May 21 2010

Got Pain?

Published by boazitshaky under Campaign News

For Immediate Release

May 21, 2010

 

To the People,

 

During the past week I gravely watched our grand State – Connecticut – and our grand Country slipping further and ever faster into a delusional state of denial. It is particularly distressing to watch what career politicians and insiders – Democrats and Republicans alike – have done to our country, our government and public service.

 

Like two peas in a pod!

 

For too long “We the People…” had no true representation in our government. Enough! …is what I hear on Main Street, enough with the dog and pony shows, enough with corruption, ”We want our voice back” and so do I.

 

As a response to the will of the People on Main Street and the shameful week-long hyped political circus, destructive bickering, abuses of true public-service and deflections from the issues that really matter – hello the economy, jobs? – I have decided to seek not, the nomination of the Republican Party for the 3rd District.

 

Instead, I will continue to run for Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District as an Independent. I believe that I can and will better serve the People as an Independent, please join Our campaign and help us deliver Washington the message that We the People got pain – lots of it – and we can’t take it anymore.

 

 

Take care,

 

Boaz ItsHaky

 

No responses yet

May 19 2010

Voters’ anger at Washington may overpower any fixes - got pain?

Published by boazitshaky under Campaign News

Voters sent a clear message on Tuesday: They don’t like the way Washington works. But they sent a mixed message on what would make it work better, which adds up to a virtual guarantee that it might be a long time before Washington actually does work better.

Well I think I called all of yesterday’s elections exactly as they turned out. Read my predictions here.

It amazes me that the establishment, in BOTH parties continue to try to spin away the obvious — voters in both parties want to get rid of the status quo in Washington. This is not about one party and its not just about President Obama — its about people losing in faith in Washington’s ability to do anything other than play petty politics. Every Senate candidate who was supported by the party establishment last night lost or, in Blanche Lincoln’s case, was forced into an embarrassing runoff. And it didn’t matter which party they were in. If you were in power in Washington — you were out with the voters.

Choose and vote Boaz for Connecticut’s 3rd congressional district. Bo the pain expert does have a cure for Washington’s malaise.

No responses yet

Apr 21 2010

So much for transparency

Published by boazitshaky under Campaign News

White House closes Lafayete Park due to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell protesters, kicks out media and visitors

Here is what our president had to say about the subject on January 2009

It goes from hope, to bad, to worse and as one of the reporters said in the video ”ridiculous” - indeed it is! I’d say worrisome.

No responses yet

Apr 16 2010

ItsHaky: “Golden Parachutes Are For the Incumbents, NOT For Me”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

March 17, 2010.

Boaz ItsHaky, candidate for Connecticut’s Third Congressional District, took decisive steps to rein in corruption in the halls of Congress: “Golden Parachutes make Congress a very lucrative place to be,” Bo declared. “I will not participate in the Congressional ‘Cadillac’ health plan. I will not accept the fabulous pension plan. And I will not tolerate automatic pay raises.”

Bo pointed to himself: “The buck stops here!”

Boaz ItsHaky joins forces with many other candidates who are swearing off the sumptuous benefits packages available to holders of high public office.

In Connecticut’s Fifth District race, for example, candidate Bill Evans spearheaded a move to reject the corruptible golden parachutes, and challenged all of his opponents at a public forum to reject them as well. Every one of them did. In the Fourth District, candidates Rick Torres and Will Gregory similarly reject automatic pay raises and pensions.

“It’s a very encouraging trend,” Bo remarked. “We are seeing a class of talented and concerned citizens rising to the challenge in this time of economic collapse and political dysfunction. Together, we are saying, ‘We mean business, and here’s the proof: No special favors, just the business of the people!’”

Some candidates are signing legally-binding contracts obliging them to pay significant fines if they break  campaign promises regarding golden parachutes or term limits.

“Voters want to see some hard evidence this time round,” Bo observed. “In 2006, it was all words. Four years later, and we see just what a Representative’s words are worth!”

On January 5, 2007, it was the ultimate insider, incumbent Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who said, “The American people, weary from scandal after scandal, said enough. They said it was time to clean up Washington to sever ties between lawmakers and lobbyists and elect a Congress engaged in the peoples business in improving peoples lives, not in securing perks and privileges for themselves.”

Bo remarked that the Congresswoman’s statement still holds good, and still awaits fulfillment. But have any incumbent candidates signed on to his and others’ platform to reject golden parachutes and perks?

