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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Tait Trussell</title>
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		<title>Doctors Fear for Medicine’s Future</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/doctors-fear-for-medicine%e2%80%99s-future/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=doctors-fear-for-medicine%25e2%2580%2599s-future</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:04:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doctors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[retire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[survey]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=139425</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Physicians in national survey say they face momentous choices.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/doctor-patient-communication.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-139461" title="doctor-patient-communication" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/doctor-patient-communication.gif" alt="" width="375" height="249" /></a>In a <a href="http://www.dpmafoundation.org/physician-attitudes-on-medicine.html">new national poll,</a> doctors say they must now decide if they can continue practicing medicine in their patients’ best interest or bow to bureaucratically-set restrictions that take precedence over patient necessities. Another stark choice some doctors ponder is: Can I afford to quit medicine altogether? The language of respondents is stark and often angry.</p>
<p>The survey of 36,000 physicians by the Doctor Patient Medical Association Foundation (DPMAF), with a better than average return, revealed a most disturbing future for the health care of all Americans.</p>
<p>Doctors responded from 45 states. (130 didn’t identify their specific geographical location). Most (81 percent) were in small group practice. Most have been in practice for from 11 to 30 years. The survey, conducted by fax and online, was completed in June. Of those responding:</p>
<ul>
<li>90 percent say the medical system is “on the wrong track.”</li>
<li>83 percent say they are “thinking about quitting.”</li>
<li>61 percent said the system “challenges their ethics.”</li>
<li>70 percent say “reducing government would be the single best fix.”</li>
</ul>
<p>A Texas Orthopedist wrote, “I have been in practice 28 years and medicine is now the worst for doctors it has ever been.”  A Wisconsin anesthesiologist wrote, “I would not consider letting my teenagers become physicians.” A Kansas sports medicine doctor wrote: “Medicine is circling the drain. Heaven help us as we age.”</p>
<p>“I did not go to school for 25-plus years to be a computer programmer for the federal government,” testily responded a Florida ophthalmologist.</p>
<p>A Missouri physician concluded, “Medicine is no longer about treating and taking care of patients. I spend more time telling patients about additional paperwork they need to fill in.”</p>
<p>Two out of three surveyed answered that electronic medical records (EMR) [required by ObamaCare] compromise medical privacy and confidentiality. A neurologist from Missouri writes, “Electronic medical records&#8230;should not be connected to the outside world to avoid confidentiality abuse.” A Massachusetts psychiatrist added: “EMR has no place in psychiatric practice.”</p>
<p>A Florida endocrinologist branded ObamaCare as “a monstrous bill designed to give government COMPLETE control over our lives.” A New Hampshire doctor practicing internal medicine wrote: “Government gets away with rationing by making doctors the scapegoats that an <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2011/05/24/obamacare%25E2%2580%2599s-accountable-care-organizations-leave-much-to-be-desired/">ACO</a> made a profit by skimping on care.” He referred to the Accountable Care Organizations (ACO). They take up only seven pages of the massive Affordable Care Act. Yet they have become one of the most confusing provisions. This latest model for delivering services offers primary-care doctors and hospitals financial incentives to provide “quality” care (as defined by bureaucrats) to Medicare beneficiaries while clamping down on costs. It is one of the more controversial provisions of ObamaCare, among the 150 programs, agencies, and boards in the law.</p>
<p>One physician who separated himself as much as possible from government intrusion wrote happily: “I opted out of Medicare and Medicaid for 12 years now as an internal medicine practitioner. I have never been busier, deliver a high quality service, am financially secure, and cannot wait to go to work every day,” according to that Minnesota internist.</p>
<p>Doctors also scoff at declared cost-cutting tactics falsely promised by the Obama Administration. They are quite “unlikely to do so,” many said. “Only the free market will fix this mess,” wrote a Texas OB-GYN.</p>
<p>Two out of three physicians answering the survey say they are “just squeaking by or are losing money, and half expect that financial situation to worsen in the next five years. A Pennsylvania ophthalmologist wrote, “As a solo doc, I am being forced out of my practice by the bureaucracy&#8230;Those that suffer will be the patients.”</p>
<p>A Washington State family practitioner said: “I would be willing to do charity care weekly for the poor and uninsured if there was tort reform.”</p>
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		<title>Taxed into Long-Term Care</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/taxed-into-long-term-care/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=taxed-into-long-term-care</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/taxed-into-long-term-care/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jul 2012 04:04:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=138675</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A costly expansion of ObamaCare is in sight.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/obamacare.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-138679" title="obamacare" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/obamacare.jpg" alt="" width="310" height="256" /></a>If Barack Obama is reelected, an extremely expensive expansion of ObamaCare may well be heaped upon Americans.</p>
<p>Because the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/supreme-court-health-care-decision-the-excerpts/2012/06/28/gJQACJJY9V_blog.html">Supreme Court decision</a> on the Affordable Care Act now lets the federal government tax us for not doing what it demands of us, the administration can institute a long-term insurance program, which Americans will have to pay for whether or not they want it or can afford it.</p>
<p>Involved is reincarnation of a section of the original Obamacare bill. It was called Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS). When ObamaCare was first drafted, the CLASS Act was slipped into it. It was a Ted Kennedy favorite. It would raise $70 billion to help keep the total cost of the health care overhaul down to Obama’s promised level—below a billion dollars.</p>
<p>Long-term care is provided by nursing homes, assisted-care facilities and in-home health aides for the elderly and the disabled. But most people don’t buy long-term care because it’s so expensive. Some hope they won’t need it or their  families will care for them. The poor get nursing home care through Medicaid, a sub-standard assistance. But the backers of Obamacare thought long-term care should be included for everyone.</p>
<p>CLASS provided for Americans to voluntarily pay premiums of as much as $3,000 a month to receive future long-term care costs in a nursing home or through an in-home health plan. That amount would nowhere near pay for home health care in a long-term care facility or in-home health care these days.</p>
<p>Last October, the Obama administration health wizards shook themselves into reality and decided it would have to <a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2011/october/14/class-act-implementation-halted-by-obama-administration.aspx">pull the plug</a> on CLASS. It finally admitted this entitlement program was unsustainable as a voluntary plan. Estimates made at the time the bill was written were never reliable.</p>
<p>HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress: &#8220;For 19 months, experts inside and outside of government have examined how HHS might implement a financially sustainable, voluntary and self-financed long-term care insurance program under the law that meets the needs of those seeking protection for the near term and those planning for the future. The work has been groundbreaking in many ways and has taught us a great deal. … But despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time.&#8221; Sebelius also wrote that the challenge the CLASS Act was created to address is <a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2011/october/14/class-act-implementation-halted-by-obama-administration.aspx">not going away</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;By 2020,&#8221; she wrote emotionally, &#8220;we know that an estimated 15 million Americans will need some kind of long-term care and fewer than 3% have a long-term care policy&#8230;. These Americans are our family, our friends and our neighbors. If they are to live productive and independent lives, we need to make sure that they have access to the long-term care supports that make that possible.</p>
<p>&#8220;The CLASS program seeks to address the critical need that Americans have for affordable long-term care service,” Sebelius continued. “The current market does not offer viable options for those unable to access private long-term care insurance. We look forward to working with … Congress, consumer advocates, healthcare providers, insurers and other stakeholders to find solutions that ensure all Americans have the choices that best meet their needs.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://reason.com/blog/2011/09/14/democrats-knew-obamacares-clas">Democrats knew</a> from the beginning that CLASS would have to pay out more in benefits than it collected in premiums. Medicare Actuary Richard Foster<a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2011/09/15/class-act/"> warned</a>  in 2009 that the program would have to enroll more than 230 million people—more people than in the entire American workforce to come even close to working.</p>
<p>Backers of CLASS knew the program wasn’t fiscally sound well before the Obamacare law passed in 2010, according to the Associated Press, which <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2011/09/14/democrats-knew-obamacares-clas">wrote</a>:</p>
<p>“Even as leading Democrats offered assurances to the contrary, government experts repeatedly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan could go belly up, saddling taxpayers with another under-funded benefit program, according to emails disclosed by congressional investigators.”</p>
