Brent Bozell on Smaller Government

Brent Bozell not only offers keen insight to liberal off the cliff path, he also offers hope that the leftist's are losing the fight and the confidence of the American People.

Brent Bozell on TownHall.com

Who's Burning D.C. Down?


Political prognosticator Charlie Cook appeared on National Public Radio on July 11 and summarized perfectly the media narrative on the debt-limit battle. Speaker John Boehner, Cook said, "is not a burn-the-barn-down, break-the-china kind of guy, (and) he does not necessarily reflect the views of a majority ... of the House Republican Conference, who are of the burn-the-barn-down, break-the-china mold."

Hold on here. Why is it destructive to insist on a limited government? Why is fiscal sanity equated with pyromania? Cook was brought on as a "nonpartisan" analyst, but there's nothing either civil or accurate in casting conservatives as barnburners.

This is the "nonpartisan" Washington narrative of the budget talks: Reasonable Obama vs. Dangerously Unhinged Republicans. The establishment is imbibing deeply of the David Plouffe spin that somehow, a reckless, unsupervised Congress spent all the money and Barack Obama was too busy golfing to notice, as if he didn't sign every spending bill. It's as if he didn't aggressively shovel Obamacare and almost a trillion dollars of "stimulus" on top of the deficit mountain.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen got the ball rolling on July 4 by describing the GOP as the "Grand Old Cult" that needs a "mental health professional," and its presidential field was "a virtual political Jonestown."

On July 5, MSNBC star Chris Matthews started "Hardball" by comparing conservative Republicans to foreign Islamic militants: "Well, the GOP has become the Wahabis of American government, willing to risk bringing down the whole country in the service of their anti-tax ideology." They were "willing to risk economic Armageddon in the name of religion -- that is, the religion of no taxes." By the next morning, Newsweek editor-in-chief Tina Brown upped the ante and called the Republicans "suicide bombers."

So who, exactly, is unhinged in this debate?

On NBC, White House "reporter" Chuck Todd pointed fingers: The problem was that new "tea party caucus" that can't back "anything that remotely looks like a tax hike on anybody." Ever heard of liberal Democrats who can't back "anything that remotely looks like you spent less than last year"?

That so-called "conservative" David Brooks -- please, please stop this "conservative" silliness! -- also wrote a column on July 4 for The New York Times trashing tea party types for wanting to file a "psychological protest" instead of governing. They have "no sense of moral decency" about debt.

How ridiculous and perverse it is for Brooks to insist they don't care about debt -- and Obama does! Did Brooks spend the past two years in a cocoon of hermetically sealed ignorance?

Brooks claimed that Obama is desperate to campaign in 2012 as a "moderate" and would love to make a sweet deal for the Republicans that would provide, we are told, "a roughly 3-to-1 rate of spending cuts to revenue increases, an astonishing concession." The biggest, most reckless spender in the history of the republic, by far, and he's a "moderate." What would it take to label this man a liberal?

For conservatives who remember the budget negotiations of 1990, this whole routine is nauseatingly familiar. The media are playing the exact same role today that they did then. They all encouraged Bush One to be a savvy dealmaker and forget that troublesome "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge. We were all told that deal would be two dollars in spending cuts for every dollar in tax hikes. Ditto with Reagan and Tip O'Neill in 1982.

The media want complete amnesia about what happens next. In both cases, spending (and the deficit) surged upward, which is what happens when the Democrats make big "compromises." Bush lost in 1992, due in part to angry conservative voters who believed his campaign promises.

Here's what our media could be asking, but they won't, since it constitutes a serious question. If Obama really believed in a "balanced" menu of tax hikes and spending cuts, why didn't he pass all these tax hikes he's now touting when Democrats were solidly in control in 2009 and 2010? Obama never made any plans to "pay for" his "stimulus" with new taxes, and he even claimed Obamacare would reduce the deficit, which was a cruel farce. And isn't he now touting tax hikes on taxpayers making less than $250,000 -- another broken promise? Does no reporter care to notice that would violate his "no new taxes except on the super-rich" promises of 2008?

Instead, Obama is allowed to hold press conferences and lecture the Republicans about how they're not serious about deficit reduction. Obama is allowed to paint himself as the troubled centrist who's been cursed with an opposing party stuffed with extremists.

This time, I'm not sure anyone's buying what the left-wing press is selling.

From Rand Paul and Town Hall - Right to Work!

From Rand Paul (R-KY) and Town Hall

Dear Concerned American,

They snickered when I said I came to the U.S. Senate to change Congress.

