The Intransigent Conservative: Gun Control

Showing posts with label Gun Control. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Tuesday's Tidbits

View the story "Tuesday's Tidbits (2/19/13)" on Storify Tuesday's Tidbits (2/19/13) http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com Storified by Brian Empric· Tue, Feb 19 2013 17:26:22 Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) writes that history has shown that a government slicing up a shrinking pie breeds class envy, then ruin.

“The gradual decline of a society is often a self-induced process of trying to meet ever-expanding appetites, rather than a physical inability to produce past levels of food and fuel, or to maintain adequate defense. Americans have never had safer workplaces or more sophisticated medical care — and never have so many been on disability.”

“Given our unsustainable national debt — nearly $17 trillion and climbing — America is said to be in decline, although we face no devastating plague, nuclear holocaust, or shortage of oil or food.

“Americans have never led such affluent material lives — at least as measured by access to cellphones, big-screen TVs, cheap jet travel and fast food. Obesity rather than malnutrition is the greater threat to national health. Flash mobs go after electronics stores, not food markets. Americans spend more money on Botox, face lifts and tummy tucks than on the age-old scourges of polio, small pox and malaria.”

“By any historical marker, the future of Americans has never been brighter. The United States has it all: undreamed new finds of natural gas and oil, the world’s pre-eminent food production, continual technological wizardry, strong demographic growth, a superb military and constitutional stability.

“Yet we don’t talk confidently about capitalizing and expanding on our natural and inherited wealth. Instead, Americans bicker over entitlement spoils as the nation continues to pile up trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Enforced equality rather than liberty is the new national creed. The medicine of cutting back on government goodies seems far worse than the disease of borrowing trillions from the unborn to pay for them.” HANSON: Why do societies give up? - Washington Times: http://wtim.es/W5uTipWashington Times Op Richard W. Rahn, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and Chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth (@RichardWRahn), writes that big capitalist economies like ours, the United Kingdom and France are rapidly becoming more government-controlled, with high debt-to-GDP ratios and no economic growth. “Rich countries do not naturally become poor. They only become poor when they have poor leadership.”

“An upside down world. Here I am, in my London hotel room, watching an English-language financial program being broadcast from Moscow on RT (Russian TV). The program host is correctly berating the heads of the major Western central banks for acting like socialists in setting interest rates and ignoring the fact that free markets will do a better job. He notes that both China and Russia are on a gold-buying spree in order to strengthen their currencies, while the Europeans, Japan and the United States are in a race to weaken theirs. Finally, he goes on a rant against the Western governments for their continuing fiscal irresponsibility.”

“The United Kingdom, France and the United States do not have a credible plan to bring their deficits down to a level below realistic expected growth rates, which is what is needed to avoid a financial meltdown. The three governments have what they politely call a ‘moving target’ for spending, deficits and economic growth. The moving target is one that never gets any closer.”

“Many of the central banks are trying to do the impossible: To increase inflation while keeping interest rates very low. They want to raise inflation to erode the real value of the debts their governments have been creating, but they are fearful that raising interest rates will make the costs of servicing both private and public debt unmanageable.”

“What do you think President Obama will do if the Chinese, Japanese and others suddenly stop buying U.S. bonds and private buyers start demanding far higher interest rates? Do you think he will accept the responsibility for his own economic mismanagement, or will he find some group to demonize and then try to take their assets?” Continuing DownfallBrian_Empric Rich countries do not naturally become poor. They only become poor when they have poor leadership. http://j.mp/XirnEGCato Institute Bruce Thornton, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, writes that we need to focus on the nature of America’s political “receivers” – specifically those who voted for Obama and those who did not bother voting at all. “If those voters are not receptive to the Republican message, it doesn’t matter much how brilliant the messenger or the packaging of the message.”

“Nearly 3 months after the presidential election the Republicans are still trying to fix what they think went wrong. A popular culprit is the Republicans’ alleged failure to communicate forcefully or persuasively a message that would move voters presumably receptive to conservative policies and principles.”

“Only the stupid or willfully inattentive haven’t heard that we face a financial abyss waiting at the end of our entitlement road, that entitlements need to be reformed, that we have an exploding debt and deficit crisis, that a ‘tax the rich’ policy only produces chump-change for solving that problem, that Obama’s economic policies have bloated the federal government at the expense of jobs and growth, and that Obama himself is the most left-wing, duplicitous, partisan, and incompetent president in modern history.”

“The fact is, many voters know full well this dismal catalogue of failure, and they either don’t care, or they believe the fatuous rationalizations, lies, excuses, and economic magical thinking offered by the Democrats.”

“If you disagree, remember what happened to Paul Ryan last year. He identified the problem of entitlement-driven deficits and crafted a response that made a modest start at reform. But after several months of demonization by the Democrats that included an ad with a Ryan look-alike pushing an old lady in a wheelchair over a cliff, the only narrative with traction by election day was the lie that Republicans ‘want to end Medicare as we know it’ and ‘shred the safety net’ and keep the ‘rich’ from ‘paying their fair share.’ You could have resurrected Ronald Reagan and had him deliver the counter-message and the outcome would’ve been the same.”

