Now is the time to say “No!” – Tea Party Nation

Now is the time to say “No!” – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips

Federal spending is out of control.

 That is no secret.  In fact, anyone who thinks federal spending is not out of control has serious delusion issues. 

 We need to cut spending so where is one of the first places we could make a pretty big cut?

 Let’s eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood.

 Last year Planned Parenthood received $542 million dollars from the government.  That’s right, they received over half a billion dollars from you and me. 

 Why does Planned Parenthood get this money?

 It is simple, they have a racket.  Planned Parenthood supports Democrat candidates who turn around and vote to give Planned Parenthood even more money. 

 Why does Planned Parenthood need this money, other than to help get Democrats elected?  Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the nation.    Planned Parenthood claims that it offers other services, yet 92% of its pregnancy services were abortions.  In the last three years, Planned Parenthood has performed almost one million abortions. 

 Even if you think abortion should be legal, does anyone really think that a million abortions is a good thing?

 The moment anyone talks about cutting Planned Parenthood’s funding, the usual liberal suspects start screaming.  They claim that women will die without mammograms.   The fact is, all Planned Parenthood does with Mammograms is refer them to other medical providers.   Liberals scream that women will not get contraception and other cancer screenings.  Yet in the last three years, Planned Parenthood’s contraceptive offerings have dropped by 12% and their cancer screenings have dropped by 29%.

 The simple truth is Planned Parenthood has two core businesses.  The first is abortion and the second is electing liberal Democrats who will keep the gravy train rolling for Planned Parenthood.

 There is no good reason why the American people should keep this business in business.

 Congressman Marsha Blackburn has introduced a bill, H.R. 61 to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funding until they stop performing elective abortions and stop referring women for elective abortions.

 We need your help.  Contact your Congressman and ask them to support H.R.61 and demand an end to the funding of Planned Parenthood by the American taxpayer.

 Today a letter was released signed by the leaders of 29 conservative organizations supporting H.R.61 and Congressman Blackburn.  I was pleased to be one of the signers of this letter.

 This is an obvious cut that we can make to spending.  We have to start someplace so why not here?

 Call your Congressman today and ask them to support and to co-sponsor H.R. 61 and let’s eliminate the Federal Government funding of just another liberal special interest group.

 

Dear News Media, you suck

Dear News Media,

You suck. Whatever happened to journalism? Fact finding? Truth before reporting? You’re nothing more than sleazy lawyers hanging out in hospital parking lots looking for unsuspecting clients. I stopped watching your sensationalist ‘news’ a long time ago and I refuse to start again until you grow the fuck up.

Dear Law Enforcement officials, you’re stronger than they are. Don’t cave into the news media and government officials when they beg and threaten you for inaccurate crumbs to feed to the tabloid media machine. Just say no.

Dear Law Enforcement and First Responders, we love you. We’re so sorry that you have to see such terrible things. We hope our love and support is enough to get you through each day. There is no one we trust more than you.

Dear Mr. President, don’t tell the people that we will do everything we can so that this terrible tragedy doesn’t happen again. You can’t prevent them. No one can. If someone wants to harm others they will. It’s not pretty but it’s the truth.

Dear Families in Newtown, we are all thinking of you. We are all sending our love and support. We are so sorry. We know it can never be enough.

Dear America, nothing is black and white. You should know that by now. It’s not something we can fix by saying if we take away A then B will never happen. Life doesn’t work that way.

Stop trying to place blame everywhere except where it belongs.

It’s not non-religious people vs. religious people. It’s not gun owners vs. non-gun owners. It’s not Democrats vs. Republicans.

It’s just people. We need to care more. We need to pay more attention to our kids. We need to help each other.

And not just when tragedy strikes.

I’m sure my words aren’t new. I’m sure my words will anger some. But, they are my words and I will stand by them.

My heart breaks for these children. The same age as my own son. I had the luxury of waking him for school this morning. I didn’t want to let him out of my sight and I cried after I put him on the bus. If you knew me, you would know that was rare.