But their laughter stopped when I sponsored the National Right to Work Act to free U.S. workers from forced unionization and break Big Labor's multi-billion dollar political machine forever.

President Barack Obama and Big Labor allies in the Senate are now feverishly scheming to bury the National Right to Work Act without a vote.

So I have a question for you.

Will you be the sledgehammer?

Your signature on the petition to your Congressman and Senators is what is needed to bust through the opposition and force a vote on the National Right to Work Act.

This is an opportunity you and I cannot afford to miss.

As you know, the right to decide freely whether or not to join a union was taken away from American workers by Congress almost 75 years ago.

A result of back-room deals between union bosses and their tax-and-spend Congressional puppets, compulsory unionism provisions in federal law currently empower union officials to:

Force nearly 11 million Americans to pay tribute to a union boss to get or keep a job ...

Brazenly loot union treasuries to fund the election of their hand-picked political puppet candidates like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid ...

Terrorize workers and communities with violent strikes -- where they get away with beatings, arson -- even murder.

The National Right to Work Act strikes at the foundations of the union bosses' power.

And here's the thing -- the National Right to Work Act is wildly popular with American voters.

In fact, for years polls have shown nearly 80% of Americans think it should be against the law to force workers to pay money to union bosses just to get or keep a job.

All you and I have to do is force an up-or-down roll call vote on the National Right to Work Act ... And the American people will do the rest.

Many Democrats and more than a few Republicans elected with Big Labor's over $1 billion in forced-dues political cash cower in fear of casting a vote against the National Right to Work Act.

What will they do when forced to vote?

It's a win-win situation -- either they pass the National Right to Work Act and free American workers or they pay in 2012.

It will be a marathon battle.

But I will not flinch in the face of opposition and insider attacks.

I believe, with your help, this is a fight we will win.

And I know it's a fight worth fighting.

Please go here to sign the petition if you believe in a right to work. http://righttoworkcommittee.org/rprtwa_petition.aspx?pid=th6

Liberal Lies About Tax Cuts

From Michael Medved http://www.Townhall.com

Don't Blame Tax Cuts for Catastrophic Deficits

Liberal commentators blame the Bush tax cuts, not runaway spending, for the budget crisis.

They insist that slashing rates on income taxes, which means smaller percentages of private income going to government, would guarantee red ink even if Congress finds many billions in spending cuts.

The problem with this argument is that it’s clearly contradicted by recent history. Actually, the second round of Bush tax cuts in 2003 brought increased revenues – both in actual dollar terms and as a percentage of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) -- not falling levels of government support.

In 2007, six years after Bush began slashing tax rates, revenues rose above 18% of GDP –more than the 60 year post-war average. Revenue didn’t fall until 2009, when economic collapse meant people earned less money and more families joined the 40% of the population who pay no federal income taxes—leaving top earners carrying more, not less, of the overall tax burden. The Bush tax cuts never increased the federal taxes on the poor, the middle class or anyone else and, in fact, served to exempt millions of Americans from paying income taxes at all. The Bush experience wasn’t unique in demonstrating that lower tax rates don’t cause reduced levels of federal revenue.

The official numbers show that in dollar terms (adjusted for inflation) the money the government collected in taxes went up every single year between 1950 and 2009, even with sharp tax cuts by Presidents John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Even measured as a percentage of the GDP –or overall economy – falling tax rates didn’t produce plunging revenues—government generally got a bigger share, not a smaller share, when tax rates went down.

Reagan sharply cut tax rates twice, and reduced the top marginal rate from 70% when he took over all the way down to 28% when he left the White House. But revenue between the beginning and the end of his two terms went down only from 19% to 18% (of a dramatically expanded overall economy) and in dollar terms the tax collections dramatically soared.

Cowboy's Comment: How did this Country or any country for that matter even exist when the government could tke 70% of what you earn?

Nor do sky-high tax rates on the rich guarantee substantial increases in government revenue. Under Eisenhower, the top tax rate reached 91%, but the government collected just 19%--almost identical to the 18% it collected after Reagan dropped that top rate all the way down to 28% in 2006.

Yes, government at all levels is broke, but the problem is based almost entirely on over-spending, crippling entitlements, too much borrowing and swelling debt, with stimulative tax cuts contributing little or nothing to catastrophic deficits

Cowboy's Comment: It is beyond belief when you get these union members in Wisconsin or state government workers in Ohio and many other places who decry that the solution to the State deficits is that the "rich" pay more taxes. They need to be careful. In my tally book, they are the rich for one thing. And for another thing these government workers in unions are a large part of the problem with their gold plated salaries, medical benefits and pensions.