“Dig deeper into the ideas behind the policies and you’ll find out why the Democrats’ narrative is so much more appealing to such voters than is that of the Republicans. The conservative message is predicated on beliefs about ordered liberty, self-reliance, equality of opportunity, individualism, limited government, entrepreneurship, and all those other virtues and principles that indeed have made the United States the wealthiest, freest, most open great power in all of history. But those virtues necessarily entail a tragic view of human life. Individual freedom requires as well personal responsibility and accountability for bad choices. Equality of opportunity is no guarantee of success. Talent, character, initiative, brains, and luck are not evenly distributed among people. Limiting government means individuals, families, churches, and communities must see to their own needs and wants and find some way to pay for them. Many businesses are going to fail, but that is part of capitalism’s ‘creative destruction’ that has made free-market economies so successful. We can’t have every good we want without paying a price or making a trade-off or accepting some level of risk… In short, a flawed human nature, the law of unforeseen consequences, and the limits of human knowledge all mean that we have to accept an imperfect world in which life isn’t fair: there are no winners without losers, there’s no free lunch, and we can’t eat our cake and have it.

“The progressive Democrats, in contrast to the timeless wisdom even an illiterate peasant once understood, endorse a therapeutic view of human life… Contrary to those cranky ‘mean’ conservatives, there is such a thing as a free lunch, and we can eat our cake and still have it.”

“So what if history shows that every attempt to create the progressive utopia has ended in disaster and failure, so what if the math says the entitlement state ends in bankruptcy, so what if our national character is being insidiously corrupted by getting something we haven’t earned but think is a human right, so what if, as Tocqueville warned 170 years ago, empowering the state to achieve these utopian boons comes at the cost of our freedom and autonomy. We want our free stuff now, and somebody else can pay the cost, whether the ‘rich’ or our grandchildren.”

“Better messages and better messengers are not going to overcome human nature. The melancholy truth is that our debt, deficit, and entitlement problems will not be seriously addressed until a critical mass of citizens feels the pain of these self-interested, shortsighted, catastrophic policies.”

“[P]rofessional marketers start by understanding their target audience. Music companies don’t spend a lot of money trying to sell rap music to senior citizens, and denture cream manufacturers pretty much ignore the 18-35 demographic. When it comes to politics, we forget this critical dimension of marketing. We just assume that a critical mass of voters, including the millions who voted for the other guy, want to buy our product.”

“Starting with the earliest critics of democracy, the tendency of voters to put their private interests over the long-term well being of the state was a consistent criticism… [T]he American Founders shared the ancient view of human nature as motivated by passion and self-interest, and similarly feared democracy as the form of government that gave the widest scope to those passions and interests.”

“Our problem today is that our government has evolved to something closer to ancient Athenian democracy than the Founders ever imagined… So unless one believes that human nature has evolved beyond passion and self-interest so that today a critical mass of voters will consider principle and the good of the whole even at the cost of their own interests, we still face the same problem that troubled earlier critics of democracy.”

“[T]his doesn’t mean that conservatives should adopt the fatalistic attitude that there’s nothing to be done. By all means, identify talented leaders, and think about more effective ways to communicate. But let’s not pretend that it won’t take the folly of progressive policies hitting hard people’s material interests and political freedom––which will happen, without question, under Obama and the Democrats–– to make voters receptive to those messengers and messages.” It’s Not the Message, It’s Not the Messenger, It’s the Voter: The nightmares we face won't be ad... http://tinyurl.com/al98mxd #news #politicsFrontPage Magazine Messengers, Messages, and Voters, Part 2At their retreat in Williamsburg a few weeks ago House Republicans continued the post-mortem of November's debacle. A big topic was how t... Steve Forbes, a two-time candidate for the Republican nomination for the Presidency, writes that this year marks the unfortunate centennial of the federal income tax (Feb. 3rd) and the Federal Reserve System (Dec. 23rd), “both of which today are doing immeasurable harm.”

“Income taxes punish the very things we want more of: productive work, risk-taking and success. We can’t say this enough: A tax on income is the price you pay for working; a tax on profits, the price you pay for success; and a tax on capital gains, the price you pay for taking risks that work out.”

“[T]he justifications for punitive rates have been demolished. The literature undercutting the rationales for absurd levels–that they produce more government ‘investment,’ that they don’t hurt economic activity–continues to grow. The truth is that on the national level those higher taxes are slowing down an already sluggish economy.”

“Research by Art Laffer and other economists has demonstrated that over time states that have no income tax perform better than states with high income taxes… Before the enactment of the 16th Amendment, which permitted Washington to impose an income tax, states were in the vanguard of putting taxes on income. Today they are doing just the opposite.”

“Republicans must begin to realize that they should don an optimistic pro-growth mantle instead of sounding like dyspeptic accountants.”

“The harm the Federal Reserve does is less appreciated but no less real. Amazingly, our central bank has no concept of the proper role for such an institution, which is to give us a stable currency and deal with financial panics quickly and decisively.”

“When the dollar is weakened, investment is misdirected. Less goes into financing productive activities and more into defensive hard assets.”

“[T]he Fed’s interest rate activities are suppressing the availability of credit to smaller businesses. Bank loans to unincorporated businesses–which are huge job creators in a normal economy–have actually declined during the last two years. Meanwhile, the federal government gets all the cash it wants at virtually no cost. Call it deficits without tears.” See my piece, Two Awful Anniversaries: Income Tax and Federal Reserve - Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2013/02/13/two-awful-anniversaries/2/Steve Forbes Bradley R. Schiller, emeritus professor of economics at American University, writes that Congress is not good at not spending.

