The Oil Slick of Liberalism

Navy Seal Matt McCabe awaits trial for defending his country; Rev. Franklin Graham still hasn't heard back from the Commander-in-Chief about reversing the ban on Mr. Graham at the National Day of Prayer event at the Pentagon, and Freddie Mac needs another bailout.Sounds like more of that change we're supposed to buy into.  Let's all continue to pray for young Matt McCabe that he, too, will be acquitted and that he can forgive his country for questioning his patriotism and personal sacrifice to keep us safe. Rev. Franklin Graham and his father, the beloved Rev. Billy Graham, generously and graciously received Barack Obama last week for a photo op so it would look as though Mr. Obama wanted to reach out to the Graham family in friendship following a drone attack on the Christian faith by the military.  During their chat, Rev. Graham spoke to Mr. Obama about being disinvited to offer prayers for Mr. Obama and all our leadership, our military, our nation and the world at the Pentagon today.  Mr. Obama assured Mr. Graham that he'd "look into it".  Barack Obama is the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Military.  He can invite and disinvite any person he chooses to speak at a gathering at the Pentagon.  Was it Mr. Obama himself that sent down the order to make sure the Christian faith was not represented by Rev. Graham or was it one of his handlers, perhaps the same guy that had images of Christ covered up at Georgetown University last year during a presidential speech? Rev. Graham vows to show up today on the lawn of the Pentagon and exercise his right to free speech on this National Day of Prayer and he will pray in the name of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in spite of White House objection.

The subject of financial reform and breaking monopolies on Wall Street has taken a back seat these day due to an oil rig explosion, a law enforcing the law in Arizona and an attempted car bomb in Times Square.  The heated rhetoric and threats from the Administration in recent weeks to make sure nobody in the financial sector makes more money than the federal government deems appropriate has all but died away in recent days; there are more pressing issues.  That must be the reason that the news of Freddie Mac asking for over a $10 billion in bailout from us to overcome first quarter losses is only getting a notice in the crawler news at the bottom of TV screens this morning.  They've had at least $50 billion handed over to help balance their books but apparently that wasn't enough to cause Tim Geithner and his crew to shake up the leadership and demand the money changers come before Congressional grilling.  In fact, this Administration is so unconcerned about the waste, fraud and abuse coming from Fannie and Freddie, they've recommended quick passage of law to discipline every other entity involved in the mortgage industry and that they'll take a look at Fannie and Freddie "sometime in the next year."    The banks that so outrage this Administration actually have paid most or all of their borrowed money back; but Fannie and Freddie just keep asking for more and it somehow isn't headline news.

Pray, America.

Riot Police?

The President visited his adopted home state of Illinois yesterday.He spoke in Quincy to a hand-picked group of swooning supporters.  While he chided Americans with respect to how much money he thinks each ought to make, a peaceful group of tea partiers gathered on city streets outside.    Local police donned riot gear in order to 'control'  the suspected malefactors.  Sharpshooters monitored the tea party participants from roof tops with keen eyes set on grandfathers in lawn chairs suspiciously waving  American flags.  Surely, Mr. Obama and his team knew this display of force would be widely spread through videos and photos.  A message needed to be sent.  Interestingly enough, no YouTube videos have yet surfaced showing riot police patroling the Obama supporters that also lined streets to greet the motorcade.  Remember when the President of the United States didn't fear kindly grandmothers that simply want to express their concern over the country they are leaving behind?  Since when does the sitting President think its necessary to line the streets of small town America with heavily armed officers to keep an eye on returning war heroes?   Is it a threat to an Administration when law abiding, tax paying citizens join their neighbors on streets and sidewalks paved w/ their hard-earned dollars to hold up a homemade sign in peaceful dissent? 

When Mr. Obama promised to fundamentally change America,  little did we know the extreme he had in mind.  What can we expect now at future tea parties and patriotic 4th of July celebrations, honoring our Constitution and Founders?  Even more troubling is the anticipation of what might happen in November at voting locations.  Memorial Day will be here soon; a time to remember with humble, insufficient thanks those that served and died gallantly to protect our free speech and right to peacefully assemble. 

Is this change we can all believe in, or dare we hope for something much better?

The VAT: coming to America

I know I've been on an ObamaCare kick for the past few months, and I wouldn't blame you if you are tired of it by now.  I wish I could abandon it for some other topic -- any other topic, in fact.  But, alas, I cannot.  Why? Because I see this new law as the greatest single threat to our continued prosperity in my lifetime.