My comfort is this, for every [insert deviant type here] out there, who wants to harm others to fill whatever hole they have in their lives, there are thousands of good people doing the right thing for others without wanting a thing in return.

Maybe one day the news media will report those stories.

This was blogged by my daughter. She makes me proud!

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DRIESSEN: The coming environmental battlegrounds – Washington Times

DRIESSEN: The coming environmental battlegrounds – Washington Times.

Green agenda threatens economic future

By Paul Driessen

Subsidized pressure and propaganda: Billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies continue to flow each year to bureaucratic zealots, environmentalist pressure groups, universities and other organizations. These dollars fund junk science, strained justifications for indefensible rules, more pressure to regulate for increasingly diminished returns, and outright propaganda.

Federal and state legislators need to hold investigative hearings, demand accountability, cut bloated agency budgets that enable such expenditures, and question why tax-exempt activist groups should receive taxpayer money funneled through government agencies.

America can continue paying billions in subsidies annually to prop up “green” technologies and agenda-driven science, or we can generate tens of billions a year in royalties and taxes, create millions of jobs and rejuvenate our economy through hydrocarbons, nuclear power and common-sense regulations.

Will President Obama, Democrats and executive branch agencies be receptive to bipartisan approaches — to institutionalizing all-of-the-above energy decisions that make scientific, economic, environmental and technological sense? Or will they be even more entrenched, knowing the White House can act via executive decree if Congress does nothing?

The answer will determine whether the United States becomes an economic powerhouse once again or an enormous Greece. Blessed with more oil, gas and coal than almost any other nation on earth, we must not refuse to develop these resources.

Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and author of “Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death” (Merril Press, 2012).

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The End Nears for a 50-Year Mistake – Jeff Jacoby – Townhall Conservative Columnists

The End Nears for a 50-Year Mistake – Jeff Jacoby – Townhall Conservative Columnists.

In retrospect, there were two conspicuous giveaways that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was headed for victory in last week’s recall election.

One was that the Democrats’ campaign against him wound up focusing on just about everything but Walker’s law limiting collective bargaining rights for government workers. Sixteen months ago, the Capitol building in Madison was besieged by rioting protesters hell-bent on blocking the changes by any means necessary. Union members and their supporters, incandescent with rage, likened Walker to Adolf Hitler and cheered as Democratic lawmakers fled the state in a bid to force the legislature to a standstill. Once the bill passed, unions and Democrats vowed revenge, and amassed a million signatures on recall petitions.

But the more voters saw of the law’s effects, the more they liked it. Dozens of school districts reported millions in savings, most without resorting to layoffs. Property taxes fell. A $3.6 billion state budget deficit turned into a $154 million projected surplus. Walker’s measures proved a tonic for the economy, and support for restoring the status quo ante faded — even among Wisconsin Democrats. Long before Election Day, Democratic challenger Tom Barrett had all but dropped the issue of public-sector collective bargaining from his campaign to replace Walker.

The second harbinger was the plunge in public-employee union membership. The most important of Walker’s reforms, the change Big Labor had fought most bitterly, was ending the automatic withholding of union dues. That made union membership a matter of choice, not compulsion — and tens of thousands of government workers chose to toss their union cards. More than one-third of the American Federation of Teachers Wisconsin membership quit, reported The Wall Street Journal. At the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, one of the state’s largest unions, the hemorrhaging was worse: AFSCME’s Wisconsin rolls shrank by more than 34,000 over the past year, a 55 percent nose-dive.

Did government workers tear up their union cards solely because the union had lost its right to bargain collectively on their behalf? That’s doubtful: Even under the new law, unions still negotiate over salaries. More likely, public-sector employees ditched their unions for the same reasons so many employees in the private sector — which is now less than 7 percent unionized — have done so. Many never wanted to join a union in the first place. Others were repelled by the authoritarian, belligerent, and left-wing political culture that entrenched unionism so often embodies.

Even before the votes in Wisconsin were cast, observed Michael Barone last week, Democrats and public-employee unions “had already lost the battle of ideas over the issue that sparked the recall.” Their tantrums and slanders didn’t just fail to intimidate Walker and Wisconsin lawmakers from reining in public-sector collective bargaining. They also gave the public a good hard look at what government unionism is apt to descend to. The past 16 months amounted to an extended seminar on the danger of combining collective bargaining with government jobs. Voters watched — and learned.

