My Country ‘Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Dependency

If you want to get depressed or angry, the New York Times has an article celebrating the effort by politicians at all levels of government to lure more people into the food stamp program. New York City is running ads in foreign languagues asking people to stick their snouts in the public trough. The City is even signing up prisoners when they get out of jail. The state of New York, meanwhile, actually set up quotas for enrolling new recipients. And on the federal level, there apparently is a program that gives states “bonuses” for putting more people on the dole. No wonder one out of every eight Americans is receiving food stamps.

By the way, this is not just the fault of Democrats. The ranking Republican on the Agriculture Committee is a big defender of the program, in part because of the sordid pact among urban and rural politicians to support each other’s handouts. And President George W. Bush’s food stamp administrator actually had the gall to assert “food stamps is not welfare.” No wonder the burden of federal spending skyrocketed during the reign of so-called compassionate conservatism.

The correct policy, of course, is to get the federal government out of the welfare business. If Mayor Bloomberg thinks it is a “civic duty” to expand food stamps, he should see whether New York City voters agree with him – and want to foot the bill.

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Tags: Big Government, Bloomberg, Bush, Dependency, food stamps
Posted Feb 12th 2010 at 10:19 am in Congress, Economics, News, federal spending | 7377082 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2010/02/12/my-country-tis-of-thee-sweet-land-of-dependency/My+Country+%27Tis+of+Thee%2C+Sweet+Land+of+Dependency2010-02-12+18%3A19%3A21Dan+Mitchell

There Is some Budget Good News, but It Is Actually Really Bad News

The  Office of Management and Budget has released the President’s FY2011 budget and the Congressional Budget Office has released its semi-annual Budget and Economic Outlook. Much of the coverage of these documents has focused on deficit numbers. This is not a trivial concern, particularly since the Bush-Obama policies of bigger government have dramatically boosted red ink.

But the most important numbers in the budget documents are the estimates of what is happening to government spending. The good news is that burden of government spending is projected to decline over the next few years from about 25 percent of GDP to less than 23 percent of GDP.

That’s the good news.

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Tags: Big Government, budget, Bush, debt, Deficit
Posted Feb 1st 2010 at 10:11 am in Economics, Obama, Politics, federal spending | 6809869 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2010/02/01/there-is-some-budget-good-news-but-it-is-actually-really-bad-news/There+Is+some+Budget+Good+News%2C+but+It+Is+Actually+Really+Bad+News2010-02-01+18%3A11%3A42Dan+Mitchell

When Will the Democratic Party Grow Up and Seriously Address National Security?

On conservative talk shows, defenders of President Obama have frequently asserted that it is too soon into the term of the new administration to fairly judge the policies and performance of our President.  Well, nearly a full year has elapsed since the Obama administration took office and we’ve now all had plenty of chance to “give Obama a chance.”  The oft-repeated mantras that “It’s too soon to tell” and “It’s all George Bush’s fault” won’t hold beer any longer.   If his plummeting poll numbers are any indication, many who fell for Obama’s neatly packaged utopian vapors of hope, change, and transformation are finally starting to emerge from their media-induced slumber.  And, while many of us could easily predict that the shallowness residing at the core of Barack Obama would soon lead to a precipitous disillusionment, the speed with which that is taking place is actually quite breathtaking.

Despite what European Socialists may think of us, Americans are not entirely stupid.  While the well-oiled hype machine of the Left-biased news media and the air headed Hollywood crowd helped to induce the large scale brain freeze that got Obama elected, as his serious failures of policy have mounted and the significant impact of those failures is felt, no amount of propaganda will suffice to resurrect the messianic fervor that once surrounded the heady days of Obama’s campaign.  Daily some new facet of the administration’s incompetence (at best) and fecklessness (at worst) is displayed, and increasing numbers of those who initially fell under his thrall are awakening to the profound danger Obama’s Presidency poses to both world peace and our American way of life. (more…)

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Tags: 2010, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Biden, Bush
Posted Jan 13th 2010 at 4:20 pm in Congress, Obama, Politics | 59438148 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/ebalogh/2010/01/13/what-will-it-take-for-democratic-party-to-grow-up-and-seriously-national-security/When+Will+the+Democratic+Party+Grow+Up+and+Seriously+Address+National+Security%3F2010-01-14+00%3A20%3A11Endre+Balogh

Tax Increases Mean Less Revenue: Your Common Sense Guide

As Congress recklessly moves to enact evermore programs in the face of ever larger deficits, it is only a matter of time before they take up the revenue side of deficit equation: Spending – Tax Revenue = the Deficit.  Of course, in response to rising deficits, the Media and the Democrats will reflexively demand tax increases. Republicans, for their part, simply must be able to articulate why higher taxes will actually result in larger deficits not smaller.

