assault on Christian values in this country. Atheists slur Christianity in the vilest terms, the media and Hollywood mock Christians, all while the government is pushing gay marriage and trying to drive Christianity from the public square. Meanwhile, most of the pastors in this country are too cowardly to speak up for their own faith and beliefs when they're under attack. How many churches in this country have Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and put up YouTube videos featuring exceptional excerpts from their pastors’ speeches? When the enemies of Christianity embrace modern communication methods to reach young Americans while complacent Christian pastors are content to keep preaching to the same, increasingly older choir, with many conservatives giving the thumbs up to that whole process, people of faith aren't being adequately represented in the political arena or in the conservative movement.
It's much better to be right than wrong, but there are a lot of conservatives who still haven't learned that being right is not enough. You can be right and lose an argument, a movement, and even your country. As Buddha once said, "Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good." That's why conservatism is the harder road. We have to be the adults. We have to be the ones who stand up for capitalism, Christianity, and country while liberals are telling everyone to go enjoy yourself, someone else will pay for it, and anyone who says there's more to life than that just wants to ruin your good time. That's what we're fighting against and there are a lot of conservatives who need to remember that not only is this a fight, it's a fight to move the ball forward, not a delaying action before a defeatist retreat into oblivion.

Bill O'Reilly

2012-01-09T20:34:00.000-05:00

Enough is enough! Watching the O'Reilly Factor tonight, something I rarely do anymore ... Bill O'Reilly is clearly a Romney supporter. His talking points monologue tonight was obviously biased against the other Republican candidates. From the beginning of this political season, it has been clear that O'Reilly has and still does favor Romney. Compared to conservatives I respect, O'Reilly is too concerned with being politically correct and supporting the moderate Republican establishment. This election is just too important to follow the same old failed path of supporting moderate candidates because of their polished image and ability to compromise --- or even worse, because we fear the ridicule by the Media of a conservative candidate and fear ridicule from our politically correct friends if we align ourselves with a conservative candidate. It takes courage to stand firm for principles, but we desperately need a candidate who will do just that.

To Raise Taxes or to Cut Taxes, That is the Question!

2012-01-08T21:32:00.000-05:00

Bob Beauprez hits the nail on the head in this TownHall article. This is one of the best articles I've read discussing the effects of tax cuts vs. tax increases and historical proof of which approach works. It's lengthy, but worth reading because we need to educate ourselves every opportunity we have so we can speak out with confidence in 2012.

Obama Fails Math Portion of Presidency Test

Bob Beauprez

"The math is the math. You can't lower (tax) rates and raise revenues."

- Barack Obama, December 11, 2011

When I heard the President make the above statement to Steve Kroft during an interview on the CBS News program 60 Minutes…well, I thought of Ronald Reagan. No, not because Obama seemed Reaganesque, as he would want us to believe, but because Ronald Reagan believed just the opposite, and proved that he was right.
And, I thought of Presidents Harding, Kennedy, and George W. Bush, too. All Presidents that had lowered tax rates that stimulated more economic activity – and increased the total revenue sent to the U.S. Treasury.
But, Obama seemed so sure of himself, as he is pretty good at doing, that I just had to go check the record. After all, he's the one who said, "The math is the math." So, I figured the numbers would hold the truth.
Warren G. Harding took office in March 1921 inheriting a huge debt from World War I and an economy in shambles. Harding had campaigned on a promise to slash spending, and once elected he put Charles Dawes, an experienced businessman and banker, in charge of the budget. In 1921, they reduced federal spending from $6.3 billion to $5 billion. In 1922, they slashed it to $3.3 billion – a reduction of 47.6% in just two years – and had the budget back in balance.
Harding believed the way to increase revenue was to stimulate economic activity and that meant going after the tax code. Harding and his Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon understood that the top tax rate of 77 percent was encouraging wealthy Americans to seek tax shelters and investments that allowed them to avoid sending the government nearly 4 of every 5 dollars they made. Mellon said the following:

"The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income. The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up; wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people."