“Uncle Sam spends more money every year than he takes in. The resulting budget deficits are financed by issuing more Treasury bonds (IOUs), adding to the pile of debt. Annual deficits balloon when wars or recessions cause spending to surge and/or tax revenues to decline. Deficit spending makes debt reduction impossible. Opinion polls suggest Americans want government to stop the deficit spending, so Washington is now fixated on deficit reduction. The CBO says the current debt trajectory will shave 1.7 percent off GDP by 2022.

“The U.S. Senate hasn’t passed a budget in four years. Congress sidesteps fiscal responsibilities by passing continuing resolutions that provide ‘temporary’ and ‘emergency’ funding for Uncle Sam. Without those budget Band-Aids, the government would have to shut down, as it did on 17 occasions from 1976 to 1996.”

Congress has proven to be incapable to reduce deficits through regular annual budgeting, requiring budget enforcement/deficit reduction mechanisms like sequestration, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, and the debt ceiling.

“Persistent budget deficits keep pushing the debt against that limit, which means Congress either must raise the debt ceiling or shut down the government. It always raises the debt ceiling. It has done so 77 times since 1962.

“The ultimate budget enforcement mechanism is a constitutional amendment that forbids deficit spending. Economists warn that such a budget straitjacket is unenforceable and potentially disastrous. Still, it has enormous popular appeal. If two-thirds majorities of both chambers pass it, it goes to the states for ratification with a three-fourths majority.”

“The public is fed up with soaring debt and Congress‘ inability to exercise fiscal restraint. People have near-zero confidence in Congress, which spills over into their perceptions of the economy. They see runaway deficits, soaring debt and a complete lack of fiscal leadership. These perceptions restrain investment spending, deter consumer purchases, constrain bank lending and slow foreign investment. The end result is slower economic growth and persistently high unemployment.” SCHILLER: A history of the national debtAlexander Hamilton, America's first secretary of the Treasury, issued the first U.S. Treasury bonds on Sept. 18, 1789. The Continental Co... Amity Shlaes (@AmityShlaes), who directs The 4% Growth Project, shares an anecdote that Calvin Coolidge had two lion cubs sent to him from an admirer in South Africa, which he named Budget Bureau (a forerunner to today's Office of Management and Budget) and Tax Reduction. Many historians rate Coolidge as a weak president, but he held back the Progressives for 5½ years and had the determination to advance the fiscal policy that conservatives would like to see today.

“A New Englander and former Massachusetts governor, Coolidge came to Washington as vice president and moved into the White House only in 1923 after the sudden death of President Warren Harding. He later won the office himself and served until 1929. The 30th president cut the top income-tax rate to 25% (lower than the 28% of the historic Reagan cut of 1986). Coolidge reduced the national debt and balanced the budget. When he departed the White House for his home in Northampton, Mass., he left a federal budget smaller than the one he found.

“Three factors gave Silent Cal the ability to cut as he did, each suggesting a governing approach that would be useful today… The first advantage was a gift from his predecessor, President Harding: the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921… The second advantage was one Coolidge himself supplied: the discipline to use budget tools, new and old… Coolidge's third advantage was insight into what might be called fiscal trust. The president understood that ambitious budget cuts would be accepted if he could ‘align’ them with ambitious tax cuts.”

“Coolidge and (Treasury secretary Andrew) Mellon carefully underscored the technical evidence, and there was plenty, that greater revenues might follow tax rate cuts. But they still insisted on twinning tax cuts with budget cuts, so voters and markets would never be betrayed.”

“President Reagan recognized Coolidge's achievement, and upon taking office in 1981 he had a neglected Coolidge picture restored to a place of honor near Lincoln and Jefferson in the Cabinet Room. It is too much to hope that President Obama would take Coolidge's example to heart. But those who are even now pondering presidential runs for 2016 would do well to heed Silent Cal's deeds.” Amity Shlaes: The Coolidge Lesson on Taxes and Spending http://on.wsj.com/ZbQmbSOpinion & Commentary Robert A. Levy, chairman of the Cato Institute, writes that two of the three steps in the battle for gun rights have been accomplished; the Supreme Court has decided the meaning of the Second Amendment and where it applies, and the next major task is to determine the scope and limitations of those rights.

“The Second Amendment does not guarantee a 12-year-old's right to possess a machine gun in front of the White House when the president is walking on the lawn. Some persons, some weapons and some circumstances may be regulated… Reasonable persons should be able to fashion reasonable restrictions—a framework for gun control in the aftermath of Newtown—without violating core Second Amendment rights.

“Here is the key principle: Both Heller and McDonald corroborated that the right to bear arms is ‘fundamental’; i.e., it is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty and deeply rooted in our nation's traditions and culture. Consequently, the Constitution establishes a presumption of individual liberty. That means government bears a heavy burden to justify any regulations that would compromise the right.”

Levy examines several of the current proposed concepts, like banning high-capacity magazines, re-enacting an assault weapons ban, increasing background checks for private sales at gun shows, legalizing drugs, detecting/treating mental illness earlier, and hiring armed guards at schools (or allowing volunteer teachers/principals to access weapons).

“If regulators can show that the benefits of banning high-capacity magazines exceed the costs, I have little doubt that such a ban would survive a Second Amendment court challenge.”

“Evaluation of an assault weapons ban, like that of a magazine ban, should be based on empirical evidence… The task is to identify those firearms or attachments that are not commonly used or needed for self-defense, and would improve public safety if they were banned. The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban went too far; but a better-crafted, limited version might be warranted.”