There was a time when pro-labor political leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Fiorello LaGuardia regarded it as obvious that collective bargaining was incompatible with public employment. Even the legendary AFL-CIO leader George Meany once took it for granted that there could be no “right” to bargain collectively with the government.

When unions bargain with management in the private sector, both sides are contending for a share of the private profits that labor helps produce — and both sides are constrained by the pressures of market discipline. Managers can’t ignore the company’s bottom line. Unions know that if they demand too much they may cost the company its competitive edge.

But when labor and management bargain in the public sector, they are divvying up public funds, not private profits. Government bureaucrats don’t have to worry about losing business to their competitors; state agencies can’t relocate to another part of the country. There is little incentive to hold down wages and benefits, since the taxpayers who will be picking up the tab have no seat at the table. On the other hand, government managers have a powerful motivation to yield to government unions: Union members vote, and their votes can be deployed to reward politicians who give them what they want — or punish those who don’t.

In 1959, when Wisconsin became the first state to enact a public-sector collective-bargaining law, it wasn’t widely understood what the distorted incentives of government unionism would lead to. Five decades later, the wreckage is all around us. The privileges that come with government work — hefty automatic pay raises, Cadillac pension plans, iron-clad job security, ultra-deluxe health insurance — have in many cases grown outlandish and staggeringly unaffordable. What Keith Geiger, the former head of the National Education Association, once referred to as “our sledgehammer, the collective bargaining process,” has wreaked havoc on state and municipal budgets nationwide.

Now, at long last, the pendulum has reversed. The 50-year mistake of public-sector unions is being corrected. Walker’s victory is a heartening reminder that in a democracy, even the most entrenched bad ideas can sometimes be unentrenched. On, Wisconsin!

Economics for dummies – Tea Party Nation

 

Cover of Economics For Dummies

Economics for dummies – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips on December 16, 2011

A few days ago, Congressman Barbara Lee, from where else but California, was on MSNBC claiming it was imperative that unemployment benefits be extended for an additional 14 weeks.  They already are at 99 weeks. 

 A day earlier, I had stopped at restaurant for lunch.  Sometimes voice carry in places and the people next to me were talking loud enough I could easily hear the discussion. 

 There were two people there, a man and a woman.  The woman said her unemployment benefits were running out and she was hoping Congress would extend them.  If not, she said, she would have to go out and get a job paying $7 or $8 an hour until she could get a real job.

 I have no idea what this woman normally does for a living, but right now, she is taking a two-year vacation at taxpayer expense. 

 The unemployment fiasco is just another indication that liberals have absolutely no clue about economics.   Of course, why learn when you can be a liberal and the drive by media never calls you on your stupidity.

 Any economist, perhaps even one as absolutely brain dead as Paul Krugman, will tell you that anytime you subsidize something you get more of it. 

 If you subsidize beans, you get more beans.  Subsidize corn and you get more of it.  Subsidize more unemployment and you get more unemployment. 

 Let’s take our unknown diner for example.   She may not make as much money collecting unemployment as she would if she were working, but the difference for her is not enough to make want to go out and get a job.  So she remains one of the 14 million unemployed Americans.  

 Ms. Unknown Diner apparently believes she could easily go and get a job but the pay difference is just not enough to move her out of the unemployment line.

 I had heard of stories like Ms. Unknown Diner but had never I had never dealt with anyone personally who was milking unemployment just to have a paid vacation.

 Not everyone who is drawing unemployment is mooching off the system.  Many people who are freshly laid off thanks to the great Obama depression certainly need the money.   Unfortunately, there are many out there who are just using lengthy unemployment benefits as an excuse for some paid vacation.

 The good news is because the Democrats are so clueless on economics; they will be the victims of their own policies.   As long as the Democrats keep subsidizing unemployment, we are going to keep getting unemployment. 

 As long as unemployment is north of 9%, Obama can pretty much kiss his reelection good bye.