Harding and Mellon cut all individual income tax rates. The top rate gradually dropped from 77 to 25 percent by 1929. The lowest income earner's rate was cut from 4 to just 1/2 percent. It worked.
The economy roared and the Treasury was the beneficiary of the surge in incomes and corporate profits. Harding's policies even created a budget surplus which he used to pay down the wartime debt. Furthermore, even though the top marginal rates were dramatically reduced, wealth did "carry its share of the tax burden" as Mellon predicted. The tax burden paid by what qualified as "the wealthy" at the time ($50,000 and up) increased from 44.2 percent in 1921 to 78.4 percent by 1928. Harding never lived to see many of the benefits of his bold leadership. He died of a heart attack in August of 1923, but his policies were ably continued by his successor, Calvin Coolidge.
During the Great Depression, opponents demonized Harding and Coolidge claiming their low taxes somehow caused the recession. Herbert Hoover and then Franklin Roosevelt reversed the policies of Harding and Coolidge raising tax rates asserting that the government needed the money, that higher rates were only fair, and that somehow there would be no negative economic consequences. Sound familiar?
Amity Schlaes's great book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression documents in detail how the Keynesian policies of Hoover and FDR prolonged both the misery and recovery of that era, and established a legacy of big government that is at the root of our nation's fiscal problem today.
John F. Kennedy inherited an economic recession in 1961 and an economy still recovering from World War II and the after effects. But, he also faced the growing national security threat from the Soviet Union, The Cold War. Sounding very much like Andrew Mellon, President Kennedy said the following:

"Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits… In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now."

Just as happened four decades earlier, after Kennedy pushed through tax rate reductions, economic activity increased and with it, the wealthy paid a larger portion of all income taxes. Total revenue increased 16.9 percent between 1963 and 1966 (inflation adjusted dollars), and the portion of income taxes paid by those making over $50,000 increased by 57 percent while those earning less than $50,000 increased by just 11%. Once again, lower rates led to more total revenue receipts and a more progressive tax code (higher income earners paying a proportionately larger share).
Twenty years later, Ronald Reagan came to the Oval Office following the Carter era of double digit inflation and interest rates with high unemployment resulting in a deep and stubborn recession. Reagan became the champion of what would be known as Supply Side Economics, or Reaganomics. With a capable assist from economist Art Laffer and Congressman Jack Kemp, Reagan successfully made the case again that lower rates stimulated economic activity and would lead to increased total revenue. The now legendary across the board tax rate cuts worked again. Nominal tax revenue increased between 1981 and 1989 a phenomenal 65.4 percent, with most of the growth after 1985 when the full effect of the tax cuts was in motion. Even in inflation adjusted dollars, revenues grew by nearly 21 percent for the period. "Not bad. Not bad, at all," as the Gipper might have said.
As George W. Bush took office a recession was just beginning. Bush passed a round of tax cuts in 2001 scheduled for gradual implementation. Then, with the effects of the recession still taking hold, the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 dealt the economy an enormous blow. It was obvious that the economy needed a big push faster than the slow implementation schedule passed in 2001 was providing. In 2003, Congress passed legislation to accelerate the implementation of the 2001 tax rate reductions and added more, particularly for businesses. Although Barack Obama tries to tell a different version of history, the lower across the board tax rates led to more total revenue in the U.S. Treasury for the fourth time in a century.
Total revenue increased from $1.782.3 billion in 2003 to $2,524.0 billion in 2008. That's a 41.6 percent increase in just five years; 20.3 percent in inflation adjusted dollars. In addition, during that same period 8.7 million more jobs were created according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As Obama said, "the math is the math." And, these numbers don't lie.
Numbers available from the Internal Revenue Service also prove that the current tax rates – the Bush tax rates – have yet again led to a more progressive tax system. The top income earners are paying a larger share of all taxes after the Bush Tax Cuts than they were before. For all the President's demagoguery against those at the top of the income ladder, as the following chart demonstrates, whatever the definition of "wealthy" is, the top few are carrying most of the load, and more low income earners are paying less or in many cases none at all. Here is a breakdown as provided by the IRS for the percentage of all income taxes paid for 2009 and 2001 ranked according to income category:

Percentage of Total Income Tax Paid by Income (AGI) Category

	2009	2001
Top 1%	36.70%	33.89%
Top 5%	58.70%	53.25%
Top 10%	70.50%	64.89%
Top 25%	87.30%	82.90%
Top 50%	97.70%	96.03%
Bottom 50%	2.30%	3.97%