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		<title>Universities Abandon Western Civilization</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/universities-abandon-western-civilization/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=universities-abandon-western-civilization</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/universities-abandon-western-civilization/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Jan 2012 04:00:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[courses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaga]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[University]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[western civilization]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=120063</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Lady Gaga replaces Plato and Aristotle on academic curricula.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/gaga.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-120065" title="gaga" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/gaga.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="280" /></a></p>
<p>Most students no longer are taught their nation’s triumphs that would equip them to be knowledgeable citizens.</p>
<p>Major universities have turned from instruction in the significance of Western Civilization to the “profound” influence of <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/09/the-lady-gaga-fication-of-higher-ed/">Lady Gaga</a>, (real name: Stephanie Germanotta), the bizarre recording artist whose commercial success has somehow topped charts around the world. In some colleges today even history majors don’t have to delve into our nation’s influences and beginings.</p>
<p>The national Association of Scholars, in a <a href="http://www.nas.org/polImage.cfm?Doc_Id=1983&amp;size_code=Doc">new analysis</a>, “The Vanishing West: 1964-2010,” describes the tragic near disappearance of the study of Western Civilization from the American undergraduate curriculum.</p>
<p>Four top-tier universities now offer Lady Gaga’s influence in music, the arts, fashion and the LGBT lifestyle. At the same time, shockingly, none of the schools&#8212;University of Virginia, University of South Carolina, Wake Forest, and Arizona State require their students to study history to get their diploma.</p>
<p>Western civilization courses have been scratched from the general education requirements. They have been replaced in large part by courses that either undermine traditions in the West or &#8220;Balkanize&#8221; the curriculum. For example, black studies emphasize the plight of blacks. Women&#8217;s studies enthuse over the rising role of women. Yet American history, when it is available and required, emphasizes conflict, exploitation and imperial goals. Third World studies typically relate supposed abuse and unfair dominance by the West.</p>
<p>Polls indicate that students are alienated from their own culture.  Witness the <a href="http://occupywallst.org/article/who_we_are/">Occupy Wall Street</a> Movement., so warmly embraced by Obama forces. Young people who will vote this year and some of whom will eventually be the nation’s leaders are no longer learning about their civilization&#8217;s triumphs and its role in transforming the human condition.</p>
<p>“[F]or much of the twentieth century the Western history survey course was the standard means by which colleges and universities provided American undergraduates with a coherent nature of their civilization’s rise,” the National Association of Scholars (NAS) said. The studies told of the exceptionalism of the United States, a national characteristic which Barack Obama disparages.</p>
<p>“Western Civilization courses had deep symbolic importance for those who were seeking to refocus the undergraduate curriculum on multiculturalism and diversity,” the NAS declared. “When in 1987 Jesse Jackson led Stanford protestors in a chant of ‘Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s got to go,’ the object was not to displace mathematics or English literature, but eliminate a course that focused on Western Civilization,” the analysis recalled. Getting rid of Western Civilization courses reflected an ideological hostility. “Western Civilization” had come to be seen by radicals as a form of apologetics for racism, imperialism, sexism, and colonialism.</p>
<p>The first, comprehensive, <a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/books/one-party-classroom-how-radical-professors-americas-top-colleges-indoctrinate-students-and-undermine?library_node=67198">multi-year investigation</a> of subjects being taught in colleges across the country was “One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America’s Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy,” by David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin in 2009. They cited more than 150 courses revealing the left-wing politics infused in liberal arts curriculum, including attempts to convince students that America is imperialistic and racist. An earlier book (2006) by Horowitz, “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America,” exposed those with terrorist or non-democratic goals.</p>
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		<title>It Pays Not To Work</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/it-pays-not-to-work/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=it-pays-not-to-work</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/it-pays-not-to-work/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:03:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Americans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[safety net]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[welfare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[work]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=119632</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Staying home and collecting a government check has never been so appealing.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/no-work.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-119634" title="no-work" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/no-work.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="404" /></a></p>
<p>The benefit to millions of people for not working has risen dramatically during Obama’s Great Recession. Staying home and collecting a government check has never been so appealing.</p>
<p>The picture of a desperate, straggling army of jobless poor—magnified by the lefty news media&#8211; is a distortion of reality. The benefit of <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1971477">not working increased</a> from $10,000 to $15,000 a year for millions of Americans. Moreover, it unquestionably actually increased joblessness, the major political football of 2012.</p>
<p>Of course, some Americans are needy. Many are searching honestly for work. The monthly unemployment insurance payment on average was $864 in 2006. It <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1971477">jumped to $2,667</a>, however, in 2010, economist Kevin Hassett writes. On an annual basis that would be over $32,000. That’s more money than the average annual pay for a barber, a fast-food supervisor, a teacher’s assistant, a security guard, a library technician, a nurse’s aide, a veterinarian assistant, a parking lot attendant, a home health aide, a floral designer, a diet technician, a bartender, a sports referee or umpire, and dozens of other <a href="http://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm">occupations</a>, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics pay data.</p>
<p>The number of Americans in “poverty” (as defined by the government) in 2010 was 46 million. The official national poverty rate for 2010—the most recent figure—was 15 percent, according to the <a href="http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb11-157.html">U.S. Census</a> Bureau. Since 2007, the safety net for the financially needy has “expanded radically,” as Kevin Hassett, puts it. Hassett is a senior fellow and director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Hassett quotes Casey E. Mulligan, economics professor at University of Chicago as saying the percentage of the country’s population in poverty rose by only 0.6 percent from 2007 to 2010. Amazing, considering the hard-times economy.</p>
<p>Spending outlays to help the poor expanded not only because of the long economic rough patch but because the requirements for eligibility expanded so generously for most programs. Those in need can’t say they have been given short shrift when spending per person, not just total spending has increased so dramatically. Professor Mulligan developed a chart showing the average amount of assistance per unemployed or under-employed from 2006 to 2010 for individuals under age 65. It’s extensive.</p>
<p>The chart includes consumer loan charge-offs (of credit cards, mortgages or other debts), home retention actions (which seek to help keep borrowers in their homes while mitigating risk for banks. One type of home retention action is loan modification, in which servicers modify one or more mortgage terms. Another type is a payment plan. In this case, no terms are contractually modified, but borrowers are given time to catch up on missed payments (or are allowed to show they can meet amended terms); other government transfers, such as Supplemental Security Income, which pays limited-income people who are disabled or blind, and food stamps, plus the Child and Adult Care Program, which makes reimbursements for meals in day-care facilities.</p>
<p>As recently as last fall, Obama was offering mortgage relief to hundreds of thousands, following up on his previous failed foreclosure relief proposals.</p>
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		<title>Brazilian Oil and Re-election Schemes</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/brazilian-oil-and-re-election-schemes/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=brazilian-oil-and-re-election-schemes</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Jan 2012 04:22:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brazil]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Embraer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[George Soros]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[OIL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[re-election]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=119134</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Another Soros connection with Obama's favorite oil producing country uncovered.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/harbin-embraer-foto-embraer.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-119135" title="harbin-embraer-foto-embraer" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/harbin-embraer-foto-embraer.gif" alt="" width="375" height="250" /></a></p>
<p>Last March President Obama announced that he wants the U.S. to be one of Brazil’s “best customers” <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-20/obama-tells-rousseff-he-wants-u-s-to-be-among-brazil-s-best-customers-.html">for their oil</a>, although the U.S. has <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves">eight times</a> more petroleum resources than does Saudi Arabia if only we’d drill for it.</p>
