We’re hearing an awful lot about the “wealthy” paying “their fair share” where taxes are concerned. Pres. Obama and his Progressive and liberal Democrat brethren have perfectly coordinated their talking points to affect a campaign of undefined and reckless class warfare against the productive class, doing so for the sole purpose of political gain. Expectedly, Mr. Obama presents a Janus face: denying out of one mouth that he is utilizing class warfare; demonizing the producers out of the other.

In announcing his new, but all too familiar, deficit reduction plan on September 19th, Mr. Obama said:

“This is not class warfare, it is math…All I’m saying is that those who have done well, including me, should pay their fair share in taxes…We can’t just cut our way out of this hole… It is only right we ask everyone to pay their fair share…We can’t afford these special lower rates for the wealthy. We can’t afford them when we are running these big deficits… Middle class taxpayers shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires. That’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to argue against that…”

Of course, an honest man would admit that the federal government is spending way, way, way beyond its means. An honest man would admit that the federal government has gone far, far, far beyond its constitutional mandate in providing special interest programs that would be better suited for private sector benevolence organizations. An honest man would acknowledge the fact – the fact – that the federal government, now hijacked by the political correctness of Progressivism, has ventured into social engineering via its “social justice” campaign and departed, to a great degree, from the vision of federal government established by our Founders and Framers.

But, that would be an honest man and honest men. We, here today, are dealing with opportunistic politicians, whose primary goals are to retain power (and by any means possible) and to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.”

Which brings me back the points I want to address: What is anyone’s “fair share” of taxes when our tax code is not only a progressive tax code (oh, the irony), but rife with special interest exemptions, limitations and write-offs? Who decides what constitutes someone’s “fair share”? And for that matter, who defines who is “wealthy” or “middle class” or “working class” or “poor”?

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Yes, I know what you are going to say… “Stop giving her attention and she will go away.” The problem though, is that she has proven that she will not go away even when ignored. Why would she, she has “Olby” to give her liberal ideas (a.k.a. name calling) a platform.

With the easy pickings for cartoon ideas that appear every time she opens her mouth, she is just too hard to ignore. As a cartoonist, she (**shiver**) completes me!

I like the idea of keeping her in the spotlight so regular Americans (the Conservative majority of this country) can see what Liberals truly think of us.

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Public employee unions and their apologists will tell any tale to elicit sympathy for their cause.

A good example is the Rev. Al Sharpton, who now remarkably hosts a nightly show on MSNBC. He recently used a portion of his program to claim that state education cuts forced one Wisconsin school district to eliminate milk from morning snacks for elementary students.

“Governor Scott Walker’s budget cuts mean some kids go without,” Sharpton said, according to an article posted on PolitiFact Wisconsin.

Neither Sharpton nor his National Action Network responded to calls from fact-checkers who were seeking evidence to back up the claim. That’s not surprising.

As it turned out, Sharpton should have checked his sources.

According to the Baraboo district superintendent and the school board president and vice president, milk was eliminated from the morning snack because officials were concerned that kids were drinking too much of it in the morning. They had been getting a half-pint carton during breakfast, the morning break and lunch. That seems like a lot of dairy product for small children, even in Wisconsin.

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A couple of weeks ago, we wrote a piece about how the left wing in Ohio has such a burning hatred for Governor John Kasich, that they will use any and every piece of news about him to launch an attack. Even when he makes a decision that is an act of compassion, they write some scathing critique, portraying him as evil incarnate.  When he reduced Kelley Williams-Bolar’s crimes to misdemeanors, even the most reliably liberal Ohio personalities agreed he did the right thing.  But the union supporting blog Plunderbund criticized his decision after they themselves had previously said she should eventually be pardoned. We summed it up as follows:

And yet they attack anyway. Personally, I could go either way on whether Williams-Bolar deserves leniancy or not. But I bring it up to show that when you’re this rabidly hateful of someone, I guess you will use every single possible thing he does as a reason to attack him. Even an act of compassion. Even if it means contradicting yourself.

