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July 23rd, 2009Dear Liberty Activist, Well, your pressure on the House is working brilliantly! Today's session of the House Energy and Commerce committee was again canceled because Chairman Henry Waxman still doesn't have the votes to pass the ObamaCare proposal. The 7 Blue Dogs that sit on the committee that is now expected to meet tomorrow—but then again, who knows?—are still considering the ObamaCare rationing board proposal that, as reported by Politico, would "empower an outside body, like the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, to make binding recommendation for cost cuts in government-run health care programs." Which means price controls. Shortages. Water-down coverage. Rationing. Keep the pressure on! Here are those seven Blue Dogs:
Please also call your own representatives in the House and in the Senate and tell them that you don't want some bureaucracy making decisions about your medical care. The switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. Your lobbying is in fact holding everything up! Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that there will be no floor vote on ObamaCare before the August recess, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not look too far behind. Congratulations! This proposal is on the ropes, so let's deliver the knockout blow! In today's Liberty Action Report, the Blue Dogs may be all bark, Barack Obama is the community organizer-in-chief, and Charlie Rangel's ObamaCare surtax will destroy small business in America. Plus, Matt Welch and Nick Gillepsie take stock of Obama's falling stock. Please send your letters to the editor at Robert@getliberty.org. We publish all points of view! Today, Graceann Lamberta of Germantown, NY writes, "I am a councilwoman in my town Germantown, New York. I was phone calling down the list of Blue Dogs who signed, stating my name and my state, clarifying that my Health Care in the state of NY is also in their hands, and asking them to go home and speak to the people of their districts before they cast a vote. Every one of the offices was polite and willing to pass the message on—all offices except Jim Matheson. The female that answered the telephone was rude and obnoxious; a very poor representative of Mr. Matheson office. The call was made to 225-3011 at 11:40 AM. He should be alerted to the deplorable attitude in which an American citizen was greeted to. Did my job and called, Thanks again for all you do." Thanks for the note, Councilwoman. I think everyone should make at least one extra call to Congressman Matheson's office today. How's that sound? For Liberty, Robert Romano P.S. Do you support limited government? Help us out with a small donation today!
Open Source & Copyright Free Beware
of the Blue Dogs Community
Organizer-in-Chief Rangel
Surtax Debate Exposes "Class Warfare" Myth Too
Hot Not To Note: What's Next, Mr. President -- Cardigans? Beware of the Blue Dogs
ALG Editor's Note: William Warren's award-winning cartoons published at GetLiberty.org are a free service of ALG News Bureau. They may be reused and redistributed free of charge. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1396 Community Organizer-in-ChiefBy Steven M. Cohen Voters in last November's election never really got a clear sense of just what candidate Barack Obama did during his years as a "community organizer." The phrase carries with it some vague suggestion of volunteers working selflessly to represent the downtrodden, the powerless in the community, as they seek to climb out from under the yoke of domineering and exploitative authority. Wikipedia gives us some sense of that notion: "Unlike other forms of more consensual "community building," community organizers generally assume that social change necessarily involves conflict and social struggle in order to generate collective power for the powerless." An Internet search for a definition of community organizing turned up someone named Mike Miller at something described as the Organize Training Center. Mr. Miller's take on community organizing comes extraordinarily close to the principles that Barak Obama, former community organizer, is applying to his role as the nation's new president. There is a remarkable carry-over from his earlier role to his present one: Organizing does two central things to seek to rectify the problem of power imbalance—it builds a permanent base of people power so that dominant financial and institutional power can be challenged and held accountable to values of greater social, environmental and economic justice . . . When viewed in this context, many of the Obama policies that defy logic begin to make perfect sense, even proposals and programs that on their face appear to be in perfect conflict with the common good—as well as common sense. Some of these would, of course, include: degrading our health care system down to Canadian and British standards; turning on the money spigot in the form of an ill-conceived "stimulus" that will neither create jobs nor improve the economy; follow the forever-futile policy of trying to spend our way out of a recession; nationalizing bankrupt car companies on behalf of union interests, thereby preserving failed business models to the tune of tens of billions of dollars; supporting the despicable "card check" legislation that will foster retribution and, inevitably, violence against workers who would be deprived of the secret ballot; raising taxes to astronomical levels—on individuals, corporations, small businesses—in the teeth of a severe recession, a course that risks turning a crisis into a catastrophe; and touring the globe while busily ingratiating