“Gun control advocates occasionally misuse the phrase ‘close the gun-show loophole’ to urge that all private sales be subject to background checks. Two clarifications: First, sensible proposals to extend background checks would not reach all private sales, but only those at gun shows. Second, most sales at gun shows are through licensed dealers that already have to conduct such checks.”

“Here are the figures for a recent year: The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) denied 79,000 would-be buyers. Of those, 105 were prosecuted and 43 were convicted. That's a conviction rate of 5/100ths of one percent. Either the remaining denials were false positives – legitimate purchases unjustly blocked by NICS – or, if the denials were proper, then 99.95 percent of the 79,000 rejected applicants escaped punishment. Neither conclusion offers much hope for an expanded system of background checks.”

“The single most effective option—which is not being discussed at all—would result in a huge reduction of gun violence: Legalize drugs… [B]ecause drugs are illegal, participants in the drug trade cannot go to court to settle disputes and enforce contracts. As a result, disputes are resolved by force.”

“I do believe that early detection and treatment (of mental illness) can be a legitimate function of government. It's part of a state's police power to protect residents against rights-violating activities, such as the criminal use of firearms.”

“In the United States, there are approximately 100,000 public schools, so staffing should not be prohibitively expensive. About 28 percent of those schools already employ security officers who carry firearms. For the remaining schools, retired police and military personnel would be obvious recruits. The focus should be on entrance security, which reduces manpower requirements… Gun-free school zones have been a magnet for the mentally deranged.”

“With just two exceptions, every public mass shooting in this country over the past 60 years has taken place where citizens are banned from carrying guns.”

“Our framers intended that the states serve as experimental laboratories. Residents who disapprove can vote with their feet. Even the indisputably anti-gun Washington Post editorialized: Armed guards are ‘not unreasonable where local schools feel they need [them].’”

While I disagree with Levy on drug legalization, I do agree that there is no reason why we cannot rationally debate and have another look at our gun laws. An unemotional, fact-based process should be our guide, keeping in mind that random multi-victim killings are a minor fraction of murders, there is no reliable evidence that gun control regulations reduce violent gun crime, and gun ownership is already heavily regulated.

“Overall, I am skeptical about the efficacy of gun regulations that are imposed almost exclusively on persons who are not part of the problem… With regard to further regulations, the Supreme Court has directed government to certify two essential points: First, the proposals will make us safer. Second, the same ends could not be attained without unduly compromising individual rights that are secured by the Second Amendment.” Reflections on Gun Control by a Second Amendment Advocate http://j.mp/X2LWFc by Robert A. LevyCato Institute Andrew Malcolm reports that the Obama administration “has been buying and storing vast amounts of ammunition in recent months, with the Department of Homeland Security just placing another order for an additional 21.6 million rounds.”

“According to one estimate, just since last spring DHS has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. That's sufficient firepower to shoot every American about five times. Including illegal immigrants.

“To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, DHS is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war.”

“The lack of a credible official explanation for such awesome ammunition acquisitions is feeding all sorts of conspiracy theories, mainly centered on federal anticipation of some kind of domestic insurrection.” ICYMI Why are the feds loading up on so much ammo? http://dlvr.it/2wGZ1d #TCOT Bookmark--> http://Investors.com/AndrewMalcolmAndrew Malcolm Chuck Raasch reports that retailers are seeing rising demand for ammunition from gun owners who are stockpiling bullets due to potential gun control legislation, and customers are now competing over the supply with the federal government.

“Prices have more than doubled over past year in some shops, retailers are putting limits on the amount a customer can buy, and some common types of ammunition, such as .22-caliber long rifle shells, are hard to get.”

“[R]etailers say much of the demand is from gun owners who are stockpiling in case certain weapons are banned, who believe that economic chaos may be coming, or who are driven by rumors of inevitable background checks or rising taxes on ammunition.”

“The run on ammunition comes amid Internet discussion about recent purchases of ammunition by the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration.” Gun dealers report shortages of ammunition http://usat.ly/Wz2cfW via @USATODAYChuck Raasch Jim VandeHei & Mike Allen write that Obama “is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House” with old tricks on steroids. The White House uses softball interviews, weekend document dumps, restricted access to administration officials, mastery of “scrutiny avoidance,” and even bullying to influence the media coverage.

“The results are transformational. With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited cleverly and ruthlessly.”

“The president has shut down interviews with many of the White House reporters who know the most and ask the toughest questions. Instead, he spends way more time talking directly to voters via friendly shows and media personalities.”

“Obama boasted Thursday during a Google+ Hangout from the White House: ‘This is the most transparent administration in history.’ The people who cover him day to day see it very differently.”

“The way the president’s availability to the press has shrunk in the last two years is a disgrace,” said ABC News White House reporter Ann Compton, who has covered every president back to Gerald R. Ford. “The president’s day-to-day policy development — on immigration, on guns — is almost totally opaque to the reporters trying to do a responsible job of covering it. There are no readouts from big meetings he has with people from the outside, and many of them aren’t even on his schedule. This is different from every president I covered. This White House goes to extreme lengths to keep the press away.”

“Obama’s aides are better at using technology and exploiting the president’s ‘brand.’ They are more disciplined about cracking down on staff that leak, or reporters who write things they don’t like. And they are obsessed with taking advantage of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and every other social media forums, not just for campaigns, but governing.”

