Freedom Line Blog

Ohhhh, so ~now~ they tell us?  White House allies are instructing operatives to abandon the claim that ObamaCare will reduce healthcare costs and the deficit.  Instead, they now seek to persuade the electorate that we can “improve it.”

According to Politico, the messaging conference call and PowerPoint presentation acknowledges the failure of the promises shamelessly fed to the public by ObamaCare advocates:

The presentation’s final page of ‘Don’ts’ counsels against claiming ‘the law will reduce costs and the deficit.’  The presentation advises, instead, sales pitches that play on personal narratives and promises to change the legislation.”

If this doesn’t make you angry and ready to line up at dawn to vote this November, have your pulse checked.

So it appears that baseball legend Roger Clemens will be indicted for lying to Congress during his 2008 testimony over alleged steroid use.  While we agree with Congressman Darryl Issa (R – California) that perjury is a serious offense, it raises an interesting question:  If Congress can hold citizens legally accountable for such things as lying about private behavior by professional athletes, why not hold Congress similarly liable for lying to citizens about matters of public concern?

After all, isn’t what’s good for the goose also good for the gander?  It might also clean up Congress quicker than even term limits could do.

According to German shipping tycoon Peter Kramer, “the state” should control private charitable donations and “determine what is good for the people,” not the individuals making those charitable donations.  In an interview with Der Spiegel, regarding the Warren Buffett/Bill Gates Giving Pledge, Kramer ripped America’s tax deductions for charitable gifts and demanded, “what legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?”

I find the U.S. initiative highly problematic.  You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the U.S.A.  So the rich make a choice:  Would I rather donate or pay taxes?  The donors are taking the place of the state.  That’s unacceptable. It’s all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires.  So it’s not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide.  That’s a development that I find really bad.  What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?  In this case, forty superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for.  That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state.”

Call us crazy, but don’t alarms sound when a creepy German demands that the state “determines what is good for the people?”  Meanwhile, as noted by economist Mark Perry on his blog Carpe Diem, citizens of Kentucky outstrip Germans in the best indicator of economic wellbeing, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

Mr. Kramer, perfect your own supposed workers’ paradise before you attempt to lecture Americans.

The latest survey of 53 economists by The Wall Street Journal offers a clear message.  Namely, no more government “stimulus,” and extend the soon-to-expire Bush-era tax cuts for everyone, not just those earning under $250,000 annually.

Of 48 polled economists, 30 flatly rejected calls for any form of additional fiscal or monetary “stimulus.”  Only 6 economists encouraged more Obama-Reid-Pelosi style fiscal stimulus, only 5 suggested additional monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve and just 7 suggested both.  On the issue of taxes, fully 32 of the polled economists called for extending all of the current lower tax rates, in a sharp rebuke to Obamanomics.  Only 3 economists supported an end to the Bush-era tax cuts, and only 11 agreed with Obama and Timothy Geithner in their campaign to raise taxes on those individuals and small businesses reporting income over $250,000.  Unlike Obama and Geithner, economists recognize the destructive effect that raising taxes on individuals and small businesses in the top income segments will have.

As Stephen Stanley of Pierpoint Securities summarized, “the economy needs government to get out of the way.”  Well said.

At some point, Americans’ outrage over the nonsense spewed upon us by desperate Washington, D.C. liberals becomes twisted amusement.  Today, Representative Maxine Waters (D – California) managed to pull the “race card” and “blame Bush” card in one preposterous swoop.

Representative Waters now finds herself the defendant against Congressional ethics charges that she improperly offered special assistance to OneUnited, a bank on whose board her husband had served.  At the time, her husband owned $350,000 in OneUnited stock, which was threatened by the financial downturn and would stand to benefit from federal dollars.  Speaking to reporters to rationalize her behavior, Waters claimed that she was compelled to do what she did because the Bush Treasury Department wasn’t responding to her satisfaction:

The question at this point should not be why I called Secretary [Henry] Paulson, but why I had to.  The question at this point should be why a trade association representing over one hundred minority banks could not get a meeting at the height of the crisis.”

Waters apparently hasn’t received the memo that “the race card is maxed out.”

