The Congressman wrote in the Washington Times:
Politicians in Washington have spent the better part of the past two months advancing a myth that is undermining one of the most important public policy debates in recent memory. It’s a myth that is coming at the expense of solutions based on common sense that could return us to balance and fiscal stability.
Twenty-six years ago, President Reagan implemented significant tax reforms that lowered the individual income tax rate, limited deductions and brought equality to tax rates across all levels. Before that reform, there had been 15 different marginal tax rates reaching levels as high as 50 percent for top brackets. By the time Reagan left office, the number of brackets had been reduced to two: 15 percent and 28 percent.
In 1993, President Clinton raised the top two income rates to 36 percent and 39.6 percent while also raising the corporate tax rate, increasing the taxable portion of Social Security benefits and increasing income taxable for Medicare. This is what has become known as the “Clinton tax rates.”
In 2001, President George W. Bush changed the rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, lowered the capital gains and dividend income rates, and expanded credits and deductions such as the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
So much time and energy is being spent advancing the myth that raising taxes is the best way to avoid falling off the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
If you raised taxes on the top income bracket, you would generate around $1 trillion over 10 years. The past four years under President Obama have resulted in trillion-dollar deficits each year. At this rate, in 10 years we’re looking at $10 trillion in new debt. At best, the “tax-the-rich” proposal is just a 10 percent solution.
Let’s take this tax-more, spend-more approach to the extreme. If you return everyone to the Clinton-era tax rates, you’re still left with a 10-year, $2.3 trillion deficit, and that’s assuming everything stays as it is right now, and Washington breaks its trend of spending more every year. (Even if we go over the fiscal cliff and return to Clinton-era tax rates, we’re still left with at least a $2.3 trillion deficit over the next 10 years.) The bottom line is this: Under no proposed scenario does raising taxes eliminate the deficit and return us to a balanced budget. The problem is government spending.
This fixation with tax increases is doing a huge disservice to the American people because it ignores the real crisis: government spending. By now, you know all too well that government spends more than it takes in. The federal government is spending more per household than ever before. Since 1965, spending per household has grown by 152 percent.
Conveniently omitted from the current fiscal-cliff discussions is the reality that for individuals earning more than $200,000 a year, their taxes already are going up in 2013, courtesy of Obamacare, which includes a new 1 percent tax on persons making more than $200,000 a year as well as an additional 3.8 percent tax on capital gains, investment income and certain home sales. These two new taxes will generate $317.7 billion over a 10-year period, or $31 billion a year — covering just a fraction of the current $1.1 trillion deficit for fiscal 2012 alone.
Do you know what some in Washington will say 10 years from now, when the problem hasn’t gone away? They’ll say, “We need to tax more.” Why isn’t the solution ever about spending less?
Some in Washington aren’t interested in the truth. They aren’t interested in facts. They aren’t interested in solving the problem. For them, that’s bad for business. It’s much easier for them to keep kicking the can down the road and using our fiscal decline to essentially “cry wolf” and raise your taxes. When will it ever stop?
I can guarantee you this: It won’t stop here, it won’t stop with just the “1 percent” or the “2 percent.” There will never be enough to satisfy this insatiable appetite to spend more.
That’s what’s really at stake right now.
The other side tries to boil this down into a seven-second sound bite about taxing the rich and people paying their fair share. In 2009, the top 10 percent of earners in the United States already paid more than 70 percent of federal income taxes.
This isn’t about fairness and unfairness. It’s about taxing and spending, and the federal government has spent enough.
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Saturday, December 29, 2012
Rep. Darrell Issa: "Washington Spenders Flunk Basic Math: Raising Taxes Won’t Avoid ‘Fiscal Cliff’"
Gallup: Majority Of Americans Have Favorable Opinion Of The NRA
According to Gallup:
Fifty-four percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the National Rifle Association, while 38% have an unfavorable opinion. The public’s ratings of the NRA have fluctuated since first measured by Gallup in 1993 — from a low of 42% favorable in 1995 to a high of 60% in 2005.Tweet
… Favorable opinions of the NRA are much higher than average among the 45% of Americans who report having a gun in the household — although one in four view the NRA unfavorably. At the same time, four in 10 of those without a gun in the household have a favorable opinion of the NRA.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Irresponsible Journalist Publishes Names And Addresses Of Law-Abiding Gun Owners In Three Counties North Of New York City
"They've put me on the same level as a sex offender," rightfully complains a female 73-year-old firearm owner who apparently leaves journalists in New York shaking in their boots. The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain information on registered law-abiding handgun owners in the area and proceeded to publish all the names and addresses.