“I don’t think so!” Bo laughed. “I can’t even imagine it. They’re part of the system. It’s in their blood, so to speak. To make make this [platform] come alive, we need freshmen who have yet to taste the forbidden fruit.”

Vote for Boaz ItsHaky for Congress in November. He is Third District’s best hope for taking down the rampant corruption that’s crippled our Legislature.

One response so far

Feb 23 2010

Reid Correlates Domestic Violence to Joblessness, Indicts Dem Policies

Far be for us to nitpick our “friends” on the other side of the aisle (if “friends” is a proper term) but when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid puts his foot in his mouth, boot and all, we cannot help but stare:

A brilliant observation. Our esteemed Democrat leader basically admits his Stimulus Package has led to rampant domestic violence, broken homes, and devastated families. That in itself is as laughable as the complaint on which he is wasting debate time.

Let’s backtrack a bit. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or ARRA (we pronounce it ERROR) was sold to us as an end-all solution to our economic woes. It would get those “shovel ready” jobs rolling and presumably get all those angry men off the couch and away from Jerry Springer (a source of rage for many) and out in the sunshine, building a better America for all while receiving a good wage.

That’s how it was sold.

How it ended up is quite different. The only bit of the Stimulus to get rolling were the unemployment insurance and COBRA extensions, both of which ensured angry men could sit on the couch that much longer to build rage against the people in their lives.

As we have pointed out, the bulk of the so-called Stimulus wasn’t supposed to get rolling until THIS YEAR, when it should magically turn the economy around just in time for the elections. (Sen. Reid must be counting on a drop in domestic violence some time by October, when disgruntled Nevadan males can be venting their rage with bulldozers and pickaxes on America’s highway and bridges.)

Maybe. We’re not convinced the Stimulus will get many men into useful work any time soon. We have had too much experience with the incumbent Democrat leadership, who have wasted an entire year and trillions of dollars on useless pork and payoffs.

Boaz ItsHaky has been critical of the Stimulus package since it was first unveiled in January 2009 as H.R. 1, the first piece of business for the 111th Congress. As such, it is the poster-child of failure, broken promises, waste, fraud, abuse, and, accord to testimony by Sen. Reid on the Senate floor, domestic violence.

Many economists approved of a massive targeted stimulus to get the economy rolling, but Congress targeted ARRA toward welfare and unstimulating special interests, such as Speaker Pelosi’s marsh mouse preservation scheme. (Naturally, Pelosi and Reid kept the economists’ endorsements!)

Come November 2010, voters of  Connecticut’s Third District will have a very clear choice:

Business as usual, with billions for special interests, breaks for big campaign contributors, and legislation for lobbyists?

Or Boaz ItsHaky: Discipline, integrity, principle, and common sense?

No responses yet

Feb 16 2010

What Does the Constitution Say About Our Money?

Published by Boaz ItsHaky Campaign under Issues

Our Constitution gives Congress direct authority over America’s monetary policy. Among the enumerated powers Article I, Section 8 grants to Congress is this one:

“To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures …”

Boaz ItsHaky, Candidate for Connecticut’s Third Congressional District, considers Sec. 8 to be unambiguous. And, there is no amendment of the Constitution that permits any entity to meddle in this responsibility of Congress.

And yet, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 has effectively nullified a portion of Sec. 8 by granting the quasi-independent banking syndicate known as the Federal Reserve Banking System discretionary control over America’s money supply.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Federal Reserve Act was designed to end a cycle of commodity bubbles that hurt the economy. And, the Act only permitted the twelve Federal Reserve banks to issue loans and inject cash as needed to ensure liquidity in their regional marketplaces.

Things went quite wrong from the start. A sharp recession in 1921 challenged the Fed as a commodity bubble expanded beyond their expectation. The Fed responded by loosening the money supply, but only after the recession had already ended. According to Great Myths of the Great Depression”,

Economist Murry Rothbard, author of “America’s Great Depression”, used a broad measure that includes currency, demand and time deposits, and other ingredients, to estimate that the Fed bloated the money supply by more than 60 percent from mid-1921 to mid-1929. Rothbard argued that this expansion of money and credit drove interest rates down, pushed the stock market to dizzy heights, and gave birth to the “Roaring Twenties.”