On this date in 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 at his Rancho del Cielo property in Santa Barbara, California.  Sponsored by Congressman Jack Kemp (R – New York) and Senator William Roth (R – Delaware), the bill amended the Internal Revenue Code in order “to encourage economic growth through reductions in individual income tax rates, the expensing of depreciable property, incentives for small businesses, and incentives for savings.”

Did it ever.

By reducing tax rates and unleashing American dynamism, the U.S. witnessed two consecutive years of remarkable growth.  For the eight quarters spanning 1982 and 1983, we saw gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5.1%, 9.3%, 8.1%, 8.5%, 8.0%, 7.1%, 3.9% and 3.3%.  Compare that to our current cyclical recovery, in which the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda of higher spending, regulation and taxation has subdued our rebound to 1.6%, 5.0%, 3.7% and 2.4% (soon to be revised downward to an estimated 1%).  Obama, Pelosi and Reid like to claim credit for our inevitable cyclical recovery from the last downturn, but the truth is that they’ve only managed to stifle it while adding trillions to our debt.

They should instead take a trip down memory lane and correct course according to the crystal clear Regan example.

Amid the national debate over whether to amend the 14th Amendment to prohibit automatic birthright citizenship for “anchor babies” of illegal immigrants, we receive startling data from a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data.  In 2008, according to the numbers, illegal immigrant parents accounted for some 8% of births in America – one out of every twelve.

Although illegal immigrants constitute 4% of the American adult population, the Census data indicates that they account for twice that percentage of newborns.  The terms of the 14th Amendment grant citizenship to”all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” and courts have interpreted that to grant birthright citizenship.  Amendment proponents, however, argue that those terms fairly aimed to protect freed slaves from attempts to deny them equal rights under the law, not to confer automatic U.S. citizenship to illegal immigrants’ offspring.

Regardless of the legal and constitutional merits for or against the amendment, the new data adds startling new practical, real-world, objective perspective to the debate.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which seeks to impose big-government Net Neutrality upon America and its innovative Internet sector by whatever compulsory means necessary, has now offended even radio host Howard Stern to such a degree that he swears he’ll “never vote for a Democrat again.”  Stern, who in the past has supported Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry for president, said he reached his conclusion because of ‘the fact that these Democrats on the FCC are Communists – they’re for COMMUNISM.”

We don’t know that what Lyndon Johnson allegedly said about Walter Cronkite (“if I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America”) can necessarily be said about Howard Stern, but it certainly speaks volumes when even Stern begins to label the FCC “Communists” and accuses them of “gangsterism.”  We just can’t wait for MSNBC’s farcical primetime lineup to attack Stern in the same way that they targeted the Tea Party for speaking up.

As November’s elections loom increasingly dire for Democrats, their mainstream media waterboys desperately recast the American electorate as “anti-incumbent” rather than the more accurate “anti-liberal” or “anti-Democrat.”  Today’s latest example:  The Washington Post, perhaps liberals’ chief media waterboy, reacted to last night’s primary elections with their daily political newsletter headline “Senator’s Win Tests Anti-Incumbency Theory.”

The Post’s Dan Balz bizarrely claims that a Democratic incumbent beating a Democrat challenger endorsed by Bill Clinton somehow alters our assessment of America’s mood:

Senator Michael Bennet (D) of Colorado turned back a sharp challenge from former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff on Tuesday night on a busy day of primaries that offered fresh clues about the anti-establishment mood of voters…  Bennet’s challenge was seen as the latest test of anti-incumbent sentiment in a year in which two Senators and four House members have been defeated.  His victory proved that the benefits and resources of incumbency can offset the liabilities that many officeholders are carrying this year.”

Earth to The Washington Post, MSNBC and other liberal media sirens:  American voters aren’t simply “anti-incumbent,” they’re anti-liberal.  They’re not simply looking to replace incumbent liberals with other liberals, so one Democrat beating an alternative Democrat doesn’t rebut that fact.  After all, you don’t tend to see trusted conservative incumbents like Senators Jim DeMint (R – South Carolina) or Tom Coburn (R – Oklahoma) needing national political figures to parachute in to rescue them as Senator Benet did.  Americans’ revulsion toward the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda is threatening liberal incumbents, not incumbents generically.  You’re not fooling anyone other than yourselves.