Instead of demonizing responsible gun owners, how about some outrage for irresponsible journalists? Criminals now know where in three counties north of New York City the guns are – and aren't, which means they can target homes to steal guns when no one is home, or target homes without guns when people are home. It's anti-gun emotional zealotry overriding dispassioned reasoned debate, and endangering people for the sake of attacking one's opponents. This is a shameful tactic that has been used by the left regarding other political issues (e.g., publishing the names of any average citizen who donated to California's Proposition 8), and it's nothing short of inexcusable and disgusting. I guess since anti-gun activists talk about further restrictions on law-abiding gun ownership despite the Second Amendment, then how about discussing reasonable restrictions on reckless journalists despite the First Amendment? If anything, this journalist just accomplished making an argument against gun registration.
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Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Sacramento Man Uses Firearms To Defend Against Home Invasion By Three Armed Men, While Children's Sleepover In The House
I doubt many have heard the powerful recent story from only a few days ago of a team of armed gunmen invading a home in Sacramento, with a children's sleepover taking place. The news reported, that according to neighbors, there were kids in a home at 3:30AM being invaded by three armed hooligans. Of course you did not hear it, because it won't make national news. Why not? Because thankfully the homeowner was armed and was able to kill one of the gunmen and wound two others. The homeowner was wounded in a non-life threatening manner, and he and the children could very likely be dead if not for his bravery and for his firearm. Tweet
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
U.N. General Assembly Condemns Israel 22 Times In 2012, Does Not Condemn Hamas Even Once
UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS
Anti-Israel = 22 Anti-Hamas = 0 |
After years of refusing to condemn Hamas' serial missile attacks
targeting Israeli civilians, the UN General Assembly mustered the collective will to pass nine resolutions condemning Israel in one day, while refusing to even condemn Hamas, bringing the total number of UNGA anti-Israel resolutions for 2012 to 22. |
Monday, December 24, 2012
Character Education: Instilling Moral Values In Public Schools
"Dear God, Why do you allow so much violence in our schools?"
- Concerned Student
"Dear Concerned Student, I'm not allowed in schools."This pretend exchange went viral in response to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. But is there something to be said in a serious manner for the point this is getting across? Of course there is. Today we refuse to instill moral values in youth, and we are not better off for it.
- God
If anyone brings this up there are howls from ardent secularists that prayer will be reintroduced into the public schools. There is often controversy surrounding prayer in public schools, and it is based on the fear of Christian indoctrination of non-Christian students. While this has validity, the fact of the matter is that the absolutists pushing for complete secularism in the public sphere have, with the help of judges, crushed even any semblance of prayer even when there is no such threat. Going to extremes, there is not even a silent moment for individual prayer or meditation allowed, according to the courts. This to me is boneheaded judicial precedent with no relation to the original understanding of the First Amendment. In 1985, the Supreme Court in Wallace v. Jaffree declared it unconstitutional when Alabama set aside one minute at the start of each day for a moment "meditation or voluntary prayer." But this extends far beyond prayer, though prayer needed to be addressed at the outset because it is the first issue to be brought up when one points out the lack of ethical training in public places of learning.
The problem is that in our public schools no moral values or ethics are taught. One has to go to a religious school or a house of worship, in addition to a disciplined and disciplining parent at home, to be exposed to such ideas in any meaningful way that attempts to instill right and wrong in youth. Moral values involve the principles of knowing right from wrong. And a healthy society should have values, that which it deems important, in the realm of right and wrong. Morality and values, the National Education Association has found, top the list of issues of most concern to the American public. There is nothing wrong with character education, which does not exist in today's public schools. As Dennis Prager recently wrote, "until the contemporary period, religion and/or conscience development were ubiquitous" and society was better for it. Our society shows many signs of deep moral trouble (e.g., breakdown of the family, rampant sexuality at early ages with one in four teenage girls having contracted an STD, highest rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world, youth engaging in violent and criminal behavior, violence and promiscuity encouraged by entertainment/music, to name a few). Amidst all this, schools should not be ethical bystanders.
Theodore Roosevelt said, "To educate someone in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." And yet the fact is that schools have completely abandoned moral teaching.