Last week, however, they and the AFL-CIO sunk to a new low.  Check out this headline they ran, quoting him: ”Kasich on public employees: ‘we are at war with these people’.”   The union webpage repeats the same story and quote.

Wow. That’s a pretty fiery statement by Kasich.  Except, they have no proof he ever said it!  Zero.

Do they have the governor saying this on video?   No.

Do they have audio of Kasich saying this?   No.

Are they quoting a piece from a reputable news source who was at the event where this supposedly happened?  No.

Want to know where they got this supposed quote? You aren’t going to believe this.  It came from one of those viral emails that gets forwarded around by hundreds of different people. You know, the ones where when you receive it, your first reaction is to check Snopes to see if it is a hoax or not. One of those emails. Some school superintendent named Mike Shreffler wrote an email saying “Kasich said this!” and all the We Are Ohio lefty union clones forwarded it to each other as if it were rock solid fact.

Let’s look closer into Plunderbund’s own post to see even more.

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The last thing I want for my dear readers is to burden them with the human filth that confronts me daily. But periodically, one of the voices in the comments section of our times comes to life right in front of me in such a way that I’m compelled to make an example of him.

After exposure of Palin-hater and hateful Bristol Palin confronter Stephen Hanks, it dawned on me that maiming and shaming is the only means to put rabid leftists in their place. Miraculously, perhaps over the sheer economics of his misbehavior, Hollywood talent manager Hanks has apologized for accosting 21-year-old Bristol Palin for the sin of being the daughter of a prominent public figure.

The gentleman you see in the picture below rudely intruded in my personal space on the event of my great friend from college Paul Raff’s Birthday lunch at the Brentwood Country Mart (I had the always delicious carnitas tacos and Paul had the chicken chipotle sandwich, extra green sauce). Everything was swell at our fiesta para dos until a cowardly anonymous buffoon disturbed the peace. After overhearing my private discussion, he yelped from 10 yards away, “Waaa, waaa, waaa!! Waaa, waaa, waaa!!”

I curiously responded, “Excuse me, are you talking to me?”

Said cowardly anonymous buffoon replied, “I know who you are. Waaa, waaa, waaa!! Waaa, waaa, waaa!! Always complaining, always complaining.”

It was clear he wanted a public confrontation, and a public confrontation he got. With my hands behind my back (to make it perfectly clear that I was a taking a non-violent tact) and our faces two feet from one another, he attempted to make the conflict about politics, ACORN, and Sherrod. He was trembling worse than Matt Damon after the Red Sox collapse. When it became clear he was light on facts, things got personal. He said, “I know why you act like you do. People in your High School didn’t like you and now you’re taking it out on the rest of us. You were a little guy who got beat up.”

I informed said cowardly anonymous buffoon (who apparently has access to a time-machine) that I played defensive line on Varsity football. “Who was beating me up?,” I said. Who do you know that I know? Who do you know who said this?”

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From the Associated Press:

Florida decided Friday to hold its Republican presidential primary on Jan. 31, snubbing a party rule against fast-track delegate-selection for 2012 and triggering angry responses from traditional early voting states which will now likely rejigger their calendars to stay ahead.

The move actually thwarts efforts by both major political parties to delay presidential primaries and caucuses. Their aim has been to avoid a repeat of the 2008 scenario, when states jumped ahead of each other at that time in attempts to increase their influence in the process.

In Florida, a special nine-member committee appointed by legislative leaders and Gov. Rick Scott voted 7-2 to set the January date two days after House Speaker Dean Cannon announced that’s what it was expected to do.

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From USA Today:

Retirement programs for former federal workers — civilian and military — are growing so fast they now face a multitrillion-dollar shortfall nearly as big as Social Security’s, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The federal government hasn’t set aside money or created a revenue source similar to Social Security’s payroll tax to help pay for the benefits, so the retirement costs must be paid every year through taxes and borrowing.

The government paid a record $268 billion in pension and health benefits last year to 10 million former civil servants, military personnel and their dependents, about $100 billion more than was paid a decade earlier after adjusting for inflation. And $7 billion more was deposited into tax-deferred accounts of current workers.