If union representatives treat each other thuggishly, just imagine how they’d behave outside the homes of skeptical employees under card-check legislation.  Consider the words of Dolores Huerta, United Farm Workers co-founder, as reported in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal commentary entitled “California’s Union Shakedown”:

Dolores Huerta, a co-founder of United Farm Workers and a historic labor figure in California, published an ‘open letter’ to [SEIU leader Mary Kay] Henry on the Huffington Post that accuses the SEIU of intimidating Kaiser workers.  Saying that she visited four Kaiser hospitals to talk to workers about the NUHW, Ms. Huerta wrote that at each, ‘SEIU staff surrounded them and began chanting and yelling insults, refusing to let workers talk.’  Ms. Huerta called on the SEIU to put ‘an end to a mistaken campaign of aggression.'”

Under the so-called Employee Free Choice Act – which remains on the legislative wish list of Big Labor, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama – union campaign reps would have access to employees at their homes, supermarkets and elsewhere.  If union agents treated Ms. Huerta, one of their own, that way, just imagine how thuggish they might behave at the home addresses of reluctant employees.  Yet another illustration of the need to maintain the democratic secret ballot during union elections, rather than allow union leaders to eliminate it via card-check.

“He who controls the past controls the future.” ~George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Sixty-five years ago today, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.  That decision was a no-brainer.  After four years of wretched, filthy, excruciating, scorched hellhole-by-hellhole Pacific warfare vividly portrayed by HBO’s recent series The Pacific, American leaders preparing to invade Japan expected one million U.S. casualties, not to mention two million Japanese deaths.  Apparently, however, that is of little import to contemporary historical revisionists.  Pontificating from the comfort of their armchairs and coffeehouses, they sanctimoniously second-guess President Truman’s decision and imply a false moral equivalency between the Japanese and American war efforts.  Imagine the misery of Iwo Jima multiplied by forty (we suffered 25,000 casualties at Iwo Jima), because that’s what such sophists suggest as the more humane alternative.

The facts simply do not support the revisionists’ self-righteous argument.  First of all, conventional bombing of Japanese cities killed over twice as many as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.  Would revisionists prefer that instead of ending the war more quickly with the atomic bombs, we should have burned Japan to the ground city-by-city, causing even more Japanese deaths?  Second, revisionists are wrong to say that Truman could have brought surrender by “demonstrating” a nuclear explosion on some deserted island.  After all, the Japanese didn’t surrender even after one bomb had incinerated Hiroshima.  They required a second at Nagasaki.  Third, would revisionists have been happier with a drawn-out blockade of Japan?  How many people would that have slowly starved to death?  How many American airmen, soldiers, sailors and Marines would have died through Japanese naval, air and ground attacks in that interim?  Fourth, as referenced above, do revisionists contend that an inch-by-inch invasion would have been preferable?  Not only would that have cost millions of American and Japanese lives, but it would have left Japan nothing more than a heap of dust.

This debate is about more than historical trivia.  In seeking to rewrite history, as Orwell suggested, revisionists encourage a future where a nation attacked refrains from vigorously defending itself and its ideals.  That, in turn, facilitates tyranny.  In the name of those who gave their lives in defending this nation, and in the name of future generations, our current generation cannot allow that to happen.

Already navigating a turbulent economic sea, Americans are bracing for the single largest tax increase in history this January 1.

Democrats fighting for their political lives believe they have a winner soaking “the rich,” but we’ve noted the destructive effect that raising taxes on the top bracket will have on the struggling economy.  Not only will they hit small businesses (which create most new jobs in America) particularly hard, but individuals in that bracket carry a disproportionate burden of consumer spending, which makes up 70% of our overall economy.   In this video clip from CNBC, even often left-leaning Don Peebles considers tax increases for the highest income bracket a destructive idea:

If we spend more money paying taxes, then we will have less money to invest, less money to employ workers…  We can’t take a bad situation and make it worse by taxing people more at a difficult time.”