And the Great Depression. Once the money bubble burst, the Hoover administration undertook massive government intervention in the form of price controls and excessive tariffs. It would take nearly twenty years for America to climb out of the hole the Federal Reserve had dug. But the Fed’s position was strengthened by the event, not weakened.

By 1971, the Treasury Dept. ceded all powers to the Fed to regulate the value of our money. Recently, we have lived through several commodity bubble bursts courtesy of the Greenspan-Bernanke “loose money” policy: the dot.com bubble in 1998, the housing bubble in 2008, as well as many shifts and market seizures that the Fed was supposed to prevent–but rather created with its loose credit policies, shady deals with chosen favorites, and casino-style credit swaps.

Boaz ItsHaky is on record for auditing the Federal Reserve Banking System from top to bottom. He wants to know why the world’s most secretive and exclusive banking syndicate has been playing dangerous games with America’s hard-earned money.

Even more so, he will strive to uncover the special relationship between the biggest investment banks on Wall Street and the Federal Reserve banking system, as well as the deals these entities may have struck with Greece and other faltering countries abroad. Are We the People going to bail out member states of the EU? Boaz ItsHaky wants to know!

Furthermore, Boaz ItsHaky wants to restore the Federal Reserve Act to its original intent, and firmly uphold the U.S. Constitution to its purpose, beginning by restoring Congress as the regulator of our money. After all, “stop the spending” isn’t just a campaign slogan to harp on. Its a core principle that demands critical judgment from our elected representative. (And a lack of such principle among the incumbents has burdened us with deficits for the last decade.)

Boaz ItsHaky can do this for us if We the People send him to Congress in an historic election in 2010!

No responses yet

Jan 07 2010

What a Dollar Devaluation/Revaluation Will Mean to America

Published by Boaz ItsHaky Campaign under Economy

As we enter the new year, there are consistently troubling signs with our economy. In spite of legislative efforts, home foreclosures have spiked, along with bankruptcies. In spite of TARP bailouts, banks are refusing to loan money because red ink still remains on their books. And, the dollar’s status as a world reserve currency is being thrown into fresh doubt nearly every week.

In this short video recorded on December 28th 2009, retired stock broker and economics analyst Bob Chapman talks to Melody Cedarstrom about the threat of the dollar’s devaluation in the near future. Miss Cedarstrom asks Mr. Chapman if there will be any warnings before the Federal Reserve calls in all circulating U.S. currency in order to exchange it for new dollars at a much-reduced rate.

The dollar above is one of many artistic concepts suggested to the Federal Reserve over the years to modernize our money, since it has undergone very few changes over the last century. But the design of the new dollar is not at issue.

The issue is devaluation, or more correctly, REvaluation.

That is, when the Federal Reserve will call in all of its notes that bear the words “Legal tender for all debts, public and private”. The U.S. Treasury will then cancel all U.S. paper money from 1861 to the present, and order the Fed to exchange old dollars for new ones at an unfavorable rate.

Its never happened before. So, what will the the rate be? 2:1? 3:1? No country has ever called in its currency at a small rate. According to Wikipedia’s article on the French Franc, for example:

In January 1960 the French franc was revalued at 100 existing francs. Inflation continued to erode the currency’s value but at a greatly reduced rate compared to other countries. Only one further major devaluation occurred (in August 1969) before the Bretton Woods system was replaced by free floating exchange rates.

In a previous series of articles on Hyperinflation, we discussed the impact of a devalued dollar on our way of life. It’s worth bearing all this in mind as our Representatives and Senators buckle down to craft the FY 2011 budget, which has all of the entitlements from the 2010 fiasco, plus inflation.

Question is, if the dollar’s reserve status ends next year, as Mr. Chapman suggests, and the Federal Reserve note is dumped by its holders for some other medium of exchange (or just credit), just what becomes of the dollars?

Is the U.S. suddenly flooded with unwanted greenbacks as the reserve currency is exchanged 100:1 for new (Brazil-Russia-India-China) BRIC credits? Will the revaluation here at home be 100:1 in 2011 as it was with the Franc in 1960? Or 200:1?

One thing’s for sure: the middle class will be utterly ruined, and America’s lower class will be as destitute as the poor of the third world.

Every 401(k) with, say, $40,000 in savings will be revalued to N$400. Children’s bank books showing $750 of birthday money will become N$7.50, while that envelope of $4,700 in emergency cash tucked behind the cleaning fluids will be worthless if its not exchanged for N$47 before the Federal Reserve’s call-in period expires.