“Conservatives assume a cozy relationship between this White House and the reporters who cover it. Wrong. Many reporters find Obama himself strangely fearful of talking with them and often aloof and cocky when he does. They find his staff needlessly stingy with information and thin-skinned about any tough coverage. He gets more-favorable-than-not coverage because many staffers are fearful of talking to reporters, even anonymously, and some reporters inevitably worry access or the chance of a presidential interview will decrease if they get in the face of this White House.”

“This administration loves to boast about how transparent they are, but they’re transparent about things they want to be transparent about,” said Mark Knoller, the veteran CBS News reporter. “He gives interviews not for our benefit, but to achieve his objective.” w/ @JimVandeHei, "Obama, puppet master": Golf is the least of it -- Quotes @MarkKnoller, @PeterBakerNYT #POLITICObtc http://politi.co/Y5okhiMike Allen

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Thursday's Thoughts

Lisa Benson

View the story "Thursday's Thoughts (1/31/13)" on StorifyThursday's Thoughts (1/31/13)http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.comStorified by Brian Empric· Thu, Jan 31 2013 16:33:36Sheila Weber (@MarriageWeekUSA), Executive Director of National Marriage Week USA & Let’s Strengthen Marriage, writes that marriage “builds the economic stability of children, supports the raising of a healthy next generation, and is a cornerstone for the economic health of our nation.”

“In mid-January, the Pew Research Center told us 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married in 1960; but today just 51% are—a record low.

“This means fewer folks are getting married, or staying married—not a great sign since research proves children (our future citizens) do best when raised with both parents.”

“… marriage is more or less holding its own among the white upper middle and upper class, but falling off a cliff among the white working class and lower class.”

“The Institute for American Values reports that 40 percent of all American babies are born outside of marriage today… less than 5% of white college-educated women have children outside of marriage, compared with approximately 40% of white women with just a high-school diploma... The National Center on African American Marriages and Parenting reports that 72 percent of all African-American babies are born outside of marriage.”

“Whether you are married or not, Americans should be supportive of promoting marriage prior to childbearing and the strengthening of marriage at all socio-economic levels.”
A new path to upward mobility-get married and stay marriedMarriage, we have just learned, is a major cause of the growing great divide among American upper and lower classes. Last week, in advanc...RNC chairman Priebus details how Republicans are going to renew our party, grow our ranks and win more elections:

“To start, we must take our message to every state and every community. As I told the committee last week, we must stop looking at elections through the lens of ‘battleground states.’ Being a ‘blue state’ is not a permanent diagnosis. Republicans want to be a party for everyone, everywhere.”

“Election year ‘outreach’ is insufficient. We're going to stop simply reaching out — and work on welcoming in as we build a permanent, lasting presence across the country.”

“Republicans are the party of opportunity and liberty, and freedom is an ever-fresh, revolutionary idea. It brought settlers to our shores and continues to attract newcomers to America. No one comes to the United States in search of a superior government bureaucracy… We're the party that says the individual can make better decisions than the bureaucrat.”

“But those principles mean nothing if voters don't hear them. Too often, Republicans have let ourselves be defined by others before defining ourselves. No more. We're taking our message of freedom and opportunity where it hasn't been heard before.”My latest – “The Republican Party's future” http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-Republican-Party-s-future-4230572.php We have a lot to do, but it can be done. Pls read and RTReince PriebusRobert Stacy McCain reports that the National Review Institute’s “Future of Conservatism” Summit attempted to dispel the omens of doom.

“Facts are stubborn things, John Adams once observed, but perhaps even more stubborn is the sense of panic that has gripped Republicans since Obama’s re-election. No sooner had the votes been counted than shell-shocked Republicans began making a lot of earnest noise about ‘demographics’ and ‘culture.’ These seem to be code words of a kind. When a Republican says ‘demographics,’ he means, ‘Brown people don’t like us very much,’ and ‘culture’ is Republican code-speak for, ‘Young people really hate us, don’t they?’”

“The GOP panic reaction to those numbers has been wildly disproportionate. Hispanic voters comprised just 10 percent of the electorate, according to the exit polls, and 81 percent of voters were over 30, but the Republican demoralization since November has been so complete that they can’t seem to stop obsessing over ‘demographics’ and ‘culture.’”

“If there are Democrats today who don’t enthusiastically endorse same-sex marriage and abortion on demand, they’re awfully quiet about it, and the fanatical extremism of the Left has apparently intimidated even conservative Republicans, who are now increasingly fearful of being identified with ‘social issues.’”
"Is this 'prudence' or panic? Are Republicans prepared to surrender and call it a victory?" http://spectator.org/archives/2013/01/28/when-will-the-republican-panic #tcotRobert Stacy McCainS.E. Cupp writes that universal background checks are not as simple as liberals have made them out to be.

“We all want to stop criminals and the dangerous (or potentially dangerous) mentally ill from getting weapons… At the same time, NRA head Wayne LaPierre reportedly plans to tug at that thread a little in his Senate testimony this week, when he will argue, according to a Washington Post report, that ‘background checks will never be universal because criminals will never submit to them.’”

“As Glenn Kessler reported in the Washington Post this week, a 2004 survey of inmates in state prisons who were incarcerated for crimes committed with handguns found that only 11% bought their guns from licensed gun dealers. The vast majority acquired them from friends, on ‘the street,’ or stole them.”

“Next to ‘Will this actually solve the problem?’ the question least often asked when issues of gun control are bandied about is, ‘Whom will this punish?’ And when it comes to law-abiding gun owners, there is often little consideration or sympathy.”