Nancy Pelosi, Down and Dirty – Michelle Malkin – Townhall Conservative

 

Image by TalkMediaNews via Flickr

Nancy Pelosi, Down and Dirty – Michelle Malkin – Townhall Conservative.

As a rueful Queen Elizabeth once said of a particularly rough year for the royal family, 2011 is “not a year on which” Queen Nancy Pelosi “shall look back with undiluted pleasure.” The former House Speaker relinquished her crown — er, gavel — in January. It’s been an epic downhill ski crash ever since.

Most recently, Pelosi faced questions from liberal “60 Minutes” and conservative investigative author Peter Schweitzer about a 5,000-share Visa stock purchase she made with her husband as the House was considering credit card regulations. She made a “killing” off the highly sought-after initial public offering. The stock holdings more than doubled in a few weeks; the credit card regulations were put on ice somewhere in the back of Pelosi’s fridge.

While she makes grand gestures toward banning congressional insider trading, San Fran Nan‘s financial conflicts of interest are once again on display. This week, Reuters columnist Dan Indiviglio pointed to pending House legislation titled the “New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2011,” which is stuffed with natural gas vehicle subsidies: $9 billion worth, to be precise. These very subsidies are championed by Texas billionaire and failed wind farm evangelist T. Boone Pickens. He just happens to be a major stockholder in the company that would benefit from the bill: Clean Energy Fuels.

Question the timing? Indeed. As The Washington Examiner‘s Tim Carney observes: “While Pickens, a longtime oil and gas man, has been lobbying for natural gas subsidies for decades, his cause has become particularly urgent this month. Pickens owns options to buy 15 million shares of Clean Energy Fuels at $10 per share, according to SEC filings. Those options expire Dec. 28. If Congress could pass the NATGAS Act this month, shares of Clean Energy would skyrocket.”

Pelosi just happens to be a stockholder in — you guessed it — Clean Energy Fuels. The then-Speaker bought between $50,000 and $100,000 of stock in Pickens’ CLNE Corp. in May 2007 on the day of the initial public offering. As I reported in a column three years ago, Pelosi’s 2007 financial disclosure form listed “assets and ‘unearned income’ of between $100,001-$250,000 from Clean Energy Fuels Corp. — Public Common Stock.” If the natural gas giveaway passes, Pelosi profits.

Of course, an endless parade of dirty Democratic scandals earlier this year had already completely obliterated what was left of Pelosi’s Mop-and-Glo reformer image. She and other liberal feminists rallied around disgraced Twitter freak and former N.Y. Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner even as evidence mounted that he lied to them. And used taxpayer resources and government buildings while sexting. And recklessly neglected to ensure that his Internet paramours were of legal age.

Pelosi and fellow femme-a-gogue Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., led from behind, calling for Weiner’s resignation only after the public tide had shifted. Pelosi showed similar reticence in dealing with basket-case Oregon Democratic Rep. David Wu — whose sexually aggressive, alcohol-addled erratic outbursts stretched over decades. Despite knowledge of Wu’s staff’s panic about his infamous 2010 Tigger costume photos and despite months-old pleas for help from an underage victim of Wu’s sexual indiscretions, House Democrats sat on their hands. In July, Pelosi finally called for an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

That’s the same panel that slapped Pelosi pal and New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel on the wrist for serial tax-cheating and has yet to move forward with California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters’ ethics trial after charging her last year with three violations related to her crony TARP bailout intervention on behalf of minority-owned OneUnited Bank in Los Angeles.

What a way to close out her annus horribilis. Nancy Pelosi, the proud feminist who boasted she would clean up Washington, is covering up and cashing in. Just like all the other self-dealing good old boys.

Michelle Malkin is the author of “Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies” (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.

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Barney Frank Backs IPAB Repeal – By Andrew Stiles – The Corner – National Review Online

 

Barney Frank Backs IPAB Repeal – By Andrew Stiles – The Corner – National Review Online.