Only problem is, as history shows, prices will stay the same, in spite of government policy. A Chevy will still cost N$22,000 and the mortgage on that $350,000 colonial will still be N$2,400 a month. Who knows what our pay will be? The old dollar amount, or 1/100th the amount in new dollars?

So, let’s keep this possibility in the forefront of our minds as we go about our daily lives. The incumbent Democrats under Rep. Pelosi’s stern leadership have slammed the doors shut as they hammer out the final details of a massive healthcare entitlement program that will break the bank once and for all.

There’s a reason for this: They don’t want to hear how the American people might lose everything they ever earned, just to have some overpriced insurance.

No responses yet

Dec 22 2009

All We Got for the Holidays Was This Broken Record

Published by Boaz ItsHaky Campaign under Health

Today is the first day of winter, there’s two feet of snow on the ground, and icicles hang from every gutter. The healthcare reform debate should have been a wrap before Congress’ summer recess. Remember, way back when? It was hot, sweltering, lazy and hazy, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was steaming like a double-boiler. Healthcare town hall meetings were raucous and riotous, compared by Democrats to a beer hall putsch.

Some things never change. Like a broken record, Democrats continue to compare opponents of their ever-changing health insurance bill to nazis. According to the Washington Times, Rhode Island’s Sen. Whitehouse was quoted as saying:

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist.

Americans have had to bear Democrat hate-baiting for months and months, even on the cusp of the holidays. And one really wonders if these veteran incumbents really thought about the aftertaste they are leaving with the public, the people who voted for hope and change. Not that it matters. Filled to the brim with bitter anger, the Democrat leadership under Sen. Reid have resolved to pass anything before Christmas. (As though a massive increase in taxes and insurance premiums is a nice present to stick under the tree.)

One can feel the pent-up rage within them. As the Wall Street Journal admits, records were made to be broken, or in this case, played over and over and over, no matter how sick we all are of hearing the same song:

From the outset, the White House’s core claim was that reform would reduce health costs for individuals and businesses, and they’re sticking to that story. “Anyone who says otherwise simply hasn’t read the bills,” The President said over the weekend.

Only problem is, nobody has read all the bills. It’s impossible to do so! Even attempting to link to the online versions of H.R.3962, the Affordable Health Care for Americans Act (AHCAA), is a dead-end, since dozens of amendments lie scattered across the desks of every other Senator. Sen. Reid’s latest amendment eliminates a thousand pages of AHCAA and replaces them with eight hundred of his own, cryptic legislation. And Democrat apologists wonder why people are skeptical, mistrustful, and dreading the future!

Sen. Reid’s stubborn attitude brings to mind a conversation with a lawyer a few years back. The lawyer was shaking his head over a client of his who had run out of legal avenues short of a suit, and would clearly lose if he pressed ahead. Nevertheless, the client demanded a lawsuit be filed regardless. As the lawyer lamented,

My client had invested so much time, so much energy, and so much emotion to the case, he simply could not let go of it, no matter how much in the wrong he was. So I filed suit for him. It went to trial. He lost. And now he’s got a pile of legal bills and a civil fine he may not be able to pay off.

So similarly it is with the veteran incumbent Democrat leadership – however, due indifference – the huge and unbearable pile of bills will be left to US the PEOPLE!

 

 

Here’s the bottom line: This kind of behavior is unacceptable. In fact, it may be clinically diagnosed as pathological, for the Democrats have lost all sense of control. They cannot stop themselves. They cannot contain their raw, unpent emotions. They want to win at any cost TO US!

Generally, whenever people do this, they are considered a danger to public safety, and are taken into custody. In the case of our elected Representatives and Senators, they are a clear and present danger to our safety, and should be thrown out of office. Fortunately, there is an election in 2010, and all of Connecticut’s Democrat members of Congress can be replaced with responsible, liberty loving, equal opportunity and realistic conservationists – minded candidates

With that pleasing thought in mind, all of us in the Boaz ItsHaky Campaign for Congress extend our warm and heartfelt wishes to our readers and the people of Connecticut’s Third District to have  a happy holiday season and healthy New Year!