<p>Now the Obama government is awarding a <a href="http://thespeechatimeforchoosing.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/hawker-beechcraft-denied-big-air-force-contract-in-favor-of-brazilian-company-with-soros-connections/">$1 billion</a> contract to a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer—Embraer&#8211;instead of American Hawker Beechcraft Corp., which has two years and $100 million invested in a light attack aircraft’s development.</p>
<p>All the more remarkable is the Brazilian company, Embraer, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Justice Department for possible violations of the <a href="http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2011/11/30/need_for_brazil_debt_kills_us_defense_company/page/full/">Corrupt Practices</a> Act.</p>
<p>Hawker Beechcraft said in a press release Dec. 30, 2011, it had learned that the government had quietly announced the previous week that the award had been made to the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer, instead of Hawker Beechcraft.</p>
<p>This was called, in restrained language, an “example of the Air Force’s lack of transparency,” by Hawker Beechcraft CEO Bill Boisture. It “now seems even clearer that the Air Force intended to award the <a href="http://newsroom.hawkerbeechcraft.com/news-press/">contract to Embraer</a> from early in the process.”</p>
<p>The AT-6 is a “world-class light attack aircraft that has been evaluated and proven capable through a multi-year, congressionally-funded program” working closely with the Air Force and with an investment of $100 million to “meet the Air Force’s specific requirements&#8230; Every fixed-wing pilot in the United States military today is trained on this airplane,&#8221; Boisture added.</p>
<p>Last March, Obama on his Latin American trip pledged to work with his counterpart, Dilma Rousseff. He said:</p>
<blockquote><p>We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Obama Administration gave its approval for a giant oil storage facility, movable in the event of a hurricane. The approval for using this facility was <a href="http://questioningwithboldness.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/president-obama-to-assist-petrobras-with-oil-drilling-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-new-floating-oil-storage-facility-to-be-permitted/">given to Petrobras</a>, the huge nationally owned Brazilian oil company. Instead of giving equal competition to American oil companies, Obama stymied the U. S. industry with meritless moratoriums last spring. He gave special benefits to Petrobras for that company to drill in American oil reserves while American oil crews were sitting on their heels, unemployed because of the moratorium.</p>
<p>As for the Embraer contract, while outsourcing this to the Brazilian company would create only 50 jobs in the U.S., Hawker Beechcraft says its AT-6 plane would open up about <a href="http://u.s.+rep.+mike+pompeo%2C+r-wichita%2C+said+in+an+e-mailed+statement+that+he+was+disappointed+by+the+decision./">1,400 jobs</a> at 181 companies in 39 states. The manufacturing parts and supply chains all would remain in the U. S. Rep. Barack fooled us into thinking that he wanted to create jobs in America. Justifiably, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan) blasted the Administration’s decision Dec. 27.</p>
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		<title>Hard Truth on Jobs</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/hard-truth-on-jobs/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hard-truth-on-jobs</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:05:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jobs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Permanent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Unemployment]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=118906</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Some losses will be forever. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Unemployment2-LRG.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-118953" title="Unemployment2-LRG" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Unemployment2-LRG.jpg" alt="" width="392" height="294" /></a></p>
<p>Even though the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm">employment rose</a> by 200,000 in December, it’s no reason for Obama to jump with joy. Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf has acknowledged that it is <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2011/10/27/impossible-to-prove-the-stimul">“completely impossible”</a> to prove that President Obama’s stimulus programs created economic growth or jobs.</p>
<p>We know Obama <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/what-is-obamas-actual-record-on-creating-jobs/single">promised</a> to focus on jobs. Since his election he has spoken incessantly about all the jobs he says he has created or saved. Yet not only has the administration’s record been meager at best, “labor market conditions <a href="http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/re/articles/?id=2091">remain disappointing,”</a> the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis declared recently. “The average duration of employment remains at a historical high and the employment rate is projected to remain above 7.8 percent until 2013. Economists are concerned that the U. S. economy is mired in another jobless recovery,” the bank warned.</p>
<p>In his current makeover, Obama has cast himself as the warrior for the middle class. “After struggling to find a winning message,” as The Hill report put in on Dec. 29, Obama has revved up his role as defender of the middle class.</p>
<p>MIT economics professor David Autor, who examined U.S. employment opportunities at length, however, found that U.S. employment growth “has<a href="http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/1474"> polarized</a> into relatively high skill, high wage jobs and low skill, low wage jobs, while middle skill routine jobs have diminished. Some routine jobs, such as administrative and operative positions have been replaced by computer automations. Other routine [middle class] jobs such as bill processing and manufacturing positions have been moved overseas to take advantage of lower wages. The Great Recession accelerated this trend: employment in middle skill and middle wage occupations declined[.]”</p>
<p>So, as warrior for the middle class, no matter what kind of war paint he wears, Obama can’t place these middle class workers in jobs if the work is not there.</p>
<p>One of Obama’s enthusiastic support groups in 2008 was the young vote. This group has declined <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-15/obama-support-among-young-people-slips-as-more-say-he-ll-lose-poll-shows.html">by 46 percent</a>, reported Bloomberg.com Dec. 15. It quoted from a poll by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University showing “an overall lack of enthusiasm” today among young voters, compared to the last election. No wonder.</p>
<p>A few years ago, for example, Cody Preston, 25, was gainfully employed in Portland, OR, married and settled in an apartment with his wife, a Wall Street Journal story reported. When <a href="http://classroomedition.com/cre/articles/12jan_cs_econ_youngmen.htm">the recession hit</a> and the housing market collapsed, he lost his job. He and his wife separated. “I wasn’t living –just surviving,” he was quoted as saying.</p>
<p>Yale Economist Lisa Kahn found that <a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/09/22/Has-America-Lost-the-Future-Ask-a-College-Grad.aspx">college grads</a> entering the job market in economic downturns experience a large, negative, persistent effect to their lifetime opportunities. The disadvantage persists even 15 years after graduation, she said. Obama’s eagerness to have all young people go to college hasn’t worked out for many, as this author can attest to. My oldest granddaughter, with top grades, and my stepson with an MBA are still looking for work after more than a year. That’s not unusual.</p>
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		<title>Bad Tidings for the GOP</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/bad-signs-for-gop/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bad-signs-for-gop</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:05:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grades]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=118283</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Registered voters give Obama and the Democrats good grades. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/romney56.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-118400" title="romney56" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/romney56.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="272" /></a></p>
<p>A comprehensive, 30-page Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey completed in December shows Obama in a position to win re-election this year.</p>
<p>Everything could change between now and November, of course. But responses from interviews with 1,000 Americans of all political inclinations, income levels, races, ages, religions, and other characteristics indicated only 6 percent of those identified as Republicans say they are “very favorable” about their party, while 25 percent are “very negative.” Eighty-three percent said they were registered voters.</p>
<p>When asked which party would do “a better job,” 44 percent chose the Democrats. Only 24 chose the Republicans. Only 21 percent of those polled said the Republicans have “strong/many good candidates,” and 27 percent described the party as having “weak/hardly any good candidates.”</p>
<p>The deplorable incompetence of Barack Obama and his destructive economic policies have had some impact on the public, as indicated by the survey. For instance, only 22 percent believe “things in the nation are generally headed in the right direction.” And 57 percent do not approve of what Obama “is doing in handling the economy.” This compares with an apparently naïve 39 percent who do approve.</p>
<p>On how the Republicans have done in Congress, only 26 percent approve, while 69 percent disapprove. The Democrats in Congress get a little better score—31 approve, 62 disapprove. Asked what disappointed respondents most about the current Congress, 17 percent said the Republican leadership is unwilling to compromise with the Democrats. Only 6 percent said Obama is unwilling to compromise with the Republican leadership.</p>
<p>In rating “feelings” toward individuals, Obama was ranked “very positive” by 22 percent and “somewhat positive” by 23 percent. His negative ratings were 27 percent very negative, and 15 percent “somewhat negative.” Obama’s all-time high was 47 percent in February 2009; <a href="http://www.valuesvoternews.com/2009/12/obama-approval-rating-hits-new-low-but.html">his low</a> was 10 percent in January 2009.</p>