himself with every two-bit despot, dictator, and enemy of democracy he can find by repeatedly apologizing for America's past failings and transgressions. I could go on but it would be pointless. Each of these policies, as well as others, is incompatible with even the barest degree of fiscal responsibility, job creation, personal liberty, and America's stature on the international stage. They stand as a perfect contrary indicator to traditional American values like individual choice and freedom from an intrusive government that stands in the way as an obstacle to individual achievement and its rewards. One can only conclude that since each and every one of them are so wrong-headed and patently antithetical to the well-being of the nation, there must be another agenda at work having nothing to do with setting the country on the road to recovery. Another policy I failed to mention perhaps can give us some insight into the true agenda at work here. Part of the president's tax proposal provides euphemistically-dubbed "tax credits" to the roughly 60% of the populace that does not actually pay income taxes. This would create the perverse situation in which having no obligation to pay anything under the tax code becomes a profitable enterprise, leaving the non-payer with a net gain. The source of these credits, of course, is the 40% that enjoys no such immunity under the tax code. Now we know what candidate Obama meant when he told Joe the Plumber that as good Americans we should "share the wealth." What he really meant was that government should act as an intermediary through which wealth is simply redistributed. Thus, a campaign comment that many interpreted to signify the candidate's belief that all Americans should share in the opportunity to achieve prosperity really had a darker meaning: that government's proper role is to expropriate by fiat the assets of one group of Americans and transfer them to a different group. Go back for a moment and re-read the quotations on the function of the community organizer and it becomes evident that Mr. Obama is still acting in that role. He is working to build a "community" in which the influence of the "powerful" is diminished and that of the "powerless" is enhanced. "Solutions" like wealth redistribution and lowest-common-denominator health care serve to achieve that outcome. Hence the "dominant"—corporations, financial institutions, rich people—should be challenged and held accountable to values of greater social, environmental and economic justice. Scrutinized in that context, then, policies that don't meet the standards of rationality when viewed through the prism of their purported purpose—such as economic measures designed to address economic problems—take on new meaning as vehicles aimed at "fixing" what Mr. Obama thinks is the real problem with the country—the problem of power imbalance. Perhaps Americans will in time despair of their flirtation with social and economic collectivism. If they do, however, this administration's legacy will not be simply that it pursued policies that the country eventually rejected. It will be remembered instead for its most egregious act—exploiting and exacerbating a genuine national crisis in the interests of pursuing a radical social and economic agenda. Perhaps more than any of its 43 predecessors, the Obama administration provides a perfect illustration of Ronald Reagan's observation that government is not the solution to the problem, it is the problem. Steven Cohen is a Contributing Writer for ALG News. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1395 Rangel Surtax Debate Exposes "Class Warfare" MythBy Howard Rich "Make the rich pay for it, they can afford it." For decades, this has been the modus operandi of politicians and public officials who rely on unsustainable government growth and skyrocketing taxpayer debt to pad their patronage and expand their influence. It's also the driving force behind House Ways & Means Chairman Charles Rangel's new "health care surtax," which the New York Democrat says will raise $540 billion over the next ten years to pay for part of "Obamacare." Who would end up paying Rangel's surtax? All joint filers making over $350,000 – before deductions. Also, the surtax applies to all forms of income, including wages, dividends and capital gains. This latest "bleed the (moderately) rich"
scam comes from a tried-and-true big government playbook. In fact, it's
every bit as predictable as the blooming of the cherry blossoms, the
naming of yet another government "czar," or whichever Beltway sex
scandal du jour is dominating the cocktail party chatter. And like
countless other government schemes of its kind, it will no doubt be
communicated to middle class mailboxes or televisions via slick
advertisements that invoke how wealthy Americans are enjoying "faster
jets or bigger Sounds familiar, right? Unfortunately, many of the limited government advocates whose job it is to respond to this nonsense have fallen into a predictable rut of their own. "Wealthy Americans create jobs," they remind us – and they're right. "Wealthy Americans pay their fair share," they say. Sometimes they even point out that wealthy Americans pay not only their fair share, but the "fair share" of dozens of others who can't afford to pay anything. But these critical points are rarely expounded upon and are almost always ignored by our intellectually incurious mainstream media. After all, it's just too easy for them to say that "rich people will be paying for new services for poor people" – even though in reality almost all of the money ends up going to bureaucrats, not services, while the money taken from the rich invariably ends up