No responses yet

Dec 17 2009

Why the Debt Ceiling Matters (To Our Creditors, At Least)

Published by Boaz ItsHaky Campaign under Economy

Most Americans have credit cards. And, unless you are well-connected in the credit or banking sector, each card has a credit limit, the absolute maximum the bank is willing to extend to you. But what happens if you go to the store with a maxed-out card? Simple. The cashier will give the card back and say, “I’m sorry. It says your card has reached its limit.”  Suddenly, the magic of the credit card doesn’t work anymore. Its just a piece of plastic. It used to get you anything your little heart desired. Now its good only for cleaning the cobwebs out of your heating vent.

Much like a credit card with its assigned limit, the federal debt has a limit, too. From the way politicians have been acting and talking, the so-called debt ceiling behaves more like an elevator. And yet, its a very real number. It is illegal for the government to spend more money than it can raise through debt sales. In fact, if the government does spend more, they are committing the act of counterfeiting. Now, according to CBS News, there are ways around this:

The [federal debt] ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at nearly $12.135 trillion.  A senior Treasury official told CBS News that the department has some “extraordinary accounting tools” it can use to give the government breathing room in the range of $150-billion when the Debt exceeds the Debt Ceiling.

Sounds like Enron and WorldCom. They also used extraordinary accounting tools. In their case, to make their thoroughly bankrupt corporations look healthy to their stockholders. Now their executives sit in prison for these crimes, while the oppressive regulations known as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) sit on the books unused. (Maybe Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should be the first to be prosecuted under SOX?) CBS News adds a bit of reality to the mix:

Were it not for those “tools,” the U.S. Government would not have the statutory authority to borrow any more money. It might block issuance of Social Security checks and require a shutdown of some parts of the federal government.

Back in the spring, we prophetically warned of Social Security’s insolvency this year, based on the declining revenue intake. Social Security checks should have stopped months ago, because the fund from which they are drawn dried up back in October. The money for seniors this last quarter, to the tune of some $155 billion, has been taken out of the “General fund” which is now dry as a bone. Thank goodness for “extraordinary accounting tools!”

Now, over at rival ABC News, they are reporting that the President has warned America will go bankrupt unless health care reform gets passed:

The President said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an unsustainable trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, the federal government will go bankrupt.

The President is correct. Because its already happened: America is bankrupt. Now, the only short-term solution is to scrape together both houses of Congress and make them pass an emergency authorization to raise the ceiling and force the Treasury to auction off more bonds. And, the House raised the elevator by $290 billion on December 16th. Since they have done this several times, it may seem like the debt ceiling is just a scribble on paper, a line in the sand that can be redrawn over and over, forever and ever.

Not quite.

Just like hitting your credit limit affects your overall credit score, surpassing the federal debt ceiling is going to have a very real impact on the price of America’s debt. For the Treasury, its all about extraordinary accounting tools; for our creditors, its a symbol of insolvency. Buyers beware! Our foreign clients are not going to look at our credit score with gullible eyes, and that means, even if we magically retain our AAA credit status, the powers in international finance will look at us and see AA, A, or BBB (like Greece).

Because of this, our potential customers are going to demand some action from us. They’ll want to see us filling in the hole we’ve dug. Let’s face it: Cutting spending is out of the question. Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to do it, and Democrats are genetically incapable of stopping the spending.

Realistically, there is only one way out of this hole, and the Democrats know it. So, the year 2010 will play out like this:

  • Democrats will draw up the fiscal year 2011 budget with perhaps another 15% increase in discretionary spending (more goodies for their supporters).
  • They will sign stimulus packages and appropriations, and run back to their districts on the weekends campaigning on how much money they brought back to their districts.
  • And, a couple of weeks after they are safely re-elected, they will vote on how to pay for the stack of bills come due.

Democrat incumbents will thank their voters for re-electing them with what? TAXES! And we’re talking the sort of taxes that have never been seen in this country. Emergency taxes, crisis taxes.  New taxes to pay for all the gifts they gave to their district. Taxes to keep America from shutting down!

It’s unavoidable. Its real. Its the only way out of impending financial disaster. The only thing that worries the Democrat incumbents is that they might have to tax us like crazy before the election.

Unless…

Unless We the People send our Democrat representatives a strong message condemning their outrageous debt addiction, make an unbreakable promise to vote them out of office next year, and work hard to elect real representatives for the people, like Boaz ItsHaky.

Bo understands a bit about financial responsibility. If his checking account goes empty, he knows he cannot write another check. If his credit card is maxed out, he cannot charge for a new Bentley. He will know just what to do when the bills come due at Congress. And its NOT taxing Americans like crazy when they’re working to climb out of a recession!