Those on the left think that conservatives are exaggerating the potential impact of this law.  Paul Krugman, no doubt the dumbest Nobel Prize winner in history, was on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday and talked of the the health care reform law as "a minor change", and is certain that it will both be cost and care effective in improving the nation's medical system.  Indeed, this is the talking point for the Democrats, who want to focus on all the "good" things in the law and act as if the economic sleight-of-hand implicit in the law's assumptions are trivial.  Of course, it's all trivial when you are saving the lives of women, children and the infirm (well, most children, anyhow -- we won't mention the baby killing public abortion funding in the law -- I know the left doesn't like to talk about that part).

And herein lies the problem: the left is touting the benefits, while hiding the costs.  And the costs are a killer -- a path to insolvency for this country.  Why?  Because the numbers just don't add up.  As Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute points out in today's Wall Street Journal, Obama's plan is to tax "the rich" to pay for all this entitlement spending:

President Barack Obama's new health-care legislation aims to raise $210 billion over 10 years to pay for the extensive new entitlements. How? By slapping a 3.8% "Medicare tax" on interest and rental income, dividends and capital gains of couples earning more than $250,000, or singles with more than $200,000.

The president also hopes to raise $364 billion over 10 years from the same taxpayers by raising the top two tax rates to 36%-39.6% from 33%-35%, plus another $105 billion by raising the tax on dividends and capital gains to 20% from 15%, and another $500 billion by capping and phasing out exemptions and deductions.

Add it up and the government is counting on squeezing an extra $1.2 trillion over 10 years from a tiny sliver of taxpayers who already pay more than half of all individual taxes.

It won't work. It never works.

How do we know it won't work?  Because we've tried it before -- in California, in fact.  A burgeoning entitlement and public employee pension system paid for by a tiny percentage of tax payers.  I've written about it before here and here.  California has relied on its top earners to the point where too much of the budget relies on too few tax payers.  And now it has squeezed them to the point that there is no more blood in the rock.  There just isn't any more marginal revenue to gain from raising taxes further, and the "brain drain" to other states has only made the situation worse.

We are now about to embark on a similar experience nationally -- and the numbers won't work any differently there than they have in California.  As Reynolds makes clear, higher marginal tax rates will ultimately lead to LESS revenue, not more.  It's the same lesson that Regan taught us -- that the left refuses to learn: incentives matter:

In short, the belief that higher tax rates on the rich could eventually raise significant sums over the next decade is a dangerous delusion, because it means the already horrific estimates of long-term deficits are seriously understated. The cost of new health-insurance subsidies and Medicaid enrollees are projected to grow by at least 7% a year, which means the cost doubles every decade—to $432 billion a year by 2029, $864 billion by 2039, and more than $1.72 trillion by 2049.

If anyone thinks taxing the rich will cover any significant portion of such expenses, think again.

The federal government has embarked on an unprecedented spending spree, granting new entitlements in the guise of refundable tax credits while drawing false comfort from phantom revenue projections that will never materialize.

At the end of this train comes Nancy Pelosi's big dream: the Value Added Tax (VAT).  The VAT is a tax on goods at every stage of production -- hence the "value added" after each stage (production, assembly, packaging, distribution, etc.)  It's a stealth tax because they don't add it at the cash register -- it's already baked in.  And it's high -- in the UK, for example, that VAT is 17.5%.  And it is in addition to the income, property, capital gains and local sales taxes you pay.

Remember this fact: every nation with a nationalized health care system has at VAT.  It is the only way that the high costs of national health care can be paid for.  Nancy Pelosi is on record as favoring a VAT; she told Charlie Rose in October, 2009:

"Somewhere along the way, a value-added tax plays into this," she said. "Of course, we want to take down the health-care cost, that's one part of it. But in the scheme of things, I think it's fair to look at a value-added tax as well."

The Wall Street Journal has outlined the desires of Pelosi and other Democrats for a VAT on numerous occasions as well:

Mrs. Pelosi is the second prominent Democrat to call for a VAT in recent weeks. John Podesta, an adviser to President Obama and president of the very liberal Center for American Progress, called in September for a "small and more progressive" VAT. Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Podesta argue a new tax is necessary to address the nation's exploding financial liabilities, as if those liabilities exploded on their own. Of course, VATs always start "small" and get bigger. The bills for the Democratic spending blowout are coming due even sooner than advertised, and the middle class will pay, whatever Mr. Obama's campaign promises. 