While total revenue to the federal government increased following significant tax reductions during each of the four mentioned Administrations, it is also noteworthy that the percentage of the GDP extracted by the government in tax receipts went down – another healthy indicator.
In the big Kennedy growth years, government receipts declined from 17.8% of total GDP in 1963 to 17.3% in 1966. Federal revenue equaled 19.6% of GDP as Reagan took office in 1981, but just 18.4% as he left in 1989. In 2000 as Bush was getting elected and just before the recession began, the government take of the GDP was 20.6%. By the time he left office in 2008 it was 17.5%. I couldn't find comparable numbers for the Harding years, but these make the point. Lower rates dramatically increased economic activity creating more total revenue for government while leaving a larger percentage of the GDP in the private sector for further economic growth.
During the current recession because of the massive unemployment and decline in economic activity, federal revenue has declined to just 14.9% of GDP in 2009 and 2010. Unfortunately, spending by the government was 25.0% of GDP in 2009 and 23.8% in 2010 adding $2.7 trillion to the federal debt. The challenge facing government is to significantly restrain spending and adopt policies that encourage economic expansion that will restore revenue to normal levels. Historical data clearly indicates that lower tax rates – not tax increases – is the right means to that end.
Democrats like to posit that the Bush Tax Cuts somehow destroyed both jobs and the economy and caused the current economic rut we find ourselves in. Harding, Kennedy, and Reagan critics made the very same false arguments. In every case, after their policies led to more economic activity and more federal revenue, the politicians ramped up spending and eventually raised taxes. We also know what that did to the economy.
Democrats also like to point to the Clinton economic policies – he raised taxes in 1993 – as evidence that tax increases somehow work. But, the numbers tell a different story; it didn't work all that well, after all. Clinton was the beneficiary of some very good fortune including the end of the Cold War, the dot.com boom, exceptionally low energy prices and low inflation. Giddy with the afterglow of the Reagan economy and his good luck, Clinton and a Democrat Congress raised taxes in 1993. Curtis Dubay, a senior analyst for economic policy at the Heritage Foundation explains that from 1993 until 1997 the economy "grew at a pedestrian 3.3 percent per year." That is solid performance, but not exceptional according to Dubay, and he further notes that "real wages declined, despite the perception that the 1990's were an era of unmitigated abundance."

As the above chart demonstrates, it wasn't until after a 1997 tax cut, passed by the Republican-led Congress, a tax cut "President Clinton resisted but eventually signed," Dubay notes, that things took off in a big way. In particular the 1997 reduction of the capital gains rate from 28 percent to 20 percent "opened the floodgates necessary for entrepreneurs to develop, harness, and bring to market the wonders of the new information technologies," according to Dubay's analysis.
In their frequent "it's all George Bush's fault" rants about our economic woes, Obama and the Democrats conveniently forget to mention other names like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Franklin Raines, Fannie and Freddie, or the Community Reinvestment Act. And, when Obama demonizes all those "fat cat bankers" he fails to hold up his good friend John Corzine as "Exhibit-A."
Obama would have us believe that if the wealthy only paid their "fair share" our problems would be over. But, contrary to his revisionist version of history, there is no evidence to back up his theory. There is no math to support "his math." Obama is making an all too familiar argument for America to commit more of the same mistakes of the past, not for adopting the wise lessons from history.
The President is careful to never define what his upper ceiling of tax rate "fairness" is. But, what history confirms is that Art Laffer was absolutely right when he demonstrated with his now famous graph that there is a relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. Specifically, as taxes increase from low levels, tax revenues also increase. However, there is a point (*T on the following chart) at which taxes become such a disincentive that people don't work as hard or eventually at all, and tax revenue declines. President Kennedy and Andrew Mellon made identical arguments.