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Thomas Sowell On Obama Going "Forward"
In an interview just prior to the 2012 election, Professor Sowell looks ahead at the likely implications of Obama's reelection: Tweet
David Gregory Mocks Wayne LaPierre For Proposing Armed Guards, But Sends Kids To High-Security School
But when it comes to Gregory's own kids, however, they are secured every school day by armed guards. The Gregory children go to school with the children of President Barack Obama, according to the Washington Post. That school is the co-ed Quaker school Sidwell Friends. According to a scan of the school's online faculty-staff directory, Sidwell has a security department made up of at least 11 people. Many of those are police officers, who are presumably armed. Moreover, with the Obama kids in attendance, there is a secret service presence at the institution, as well. It's safe to say the school where Gregory sends his kids is a high-security school. It's just odd he'd want it for his kids, but wouldn't be more open to it for others.Tweet
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Christianity "Close To Extinction" In Middle East
The study warns that Christians suffer greater hostility across the world than any other religious group. And it claims politicians have been “blind” to the extent of violence faced by Christians in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The most common threat to Christians abroad is militant Islam, it says, claiming that oppression in Muslim countries is often ignored because of a fear that criticism will be seen as “racism”. It warns that converts from Islam face being killed in Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Iran and risk severe legal penalties in other countries across the Middle East. The report, by the think tank Civitas, says: “It is generally accepted that many faith-based groups face discrimination or persecution to some degree. A far less widely grasped fact is that Christians are targeted more than any other body of believers.” It cites estimates that 200 million Christians, or 10 per cent of Christians worldwide, are “socially disadvantaged, harassed or actively oppressed for their beliefs.” “Exposing and combating the problem ought in my view to be political priorities across large areas of the world. That this is not the case tells us much about a questionable hierarchy of victimhood,” says the author, Rupert Shortt, a journalist and visiting fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. He adds: “The blind spot displayed by governments and other influential players is causing them to squander a broader opportunity. Religious freedom is the canary in the mine for human rights generally.”Tweet
Muslim Brotherhood Claims Victory In Egypt Shariah Constitution Vote
RT reports:
Egypt's new Sharia-based constitution has been approved in a second round of voting, the ruling Muslim Brotherhood party said. The country's opposition leveled accusations of fraud, saying it will appeal the referendum results.
The new charter was approved by 64 percent of Egyptian voters in a “resounding victory,” state news agency al-Ahram reported on Sunday. The preliminary tallies were calculated from reports by polling station officials. Egypt's election committee will confirm the final results on Monday.
Egypt's main opposition party the National Salvation Front (NSF) announced Sunday it will appeal the results of the referendum. NSF members alleged there were multiple instances of “fraud and violations” during the voting process.
“The referendum is not the end of the road. It is only one battle,” the NSF’s Abdel Ghaffer Shokr said, pledging to continue “the fight for the Egyptian people.”
The opposition has asked the electoral commission to “investigate the irregularities” before the vote's official results are announced on Monday.
“They’ve seen a number of instances of possible vote rigging, including unsupervised polling stations, missing ballot papers, stuffed ballot boxes,” Cairo-based journalist Bel Trew told RT. There were also reports of Salafist groups at polling stations coercing people into voting 'yes' on the new document, Trew said.
The opposition also criticized the first round of voting last Saturday, citing various incidents of fraud that have yet to be investigated.
The Egyptian opposition remains fiercely opposed to the new constitution, which was authored up by the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly. Opposition activists argue that the charter, which is based on Sharia law, is an affront to the values of the revolution that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak last year, and that it marginalizes Egypt's minority groups.
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Liberal Slate Magazine Blasts Obama For Narcisssism
Obama and his narcissistic streak, as written by none other than Slate:
Someone needs to tell Barack Obama—it must get particularly confusing this time of year—that his own birth is not Year One, the date around which all other events are understood. His much-noted, self-referential tic was on cringe-worthy display Friday when the president gave his eulogy for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, who served in Congress for half a century representing Obama’s birth state of Hawaii.
Inouye was a Japanese-American war hero (he lost an arm in World War II, destroying his dream of becoming a surgeon), and as a senator he served on the Watergate committee, helped rewrite our intelligence charter after scandals, and was chairman of the Senate committee that investigated the Iran-Contra affair. It’s the kind of material any eulogist could use to give a moving sense of the man and his accomplishment. But President Barack Obama’s remarks at Inouye’s funeral service were a bizarre twirl around his own personal Kodak carousel.
For more visit http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/12/barack_obama_s_eulogy_to_daniel_inouye_told_us_more_about_the_president.html
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