<p>The Republican Party was given only a 6 percent “very positive” and 21 percent “somewhat positive” score compared with a 25 percent “very negative” grade. The highest “very positive” rating for the Republican Party was 20 percent in 1998, according to the survey, which was conducted by the polling firm Hart/McInturff. In the December 2011 poll, the Republicans got a 25 percent “very negative” grade.</p>
<p>How did Obama stack up against the Republican Party? The president received 45% total positive votes and 42% negative from the respondents, compared with 27% positive and 48% negative for the Republican Party. In this match up, Mitt Romney received 24% positive and 32% negative. The Democratic Party vote was 32% positive, 42% negative.</p>
<p>The Tea Party Movement yielded 27% positive and 43% negative, in spite of its respectful behavior and stand for liberty and Constitutional principles. The Occupy Wall Street Movement, with its disruptive, often illegal, Socialist-inspired ruffians got a higher—27% approval, and only 44% disapproved. The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suze-orman/occupy-wall-street-approv_b_1005128.html">lame-stream media</a> were largely sympathetic with the Occupy Wall Street Movement as they have been with Barack Obama. This true and pathetic media favoritism toward Obama as described by Bernard Goldberg in his book, “A Slobbering Love Affair,” is still tilting the public’s view of the President.</p>
<p>When asked what “has been the most disappointing event of the past year for you personally,” a surprising 31 percent said “the wealthiest one percent getting richer and the middle class declining.” Only 29 percent named “the lack of economic recovery.”</p>
<p>Only 14 percent identified themselves as “somewhat liberal,” and 22 percent as “somewhat conservative.”</p>
<p>Nineteen percent of the respondents had earnings of more than $100,000. And 24 percent had college degrees.</p>
<p>For Mitt Romney, the combination of “very positive” and “somewhat positive” was 27 percent. The “very” and “somewhat negative” score in December totaled 43 percent, fair consistent through the year. The win edged out from the Iowa caucus may help him a bit,</p>
<p>When asked whether the respondents were more enthusiastic about voting in 2012 or less enthusiastic, 43 percent they were more enthusiastic. Some 39 percent responded “less enthusiastic.”</p>
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		<title>How Regulations Work: Ready, Fire, Aim!</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/how-regulations-work-ready-fire-aim/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-regulations-work-ready-fire-aim</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Jan 2012 04:15:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dodd-Frank]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EPA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[red tape]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[regulations]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Why too many regulations make us less, not more, safe. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/r780286_6709564.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-118026" title="r780286_6709564" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/r780286_6709564.gif" alt="" width="375" height="249" /></a></p>
<p>The federal government tends to follow a bass-ackward approach to regulating business activity.</p>
<p>First, it decides what it wants. Then it writes a regulation. Then it does an analysis to justify the regulation.</p>
<p>In other words, a procedure of “ready, fire, then aim.”</p>
<p>This disoriented approach helped to bring about many of the more than <a href="http://mercatus.org/publication/do-more-regulations-equal-less-safety">165,000 pages of federal regulations</a>, close to 20,000 added in the past few years, according to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.</p>
<p>In its attempt to assume the job of “protecting the safety and health of consumers and workers, the federal government places an enormous load on business and industry as well as, often, average Americans,” a report from the Mercatus Center said.</p>
<p>Psychology, economics, and organized science, however, suggest that too many regulations—particularly highly detailed regulations—may make society less, rather than more, safe. In the Center’s study, “Regulatory Overload: A Behavioral Analysis of Regulatory Compliance,” psychologists and economists examined behavioral effects of regulatory overload on business. They discovered that too many and too detailed regulations can reduce compliance, discourage innovation, and fuel uncertainty, “ultimately making Americans less safe.”</p>
<p>A recent example: Automakers were required by the administration to double current fuel economy by 2025. Of course, the specific standard was picked without rationale—after first publicly floating other standards. Cost of compliance will be $8.5 billion a year.</p>
<p>It also will costs “untold numbers of jobs and–most inexcusable—<a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/11/cafe-standards-fleet-wide-regulations-costly-and-unwarranted">the loss of lives</a>.” Regulations in recent years forced car makers to downsize vehicles to meet standards that increased <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/11/new-epa-inspector-general-report-one-more-reason-to-reject-climate-change-regulation">traffic fatalities</a> by the thousands, according to the EPA’s own Inspector General’s Report.</p>
<p>An Environmental Protection Agency regulation to try to keep soot from power plants from drifting across state lines was suspended by a federal court Jan. 1, as reported by <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>. The court ruling “recognizes the irreparable harm that would have resulted from the short time line for compliance” said CEO David Campbell of Luminant, a Texas power company.</p>
<p>The EPA rule was stayed for the time being. But the court’s stay of the regulation for soot that may waft across a state line disheartened EPA bureaucrats, who couldn’t enforce their regulation immediately. The rule would affect about 1,000 power plants in more than two dozen states. It would have required them to cut emissions of sulfur dioxide by 73 percent—not 72 percent or 74 percent—and nitrogen oxide by 54 percent—not 53 or 55 percent from 2005 levels by 2014. One might well ask who chose and why did they choose such specific figures that could be changed by so many factors during the EPA’s timeline. Ready, fire, aim.</p>
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		<title>The Obama Economy: History Repeats Itself</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/the-obama-economy-history-repeats-itself/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-obama-economy-history-repeats-itself</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jan 2012 04:00:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[great depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recession]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[roaring 1920s]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=117764</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Imitating the wrong historical period.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/great_depression-2.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-117778" title="great_depression-2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/great_depression-2.gif" alt="" width="375" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>The Great Depression that began in 1929, just as the Great Recession we have today, needlessly rotted our economic core.</p>
<p>In those early days, tragically misguided federal policies, adopted to diminish what was thought to be unruly capitalism, prevented the economy from fully recovering for a decade. Today, just as in the 1930s, expansive government is the culprit, prolonging the lack of economic recovery.</p>
<p>The Great Depression created a <a href="http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-great-depression-according-to-milton-friedman/">widespread misconception</a> that market economies are inherently unstable and must be managed by the government.</p>
<p>Keynesian economics, the economic theory of <a href="http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-keynesian-economics.htm">“priming the pump”</a> through spending and economic policies during the Great Depression, failed, just as the Obama Administration spending spree and the creation of money by the Federal Reserve have failed to resuscitate the U.S. economy.</p>
<p>The economic policies of the 1930s are “a continuing source of myth and confusion,&#8221; according to Chris Edwards, Cato Institute Director of Tax Policy. Many still believe capitalism caused the Great Depression and that President Roosevelt helped end it. These “<a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0508-25.pdf">claims are incorrect</a>.”</p>
<p>It is valuable to look back to the years just preceding the Great Depression. In the early 1920s, unemployment was low and the economy rolled along smoothly. The government got out of the way and let the market alone. Resources shifted to market-guided areas. Optimism radiated from the business community, and investment grew.</p>
<p>In the early 1920s, Warren Harding’s brilliant Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon led an economic boom. He had found that taxes from the wealthy had fallen with each new rate increase. Mellon concluded that lowering the rates on everyone—especially the wealthiest—would actually result in their paying increased taxes.</p>
<p>From 1921 to 1926, Congress cut tax rates from 73 percent on the top income earners and 4 percent on the lowest earners to 25 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. The taxes were cut even further in 1929. The tax take from the wealthy <a href="http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&amp;q=A+PATRIOT'S+history+of+the+united+states&amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&amp;biw=1024&amp;bih=571&amp;wrapid=tlif132533797737521&amp;um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;tbm=shop&amp;cid=3270470141298537934&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=hw3_ToK7CoGJgwe3m_GpAg&amp;ved=0CEcQ8wIwAQ">nearly tripled</a>, while others also saw their taxes drop. The national debt fell by a third in five years.</p>
<p>Federal spending under both Harding and his successor, Coolidge, was held low. American entrepreneurs produced the most vibrant eight-year burst of innovation and manufacturing in the country’s history.</p>
<p>Many politically wise economists believe benefits somewhat similar could happen again as occurred in the administrations of Presidents Reagan, Kennedy and George W. Bush.</p>