By Andrew Stiles

As the editors make clear on the homepage, outgoing Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) will not be missed. However, just one day after announcing his retirement from Congress, the curmudgeonly liberal has, perhaps for the first time in his career, given conservatives something to cheer about:  

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank announced on Tuesday his support for the repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a significant portion of President Obama’s health care overhaul. Frank…became the 12th Democrat, and the 212th member of the House, to co-sponsor Tennessee Republican Rep. Phil Roe’s bill aimed at repealing the IPAB.

Frank is by far the most prominent of those 12 Democratic co-sponsors, the ranks of whom have been steadily growing as more of them are actually reading President Obama’s health-care reform legislation and “finding out what’s in it.” Under the new law, a 15-member panel of appointed “experts” — IPAB — will be given sweeping authority to rein in out-of-control Medicare costs. For example:

Under the law, there are only a few ways for the board’s cost-control recommendations to be amended. Congress can pass alternative measures that reduce Medicare spending by at least as much as the IPAB proposal; or, three-fifths of the Senate can vote to override the IPAB proposal entirely. If Congress fails to pass its own version by a certain deadline and the Senate doesn’t waive the requirement with a three-fifths vote, the board’s recommendations automatically become law.

Too many Republicans insist that President Obama has offered no alternative to House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan’s (R., Wis.) bold proposal to reform (and, thus, to preserve) Medicare for future generations. But he has. That alternative is IPAB. Whereas Ryan’s reforms would employ free-market principles to drive down costs by giving seniors the ability to choose their own plans, Obama’s top-down approach involves a board of unelected bureaucrats employing cold cost-benefit analysis to make far-reaching decisions about what procedures will be covered under Medicare and at what cost; in other words, heath-care rationing.

And while Ryan’s reforms would not go into effect until 2022, under the new health-care law, IPAB is scheduled to begin operating in 2014. However, a growing number of lawmakers and policy advocates are working to make sure it never does. Rep. Phil Roe (R., Tenn.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) have sponsored legislation to repeal IPAB in their respective chambers. But as demonstrated by Frank’s announcement, it’s not just Republicans who are wary of Obama’s plan: 

Health-care advocacy groups are also signing up to the effort. Organizations including the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), which vocally supported the health-care bill despite deep concerns about IPAB, are revamping their opposition to the board by lobbying for IPAB’s demise. Max Richtman, executive vice president and acting CEO of NCPSSM, cites concerns about IPAB’s lack of accountability to Congress and, consequently, the American people…

Richtman argues that the board would be able to impose “dramatic cuts” to Medicare, which would inevitably lead to restricted access to care for seniors. “It’s not going to address the problem in a way that doesn’t end up hurting the program,” he said. “The way the board is constituted is really not the right way to make those decisions.”

Of course, Democrats like Barney Frank and groups like the NCPSSM don’t actually agree with Republicans on what needs to be done with regard to Medicare spending; they live in a fantasy land where Medicare’s $23 trillion in unfunded liabilities can be solved by eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” (and massively increasing taxes). But such bipartisan opposition to IPAB certainty poses another challenge to the Obama administration in its effort to defend an increasingly unpopular health-care law. Representative Roe tells me that his repeal bill is likely to see action sometime next year. “We have bipartisan agreement around the idea that this board will harm patient care and needs to be repealed,” he said in response to Frank’s announcement. “The IPAB will lack full Congressional oversight, compromising its accountability to the American people. This cannot be allowed to happen.”

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MILLER: Supercommittee a super dud – Washington Times

MILLER: Supercommittee a super dud – Washington Times.

Smoke-and-mirrors deal means higher taxes

By Emily Miller – The Washington Times

The congressional supercommittee was supposed to make all of the hard budgetary choices that representatives couldn’t be trusted to make on their own. As the final deadline looms, it’s looking like the end result will be the imposition of fake spending cuts and real tax hikes.

The debt-ceiling deal struck earlier this year gave this extraordinary panel until Nov. 23 to submit its decisions to the Congressional Budget Office and avoid triggering $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts – half from defense. The committee is supposed to find that amount in deficit reduction over 10 years in order to compensate for the next bump up in the debt ceiling.