I offer this common sense guide for the great battle to come.

At the outset, it must be noted that, in practice, politicians don’t actually raise taxes so much as they pass laws to increase tax “rates,” i.e. income rates, sales tax rates, etc.  They do in an ill-founded pursuit of more tax revenue.

It is ill-founded because tax rate increases, over time, yield less revenue than tax rate cuts.  For instance, when the economy was bad in the early 1990’s, the California legislature raised tax rates and over a 3 year period, revenues actually dropped.  By 1999, Bill Clinton’s tax rate increase resulted in the highest overall tax burden in our history – a recession naturally followed which led to declining revenues.

These common sense points explain why tax rate cuts, over time, will raise for more money than tax rate increases.

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Tags: Bush, Deficit, Great Depression, Hoover, Kennedy
Posted Nov 15th 2009 at 6:17 am in Economics, Featured Story, History, Tax Reform | 2743467 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2009/11/15/tax-increases-mean-less-revenue-your-common-sense-guide/Tax+Increases+Mean+Less+Revenue%3A+Your+Common+Sense+Guide2009-11-15+13%3A17%3A59Thomas+Del+Beccaro

Obama’s Rush to Judgment

Barack Hussein Obama has advised us not to rush to judgment about the massacre at Fort Hood. “We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts,” said the President in a statement he delivered from the Rose Garden (while George W. Bush was in Fort Hood).

Obama doesn’t want us to jump to the conclusion that the shootings at Fort Hood were a terrorist attack by an Islamic jihadist, Major Nidal Hasan. Obama would rather we forgot that Nidal Hasan screamed “Allah akbar” before he mowed down scores of patriotic Americans and gave away Qurans with his business card before his act of jihad. Hasan also gave his landlord two week’s notice – showing that he planned this for a long time. He didn’t just snap.

Obama wants us to ignore that Hasan went to a mosque where a jihadist imam preached hatred of America. The same imam was “spiritual adviser” for three of the 9/11 hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001. Obama would rather we didn’t know that when Hasan was asked his nationality, he didn’t identify himself as an American, but as a Palestinian. Obama doesn’t want us to rush to judgment about how Hasan spoke approvingly of the shooting death by an Islamic jihad terrorist of a Little Rock Army recruiter in June. Obama doesn’t us to draw any conclusions from how Hasan reportedly was heard saying, “maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square.”

But Obama says, don’t rush to judgment.

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Tags: Bush, Camp david, fort hood, fort hood shooting, Gates
Posted Nov 9th 2009 at 1:14 pm in Culture, Defense, News, Obama, Uncategorized | 27390187 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/pgeller/2009/11/09/obamas-rush-to-judgment/Obama%E2%80%99s+Rush+to+Judgment2009-11-09+20%3A14%3A43Pamela+Geller

Rush Limbaugh Reacts to Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Win

From an email to Newsweek:

“The Nobel gang just suicide bombed themselves. Gore, Carter, Obama, soon Bill Clinton. See a pattern here? They are all leftist sell-outs. George Bush liberates 50 million Muslims in Iraq, Reagan liberates hundreds of millions of Europeans and saves parts of Latin America. Any awards?… Obama gives speeches trashing his own country and for that gets a prize, which is now worth as much as whatever prizes they are putting in Cracker Jacks these days.”

“This fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama. It is a greater embarrassment than losing the Olympics bid. And with this ‘award’ the elites of the world are urging Obama, THE MAN OF PEACE, to not do the surge in Afghanistan, not take action against Iran and its nuclear program and to basically continue his intentions to emasculate the United States. They love a weakened, neutered U.S and this is their way of promoting that concept.  I think God has a great sense of  humor, too.” (more…)

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Tags: Bush, Carter, Clinton, Gore, Iran
Posted Oct 9th 2009 at 9:00 am in News, Obama | 14882101 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2009/10/09/rush-limbaugh-reacts-to-obamas-nobel-peace-prize-win/Rush+Limbaugh+Reacts+to+Obama%27s+Nobel+Peace+Prize+Win2009-10-09+16%3A00%3A24Publius