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		<title>Obama’s Loyal Allies</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/obama%e2%80%99s-loyal-allies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama%25e2%2580%2599s-loyal-allies</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Dec 2011 04:33:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[journalism]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The news media is gearing up for battle in 2012.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/journalisthalloween.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-117570" title="journalisthalloween" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/journalisthalloween.jpg" alt="" width="476" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>If Barack Obama wins in 2012, he can bestow his gratitude largely  on his news media worshipers.</p>
<p>Appearing on Dec. 25 Meet the Press, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, full of his usual arrogance and ferver, said he was deeply worried about Obama’s prospects for re-election: “I <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45785807/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/t/meet-press-transcript-december/">really, really worry</a> about him. Republicans are starved for a candidate &#8230; they think is as smart and mellifluous as the president.”</p>
<p>During the 2008 campaign, the network morning shows were cheerleaders for the Democratic field. In 2012, they are sure to be providing far more hostile coverage of various Republicans who are running, while treating Obama’s re-election campaign to the same <a href="vhttp://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13152">personality-driven</a> coverage that was so helpful to the then-Illinois Senator four years ago.</p>
<p>For instance, NBC News, Dec. 28 hyped Gallop Poll numbers indicating a slim <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2011/12/28/nbc-touts-outdated-poll-showing-obama-approval-downplays-more-recent-">improvement</a> in Obama’s approval/disapproval numbers after House Republicans agreed to the payroll tax cut extension compromise, although recently following numbers indicated his approval was sliding backward.</p>
<p>On NBC Nightly News, reporter Kristen Welker first enthusiastically<a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2011/12/28/nbc-touts-outdated-poll-showing-obama-approval-downplays-more-recent-"> touted</a> the out-dated and more positive number. She failed to inform viewers that Obama’s disapproval rating had increased more than the approval rating had fallen.</p>
<p>Excerpts from Barbara Walters’ ABC interview with Barack and Michele Obama in the White House, released Dec. 23, was <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201112230002">defended</a> by left-wing Media Matters publication as a conservative attack by such publications as the National Journal and the Daily Caller. Why? Because they reported the President had said:</p>
<p>“[D]eep, underneath all the work I do, I think there’s a laziness in me.”</p>
<p>The portion of the interview released by ABC news did not include the part in which Obama also says, “I’m saying to myself. You know what, you could be doing better, push harder&#8230;”</p>
<p>Politico’s correspondent Ben Smith fearfully is called this the “next anti-Obama talking point” for Republicans.</p>
<p>The Hill newspaper recently held a poll conducted by Pulse Opinion Research about media bias. The results indicated 46 percent of likely voters felt that the news media <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/195467-republicans-running-against-the-media">favored Democrats</a>. “This figure outstripped by more than two to one the share of the electorate (22 percent) that believed Republicans” were beneficiaries of media bias.</p>
<p>As Robert Lichter, director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, told The Hill: “You never lost a vote in a Republican primary by attacking the media” Lichter has studied media bias for a generation.</p>
<p>Over on ABC, World News correspondent Jim Avila spun the fight as one between unpopular Republicans and a resurgent Barack Obama.</p>
<p>According to Avila, the country&#8217;s anger is &#8220;reflected in today&#8217;s ABC News/Washington Post poll, showing a job approval rating of just 20 percent for Republicans in Congress who have blocked the payroll tax cut while President Obama&#8217;s approval rating jumped to 49 percent.&#8221;</p>
<p>NBC and ABC on following days knocked House Republicans for potentially &#8220;messing up&#8221; an extension of the payroll tax cut. NBC&#8217;s Kelly O&#8217;Donnell derided this as &#8220;holiday cheer gone sour.&#8221;</p>
<p>The previous night, O&#8217;Donnell portrayed Boehner as &#8220;feeling the heat&#8221; and unable to control his own members. She gossiped, &#8220;And there is political fallout too, there are some questions about Speaker Boehner&#8217;s leadership, his ability to deliver votes&#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>Officials from the policy-neutral National Payroll Reporting Consortium, Inc. (NPRC) have expressed concern to members of Congress that the two-month payroll tax holiday passed by the Senate and supported by President Obama cannot be implemented properly.</p>
<p>ABC&#8217;s Good Morning America mostly ignored the subject, providing only two news briefs on the payroll extension. CBS&#8217;s Early Show (as well as the network&#8217;s Evening News from Monday) provided more restrained coverage.</p>
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		<title>The Truth About Teacher Pay</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/the-truth-about-teacher-pay/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-truth-about-teacher-pay</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Dec 2011 04:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[fringe benefits]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pensions]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Teacher Compensation]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=117374</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Total compensation exceeds private-sector pay by about 52 percent  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/chalkboard1.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-117379" title="chalkboard1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/chalkboard1.gif" alt="" width="375" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>Compensation to public school teachers overcharges the American public by more than <a href="http://www.aei.org/files/2011/11/02/-assessing-the-compensation-of-publicschool-teachers_19282337242.pdf">$120 billion</a> a year, according to a joint study by two of the country’s largest public policy research institutes.</p>
<p>One of the two big teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), defensively says the implication that teachers are overpaid “defies <a href="http://www.aft.org/newspubs/press/2011/110111.cfm">common sense</a>.” AFT even derisively asks, “If teachers are so overpaid then why aren’t more ‘1 percenters’ banging down the doors to enter the teaching profession?”</p>
<p>The large and complex study of compensation of public school teachers said, “No one doubts the significance of high-quality teachers in the school system and to the economy in general, but even the most important public workers should be paid at a level commensurate with their skills—no more, no less.”</p>
<p>The study was conducted by Jason Richwine, PhD, senior policy analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation, and Andrew G. Biggs, PhD, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Their research was scholarly and meticulous, even if jarring to the teachers unions.</p>
<p>The study said, “Overall, public school teacher compensation exceeds private levels by approximately <a href="http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb10-ff14.html">52 percent</a>.” During the recent recession and state and local budget crunch, the study pointed out, some teachers were laid off. It was not the ugly, mass firing Obama has groused about, however.</p>
<p>“Employment in education by local government declined by 2.9 percent between September 2008 and July 2011, according to BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] data. Nevertheless, these job losses occurred [when] overall private-sector employment declined 4.4 percent,” the study said.</p>
<p>The Senate blocked part of Obama’s jobs plans that would have needlessly spent <a href="http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2011/10/24/280000-nationwide-teaching-jobs-in-danger-following-senate-vote">$30 billion</a> to keep and hire teachers in October. Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blasted Republicans, who voted down the bill.</p>
<p>&#8220;Republicans unanimously blocked a bill that would have kept 400,000 teachers in the classroom,&#8221; Reid whined in one of the Democrats’ frequent false spins.</p>
<p>Do teachers get paid fairly? Standard analyses compare teachers’ salaries to the pay of similarly educated and experienced private-sector workers, plus contributions toward fringe benefits. “These simple comparisons would indicate that public school teachers are under compensated,” the study authors say. But “teacher skills lag behind those of other workers with similar ‘paper’ qualifications.”</p>
<p>The wage gap disappears when measured by “cognitive ability rather than years of education.” Public school teachers get more pay than private school teachers. People who switch from “non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs” receive a wage increase of about 9 percent. On the other hand, teachers who change to non-teaching jobs, “see their wages decrease by roughly 3 percent&#8211;the opposite of what one would expect if teachers were indeed underpaid.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>New Expansive EPA Power Grab</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/new-expansive-epa-power-grab/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=new-expansive-epa-power-grab</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/new-expansive-epa-power-grab/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2011 04:05:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=116963</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The vague but encompassing concept of sustainability is the goal. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Picture-36.gif"><br />
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-117001" title="Picture-36" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Picture-36.gif" alt="" width="375" height="243" /></a></p>
<p>The environmental Protection Agency has plans to exert vastly <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/19/epa-ponders-expanded-regulatory-power-in-name-sustainable-development/">expanded power</a> over businesses, communities, and ecosystems.</p>
<p>The agency intends extensively to change the way it analyzes problems and arrives at decisions, as described in a Dec. 19 FoxNews.com article. The new, enlarged decision-making process goes under the term “sustainable development.”</p>
<p>Sustainable Development, by no coincidence, is “the centerpiece of a global United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro next June,” explains the new EPA article by George Russell, executive editor of Fox News.</p>