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As noted in a previous BigGovernment posting, the Obama NLRB has literally chosen to shred secret ballots and thus democracy in the workplace. In what clearly was a gift to Big Labor and its collusive agreements with certain employers, the NLRB took away the right for employees to have a secret ballot election immediately following a coercive union ‘card check’ drive. In addition, it retroactively took action and cancelled secret ballots that had already been cast or were set to be cast.

Barbara Ivey of the forced unionism state of Oregon and her co-workers were victims of the totalitarian NLRB actions. On August 26^th, as Big Labor Attorney and NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman’s term expired and she slinked back to her Big Labor law practice, the NLRB voted to repeal “DANA rights” in its Lamons Gasket decision.

Mrs. Ivey was invited by the Education & Workforce Committee to testify about her shock that the U.S. government took away her right to a secret ballot, especially since the NLRB had earlier said she had the right and had scheduled the vote only days after the fateful Lamons Gasket decision. She and her fellow employees never got a chance for a secret ballot to vote, and now she will be forced to pay tribute to an SEIU union boss in order to keep her job.

The video above is taken from the Education & Workforce Committee hearing where the Obama NLRB usurpation of power and destruction of individual liberty is on display. Because of this decision numerous secret ballots that have already cast in workplaces across the country will never be counted. The ballots reportedly are currently stored at NLRB, then will eventually be shredded or disposed of in another manner.

To borrow from the Wisconsin union thugs, “This is what DEMOCRACY looks like” in an Obama Administration! (more…)

While the mainstream media continues to cover important stories about the “racist” Tea Party, the need to tax the ultra-rich, or Michelle Obama’s recent shopping spree at Target, details of Fast and Furious continue to effervesce below the surface.  And while Obama tweaks his jobs plan for the umpteenth time, takes a few more vacations, and blames the American people for the misery he himself has caused, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) continue to demand answers as to who knew what and when regarding the 2,500 weapons that were sold to straw purchasers and then carried into Mexico without so much as a whimper from ATF supervisors.

Let me make a correction: part of the news that’s effervescing is that all the weapons weren’t sold to civilian straw purchasers. We now know that some of them were sold to ATF agents who paid cash for the weapons and then turned around and sold them to men with proven criminal ties.

Of course, this raises a whole new problem for the ATF supervisors and DOJ officials who are doing their best to stonewall Issa and Grassley’s investigation into this monstrously criminal action: and that new problem is that the funds ATF agents used to purchase the weapons were taxpayer funds.

Read that again and let it soak in – taxpayer monies were used to buy at least some of guns that were purchased during Fast and Furious (and which were then passed on to criminals).

How could this happen? It could happen because this was not a bottom up operation. It was top down, and those at the top had access to funding and the power to keep those beneath them from blowing the lid off of it (for a while at least).

(more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the latest consumer spending numbers, China’s push to corner the market on rare earth minerals, and Solyndra as the perfect example of Obamanomics.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Prices Rising, But Spending Slows as Income Posts Drop
Employers hit by unemployment tax hikes
Rare Earths Fall as Toyota Develops Alternatives
DEMINT: Venture socialism
Venture Socialism: the Logical Endpoint of Obamanomics
Energy Department Is No Venture Capitalist
Crony Capitalism: $737 Million Green Jobs Loan Given to Nancy Pelosi’s Brother-In-Law
Chu takes responsibility for a loan deal that put more taxpayer money at risk in Solyndra

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Many are called, few are chosen. Isn’t that what they say?

Reports of the rise of Herman Cain can be found, in between the GOP establishment’s calls to the Governor of New Jersey.

Almost lost amid the buzz this week over the possibility that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may seek the Republican nomination for president was the potential rise of a candidate already in the race: Herman Cain.

Speaking of calls to New Jersey, who has the kind of insight and influence to make this call happen? One would have to know there was hesitation on behalf of Christie’s wife, while also having enough Bush influence to trigger a call from the former First Lady. Somehow I doubt she simply picked up the phone based upon Christie’s boilerplate speech at the Reagan Library. Perhaps one Fox News political analyst, or another, will fill us all in one day.