A meeting of the minds isn’t likely because, even behind closed doors, Democrats refuse to address the real drivers of our debt: Medicare and Medicaid. Republican Medicare reform proposals include the Ryan plan and the bipartisan Rivlin-Domenici plan. The supercommittee gave both sides bipartisan cover to implement the necessary but politically difficult changes such as means testing and increasing the eligibility age.

Real discretionary spending cuts are just as unlikely. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the supercommittee co-chairman, told CNN this isn’t likely to change. “Frankly, there are no real spending cuts on the table,” the Texas Republican said. “All we are talking about here is slowing the rate of growth. All of these programs, by and large, are going to continue to grow, but at a pace that would become more sustainable.” With no real cuts in any government programs, the only way to make up the difference is revenue.

Democrats are counting on being able to tell their liberal base that they’re sticking it to “the rich” and making corporate America pay more. Republicans have shown some willingness to go along with about $500 million in tax hikes, half from taking away some deductions on higher-income filers, in exchange for lowering marginal rates.

The tax code is so complex that it isn’t possible to make quick changes. So members are considering writing modifications to the system broadly and pushing off the specifics as something to be done through regular legislative business. This two-stage process gives the advantage to Democratic tax hikes as marginal-rate changes get pushed off and bogged down.

Both sides will be saying the sky is falling if the supercommittee doesn’t reach a deal, but the drama is contrived. The supercommittee will come to an agreement in time, with smoke-and-mirror spending “cuts” in the out years. There will be no change to entitlement programs. Republicans will fall for empty promises and trade tax hikes for future tax reform that will never happen.

It’s business as usual in Washington, and that’s why our $15 trillion national debt continues to grow.

Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.

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Priebus: Obamacare Biggest Loser on Ohio Ballot

Priebus: Obamacare Biggest Loser on Ohio Ballot.

By Hiram Reisner

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus says by voting down the mandate element of Obamacare, Ohio residents have signaled what’s in store for President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. Priebus also told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Tuesday the defeat of a second ballot issue that would have severely limit collective bargaining by Ohio public-employee unions does not portend nationwide sentiment.

Priebus said he is sure Ohio Gov. John Kasich is “disappointed” in the results of the collective-bargaining law ballot referendum, “but you know it is a state issue.”

“You know, I’m from Wisconsin, obviously, a much different outcome. I think the bigger issue nationally, though, out of Ohio is obviously Issue 3, which really puts Obama on the ballot,” Priebus said. “His keystone piece of legislation — Obamacare — goes down in a major way. And I think that’s what’s really personalized nationally and what you can glean from Ohio, if you want to take anything out of that state tonight.”

Van Susteren said she thought the collective-bargaining vote was important as it reflects on the GOP’s nationwide thrust for smaller government and is not as localized an issue as Priebus portrays. Priebus disagreed.

“Well, I guess I beg to differ.  I mean, I think that when you talk about collective bargaining — when you talk about those issues that are unique to local units of government and how a state’s, you know, financing works, and how their shared revenue works in a particular state and what that means to local government units, and police, and fire, and teachers, and the rest — I think it is pretty localized,” Priebus said. “That’s my opinion — I don’t think there’s a national collective-bargaining issue on the ballot that’s going to play in 2012.

“But I do think the issues of spending, Obamacare — the president,”  he said. “You know what else I take out of this election? Is that all these — whether Democrats have victories or Republicans have victories tonight — there’s one common denominator in all of this: And that is that Democrats — whether the governor in Kentucky or state senators in Virginia who are Democratic — they, number one, didn’t want to be seen with this president.

“They ran against this president actively through their advertising — they came up with the flu and travel conflicts when the president rolled into town,” Priebus continued. “And I just happen to think that that’s really the issue that comes out of tonight — which is this sort of stand-offish approach that Democrats are having towards this president — I think it’s pretty obvious.”

© Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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The Time for Empty Talk Is Over – David Limbaugh – Townhall Conservative

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

The Time for Empty Talk Is Over – David Limbaugh – Townhall Conservative.

As President Obama’s presidential term has unfolded, he has made it increasingly clear what he meant all those times he haughtily said, “I won.” It’s his world, and he has no intention of sharing control over it.