So, here's the dirty little secret of ObamaCare: the left knows the numbers are wrong and that the program will lead to massive deficits.  They know it will happen and it is by design: the only way to fully re-make America in Europe's vision is to have a VAT that will support the welfare state.

It is a key part of the leftist game plan.

You heard it here first:  The VAT is coming to America, and sooner than you think.

Madison rolls over

As “Black Monday” dawned to the realization that the fraud-filled spectacle of "ObamaCare" has finally passed the House of Representatives, you may have noticed some rumblings under foot.  It wasn't an earthquake in the literal sense, though from the perspective of our constitutional republic, it might as well have been. It was the sound of James Madison rolling over in his grave.

Of all the Founding Fathers, Madison was the one who most understood the importance of structure and process in our new democracy.  He would have been shocked to hear the President of the United States telling the media that process doesn't matter, or the Democratic Majority Leader of the House of Representatives say that the American people don't care about how the government “makes sausage” -- only that it "gets things done".  To Madison, any such talk would be akin to blasphemy: the Constitution was set up to prevent the kind of system where rules could be changed on a whim, and where partisan, parochial "ends" could always be justified by employing "means" which would put government -- and not the people -- in charge.

In short, the sausage making matters.

Madison understood principally that if the American system of government was going to be truly "by and for the people", it had to function in a way that enshrined a balance of power between the legislative and executive branches, thereby preventing both the whim of an executive acting by fiat, or a tyranny of a majority in Congress usurping the rights of the minority party and acting on "winds of passion".  The challenge for Madison and the other Founders – particularly Hamilton and Jay, his fellow authors of the Federalist Papers – was to create a structure of government that simultaneously gave vigorous representative power to the legislature, but which ensured that this power would be divided between different branches, two distinct houses of Congress, with different representations, rules and procedures.  The goal, as Madison outlined eloquently in Federalist 51, was to ensure that government -- in scope and power – be controlled:

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

Principal among these “auxiliary precautions”, according to Madison, was to “divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them by different modes of election, and different principles of action, as little connected with each other” as possible.  The House of Representatives, then, was to be apportioned and elected differently than the Senate. House members, elected every two years and assigned to a relatively small constituency, was to be the “people’s house”.  The Senate, until 1913 appointed by state legislatures, offered equal representation among states irrespective of size and six year terms, insulating it from the vagaries of popular opinion. It also offered clear rules that protect the rights of the minority party from being steamrolled by the majority (thus the “filibuster”). The combination created, in Madison’s words, “opposite and rival interests, and the defect of better motives”.  And these motives were – first and foremost -- to create a government that reflected the will and interests of the people.

Given this, one can only imagine the outrage that Madison would feel today as the Congress – the very institution he crafted so carefully – made a mockery of its balanced powers to break every procedural rule in the book to pass a wildly unpopular bill.  It was a bill so unpopular, in fact, that the Democratic leadership in the Congress knew it could not pass on its own merits, and within Congress’ normal rules and procedures. After the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts as the “41^st vote against ObamaCare”, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid decided to do an end-run around the Constitution by re-writing House and Senate rules to fit their partisan goals . Thus you had Rep. Louise Slaughter (D, NY) putting forth “Deem and Pass” – essentially passing the bill without any vote at all -- and Harry Reid’s decision to in the Senate to use reconciliation on ObamaCare to avoid the filibuster, even though the architect of the reconciliation rule, Democrat Robert Byrd, has said clearly that the rule is not appropriate for legislation of this scope and magnitude and should not be used.

For the left, such opinions are nothing more than inconveniences. The goals of progressive government – universal health care, wealth redistribution and social justice -- are so important, not even the Constitution itself should stand in its way.  Obama has said so himself: In an interview with Chicago Public Radio station WBEZ-FM in 2001, he talked explicitly of the Constitution as a “flawed document” with “essential constraints” that were placed by the “Founding Fathers and Constitution” limiting its ability to promote social justice goals.  Thus the concept of the Constitution as a living document, open to modern interpretation and cultural updating.  This is no longer a theoretical threat to the Constitution.  This threat now sits firmly in power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

James Madison certainly understood one important thing about the nature of man and power: “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”  Indeed, our leaders today are no angels.  And never have we more needed Madison’s prescriptions for a limited government that operates on rules which guarantee the rights of the minority, and which derives its legitimacy from We the People.  They work for us, after all.  We don’t work for them.