“Unlike gun safety courses, which rightly ask that gun owners prove they are responsible, background checks ask that they prove they are not criminals, effectively putting the burden of proof on law-abiding citizens… though the background check may not discriminate on outward appearance, it does prejudicially read criminal intentions into law-abiding citizens who primarily just want to hunt, target shoot and protect their families.”Gun Owners Are People, Too by @secupp Read it online at http://thesecupp.com/2013/01/gun-owners-are-people-too/ http://thesecupp.comS.E. CuppVictor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) writes that Europe is proving that socialism doesn’t work.

“Almost a decade ago, Europeans and many progressive Americans were lamenting how the United States was going to miss out on the 21st-century paradigm symbolized by the robust European Union… The European Union avoided foreign conflicts and embraced soft power. Its declining military budgets and centralized transnational government ensured that it could address climate change and fund ever-expanding entitlements… President George W. Bush was not just hated in Europe, but caricatured as the symbol of backward, free-market capitalism, rank American consumerism and U.S. imperialism abroad.”

“Yet European Union prosperity has now proved a phantom — one conjured up by accounting gimmickry, borrowed German money and corrupt EU apparatchiks.”

“The European Union may be worried that President Obama’s United States is becoming more like the EU at the very time many in Europe are starting to take a second, kinder look at the old free-market model of the United States. An America of low taxes, low unemployment and robust growth once meant a huge market for European goods, as the United States drove a prosperous world economy and had enough cash to protect the Western world.”

“Mr. Obama has loudly promised a pivot in the U.S. security profile toward the Pacific region. This change represents the unspoken reality that socialist redistribution has reduced Europe to near-irrelevancy… In short, Europe got the European Union of its hopes and the changed America of its fantasies — but both are rapidly becoming its worst nightmares.”HANSON: Obama’s America looks a lot like the #EU: Europe proving #socialism doesn’t work: http://bit.ly/UzTLRRThe Washington TimesDaniel Henninger writes that Obama’s goal is to make Republican ideas intolerable, and to annihilate and delegitimize the GOP. “If the opposition is looking for one word to shape its role now, it would be this: Dissent.”

“Better late than never, Speaker Boehner now sees that Barack Obama's notion of political competition is Mad Max inside the Thunderdome: ‘Two men enter, one man leaves.’”

“When he won, the rationalization was that it was all a shrewd if brutal campaign strategy. But it kept coming. What is striking about the Obama technique is that it's not so much criticism as something closer to political obliteration, driving his opposition out of the political arena altogether.”

“Even among the president's supporters, one is hard put now to find anyone who doesn't recognize that Mr. Obama's original appeal to hope and change has given way to search and destroy.”

“The good news is that John Boehner and Paul Ryan recognize that their relationship with this White House is not as partners in anything. They are prey.”

“The original argument for the Obama presidency was that this was a new, open-minded and liberal man intent on elevating the common good. No one believes that now. This will be a second term of imposition.”Henninger: Obama's Thunderdome Strategy http://on.wsj.com/TZia5hOpinion & CommentaryEdward L. Glaeser (professor of economics at Harvard University) writes that conservative policies have greatly benefited urbanites, and encourages Republicans to seek their votes.

“After the presidential election in November, New York Times exit polls found that Republican candidate Mitt Romney had received only 29 percent of the big-city vote to President Obama’s 69 percent. That gap prompted Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, to conclude that it was ‘the turnout especially in urban areas’ that ‘gave President Obama the big margin to win this race.’ Ryan was right: the GOP has an urban problem. And it’s partly a self-created one. The party, nationally and even locally, has focused on winning suburban and rural votes and has stopped reaching out to city dwellers.”

“Cities have suffered from the GOP’s departure. For one thing, any group or place benefits from being the object of political competition: swing groups in swing states, such as Cubans in Miami and autoworkers in Ohio, receive political attention and favors, while solidly Republican or Democratic constituencies get taken for granted.”

“But handouts and other pandering are far less valuable than the other asset that Republican-abandoned cities have lost: the particularly Republican perspective, with its focus on economic freedom, competition, and law and order.”

“Forty years ago, conservatives and liberals disagreed about how to fight crime. Conservatives looked to more effective policing; liberals, believing that poverty caused crime, bet on redistributive social policies. The past decades have overwhelmingly vindicated the conservatives. The expansive government programs of the liberals’ Great Society coincided with rapidly rising urban crime rates. Cities became safe again only when they embraced tougher—and smarter—policing.”

“The Right has correctly promoted choice and accountability as key principles in making schools better. Great enterprises, from law firms to restaurants, spring up in cities because cities’ agglomerations of people produce free-market maelstroms, which encourage vigorous competition and innovation.”

“Republicans have good ideas to share in other areas of urban policy as well. For example, improving city services while reducing costs is a priority in these budget-strapped times.”

“The GOP clearly needs a heftier percentage of the urban vote, but winning it by means of fiscal pandering or redistribution isn’t the way to go—partly because such a strategy would cost rural and suburban votes and partly because it would be wrong. A better approach is to offer the good ideas that cities desperately need. Republicans have plenty.”The GOP and the City by Edward L. Glaeser, City Journal WInter 2013Conservative policies have greatly benefited urbanites. Why won't Republicans seek their votes? After the presidential election in Novemb...