Liberals cannot win this debate on the substance, so they instead hope to win on the rhetoric by framing the issue as “the Bush tax cuts.”  But Bush will have been gone from the White House for two full years by the time the tax increases hit.  We’re not debating new tax cuts, and Bush is long gone.  Rather, what we’re talking about are looming tax increases.  Namely, Obama’s tax increases.

Should the range of potential punishment for leaking classified Afghanistan data include the death penalty?

The statute codifying the subject offense, Title 18 U.S.C. Section 794(b) specifically includes that possibility:

Whoever, in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy, collects, records, publishes, or communicates, or attempts to elicit any information with respect to the movement, numbers, description, condition, or disposition of any of the Armed Forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or with respect to the plans or conduct, or supposed plans or conduct of any naval or military operations, or with respect to any works or measures undertaken for or connected with, or intended for the fortification or defense of any place, or any other information relating to the public defense, which might be useful to the enemy, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.”

Such sober voices as Tony Blankley, who actually opposes the Afghan war, suggest that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should not be protected “from being prosecuted and possibly executed by the U.S. government for wartime espionage.”  Whatever one’s opinion on the war itself, Assange’s conduct has clearly jeopardized American troops’ lives, not to mention the lives of Afghans (and their families) who have taken great risk in assisting us against the Taliban and al Qaeda.  Indeed, Assange should pray that his punishment comes at the hands of U.S. authorities, not some vengeful person horribly affected by his crime.

Is there any periphery bounding the absurdity of the desperate political left?

The Obama Administration’s 2009 “stimulus” continues to prove itself a failure.  It promised that unemployment would peak in October 2009 at 8%, and would be down to 7.3% by now.  Instead, we remain mired near 10%.  Further, second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) was revised downward just last week to 2.4%, a slowdown from 3.7% in the first quarter and 5.0% from the fourth quarter of 2009.  Meanwhile, we’re $1 trillion deeper in debt, and the administration admitted last month that its second year deficit will reach an astounding $1.5 trillion, exceeding even its first deficit of $1.4 trillion.

Yet according to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, “the administration’s original sin was not spending enough.”  Commenting in today’s Wall Street Journal, Reich bizarrely adds that the Democrats’ 2009 filibuster-proof Senate supermajority somehow constituted “a fragile 60 votes” constraining Obama’s ambitions, and says that the problem with ObamaCare was that it was “not nearly large or bold enough.”  Not large enough?  Take a look at this ObamaCare flow chart, which looks more intricate than a nuclear reactor.

So how much would have been enough to satisfy Reich, anyway?  Two trillion?  Three trillion?  Ten?  It all recalls the popular bumper sticker – “Don’t Tell Obama What Comes After ‘Trillion.'”

Seems like someone at the Associated Press read our commentary “Raising Taxes on ‘The Rich’ Will Harm the Economy” from last week’s Liberty Update.  Either way, we couldn’t help but note an AP headline “Economy Weakens as Wealthy Spend Less” released today.

The AP story begins, “Wealthy Americans aren’t spending so freely anymore.  And the rest of us are feeling the sqeeze.”  The story goes on to lament that the economy appears to be slowing as “the rich” spend less:

Think of the wealthy as the main engine of the economy:  When they buy more, the economy hums.  When they cut back, it sputters.  The rest of us mainly go along for the ride.”

Noting that the Obama Administration seeks to increase tax rates on that critical income segment, the AP report states ominously that, “the wealthy may be keeping some money on the sidelines due to uncertainty over whether or not they will soon face higher taxes.”

The good news is that there’s still time for the Obama Administration to wake up and smell the same coffee the AP is smelling.

Pulling the race card is beginning to carry about as much cachet as Y2K alerts.

You know things have gotten bad when even Howard “I Have a Scream” Dean feels entitled to pull it (without bothering to understand that Shirley Sherrod was fired by the Obama Administration before supposedly “racist” Fox News had even referenced her name).  Fox News commentator Juan Williams, who is actually one of the less-insane liberals in public discourse, unfortunately seemed to resort to it yesterday on “Fox News Sunday.”  Commenting on new ethical charges against Rep. Charles Rangel (D – New York) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D – California), Williams immediately raised the issue of the two defendants’ race.  Why in the world should that be the immediate consideration while discussing these serious charges?