2 responses so far

Dec 13 2009

Go figure! Free Golf Carts Spur Old War Jokes

About two months ago, Reporter John Stossel wrote a short piece in his blog about totally free golf carts for all, courtesy of the U.S. government. As Stossel wrote, The golf-cart boom follows an IRS ruling that many golf carts qualify for the electric-car credit.

Tony Colangelo, in Florida, calls himself “golf cart man” and is already advertising free carts. Golf Cart Man is referring to his offer in which you can buy the cart for $8,000, get a $5,300 tax credit off your 2009 income tax, lease it back for $100 a month for 27 months, at which point Golf Cart Man will buy back the cart for $2,000. “This means you own a free Golf Cart or made $2,000 cash doing absolutely nothing!!!” he exclaims.

That’s certainly an exciting prospect. But what to do with a golf cart, except perhaps play golf, or tour one’s vast estate in comfort? One cannot really use a golf cart as a means of transportation. On the other hand, one can buy new golf carts now, and then sell them for a profit later on: All one needs is a warehouse to store totally free golf carts until Representatives in Washington wake up and kill the credit.

It also raises the question of whether mass producing electric cars are a good idea at this point. An electric car may be far less green in, say, Connecticut’s Third District than a new Cadillac CTS. That’s because the gasoline-powered luxury sedan has advanced emissions control devices onboard, while most area power plants operate on coal. The emissions difference between the two for the same amount of driving energy is stark.

A Democrat solution is for Congress to issue directives on alternative energy production sources, and H.R.2998, the Cap-and-Trade Bill (we call it The War-On-the-Poor Act) that passed the House does just that. However, the sources are years if not decades from coming online, and are not guaranteed to be either efficient or accessible.

Republican alternatives of encouraging the marketplace to make real improvements to product efficiency and energy generation through rewards on completion of a successful system were mocked by the Democrats, who clearly prefer handing out free golf carts now.

These are gross examples of the Democrats’ top-down command economy in action: chickens before eggs, golf carts defined as free transportation, and so on. We have repeatedly paralleled the Democrat plans to the Soviet economy as it was practiced, as when GosPlan had trainloads of teddy-bear erasers crossing the Russian countryside for no purpose except “The Plan said so.”

But one can look at America’s past experience with top-down command economies and derive similar conclusions. Any senior citizen who served in World War II or Korea can probably entertain memories of supply jokes.

For example, the quartermaster for twelfth division orders up a million rounds of ammunition, but instead, a million rolls of toilet paper arrive. “I guess we’ll have to wipe up those Germans with these,” crows a wise-cracking corporal signing the invoice, “hope they assault the latrine after we’re through!”

Granted, inefficiency had to be endemic in an economy turned on its head by the exigency of war. But that was war! To see the veteran incumbent Democrat leadership scrambling for absolute authority over the American economy during this last year, one would think America is engaged in World War III.

All right. The House of Representatives is wrapping up debate on a combined Appropriations bill whose price tag exceeds anything ever seen in Congress, and is once again raising a “debt ceiling” (it’s more like an elevator than a ceiling) in order to pay for someone’s golfing experience.

Bottom line: anyone who thinks Speaker Pelosi’s 111th Congress is healthy, that it’s doing the peoples’ work, and is a responsible legislative body will probably go out and buy their golf cart at full price.

One response so far

Dec 09 2009

Why Do Kids Put Up With This? (Robbed From Birth, Fooled by Democrats, Etc.)

The challenging state of government welfare entitlement programs may make the best recruitment tools yet for young people who are either detached from politics or completely sold to the Democrats. Take Social Security, for example.

Social Security is a trust fund whereby the current generation of workers pays the retired generation, with the promise and expectation that they, too, shall receive pay upon retirement. It is simple at the core, but the stark reality is, paying off early investors with funds taken from later investors is defined as a Ponzi scheme. Its sort of what Bernie Madoff was doing, until the money ran out. So, Bill Frezza over at RealClearMarkets recently asked:

Why do kids put up with this? Last time I checked they were old enough to vote. An entire generation is being systematically robbed by their parents with nary a peep. Why aren’t they marching in the streets like we did? When they do show up at the polls like sheep ready to be shorn, they pull the lever for kumbaya politicians promising to stick them with the bill for an ever-expanding menu of unfunded middle class entitlements.