<p>Guiding EPA thinking is a huge study commissioned by the agency last year for $700,000. The study was conducted by the National Academies of Science. A variety of consultants from different fields took part in meetings to develop the broad but vague concept of sustainability.</p>
<p>In a recent meeting with members of the National Academy, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson talked of sustainability as a scientific concept that will “spread to other (federal) agencies.&#8221; She called it a “new opportunity” and “the <a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/8d49f7ad4bbcf4ef852573590040b7f6/1c893e457b3cbb25852577ec0054048c!OpenDocument">next stage</a> forward” for the EPA. The agency has already cost industries billions of dollars in its often capricious decisions.</p>
<p>In an executive order as early as 2009, President Obama called for establishing an integrated <a href="http://theConstitution+and+the+laws+of+the+United+States+of+America,+andto+establish+an+integrated+strategy+towards+sustainability+inthe+Federal+Government+and+to+make+reduction+of+greenhouse+gasemissions+a+priority+for+Federal+agencies,+it+is+hereby+orderedas">strategy towards sustainability</a> in the federal government and to make reduction of greenhouse gas emissions a priority for federal agencies. The phobia of global warming was even stronger then.</p>
<p>The study by the National Academy of Science said it will “provide guidance to EPA on how it might implement its existing statutory authority to contribute more fully to a more sustainable-development trajectory for the United States.” In other words, said Russell, “how to use existing laws to new ends,” or squeezing the most from laws that EPA wields.</p>
<p>The sustainability study was said to go beyond assessing and managing risks of pollutants, which has been largely the EPA’s job since the ‘80s. The agency’s approach to managing carcinogenic chemicals–its approach to environmental issues through the years&#8211; is known in the agency as its “Red Book.”  This sustainability push is now being termed the “Green Book.”</p>
<p>Administrator Jackson, never under-confident, calls the Green Book “fundamental to the future of the EPA.” She compared it to the difference between treating disease and pursuing wellness.</p>
<p>The new sustainability instrument will broaden EPA’s powers to “include both social and economic as well as environmental ‘pillars’ and strengthen EPA&#8230;as a leader in the nation’s progress toward a sustainable future,” the Fox News story said.</p>
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		<title>Eric Holder&#8217;s Lawlessness</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/eric-holders-lawlessness/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=eric-holders-lawlessness</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/eric-holders-lawlessness/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:06:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Darrell Issa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Eric Holder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fast and Furious]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justice Department]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=116720</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A long list of questionable legal decisions. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/eric-holder771.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-116725" title="eric-holder771" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/eric-holder771.gif" alt="" width="375" height="255" /></a></p>
<p>The country struggles with a flood of laws at a time when the chief law enforcement officer, Eric Holder, <a href="http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/crime/nra-after-fast-furious-eric-holder-cant-be-trusted">can’t be trusted</a>. Many Americans and members of Congress are convinced the Attorney General is not only untruthful, but also has established his own view of justice rather than enforcing the laws on the books.</p>
<p>Holder has a long list of questionable legal decisions and misdeeds guided by his political and racial philosophies. As early as the end of the Clinton Administration, the then-Assistant Attorney General Holder was embroiled in the controversy surrounding <a href="http://www.mishalov.com/Clinton_IndefensiblePardon.html">the pardon</a> of Democratic donor Marc Rich letting one of the FBI’s “most wanted” go free. A New York Times editorial called it a “shocking abuse” of power.</p>
<p>Holder’s tragic incompetence in the past several months has been revealed in the egregious case known as “fast &amp; furious.”</p>
<p>The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has now subpoenaed the Obama Administration over the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/us/politics/house-panel-issues-subpoena-for-records-on-fast-and-furious.html">“Fast &amp; Furious” </a>program that sent thousands of guns to Mexico under a Department of Justice botched program, as reported in October by The New York Times and other media.</p>
<p>Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif) has charged that Eric Holder provided misleading information to Congress in May about when he suspiciously said he first learned of the program. The guns were misdirected to Mexican drug cartels. A border agent was killed with one of the guns.</p>
<p>When asked if Holder had ever apologized to the agent’s family, the attorney general said he had not, acknowledging only that he regretted the incident. At least 59 members of Congress have called for Holder’s resignation.</p>
<p>Eric Holder refuses to proceed with an investigation and prosecution of the two <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0311/Eric_Holder_Black_Panther_case_focus_demeans_my_people.html">black panthers</a> who intimidated white voters outside of a Philadelphia polling place in 2008. He felt that to proceed with the case would &#8220;demean my people,” Holder declared. It is apparent our attorney general does not believe in equal protection under the law. He apparently prefers extra protection for some, but not others. Holder is obliged to enforce federal election laws in an objective, non-partisan, race-neutral manner. That seems a far cry from his intentions.</p>
<p>The Obama Justice Department is pushing to maximize turnout of Democrats in 2012 by filing <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2011/12/01/president-obamas-justice-depar">“motor voter” suits</a> across the country, complaining that state agencies aren’t circulating voter registration forms in social service agencies.</p>
<p>A lawsuit filed this summer against the State of Louisiana “is closely timed with a separate suit advanced by the notorious ACORN’s Project Vote affiliate and the NAACP,&#8221; a Dec. 1 story said. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s officials have <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2011/12/01/president-obamas-justice-depar">vowed to fight</a> it, while “some states have rolled over to accept agreements that go beyond the scope of written law,” the American Spectator’s Spectacle blog said. Some fear the consent agreements with the Justice Department will block state officials from moving against instances of potential fraud.</p>
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		<title>Taxes and Elections</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/taxes-and-elections/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=taxes-and-elections</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/taxes-and-elections/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Dec 2011 04:04:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[income]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Millionaires]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=116547</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The number of millionaires and their incomes have fallen sharply. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/taxes.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-116633" title="taxes" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/taxes.jpg" alt="" width="392" height="277" /></a></p>
<p>Taxes are central to any national election, more so with the 2012 race because of the chasm separating Democrat and Republican philosophies, including their stands on taxes.</p>
<p>“The <a href="http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/27804.html">ideal tax system</a> should&#8230; raise a sufficient amount of revenue to fund government activities with the least amount of harm to the economy,” as Tax Foundation Economist William McBride expresses it. His analysis also reveals that the number of millionaires—a major Obama target—has dropped dramatically in recent years.</p>
<p>Our federal tax system has become so discombobulated, it is in desperate need of restructuring. The non-profit Tax Foundation has developed ten principles for taxation to ensure neutrality in economic decision-making, and stability to promote economic growth.</p>
<p>President Obama has said in one of his innumerable rants against the rich: &#8220;A quarter of all millionaires <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/07/news/economy/obama_taxes/index.htm">now pay lower</a> tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1percent,&#8221; Even if true, that would mean a tax bill of one million dollars. Not exactly chump change.</p>
<p>Barack Obama has loaded his campaign cannon with class-warfare cannon balls, aimed at more taxes for the rich. Republicans, in contrast, argue that the worst time for tax hikes is in a recession, and have shown that in the past when taxes have been cut revenues <a href="http://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/tax-cuts-increase-revenues-they-have-always-increased-revenues/">have risen</a>, rather than dropped.</p>
<p>If or when true tax reform will be enacted, the following questions raised by the Tax Foundation lead to answers to build the best system.</p>
<p>1. How does taxation affect fairness? Whether it is to buy a home, build a factory, or hire new workers, tax impact should play the smallest role possible. Currently “our tax code is “rife with measures” to lure us into all manner of activities from buying hybrid cars to investing in solar roof panels. Because interest payments are deductible. The mortgage interest deduction diverts billions to the housing industry and away from uses that may be more productive, such as investment in ideas of entrepreneurs.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>1. Do taxes reduce special interest provisions? “The estimated cost of tax preferences&#8230;sometimes called “loopholes,” is “over $1 trillion a year,” according to Economist McBride. And “the vast majority of these provisions” are for individual taxpayers “whereas roughly $100 billion” benefits business.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>1. Does it treat all Americans equally? A single tax rate is fairest. The present personal tax code is highly progressive, mainly to make sure the “rich” pay their “fair share,” as Obama incessantly puts it. But these rates and the incomes they apply to “are set by political fiat, not by any economic rationale,” McBride explains. There now are six brackets from 10 to 35 percent. Taxes now raise 6 percent of GDP.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>• “There is a mistaken perception that a single-rate system” can’t protect the poor. “This can be addressed with an allowance that “shields a certain amount of income from tax.”</p>
