You do not have a constitutional right to a job or free/cheap health care, and it is not the job of the federal, state, or local government to provide you with either.
So students protesting against the war may continue to do so, but please don’t make the above cases. The first and foremost duty of the federal government is the protection of our nation from enemies foreign and domestic. Taking out Saddam falls into this category.
Government doesn’t “create jobs,” a phrase I’m sick of hearing from the mouths of politicians, including our President (whom I support, in case you haven’t guessed). The only thing government can do is affect the economy in such a way that it is stimulated to the point that the private sector grows, leading to higher employment. One good way to do this is by lowering and eliminating taxes.
Lower tax revenue inevitably means government will have to look at the things it funds and make hard choices. Defense of our nation is not a hard choice; it is a vital responsibility and should be funded accordingly (Dan’s comment re: un-needed weapons systems notwithstanding). Things like Social Security, Medicare — including the President’s proposed prescription drug aid, the Dept. of Education, funding to the United Nations, the IMF, et al, should and could be eliminated.
None of the above programs has benefited the American citizenry in the long term. They have made us more dependent, individually, upon the federal government, and restricted our sovereignty as a nation. Our country will be better after we cast off these oppressive, and unconstitutional, items.
And for crying out loud, tax cuts do not cause deficits! Spending causes deficits!
Tag: liberty
Yes, Virginia, beginning this fall, you can have your own wallet of rainbow-colored twenties…
The new bills will be introduced on 27 March, and enter circulation in the fall.
(props to Jim)
A six-year-old boy has been suspended for having a plastic knife in his bookbag at school. A plastic knife he obtained in the school cafeteria. As the WSJ’s OpinionJournal states, “No doubt the Struthers [Elementary School] lunch lady will soon be indicted for arms trafficking.”
The six-year-old student wanted to take the plastic knife home to show his mom that he could butter his toast.
Donna Long, the boy’s mother, states that while she was essentially forced to sign a form that Kevin was “showing other students in class [the knife],” the principal never stated that this was the case. Ms. Long also wonders, if her first-grade son was such a threat, why the police weren’t notified.
School administrations need to wake up and smell the reality that not every student is a Colombine waiting to happen.
Asked by Andrew Cuomo to pen an essay for a book on the future of the Democratic Party, Peggy Noonan, former Democrat, has delivered in spades.
This essay is utterly brilliant. I honestly hope the Demos take heed. Really.
I believe we need the Democratic Party to be better than it is, to spur the Republican Party to be better than it is, and vice versa. Kind of like how the computer industry needs Apple to be at the top of its game to push the rest of the industry forward.
Unfortunately, if the Demos are true to form, Noonan will be attacked by leftist whackos who are not interested in honest, constructive criticism.
(major kudos to Rick)
It’s been floating around the ether for a while, but it bears repeating:
Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The ninth $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.”
So now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share?”
The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being “paid” to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth. “But he got $10!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
(with thanks to Ricky for the email)
There aren’t many things that the ACLU and I agree on, but this is one of them. (via Xeni)
As if we needed more reasons to eliminate a bureacratic sinkhole in the federal government. From the Washington Times, 2/19/03:
“More than a billion dollars a year of federal aid for after-school programs in 7,500 public schools nationwide has not helped most children academically, a federally funded study concluded. Children who attend after-school activities at public elementary and middle schools are more likely to encounter bullies, vandals, thieves and drug users than those who do not, said the study, conducted for the U.S. Education Department.”
The federal government has only one duty when it comes to the education of our children, and that is to ensure that none are discriminated against for their race, religion, or creed. You know, one of those things the federal government is constitutionally supposed to do.
Funds sent to the Education Department black hole via taxes would be better spent in the states and municipalities from whence they come. This, in turn, would help weaken the horrendous National Educational Association, which seems to be interested in everything except actually teaching our kids:
“Public schools are run by the National Educational Association. They are not run by people you can hold accountable, such as teachers, superintendents and school boards. The NEA opposes merit pay, charter schools, and any decision by any school administrator that has not been determined in advance by collective bargaining. Simply put, the NEA opposes everything except its own power.
“…Meanwhile, kids aren’t learning. The vocabulary of the average American 14-year-old has dropped from 25,000 words to 10,000. San Francisco Examiner reporter Emily Gurnon asked teenagers to identify the country from which America won its independence. Among the answers: ‘Japan or something, China. Somewhere out there on the other side of the world.’ ‘It wouldn’t be Canada, would it?’ ‘I don’t know; I don’t even, like, have a clue.’ ‘I want to say Korea. I’m tripping.’
“…The problem, says (author Peter) Brimelow, is that the NEA is the backbone of the Democratic Party and public education is a government monopoly. …If the NEA is to be undone, its undoing will come from parents and teachers deserting the schools. Homeschoolers, without benefit of fancy facilities, science labs, and huge expenditures of money, outscore public school students.” —Paul Craig Roberts
“Supposing I came along in August 2001 and said…that there was an al-Qaeda terrorist network; no one would have heard of it. Suppose I said that we would have to invade Afghanistan in order to deal with it; no one would have believed that that was necessary. Yet, my goodness, a few weeks later, thousands of people were killed on the streets of New York. …The threat (from Iraq) is real, and if we do not deal with it the consequences of our weakness will haunt future generations.” –British Prime Minister Tony Blair
“Frankly, when my family’s income goes down, so does our spending as we tighten our belts. Why is it that government believes its spending of our money should always go up, in good times and in bad? Why shouldn’t government have to go on a diet just like the rest of us when hit with a reduction in income?” —Chuck Muth