And that’s the biggest reason why Social Security is going bankrupt, and much sooner than people think. The “trust fund” has run out of trust because it is raided on a daily basis to pay for hundreds of other entitlement programs that have nothing to do with retirement but would end if it weren’t for Social Security.

At any rate, Frezza concludes the kids aren’t marching because their baby-boomer parents failed to raise Gen-X to maturity, and their kids are basically unaware of the impending disaster being thrown upon them by their parents. Perhaps. But perhaps their parents also failed to instill a sense of social outrage to match an ability to think clearly. (Just who was matching and protesting in the 60s, anyway?)

Taking over where the parents left off, Democrats are extremely successful in recruiting young people as party servants. Go to any polling place on election day, and one is bound to find teens holding Democrat campaign signs nearby. Republicans have failed to attract youth members, and that’s partly why the party rolls are declining precipitiously. So, what makes the Democrats so appealing to the youth? There are two reasons.

First, there is an active outreach to welcome young people and engage them in party activities. Young people are recruited for social engagements, and those who choose to be active participants are rewarded with accolades, recognition, and responsibility.

Second, the Democrats appeal to youthful idealism. They successfully invoke community, activitism, group participation, and social justice. As a political entity, they promise to help people and make the world a better place, which is attractive to young people in their late teens and early 20s, who themselves are starting to live independently but feel a need for external help and a place to belong.

Naturally, the Democrat propaganda is just that: they lure young people into their machine with idealism just long enough to have some sort of investment in the system: a political career in the nitty-gritty powerhouse, or just clinging to the hope that a better world is just around the corner if only Democrats win the next election and finally make all those promises come true.

For Republicans to even think about success in the 21st century, they had better take a cue from the Democrats and appeal directly to a class of voters who are alive now and (we hope) will have a longer and fuller life than the previous generations.

There is no reason Republicans cannot seize the mantle of youthful idealism and social justice, and perhaps the best way to do it is to appeal to simple logic. Ask a (very) young person to consider the following:

  • What if the government has a social program that helps poor people?
  • What if that program relies on tax money to keep it active, so it continues to help the needy?
  • Now, what if the government spends so much money on other things, there’s not enough left to help the poor?
  • What if the government tries to raise taxes to get more money, but it makes businesses close and the unemployed workers become poor?
  • What happens when these people and others like them need help from that program?
  • How much longer before you and your friends will be asking for help from that program, but its been closed because there’s no more money in it?

Ultimately, you’re asking young people to wonder what good a comprehensive socialized system will do anyone when it fails.

Like social security will.

The philosophical difference between Republicans and Democrats should not be whether the government should be helping people, but rather how those people are being helped. For the Democrats, a top-down command-authority is clearly their solution for society’s woes. Thomas More’s Isle of Utopia was a dictatorship, after all.

Republicans should rather encourage youth to employ their unique individualism to solving communal problems, to recognize the individual as the source of community strength, and that “people power” is actually practiced and embraced by the party of Lincoln, the same who freed the slaves on the basis of equality and liberty.

For Republicans to end the Democrat domination of the young voter, clear principles will not just need to be advertised, they will need to be highlighted, promoted, and most importantly, put into practice!

No responses yet

Dec 06 2009

Democrat Jobs Summit Takes Cue from Politburo?

Considering the latest unemployment figures, it is particularly important to ask from where the incumbent Democrat leadership is taking their action cues. The recent Jobs Summit festively held at the White House appears to take its cue from the Soviet politburo. This may not be by design, of course. It may simply be a consequence of the dominant political party in America attempting to create a top-down command economy.

Now, back in the Soviet Union, there was a ritual in the politburo that preceded any major directive. The ranking members would declare, “Comrades! Let us go forth and build communism!” The junior members would respond “Yes We Shall!” Then the ranking members would unveil plans for a complete, self-contained industrial facility, and the politburo as a whole would vote unanimously to devote state resources to its completion.

This sort of top-down command economy was put into operation in the 1920s to industrialise the Soviet Union. Entire cities appeared out of nowhere. Soviet engineers built an exact replica of Gary, Indiana on the Siberian steppe. Even the streets were laid out in the same pattern. The industrial super-center called Magnitogorsk (magnet mountain) created a quarter of a million jobs in a place inhabited by a few hundred nomads.