<p>1. Does it end double and triple taxing of savings and investment?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>• Today, personal income is hit once by the income tax. Then a second time on any saved or invested post-tax income. Corporate profits are taxed first at the firm level, then a second time when distributed as dividends to individuals or realized as capital gains. Finally, a life’s savings is taxed a third time by the estate tax. Penalizing saving and investing “harms us all.”</p>
<p>1. Should business be taxed equally whatever its size?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>• The traditional “C-corporation” is taxed twice as indicated above. “Pass-through” businesses, such as S-corporations, sole proprietorships, partnerships, and farms, pay their business taxes just once at the individual owner level.</p>
<p>• Small businesses are often able to expense (deduct the full cost) of equipment, while corporations must depreciated equipment over a period of years.</p>
<p>1. Is complexity reduced?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>• In its 2010 report to Congress, the IRS National Taxpayer Advocate pinpointed “tax complexity as the most serious problem facing taxpayers and <a href="http://www.irs.gov/advocate/article/0,,id=233846,00.html">urged lawmakers</a> to simplify it.</p>
<p>• Complying with the tax code costs taxpayers about $400 billion a year. That doesn’t count the $12 billion yearly budget of IRS. Plus what economists call the “deadweight”</p>
<p>• of taxpayer compliance of  up to $150 billion.</p>
<p>1. Does the system provide stability for making long-range plans?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>• Since 2003, lawmakers knew the Bush tax cuts would expire Dec, 31, 2010. Yet they were extended, for only two years, at the eleventh hour, meaning taxpayers’ plans were coated in a web of mystery, not knowing how to plan for the future.</p>
<p>• The top estate tax rate went from 45 percent in 2009 to repeal in 2010, then increased to 35 percent, but only through 2012, making it impossible for many taxpayers to plan their estates. Tax holidays, subsidies, and shorts-term incentives, (Obama political favorites) only complicate matters.</p>
<p>1. Does it make us more competitive in the world?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>• In the past four years, 75 counties have cut their corporate tax rates to make themselves more competitive. Meanwhile Obama has dithered and dithered after many <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/13/will-voters-accept-tax-increases/raise-some-taxes-but-cut-corporate-rates">promises to reduce</a> our corporate rate.</p>
<p>• It may surprise many Americans—including those ranging from “occupiers’ to naive Democrats—“to learn that the U.S. has   the most progressive income tax burden among the leading industrialized nations,” observed McBride. That means the “top 10 percent of U.S. taxpayers pay a <a href="http://www.econ.upf.edu/~xsala/macro3/2004/World+Income+Distribution+March+2004pdf.pdf">larger share</a> of the tax burden than do their counterparts in any other industrialized. And low-income Americans have the lowest income taxes of any OECD county.”</p>
<p>9. Does it promote economic growth?</p>
<p>• A “great <a href="http://www.oecd.org/document/11/0,3746,en_2649_34533_46591435_1_1_1_1,00.html">body of evidence </a>indicates there’s a trade off between economic growth and the distribution of income. “This means,” writes McBride, “that the more we try to make an income tax system  progressive, the more we undermine the factors that contribute most to economic growth, risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and productivity.” Taxing high-income earners “reduces all the key factors in job creation and economic growth.”</p>
<p>•     10. Is it least harmful to the economy?</p>
<p>• Our current tax system “is anything but stable and harmless” McBride maintains. Our GDP has been “particularly volatile in recent years. This is partly due to the business cycle, but it is also due to our progressive tax rate system and our over reliance on tax collections from wealthier Americans. Comparing 2009 with 2007  data shows “not only did the number of millionaires fall by 40 percent, but the overall income of millionaires fell by 50 percent.</p>
<p>• The result for the U.S. Treasury was that the total drop in tax revenues during this period [unlike the false picture Obama has tried to draw] was due to the falling tax collections from millionaires”</p>
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		<title>Bureaucrats Paid for Not Working</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/bureaucrats-paid-for-not-working/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bureaucrats-paid-for-not-working</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/bureaucrats-paid-for-not-working/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:00:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bureaucrat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[federal government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tax dollars]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Unions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=116349</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama's egregious executive order diverting federal money to unions. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/high-level-chic-bureaucrat.n.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-116429" title="high-level-chic-bureaucrat.n" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/high-level-chic-bureaucrat.n.gif" alt="" width="375" height="259" /></a></p>
<p>By today’s standards, the amount of misused money is not large, it’s the practice that offends the sensibilities of any taxpayer aware of it. The practice is: paying federal employees <a href="http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2011/12/08/the_feds_pay_bureaucrats_137myear_not_to_work_99408.html">not to work</a>. The federal government paid employees $137 million for not doing their jobs. This was for the year 2010. For the previous year bureaucrats were paid only $129 million for not working. &#8220;How could his be?&#8221; you well may ask. This is happening while the federal government is doubled over with the load of a $1.3 billion deficit on its back.</p>
<p>This startling information was revealed by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of RealClearMarkets. Her revelation is being picked up by other publications as well.</p>
<p>The government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reported that these non-working workers were, instead, busy acting as representatives of government unions. Some bureaucrats are hindered by a mentality which dictates that one has to put one’s shoulder to the wheel where the effort is most vital to one’s interests.</p>
<p>The time spent by these federal employees not working for us taxpayers is called by the grandiose label “official time.” According to the account by Furchtgott-Roth, the OPM explained that “official time is time spent by federal employees performing representational work for a bargaining unit in lieu of their regularly assigned work.”</p>
<p>So, when a federal worker is yawning and stretching in boredom and apparently doesn’t have anything important to do, the union-appreciative bureaucrat can be elected or appointed as a “union representative.” This grants the person the special privilege of still collecting the pay for what they were hired to do, but spending their time giving their all for a union—and there are plenty of unions.</p>
<p>All 59 executive departments and agencies, as well as the Government Printing Office and the Capitol Police, have employees representing their interests. The <a href="http://www.opm.gov/lmr/OfficialTimeUsage2009.pdf">OPM report</a> for 2009 said nearly 5 million “official time” periods were listed in that year. Each employee used about 4 percent of his or her time in this union work (instead of the job supposedly being done for the taxpayers).</p>
<p>“Labor organizations and collective bargaining are in the public interest,” said the OPM report. President Obama reinforced that concept with an Executive Order (No. 13522), I found. In that order, Obama enunciated his feelings about government unions with the words that they “will improve the productivity and effectiveness of the federal government.” How that is possible may remain one of the many mysteries of the Obama Administration.</p>
<p>These “union representatives” still collect not only their regular salary but also various generous fringe benefits, including, of course, medical benefits, which many private-sector workers “no longer receive,” as Furchtgott-Roth points out.</p>
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		<title>Defining the Middle Class</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/defining-the-middle-class/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=defining-the-middle-class</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/defining-the-middle-class/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Dec 2011 04:00:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[middle class]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Progressives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[suppressed earnings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=116074</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Progressives wrongly portray a middle class with suppressed earnings.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mc.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-116077" title="mc" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mc.jpg" alt="" width="427" height="236" /></a></p>
<p>Obama has called the restoration of the middle class the defining issue of our time. He said in a “60 Minutes” interview Dec 11 “we should be building a <a href="vhttp://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/111210/obama-american-middle-class">broad-based middle class</a> &#8230;.”</p>
<p>All politicians say they’re for the “middle class,” Some call it the “working class.” But what is the middle class? No one knows precisely. It has been defined in several ways over the years.</p>
<p>Almost everyone thinks he or she is in the middle class. Even though we’re supposedly a classless society.</p>
<p>When Democrat candidates talk of helping the “middle class” or “working class,” they refer more generally to blue collar workers—as if white collar workers did no work.</p>
<p>The most recent federal figures on <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/incomelevels.html">poverty levels</a> range from a one person family having $16,335 to a family of eight having $56,445. Some in poverty might well be seen as making middle class income.</p>