Even Christie’s wife, Mary Pat, has warmed to the idea of becoming First Lady after months of discouraging a run. She originally thought a presidential campaign would upend their family. But she got a phone call from former First Lady Barbara Bush, who reassured her the challenge is manageable, said a source close to the Christie family. Mary Pat Christie now is committed to supporting whatever her husband decides, the source said.

Andrew Breitbart in Human Events. Man I Like That Guy: Chris Christie’s Dude Factor

Surprise: Another top Obama donor gets a green energy loan.

The Left appears to be trying to go all in on the Occupy Wall Street effort. This story is being pushed by the ultra pro-Labor Daily Kos. Kos founder Markos Moulitsas’ first book was criticized, even by some on the Left, for being too pro-Labor. But then, Kos and his cause were already reaping benefits from being aligned with Labor, so why wouldn’t it be?

According to Daily Kos, The New York Transit Workers Union (TWU) voted to support the Wall Street Protestors at their meeting last night. A member of TWU Local 100 told a reporter that they would join the protest Friday at 4PM.

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From Reuters:

A key recommendation for medical coverage standards under President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul will be released on October 7, according to the organization preparing the report.

The Department of Health and Human Services has asked the influential Institute of Medicine, an independent agency in Washington, to recommend how HHS should determine the basic health benefits for millions of Americans who will qualify for coverage sold through insurance exchanges beginning in 2014.

IOM spokeswoman Christine Stencel on Thursday said the agency will release the report on October 7, just a week later than the self-imposed deadline of the end of September.

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From NPR:

Amy Myers Jaffe of Rice University says in the next decade, new oil in the US, Canada and South America could change the center of gravity of the entire global energy supply.

“Some are now saying, in five or 10 years’ time, we’re a major oil-producing region, where our production is going up,” she says.

The US, Jaffe says, could have 2 trillion barrels of oil waiting to be drilled. South America could hold another 2 trillion. And Canada? 2.4 trillion. That’s compared to just 1.2 trillion in the Middle East and north Africa.

Jaffe says those new oil reserves, combined with growing turmoil in the Middle East, will “absolutely propel more and more investment into the energy resources in the Americas.”

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One almost feels sorry for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

He’s a punchline in his own country because he oversees the IRS even though he conveniently forgot to declare $80,000 of income (and managed to get away with punishment that wouldn’t even qualify as a slap on the wrist).

Now he’s becoming a a bit of a joke in Europe. Earlier this month, a wide range of European policy makers basically told the Treasury Secretary to take a long walk off a short pier when he tried to offer advice on Europe’s fiscal crisis.

And the latest development is that the German Finance Minister basically said Geithner was “stupid” for a new bailout scheme. Here’s an excerpt from the UK-based Daily Telegraph.

Germany and America were on a collision course on Tuesday night over the handling of Europe’s debt crisis after Berlin savaged plans to boost the EU rescue fund as a “stupid idea” and told the White House to sort out its own mess before giving gratuitous advice to others.German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said it would be a folly to boost the EU’s bail-out machinery (EFSF) beyond its €440bn lending limit by deploying leverage to up to €2 trillion, perhaps by raising funds from the European Central Bank.”I don’t understand how anyone in the European Commission can have such a stupid idea. The result would be to endanger the AAA sovereign debt ratings of other member states. It makes no sense,” he said.

All that’s missing in the story is Geithner channeling his inner Forrest Gump and responding that “Stupid is as stupid does.”

...at birth?

Separated...

This little spat reminds me of the old saying that there is no honor among thieves.

Geithner wants to do the wrong thing. The German government wants to do the wrong thing. And every other European government wants to do the wrong thing. They’re merely squabbling over the best way of picking German pockets to subsidize the collapsing welfare states of Southern Europe.

But that’s actually not accurate. German politicians don’t really want to give money to the Greeks and Portuguese.