Obama intimates that if only a handful of wealthy folks kicked in their "fair share" that all would be well in Washington. In Osawatomie, Kansas he even singled out the top "one hundredth of 1 percent" and the "breathtaking greed of a few" to make his case for higher taxes. But, he avoids the severity of the fiscal mess America is in which has been dramatically compounded by his policies.
Andrew Biggs is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and also the former Principal Deputy Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. So, he's familiar with numbers – big numbers – and, particularly aware of the challenges that await America if we fail to reform existing entitlement programs. Biggs knows that jacking up the tax rate on the wealthy is no real solution. According to his calculations, "to balance the budget over the next 25 years would require an immediate and permanent 30 percent increase in all federal taxes." All taxes, on everybody, by 30 percent, permanently – Harding, Kennedy, Reagan, Bush, and anyone with a little common-sense knows that would crush the economy, but it underscores that our problem is not that the wealthy or any other segment of the economy is taxed too little. Government spends way too much. The "fat cat" that Barack Obama should be demonizing is the one in Washington, DC.
When Steve Kroft suggested that Obama's $800 billion Economic Stimulus "didn't work," Obama got animated and interrupted saying the only thing wrong was that he hadn't spent enough. "We should have done an even bigger Recovery Act," he said. Based upon what? Certainly not the lessons of America's political and economic history!
If Obama were serious and really studied "the math," he would be siding with conservatives arguing that spending needs to be reduced to the 18-20% of GDP that sustained America throughout all but the war years of the last century.
He could champion scrapping the existing tax code and adopting a flat income tax or a consumption based plan like the Fair Tax. That would be a more logical "fairness" argument for him to make, but he won't.
He could stop his administration's deluge of new rules and regulations that are further burdening business and slowing recovery, but he won't do that either.
In Osawatomie, Obama declared that the America of the last 225 years was no more. The age of "you're on your own economics" has ended, he said. The "rugged individualism and healthy skepticism of too much government" – which he did allow was "in America's DNA" – well, apparently the President removed that gene from our gene pool. Henceforth, according to Obama, individuals and families will have to rely on the government to solve our problems and satisfy our wants. The nanny-state is open for business, and the business is "spreading the wealth" because income inequality is "the defining issue of our time." In this new age of enlightenment – or, entitlement - no longer are all men simply created equal, we're now committed to equal outcomes – regardless of input.
If you happen to be old-fashioned enough to still think that with low tax rates and limited regulation "our economy will grow stronger"... well, Obama says you're wrong. "It doesn't work. It never has worked," he said without offering his evidence. That's the "new math" in the Age of Obama. And, two plus two probably equals five, if Obama says so, too. Apparently the crowd was full of people who also shared his mistaken notion of history, and math, because they responded with roaring applause.
And, in this Age of Obama, the government – and most particularly the President – is no longer burdened by the restraint of deriving its "just powers from the consent of the governed" through an affirmative vote of the people's elected representatives in Congress. As Obama told Kroft, "I want to work with Congress…but what I'm not going to do is wait for Congress. So, wherever we have an opportunity…to get some things done…we're just going to go ahead and do them."
Obama is keeping one of his campaign promises – to transform America. We're witnessing it at frightening speed and massive consequence. Kroft pointed out to the President that 75% of people believe he has America heading in the wrong direction. But, Obama was unbowed, even indignant. "We did all the right things," he said, and "we've got a lot more work to do." Once again, Obama refuses to accept the truth in the numbers. Three out of four Americans are sending a message he refuses to accept.
Mr. President you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not enough of them to win -- and certainly not to deserve -- re-election.

Bob Beauprez

Bob Beauprez is a former Member of Congress and is currently the editor-in-chief of A Line of Sight, an online policy resource. Prior to serving in Congress, Mr. Beauprez was a dairy farmer and community banker. He and his wife Claudia reside in Lafayette, Colorado. You may contact him at: http://bobbeauprez.com/contact/

Political Reality 2012

2012-01-06T22:45:00.000-05:00

Of course every election is important and some people will always declare, "This is the most important election in our time." But the reality is that the 2012 elections (Presidential, Senate and House) are the most important elections in our time. During the past 30+ years, we've had our share of elections with liberal democrats vs. moderate republicans. We've had our share of outcomes where the philosophical differences are blurred into obscurity by the political reality that there's hardly a dime's worth of difference between a liberal democrat and moderate republican once in office. We've had our share of men and women who talk the rhetoric to get elected and then bow to the allure of power and money and the prestige of their positions. But not since 1980 has there been such a clear philosophical difference presented to the American public. The 2012 elections offer two clear choices -- two clear courses for our future. We can choice candidates committed to saving our country from further decline and eventual collapse -- restoring America and restoring the Constitution of this United States of America or we can choose candidates committed to a world government and world economy at the expense of American sovereignty and individual freedom. Barack Husein Obama is a Marxist and has already begun laying the infrastructure for his dictatorship. The progressives we are facing in 2012 are not harmless, politically correct liberals with good intentions; they are extreme political activists with an extreme purpose and that purpose is to take over America and destroy this Republic. The choice is a clear choice between good and evil. Don't be naive and think that evil doesn't exist. It does exist. We can't afford anymore moderate, politically correct republicans because we are not facing those well-intentioned naive liberals. We are facing the evil of those who despise Christianity, American values, individual freedom and liberty. We are facing a the threat of a fascist take over. It's time to stand up and face reality and set aside your fear of being called an extremist or a right winger or a teabager.