Now, back at the White House, the jobs summit invitees immediately broke into six groups vying for attention from the hosts for their little projects.  As The Politico reports,

Corporate titans said they wanted Obama to lower the corporate tax rate. Union representatives suggested the government create more government jobs. And a teacher’s union representative urged the feds to build new community schools in rural areas. Obama touted several of the suggestions that came out of the White House brainstorming session — including tax incentives for job creation, improving the credit markets, and use community colleges as training centers for employees. “Some of them I think we can translate immediately into administration plans and potentially legislation,” Mr. Obama said.

The gathering preceded the expectation of further job losses in the American economy; fortunately, only 11,000 job losses were reported, although its not clear if these figures incorporate the questionable claims of “jobs created or saved” coming out of the Stimulus program. The Democrats especially focused attention on turning national resources toward their own pet projects, such as Green Jobs creation. One session of the Jobs Summit was devoted exclusively to expanding this sector. As the Associated Press reports,

Obama also dropped in on a group looking at job creation tied to spending on the nation’s aging infrastructure. He told participants he believed a number of “tensions” made development of green jobs difficult, including a struggle with Congress on legislation to combat global warming, the federal government’s limited ability to invest the billions needed and the short-term push to create immediate jobs that might clash with long-term environmental initiatives.

The biggest tension involving green jobs is that they are unprofitable at the moment, and cannot compete on the open market with traditional industry and energy. Economists are divided as to whether green jobs are economically viable once a fully developed infrastructure is in place. And clearly, the only resources to pay for this infrastructure must come from the American tax-payer.

Still,  the top-down command economy model was solidified when the President urged attendees at the Jobs Summit to build on successes:

He cited the success of the administration’s Cash for Clunkers program, noting that car companies carried much of the marketing responsibilities that helped make the effort so popular. Home improvement companies like Home Depot would be key as partners in any future jobs program focusing on energy efficiencies.

Cash for Clunkers is a perfect example of the top-down command economy in its infancy. In this case, the Cash for Clunkers program was economic activity based entirely on the American tax-payer, a transfer of wealth and resources from tax revenue through multiple bureaucracies and ultimately benefiting off-shore industrial complexes such as Hyundai and Kia.

A total of $24,000 per car was spent by the Democrats’ pet program to get a person to sign a loan for a new car they likely could not afford. Only $4,000 of that amount went to the incentive. The other $20,000 went to administrative costs and to junking an otherwise good vehicle. 

Two benefits came out of Cash for Clunkers: the Democrats got a “roaring success” to propagandize, and the Chinese government got millions of tons of steel as an interest payment on all that U.S. debt they own. America’s taste of Magnitogorsk may have been palatable, but not particularly digestible.

Well, today Gary, Indiana and Magnitogorsk are like identical twins separated by thousands of miles. They are eery clones of one another: burnt-out wastelands, brownfields, abandoned tracts of factory buildings slowly returning to the elements from which they were raised.

Gary fell as the American economy turned away from heavy industry. Magnitogorsk fell because the top of the command economy fell before it. When the directives from the politburo failed to fill in the massive trench between Magnitogorsk’s operating costs and its useful industrial output, stalled factories became the norm.

At least Gary’s ex-workers were able to integrate into America’s growing service sector, while the city itself has rebounded by reinventing and repurposing its town spaces in a sort of renaissance; Magnitogorsk’s factory workers still receive a reduced state salary just for keeping the aging furnaces warm, and the whole edifice stands on the wind-blown Siberian steppe, patiently awaiting another directive from the politburo.

There is a stark lesson to be learned from the Soviet Union’s model. The top-down command economy cannot function without front-loaded waste and abuse. And, it is ultimately doomed to failure.

Unfortunately, the Democrat party with its natural affection for a top-down command structure is unwilling to learn the tough tasks. America’s largest corporate executives, the same guys who financed the Democrats’ stunning victories in 2006 and 2008, were pleading for a little elbow room in the new economy. But it seems as though the Democrats are ungrateful for their help. And that’s because getting out of the way of America’s independent drive for success, progress, and enlightenment is not on the Democrat agenda.

No responses yet

Next »

  • Viagra online
  • Order cheap cialis
  • Buy viagra no prescription
  • Cialis online
  • Buy generic cialis
  • Order propecia no prescription
  • Cheap propecia online
  • Propecia online pharmacy
  • Order levitra online
  • Cheap price cialis
  • Online pharmacy levitra
  • Buy viagra online
  • Buy discount levitra
  • Cheap cialis online
  • Propecia hair loss