This was on stark display when he attempted to pre-empt the Republican debate with a grandiose joint session of Congress called solely for the purpose of delivering another round of economic propaganda.

He would have us believe that his speech will be of monumental import, but everyone knows, Democrats included, that it will be nothing more and nothing less than a sales job. There will be nothing new in this speech, no new ideas, no new information.

There is never anything new in any of his speeches, including the 50-plus orations he delivered on Obamacare, but he nevertheless keeps going back to the well. He has degenerated into a habitual pattern of presenting an idea and, after the public rejects it, making further speeches to convince us that we are the ones who are wrong. With each new speech, no matter the subject, he ends up with fewer supporters of the proposition in question, yet he remains oblivious to the diminishing returns he is achieving.

He’s been talking about jobs incessantly since his presidential campaign began. When he presented his stimulus package, he wasn’t equivocal; he betrayed no uncertainty. He didn’t say to the American people: “Folks, I am recommending bold action. I realize we just spent nearly $1 trillion on TARP, but I’m asking you to trust me with almost another $1 trillion of borrowed money to try something that might strike you as a dangerous gamble. I’m not sure injecting this money into the economy will stimulate growth, but we have to try something, even if it very well may leave us in an even more precarious national debt predicament.”

Instead, he assured us, with great confidence, that his plan would work and that it would jump-start the economy and get people back to work. He was so sure of his plan that he even acknowledged that his re-election would depend on its success or failure.

Back then, unlike now, he had enormous political capital and the confidence of a great percentage of the American people, many of whom trusted him.

Today we know the results of his reckless experiment. The economy and jobs are tanking, and our exploding debt portends imminent financial collapse.

But from all appearances, he remains as clueless to his economic failures and the bankruptcy of his ideas as he is to their unpopularity with the public. How much more empirical evidence will he need before he quits shoving us toward the cliff?

Perhaps the only thing more difficult than conceptualizing the sheer magnitude of the number 842 billion is trying to figure how anyone could seriously think that injecting more borrowed money would stimulate the economy when $842 billion didn’t. Please ask yourself whether anyone who claims that is an insufficient amount of money to test a theory should have your trust about any subject remotely touching on economics.

And yet that is what the Paul Krugmans and the Obamas would have us believe; the government hasn’t spent enough money, and if we just hire more people to dig and refill ditches, we’ll get back on the road to recovery.

Obama’s reckless experiments would be objectionable enough if the only negative result they generated was to depress an already ailing economy. But he continues to add unconscionable amounts to the national debt as if it’s a nonevent.

It would be one thing if he were to demonstrate any openness to ideas that he hasn’t already tried, ideas that deviate in any way from his leftist playbook.

But any semblance of newness in his upcoming talk will have nothing to do with substance, only packaging. He’s such an inflexible ideologue that he’s incapable of entertaining new ideas. Even if he came to believe, correctly, that the only way out of this nightmare would be to radically reduce spending, structurally reform entitlements, streamline the tax code, relax onerous regulations and restore some certainty and predictability in the business environment, he would not act on those beliefs. He will not pursue an agenda that violates his leftist ideas.

So I don’t have to be clairvoyant to know that his speech will just be more propaganda designed to divert attention from his failed record and upstage his Republican challengers. That’s what makes his stunt to overshadow them all the more reprehensible.

Obama is the one man standing in the way of reversing the economic meltdown and the existential debt threat to this nation. It’s time for him to quit playing games with his speeches and join Republicans in taking remedial action to restore America’s financial health.

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• The Job Wrecker in Chief – David Limbaugh – Townhall Conservative (gds44.wordpress.com)
• Obama Is Fresh Out of Ideas – David Limbaugh – Townhall Conservative (gds44.wordpress.com)
• Will the Buck Ever Stop on Obama’s Desk? – David Limbaugh – Townhall Conservative (gds44.wordpress.com)
• GOP: Please Do Call His Bluff and Man Your Battle Stations – David Limbaugh – Townhall Conservative (gds44.wordpress.com)