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Wednesday's Write-up

@Bishtoons

@ericallie

@varvel

View the story "Wednesday's Write-up (1/23/13)" on Storify Wednesday's Write-up (1/23/13) http://theintransigentconservative.blogspot.com Storified by Brian Empric· Wed, Jan 30 2013 17:11:37 The ABC News Power Players report that multimillionaire conservative investor Foster Friess (@FosterFriess) would support Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign again if he runs in 2016.

"If people let him out of that box of social conservative, and appreciate how much more he brings to the table, I think he's still one of my favorite candidates."

"I believe we have an opportunity now to lift up a whole new group of young Republicans, and young new faces that are going to change our country back to where it was maybe 20 years ago."

"I think the smartest thing the Republican party can do is stick to the principles that Republicans stand for -- limited government, respect for the constitution and free markets. If you stick with that, there's no way we're not going to win."
Standing by his man: GOP millionaire Foster Friess wants Santorum in 2016Top Line Wealthy conservative investor Foster Friess is best known in Washington, D.C. for helping fund Rick Santorum's presidential camp... Tasha Tsiaperas reports on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s lecture at Southern Methodist University earlier this week.

“(Scalia) said law schools don’t adequately emphasize that decisions should reflect the letter of the law.

“He spoke of schoolchildren coming to visit the Supreme Court and calling the Constitution a ‘living document.’”

“It’s not a living document. It’s dead, dead, dead,” he said.
Constitution a 'dead, dead, dead' document, Scalia tells SMU audienceU.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says a key part of interpreting the law properly is reaching decisions even when they contradic... Richard A. Epstein (Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution) writes that Obama’s redistributive effort to limit charitable tax deductions will hurt the poor—and everyone else.

“On four separate occasions, President Obama has proposed limiting the deduction for charitable contributions to a maximum 28 percent.”

“The advocates of redistribution are quick to trumpet its virtue, but slow to identify the optimal level of redistribution that does not undermine the incentives for productive work… What is doubly ironic in this situation is that the champions of redistribution seek to neuter the single most effective device for redistribution that is available to modern societies—the charitable deduction.”

“It is tempting to think that the limitations on deductions will hurt the rich by cutting back on their deductions. But the burden will fall heavily on the recipients of charitable support, for as the price of making a charitable gift rises (anywhere from 30 to 100 percent), the level of charitable giving will decline. Hurt in the shuffle are, of course, the low-income beneficiaries of charity.”

“What the current tax deduction does, in effect, is to take income out of a rich person’s tax base if he or she is prepared to give it to others. It protects the incentive to create wealth, as people are far more likely to work hard to generate wealth whose distribution they can direct than to create wealth that the government snatches from them for its own purposes.”

“Why then would the government take steps to cut back on charitable giving? The most obvious explanation is both insidious and dangerous. It is to shrink the size of its main competitors in the private sector in order to increase the dependence of ordinary people on the federal government.” My take on charitable deductionshttp://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/139186Richard A. Epstein James Pethokoukis writes that the parties are at loggerheads over taxes, and no sweeping reform will please both sides.

“A group of House Republicans wants to put an expiration date on the 75,000-page U.S. tax code. The Tax Code Termination Act would require the repeal of the entire code in 2017 — except for the bits dealing with Social Security and Medicare — with a new system ready to go for the following year.”

“But Republicans can put aside any fantasies of starting 2018 with a flat income tax or a national sales tax such as the Fair Tax, two popular right-of-center alternatives to the status quo… First, both of those sweeping reforms would likely either raise taxes on middle-class voters — including millions who currently pay no income tax — or be huge revenue losers… Second, unless Republicans score a historic landslide in the 2016 presidential and congressional elections, the folks on the other side of the aisle will have a major say in any tax revamp.”

“Liberals start with a belief that America is severely undertaxed… Also making bipartisan agreement harder is the new left-of-center consensus that marginal tax rates can go dramatically higher before they weaken economic growth and become self-defeating.”

“Maybe there’s no better example of how Democrats are veering sharply from both the GOP and mainstream economics on tax reform than the reemergence of the old idea of slapping a wealth tax on the fortunes of rich Americans.”

“Republicans view tax reform as way of making the tax code more efficient and amenable to economic growth; Democrats see it as a crude tool for financing an ever-expanding welfare state.” My NR column on why getting a tax reform deal with Dems is almost impossible http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/338947/total-tax-code-termination-james-pethokoukisJames Pethokoukis Robert C. Pozen (Nonresident Senior Fellow, Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution) writes that the need to reduce the current corporate tax rate is one policy that both parties can agree to. Pozen estimates that a 65% cap on deductions for corporations for gross interest would be enough to finance a corporate tax rate reduction from 35% to 25% (financial institutions would be allowed to deduct 79%).

“The current rate, highest in the advanced industrial world, disincentivizes investment and encourages corporations to relocate overseas.”

“Because of the fiscal pressures facing the government, most politicians recognize that any corporate tax rate cut must be paid for by eliminating tax preferences and ‘loopholes.’ But few politicians have identified enough revenue-raising measures to offset the cost of a significant reduction of the corporate tax rate-cutting the rate from 35% to 25% would cost roughly $1.2 trillion over ten years.”

“…the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that the elimination of virtually all corporate tax expenditures would not be sufficient to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25%.”

“Currently, corporations may fully deduct the interest they pay on their bonds and other forms of debt. This deduction costs the Treasury a significant amount of money, and encourages corporations to take on too much debt, increasing the fragility of the economy.”