The Hurt Locker and Hollywood

Last night I watched my first Oscars telecast since at least 2004.  I will admit to having developed a profound distaste for the event during the Bush years, when poorly educated, overpaid actors professed their opinions (and feigned knowledge) of international politics and foreign policy.  These opinions -- from the likes of Sean (Jeff Spicoli) Penn, George (ER) Clooney and others -- were harsh, anti-Bush and, at a time when American is at war, anti-American.  And when coupled with the snarky comedy of David Letterman and Chris Rock was enough to make me ask repeatedly:"Where have you gone Billy Crystal"? The 2010 edition of the Academy Awards seemed to represent a change -- if not of political perspective, certainly of attitude.  Not only did "The Hurt Locker" -- a film about the U.S. military in Iraq -- run away with the evening, but it's victory was accompanied by an acceptance speech from the film's director that actually paid tribute to American soldiers in harm's way.  While in previous generations such a statement of support might not have been anything unusual, in today's leftist Hollywood the speech by Best Director recipient Kathryn Bigelow is significant, indeed.  Her words, greeted by polite applause by the audience, were not echoed by the film's producers who also accepted the Best Picture award, leaving Bigelow to again repeat her "thanks" to "those who serve" a second time, though this time she did seem a little sheepish (saying "sorry to reiterate") and then throwing firemen, hazmat teams and others who keep us safe.  In a telecast with admittedly very low expectations, and even with Bigelow's slight temporizing at the end, it was a significant moment for Hollywood.

But what does it really mean?  Bigelow herself has called the film "anti-war" -- which may have swayed some dovish voters to support it, though when I saw the movie I did not come away with that message at all.  The Academy may have been rewarding a female director who has gotten herself out of the outsized shadow of her ex (fellow Best Director nominee James Cameron), or it may have found a movie that allowed it to tell the rest of America that it is "pro troops" even as it remains anti-war.  Or maybe in a crowded field where Avatar and its computer generated characters took the air out of the room, the movie was simply "the best of the rest".

We will never know the collective reasoning of the Academy, of course.  But could it mean that Hollywood has begun to tire of the leftist diatribe it has been on for the past decade?  Roger Simon at Pajamas Media asks this question in a piece entitled: "Did the 2010 Academy Awards mark the end of liberal Hollywood"?

The 2010 Academy Awards may not have marked the end of “liberal Hollywood” as we know it, but they certainly put a solid dent in it. With the pro-military “The Hurt Locker” winning over the enviro-pabulum of “Avatar” and Sandra Bullock garnering the Best Actress Oscar for a Christian movie, the times are a-changin’ at least somewhat, maybe even a lot.

But one thing is now certain. It is time for conservative, center-right and libertarian filmmakers to stop feeling sorry for themselves and go out and just do it. Their “victocrat” days are over. No more excuses. “The Hurt Locker” and “The Blind Side” have proven that it can be done. Get out of the closet, guys and gals. If you want to make a film with themes you believe in, quit whining about Industry prejudice and start writing that script and trying to get it made. That’s not an easy thing, no matter what your politics.

Right siders can take inspiration too from Sunday’s Oscar ceremonies themselves. They weren’t defamed for a moment. Missing in action was the usual libo-babble, no extended hymns to the cause du jour or ritual Bush-bashing. And Barack Obama wasn’t even mentioned. Not once. But the troops were – several times by Kathryn Bigelow.

We are obviously long removed from the Hollywood of John Wayne, who embodied American patriotism in film, or of Jimmy Stewart, who heroically flew a B-17 in combat in the real war against Germany. But it is possible that we've turned a bit of corner in the vehement anti-Americanism that Hollywood has taken up since 9/11, though I certainly wouldn't call the success of the Hurt Locker last night a sea change.  As Donald Douglas has recently pointed out, there is an effort underway by Robert Greenwald's  Brave New Films to fund a series of "hardline leftist films on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars" that use U.S. veterans to pursue a very typical anti-American line of exploitation and imperialism.

If past is prelude, I'd say that Greenwald will need a big star or some gratuitous nudity to find a large audience for his leftist fare: previous anti-American films on Iraq have fared badly at the box office, and have failed to find an audience -- let alone win mainstream cinema awards.  The Hurt Locker's appeal stems in part from its avoidance of policy and its gritty, realistic portrayal of young American soldiers in battle.  In fact, I found the Hurt Locker to be a patriotic film -- not in the "Flying Tigers" or "Hellcats of the Navy" genre, but rather in it's portrayal of American kids showing courage, ambivalence and even fear under fire.   These are things that ordinary Americans can relate to, and that is in part why the film has been so well received.