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On Saturday, September 17, Marxist protesters (NeoComs) planned to take over Wall Street. While they had wanted to have some 20,000 protesters come to New York, converge on and stay for months in order to ‘tear down the machine,’ their numbers were far fewer, and their goal of occupying Wall St. never materialized as police relegated them to Zuccotti Park a block away.

In talking to several on the first day of their protest, their inspiration seemed to be a Marxist blend of  Communism and Anarchism, sprinkled with a tinge of comic-book (or Hollywood) flare from the character ‘V’ from ‘V for Vendetta.’ By Day Three, however, they made their demands more clear, calling for the seizure of workplaces and schools, as well as the ‘de-privatization of everything.’

Over the last two weeks, their numbers have dwindled to just a few hundred and there have been well over a hundred arrests. The protesters have been ordered to remove their Guy Fawkes masks and, for the most part, have set up a campground in downtown Manhattan, with take out food called in for them from around the nation.

While they’ve had visits from such Left-wing luminaries as Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Roseanne Barr, and Dr. Cornell West, they have not had as much coverage from the mainstream media nor have they had the support of the real jackboots in the fight for a Marxist revolution—today’s union bosses.

That is, they haven’t had union support until now. (more…)

With the administration rushing out billions more in these final hours before the fiscal year — and apparently their political slush fund — expires, and news reports rapidly exposing that the ‘green stimulus’ money was something of a Democrat “friends and family” — now for major donors, too! — it’s time to recall what each and every such project had in common, possibly assisting in explaining the proliferation of what might be described as ‘cronies’.

Solyndra may only, as administration apologists cite, represent about 1% of ‘green’ stimulus loot, and friends and family may prove to be parties in some percentage — say, between half and 99% — of the greendoggle recipients. But 100% of the recipient projects require government schemes to exist, and 100% are designed to socialize the risk, keep reward with private ‘investors’ (term used loosely for reason of the socializing of the risk), and pay off for reasons other than their performance or their economics.

When such projects exist — and they do always thanks to the political process — well, cronies do tend to abound. It’s less a bug than a feature.

Specifically, think back to that October 2010 internal memo to the president from senior administration officials including then-National Economic Council chair Lawrence Summers, reported on by the Wall Street Journal and noted (with somewhat less context and illumination) this week by the Washington Post. In it, Summers shared a commonsensical worry: “He believed the government would end up funding projects that would have been built anyway or funding projects that flopped.”

Those two categories represent precisely the universe of what these programs fund.

In the order described by Summers, that would be guaranteed-market schemes like wind farms and solar arrays, and manufacturers of the wind and solar gadgets.

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On BigHollywood I once shared my thoughts on the movie Glory and how Col. Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the 54^th Mass., was an example of a post-racial man in his day – indeed he went to his death for his belief in the rights of the free Black men under his command with whom he shared a common grave.

One of my favorite characters in this film was Sergeant-Major Rawlins, played by the esteemed actor Morgan Freeman.  Rawlins, a grave-digger before enlisting in the Union army, is presented as an older, wiser and honest man whom the others look up to…and Shaw himself leans on for counsel.  Perhaps the best scene in the film is the altercation between Rawlins and the embittered and recalcitrant Private Silas Tripp (Denzel Washington).  Rawlins berates Tripp harshly after Tripp derides his compliance with the chain of command, in which only Whites were allowed to be officers, as making him a “…n****r…nothing but the White man’s dog.”  Rawlins then bitch-slaps Tripp across the face and stings him with these words of wisdom and caution:

“And what are you? So full of hate you just want to go out and fight everybody.  Because you’ve  been whipped and chased by hounds.  Well that may not be living but it sure as hell ain’t dying.  And dying’s what these white boys been doing for going on three years now.  Dying by the thousands.  Dyin’ for you, fool!  I know ‘cause I dug the graves. And all the time I’m digging I’m asking myself when, oh Lord, when’s it gonna be our time?  Well our time’s comin’ when we gonna have to ante up.  Ante up and kick in like men…like men!  So you watch who you call a n****r.  If there’s any n****rs around here it’s you.  A smart mouth, stupid-ass, swamp-running n****r.  And if you ain’t careful that’s all you ever gonna be!”