“My proposed ‘interest cap’ would also reduce a significant distortion in the tax code. Currently, if a corporation finances an investment with debt, it can deduct the interest that it pays on that debt. If a corporation finances an investment by issuing new shares of stock, or by using money in the bank, there is no equivalent deduction. As a result, the tax code effectively encourages corporations to load up on debt. This makes companies more vulnerable to downturns-exposing their employees to a greater risk of layoffs and prolonging recessions in the broader economy.” My piece in @rc_markets explaining why a corporate tax cut should be funded by limiting interest deductions: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2013/01/29/35_is_way_too_high_for_corporate_taxes_100117.html #liBob Pozen John B. Taylor (former Treasury undersecretary for international affairs) writes that while borrowers like near-zero interest rates, there is little incentive for lenders to extend credit at that rate.

“The Fed ratcheted up purchases of mortgage-backed and U.S. Treasury securities, and now they say more large-scale purchases are coming. They kept extending the near-zero federal funds rate and now say that rate will remain in place for at least several more years. And yet—unlike its actions taken during the panic—the Fed's policies have been accompanied by disappointing outcomes. While the Fed points to external causes, it ignores the possibility that its own policy has been a factor.”

“The Fed's current zero interest-rate policy also creates incentives for otherwise risk-averse investors—retirees, pension funds—to take on questionable investments as they search for higher yields in an attempt to bolster their minuscule interest income… And extraordinarily low rates support and feed the spending appetites of Congress and the president, increasing deficits and debt.”

“Consider the ‘forward guidance’ policy of saying that the short-term rate will be near zero for several years into the future. The purpose of this guidance is to keep longer-term interest rates down and thus encourage more borrowing… Effectively the Fed is imposing an interest-rate ceiling on the longer-term market by saying it will keep the short rate unusually low.”

“Ironically, the harmful effects of these interventions lead policy makers to expand them, which further increases their harmful effects. No one should want a continuation of this vicious circle.” John Taylor: Fed Policy Is a Drag on the Economy http://on.wsj.com/XNGOBjOpinion & Commentary David Mamet (author, playwright, producer, screenwriter, and director) writes that the individual is the best and only one qualified to provide his own personal defense, and the right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution.

“President Obama, in his reelection campaign, referred frequently to the ‘needs’ of himself and his opponent, alleging that each has more money than he ‘needs.’

“But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining ‘needs’? And note that the president did not say ‘I have more money than I need,’ but ‘You and I have more than we need.’ Who elected him to speak for another citizen?”

“The Founding Fathers, far from being ideologues, were not even politicians. They were an assortment of businessmen, writers, teachers, planters; men, in short, who knew something of the world, which is to say, of Human Nature. Their struggle to draft a set of rules acceptable to each other was based on the assumption that we human beings, in the mass, are no damned good��that we are biddable, easily confused, and that we may easily be motivated by a Politician, which is to say, a huckster, mounting a soapbox and inflaming our passions.”

“Healthy government, as that based upon our Constitution, is strife. It awakens anxiety, passion, fervor, and, indeed, hatred and chicanery, both in pursuit of private gain and of public good. Those who promise to relieve us of the burden through their personal or ideological excellence, those who claim to hold the Magic Beans, are simply confidence men… It was to guard us against this inevitable decay of government that the Constitution was written. Its purpose was and is not to enthrone a Government superior to an imperfect and confused electorate, but to protect us from such a government.”

“The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime, but what is there about criminals that ensures that their gun use is accident-free? If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves?”

“More legal guns equal less crime. What criminal would be foolish enough to rob a gun store? But the government alleges that the citizen does not need this or that gun, number of guns, or amount of ammunition.”

“The police do not exist to protect the individual. They exist to cordon off the crime scene and attempt to apprehend the criminal. We individuals are guaranteed by the Constitution the right to self-defense.” Cover Story: David Mamet says the individual has a right to defend himself with a gun http://nswk.ly/X8mZp6Newsweek Michael Tanner (senior fellow at the Cato Institute) writes that prominent liberals are now insisting that we face no debt problem at all.

“Bolstered by a study from the left-wing Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the debt deniers claim that a combination of economic growth, tax hikes, and projected (but not yet realized) spending reductions have already significantly reduced deficits. They argue that a mere $1.2 trillion in additional tax hikes over the next ten years, and the resulting savings on interest, would enable us to ‘stabilize’ our debt at a mere 73 percent of GDP by 2022.”

“But even if you think that’s good news, it’s not really the truth. The 73 percent figure actually represents only that portion of the federal government’s debt classified as ‘debt held by the public,’ primarily those U.S. government securities that are owned by individuals, corporations, and other entities outside the federal government itself.”

“Moreover, by cutting off the trend line in 2022, the debt deniers ignore the enormous unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, the costs of which will kick in mostly beyond this limited budget window.”

“True, those obligations represent the ‘softest’ form of debt. But ‘soft’ does not mean debt that can be completely dismissed. According to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), by which private corporations abide, promises to pay future benefits are generally categorized as debt.”

“The International Monetary Fund looked at the relationship between debt and economic growth, concluding that, from 1890 to 2000, countries with high debt levels have consistently experienced slower economic growth than those with low debt levels. Similarly, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff concluded that countries with debt totaling more than 90 percent of GDP have median growth rates one percentage point lower than countries with lower debt levels, and average growth rates nearly four points lower. The slow economic growth that the United States has seen coming out of the recession is likely due in part to our high levels of government debt.” The Debt Deniers’ Fantasy http://j.mp/11d7gLfMichael Tanner