costing far too many poor people their jobs. This is precisely what would happen under Rangel's proposal. According to a report issued by the Heritage Foundation, over sixty percent of the returns that would be impacted by the Rangel surtax include income from small businesses or partnerships. Twenty percent of the returns receive more than half of their income from small business or partnership income. Translation? Jobs will be lost. Lots of them, too. Contrary to the carefully-prepared talking points of the class warfare spin doctors, the people being asked to pick up this tab are not super-wealthy Americans. These are not "too big to fail" financial institutions or union-driven (now government-driven) automakers, these are small businesspeople – supermarket owners, retailers and website developers – in other words, the people who create the vast majority of jobs in America. Instead of coming to Washington D.C. with their hats in hand, these businessmen and women are doing precisely what we want them to do – innovating, turning a profit and providing a livelihood for their employees so that the taxpayers don't have to. Under Rangel's surtax, however, many of these very business owners would be forced to pay over half of their income in taxes – 52%, to be precise - a ridiculously-high rate that exceeds the top marginal rate in all but three industrialized nations. Even socialist countries aren't taxing their citizens at such exorbitant levels. The bottom line is this - if America wants to remain competitive with the rest of the world, its leaders must realize sooner rather than later that they cannot continue to spend us into fiscal oblivion while at the same time throwing a monkey wrench into our nation's job creation engine. Clearly, President Obama made no bones about his desire to "spread the wealth around," but the problem with that approach is that you eventually run out of wealthy people – and the jobs they provide. The Rangel surtax is nothing more than another predictable step in that direction. Howie Rich is the Chairman of Americans for Limited Government http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1394
What's Next, Mr. President -- Cardigans?By Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie Barely six months into his presidency, Barack Obama seems to be driving south into that political speed trap known as Carter Country: a sad-sack landscape in which every major initiative meets not just with failure but with scorn from political allies and foes alike. According to a July 13 CBS News poll, the once-unassailable president's approval rating now stands at 57 percent, down 11 points from April. Half of Americans think the recession will last an additional two years or more, 52 percent think Obama is trying to "accomplish too much," and 57 percent think the country is on the "wrong track." From a lousy cap-and-trade bill awaiting death in the Senate to a health-care reform agenda already weak in the knees to the failure of the stimulus to deliver promised jobs and economic activity, what once looked like a hope-tastic juggernaut is showing all the horsepower of a Chevy Cobalt. "Give it to me!" the president egged on a Michigan audience last week, pledging to "solve problems" and not "gripe" about the economic hand he was dealt. Despite such bravura, Obama must be furtively reviewing the history of recent Democratic administrations for some kind of road map out of his post-100-days ditch. So far, he seems to be skipping the chapter on Bill Clinton and his generally free-market economic policies and instead flipping back to the themes and comportment of Jimmy Carter. Like the 39th president, Obama has inherited an awful economy, dizzying budget deficits and a geopolitical situation as promising as Kim Jong Il's health. Like Carter, Obama is smart, moralistic and enamored of alternative energy schemes that were nonstarters back when America's best-known peanut farmer was installing solar panels at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Like Carter, Obama faces as much effective opposition from his own party's left wing as he does from an ardent but diminished GOP. And perhaps most important, as with Carter, his specific policies are genuinely unpopular. The auto bailout -- which, incidentally, is illegal, springing as it has from a fund specifically earmarked for financial institutions -- has been reviled from the get-go, with opposition consistently polling north of 60 percent. Majorities have said no to bank bailouts and to cap and trade if it would make electricity significantly more expensive. According to a
recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, more than 80 percent are
concerned that health-care reform will increase costs or diminish the
quality of care. Even as two House committees passed a reform bill last
week, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office
warned that the proposal "significantly expands the federal
responsibility for health-care costs" and dramatically raises the cost
"curve." This sort of voter and expert feedback can't be As writers who inveighed against last year's GOP candidate and called George W. Bush's presidency a "disaster," we're equal-opportunity critics. As taxpayers with children and hence some small, almost certainly unrecoverable stake in this country's future (not to mention that of General Motors, Chrysler and AIG), we write with skin in the game and the fear that our current leader will indeed start busting out the 1970s cardigans… continue reading here. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1393 Click here to unsubscribe from the Liberty Action Report. Americans for Limited Government |