Too bad that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay didn’t think of this.  Hey, if Howard Dean can try it, why not DeLay?

We note in our Lunchtime Liberty Update this week that the Obama Administration’s class warfare campaign targeting “the rich” will inflict further harm on our economy.  Not only would such tax increases hit small businesses (which create most new jobs in America) particularly hard, it would also penalize the income segment that accounts for 1/3 of consumer spending, which itself accounts for 2/3 of the nation’s economy. Confiscating even more of those dollars may sound fine on a teleprompter, but it will bring destructive consequences in the real world.

Now, a new study by Barclays Capital highlights another potential harm.  According to their analysis, Obama’s plan will cause a 9% drop in the S&P 500 and a 900-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  As noted in this morning’s edition of The Hill, that would result from the Obama Administration’s focus on taxing upper income segments:

The Barclays report attributes the potential stock drop to President Obama’s plans to increase taxes on wealthy individuals, who are the country’s chief investors.  The report claims high earners are likely to shift their investment strategies because of the coming tax increase.  ‘According to the Fed’s 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances, 75 percent of stock market wealth is held by families in the top percentile of income,’ the Barclays report states.  ‘From a behavioral standpoint, if the government follows through on its plan to raise dividend and capital gains taxes for the highest income earners, it could influence the asset allocation decisions of an important investor class and potentially bring about a shift away from equities, with negative knock-on effects for the economy.'”

Earlier this month, we noted the sad irony that leaders from welfare states like Germany now lecture President Obama about fiscal discipline.  At the recent G-20 summit in Toronto, Obama attempted to strongarm other industrialized nations into more of the deficit-inflating “stimulus” spending that has failed here, but to no avail. Germany has actually announced budget cuts, whereas Obama admitted that this year’s $1.5 trillion deficit will exceed even last year’s $1.4 trillion pit.

Yesterday, German labor market data provided additional evidence that they were right, and Obama was wrong.  For the thirteenth consecutive month, German unemployment fell, and Germany has now recovered its jobs lost during the recession.  Meanwhile, U.S. unemployment remains near its recessionary high at 9.5%, compared to Germany’s 7.6%.  Obama continues to employ his mindless “jobs saved or created” talking point, but Germany suggests that fiscal discipline and spending restraint are the better course.

Perhaps Obama can go on the German version of “The View” and explain to them why his agenda works better despite the stark evidence.

Julian Assange, editor of the WikiLeaks site that disclosed classified military documents and the names of Afghans who assisted American forces, arrogantly says he enjoys “crushing bastards.”

The 92,000 documents released by Assange and WikiLeaks included such things as military communication protocols, tactics and juicy tips for intelligence operatives in such places as China, Iran and Russia.  More horrifically, however, the disclosures identify the names, families, locations and forms of assistance provided by Afghans still vulnerable to vicious Taliban retribution.  Anyone who read or saw The Kite Runner knows exactly the sort of brutality imposed by that murderous band.

Here’s an idea.  Perhaps some enterprising citizen, or perhaps the family of someone Assange has jeopardized through his own little “bastard” jihad, would like to publicize his home address, phone number or other confidential information.  After all, complete and open disclosure is a good thing, right Mr. Assange?

A federal judge has temporarily enjoined portions of SB 1070, Arizona’s legislative effort to address the flood of illegal immigrants in that state.  The enjoined portions will be put on hold pending the resolution of the underlying lawsuit, and appeal of the ruling is expected in any case.

Two immediate reactions, however, immediately come to mind.  First, it seems curious that the judge would justify her injunction on the basis that local enforcement creates a “burden” that only federal officials may impose, since the entire problem arises because federal officials are simply failing to enforce something they’ve made illegal.  Second, opponents of SB 1070 may be celebrating what may prove a Pyrrhic victory.  Specifically, how do such opponents expect the electorate, which heavily favors the law, to react to a ruling that condones the federal government effectively sitting on its hands while a problem that it has made illegal festers?  The backlash in the voting booth could be severe.  Stay tuned…