What I like(d) about Morgan Freeman besides his acting is that, until recently, I felt this Rawlins mentality was not far from that of the actor who portrayed him.  Rawlins was a man who, though clearly the victim of racism himself, would not allow race to be an excuse for failure.  And thus I thought Freeman to be a post-racial man and disparaging of those who view the world through the prism of color.

Consider this excerpt from a 2005 interview with Mike Wallace when the actor exposes the hypocrisy of the 60 Minutes journalist for his condescending attitude towards Blacks that is so common among the white-guilt ridden liberal elite…even as they remain oblivious to their own racism that is just as pernicious if not more so than that of a klansman because of its very subtly.  Mike Wallace asked Freeman his thoughts on so-called Black History Month:

Freeman: “Ridiculous.”

Wallace: “Why?”

Freeman: “You’re gonna relegate my history to a month?”

Wallace: “Oh come on—”

Freeman: “What do you do with yours?  What month is ‘white history month’?”

Wallace: [Uncomfortable hemming and hawing.] “Well…”

Freeman: “No, come on.”

Wallace: [Uncomfortable noises. Waves away notion with sweep of hand] “I’m Jewish.”

Freeman: “Okay.  Which month is ‘Jewish history month’?”

Wallace: “There isn’t one.”

Freeman: “Oh…Oh…why not?  Do you want one?”

Wallace: [rather emphatic] “No, no, no I don’t—”

Freeman: “Alright.  I don’t either.  I don’t want a ‘Black history month.’  Black history is American history.”

Wallace: “How are we going to get rid of racism until—”

Freeman: “Stop talking about it.  I’m gonna stop calling you a ‘white man.’  And I’m gonna ask you to stop calling me a ‘black man.’  I know you as Mike Wallace and you know me as Morgan Freeman.  I’m not gonna say ‘I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ You know what I’m saying?”

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Hugo Chavez’s health is failing. We normally wouldn’t mention this, as its a personal thing, but f%^k it, he is an autocratic scumbag.

So just when everyone had concluded the Chris Christie matter — saying “Great speech at the Reagan Library, but he’s not gonna run for president” — the New York Post comes along with a story that says the New Jersey governor is seriously considering a 2012 run. Apparently the Reagan Library experience had a big impact on Christie, and others. He’s now being urged to go for it by Nancy Reagan, Henry Kissinger, former president George W. Bush, and former first lady Barbara Bush.

According to the Post story, even Christie’s wife Mary Pat is warming to the idea.

I don’t have anything to add to this in the way of a forecast. But it does give me a hook to weigh in on Christie’s speech. It was uplifting and inspiring. As many have commented, it was a Reagan leadership speech on exceptionalism, or “earned American exceptionalism,” as the Wall Street Journal editors put it. I agree.

There are a couple a points that I want to emphasize, though.

First, Christie gets the linkage between domestic economic growth, national security, and foreign-policy influence. This was an absolute key Reagan principle.

Reagan’s firing of the PATCO workers was heard around the world by the old Soviet Union. But it was Reagan’s tax cuts, limited government, deregulation, disinflation (with Paul Volcker), and free-trade policies that grew the economy by nearly 5 percent annually during the recovery period of the 1980s, with nearly 20 million new jobs added. That ultimately knocked out the Soviet Union. (Throw in deregulated oil prices, too. They decimated Soviet coffers.)

Second, at the Reagan Library, Christie talked about the New Jersey model, where in a tough war against government unions and teachers, divided government worked to reform the state’s pension and health benefits, cap property taxes, and hold down arbitration awards for union salaries. (Christie didn’t mention this, but he also stopped the millionaire’s tax in New Jersey.)

And while the governor said there was compromise on a bipartisan basis, and while he emphasized leadership in compromise several times in his speech, he noted that he balanced two budgets with over $13 billion in deficits without raising taxes.

So there’s compromise, and there’s compromise.

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