Unemployment

2012-01-06T22:05:00.001-05:00

copied from ZeroHedge.com

Real Jobless Rate Is 11.4% With Realistic Labor Force Participation Rate

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2012 10:23 -0500

One does not need to be a rocket scientist to grasp the fudging the BLS has been doing every month for years now in order to bring the unemployment rate lower: the BLS constantly lowers the labor force participation rate as more and more people "drop out" of the labor force for one reason or another. While there is some floating speculation that this is due to early retirement, this is completely counterfactual when one also considers the overall rise in the general civilian non institutional population. In order to back out this fudge we are redoing an analysis we did first back in August 2010, which shows what the real unemployment rate would be using a realistic labor force participation rate. To get that we used the average rate since 1980, or ever since the great moderation began. As it happens, this long-term average is 65.8% (chart 1). We then apply this participation rate to the civilian noninstitutional population to get what an "implied" labor force number is, and additionally calculate the implied unemployed using this more realistic labor force. We then show the difference between the reported and implied unemployed (chart 2). Finally, we calculate the jobless rate using this new implied data. It won't surprise anyone that as of December, the real implied unemployment rate was 11.4% (final chart) - basically where it has been ever since 2009 - and at 2.9% delta to reported, represents the widest divergence to reported data since the early 1980s. And because we know this will be the next question, extending this lunacy, America will officially have no unemployed, when the Labor Force Participation rate hits 58.5%, which should be just before the presidential election.

Labor Force Participation since 1980:

Reported and Implied number of Unemployed:

Difference between Reported and implied unemployment rate:

Revival of Freedom

Share it

Stand Up

Progressives Use Tragedy to Make Another Run at Gun Control

Another worthwhile article by Bob Livingston:

The Gun Grab Cometh

The Real Cliff

The Fiscal Cliff Is A Mirage, But A Real Cliff Is Ahead

Wisdom of our Forefathers & Ronald Reagan

Sitting Duck!

Perspective on Romney's Defeat

Obama Wins Re-Election?

Election Day. Down to the Wire.

UN Election Monitors Coming to America!

Biden Laughing Throughout Debate

Obama Administration Tells Defense Contractors to Ignore Federal Law

Voter ID Laws

Arab Spring Turns Against US?

Congress Todd Akin Gaffe

Akin releases new campaign ad asking for ‘forgiveness’ (VIDEO)

Allen West: Obama ‘doesn’t have a vision for the black community’ in America

WAKE UP AMERICA

American Muslims Stone Christians in Dearborn, MI (Original edit)

More Class Warfare from the Left

The Trayvon Martin Story...

The Blog

Media Trayvon Martin, the media and the regression of U.S. race-relations

Obama's "Buffett Rule"

“Buffett Rule” Will Boost Top Dividend Rate to Over 62%, Highest in OECD

Class Warfare and Demagoguery From the Left

9/30/2011 @ 4:34PM |122,762 views

2012 Federal Income Tax Brackets (IRS Tax Rates)

"Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good." Buddha

Bill O'Reilly

To Raise Taxes or to Cut Taxes, That is the Question!

Bob Beauprez

Political Reality 2012

Unemployment

copied from ZeroHedge.com

Real Jobless Rate Is 11.4% With Realistic Labor Force Participation Rate

Revival of Freedom

Share it

Stand Up

Progressives Use Tragedy to Make Another Run at Gun Control

Another worthwhile article by Bob Livingston:

The Gun Grab Cometh

The Real Cliff

The Fiscal Cliff Is A Mirage, But A Real Cliff Is Ahead

Like this:

Wisdom of our Forefathers & Ronald Reagan

Sitting Duck!

Perspective on Romney's Defeat

Obama Wins Re-Election?

Election Day. Down to the Wire.

UN Election Monitors Coming to America!

Biden Laughing Throughout Debate

Obama Administration Tells Defense Contractors to Ignore Federal Law

Voter ID Laws

Arab Spring Turns Against US?

Congress Todd Akin Gaffe

Akin releases new campaign ad asking for ‘forgiveness’ (VIDEO)

Allen West: Obama ‘doesn’t have a vision for the black community’ in America

WAKE UP AMERICA

American Muslims Stone Christians in Dearborn, MI (Original edit)

More Class Warfare from the Left

The Trayvon Martin Story...

The Blog

Media Trayvon Martin, the media and the regression of U.S. race-relations

Obama's "Buffett Rule"

“Buffett Rule” Will Boost Top Dividend Rate to Over 62%, Highest in OECD

Class Warfare and Demagoguery From the Left

9/30/2011 @ 4:34PM |122,762 views

2012 Federal Income Tax Brackets (IRS Tax Rates)

"Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good." Buddha

Bill O'Reilly

To Raise Taxes or to Cut Taxes, That is the Question!

Bob Beauprez

Political Reality 2012

Unemployment

copied from ZeroHedge.com

Real Jobless Rate Is 11.4% With Realistic Labor Force Participation Rate