<p>Today the Democrats, with aid from some news media, are presenting a <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/index.htm">distorted picture</a> of a nation where “median incomes” have remained a straight line for scores of years while incomes of the rich, particularly in the past couple of decades have rising sharply.</p>
<p>A recent CNNMoney.com article included just such a chart. Incomes for 90 percent of Americans have been stuck in neutral, the story said. Other liberal media carried the same story.</p>
<p>Progressive Elizabeth Warren has her definition. She has been the Chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel that oversees TARP (Toxic Asset Relief Program) and is the Leo Gottlieb Professor at Harvard Law School. A darling of the liberal left, she now wants to be the next Democrat Senator from Massachusetts.</p>
<p>She has written: “The <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/incomelevels.html">crisis facing</a> the middle class started more than a generation ago. Even as productivity rose, the wages of the average fully employed male have been flat since the 1970s.</p>
<p>“Pundits talk about ‘populist rage’ as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class,” she wrote. “But they have it wrong. Families understand with crystalline clarity that the rules they have played by are not the same rules that govern Wall Street&#8230;.They understand that their economic security is under assault and that leaving consumer debt effectively unregulated does not work.”</p>
<p>You would think she has just huddled with the Wall Street occupiers.</p>
<p>“America today,” she continues in her Dec. 11 op ed piece in the Huffington Post, “has plenty of rich and super-rich. But it has far more families who did all the right things, but who still have no real security&#8230;.Tens of millions of once secure middle class families now live paycheck to paycheck, waiting as their debts pile up and worrying about whether a pick slip or a bad diagnosis will send them hurtling over an economic cliff,” she sobbed.</p>
<p>That’s the ironclad leftist view of middle class woes. And, if she should exercise an ounce of honesty, she would lay blame at the feet of Barack Obama, certainly in the past three years.</p>
<p>Examining Census Bureau data, the picture is <a href="http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/2010/P01AR_2010.xls">much different</a> from that depicted by liberal Prof. Elizabeth Warren. The middle incomes listed for 1970, ranged from $3,638 to $10,276. But in 2000, the middle household incomes ranged from $17,920 to $52,174. The Census put incomes per capita in 1970 at $15,920; in 2000 at $28,293—a sizeable increase, not the “flat” income Warrant contended. In 2010, Obama’s recession pulled per capita income <a href="http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/2010/P01AR_2010.xls">down</a> to $26,487.</p>
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		<title>The Auto Industry Talks Some Sense into the Obama Administration</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/the-auto-industry-talks-some-sense-into-the-obama-administration/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-auto-industry-talks-some-sense-into-the-obama-administration</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Dec 2011 04:00:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[auto industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAFE]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EPA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fuel standards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lisa jackson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama Administration]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[An agreement on car mileage rules can save money and jobs—thanks to industry. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/filling_gas_tank.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-116016" title="filling_gas_tank" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/filling_gas_tank.gif" alt="" width="375" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>The automotive industry managed to talk a bit of sense into the Obama administration and thereby save thousands of jobs and probably billions of dollars.</p>
<p>The administration in 2009 had brazenly announced it would change the law for fuel standards, raising the future Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standard by four years. Then, earlier this year, the administration laid out four mileage levels—as if to see what it could get away with.</p>
<p>It had called for future (CAFÉ) standards with the highest being 62 miles per gallon by 2025. Then it dropped the requirement to 56.2 mpg in 2025. Still too much to expect, said the industry.</p>
<p>The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers launched a barrage of radio ads in key battleground states charging that the 56.2 mpg fuel economy rules would mean <a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/07/automakers-will-air-ads-attacking-obamas-562-mpg-rule/1">job losses</a> and higher car prices just when the industry is making a comeback.</p>
<p>The industry, which has fought mandatory CAFÉ since it was first enacted in 1975, is now, however, more willing to go along with the final standard of 54.5 mpg by 2025 (an increase of 5 percent a year in mpg starting in 2017). The industry agreed partly because of the reduction, plus consumers’ renewed interest in better mileage because of high gas prices, and because of more industry innovations.</p>
<p>The industry’s position of resistance to any higher standard was aided by the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), which spent 11 months of <a href="http://www.cargroup.org/pdfs/ami.pdf">extensive research</a> with help of the National Research Council and other sources to examine the effects on mileage, car sales, prices, and other factors. It found the higher standards the administration first called for could raise the average price of a car by $10,000, cut auto sales by a third, and cost hundreds of thousands of car industry jobs in the U.S.</p>
<p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) formally unveiled their joint proposal to set the lower but somewhat <a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac8525735900400c27/c153bac1a0f4febc8525794a0061da1f!OpenDocument">tougher fuel</a> economy and “greenhouse gas pollution standards” for model year 2017-2025 for passenger cars and light trucks. They began praising it as if it had been their proposal all along.</p>
<p>Cars, SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks are currently blamed by the petroleum-fearing bureaucrats for 60 percent of U.S. transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>Their announcement was termed the latest in a series of executive actions the Obama administration is taking to “strengthen the economy and move the country forward because we can’t wait for Congressional Republicans to act,” as the heads of DOT and EPA phrased it in their totally non-partisan statement.</p>
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		<title>Millions to Lose Health Coverage</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/millions-to-lose-health-coverage/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=millions-to-lose-health-coverage</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Dec 2011 04:02:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[families]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Unemployment]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Washington rule-making in ObamaCare leaves families without coverage.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/obama-healthcare.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-115841" title="obama-healthcare" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/obama-healthcare.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="240" /></a></p>
<p>Health insurance companies across America are being forced out of business by edicts of ObamaCare, leaving millions of families without protection.</p>
<p>Remember Obama’s fulsome promise: “If you like your health care plan you will be able to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/06/what-does-the-presidents-promise-youll-be-able-to-keep-your-health-care-plan-period-really-mean/">keep</a> your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what!” This was Obama’s sacred pledge before ObamaCare was jammed through Congress in what was likely the most audacious and costly action of his deceptive Presidency.</p>
<p>He gave his word to the American people, as recounted in a December paper by Grace-Marie Turner, President of the Galen Institute, on the <a href="http://www.galen.org/component,8/action,show_content/id,13/category_id,2/blog_id,1653/type,33/">radical restructuring</a> of our nation’s health system.</p>
<p>The Galen Institute is a health research organization.</p>
<p>A survey of 1,300 employers put the white House in a state of “apoplexy” when it was published last June because the detailed survey showed so many companies planned to <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/270214/losing-your-coverage-under-obamacare-grace-marie-turner">drop health</a> insurance if key portions of ObamaCare take effect in 2014.</p>
<p>The White House tried to discredit the survey results, which found that more than 50 percent of those in companies aware of the law will stop offering health insurance. That could mean as many as 78 million workers and their families would no longer get insurance they now get at work. The survey indicated that, if driven into government subsidized insurance (state health exchanges), it could pile $1 trillion more dollars onto the cost of ObamaCare.</p>
<p>The losses in coverage have begun already. Many are losing protection because insurers are dropping out of markets in some states. Some carriers are leaving because of the burdensome rules. In Indiana, 10 percent of the health insurance firms have pulled out of the market because they are “<a href="http://4-liability.com/?p=8927">unable to comply</a> with the federal medical loss requirement (MLR),” writes Turner.</p>
<p>The medical loss ratio is an overly large percentage of an insurance premium that’s dictated by the government, which an insurance company has to spend on services to the insured, often leaving little for administrative costs and profit.</p>
<p>“Indiana was hoping to bring the companies back by asking the Department of Health and Human Services (HEW) for a waiver from the rule; but Washington refused in late November to grant the waiver.</p>
<p>Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels responded: “Once again the Obama Administration took a position in favor of higher health care costs and against personal freedom.” The MLR regulation is especially hard to meet for Health Savings Accounts, which offer high-deductible coverage. Indiana has a “high percentage of these popular, cost-saving plans,” Turned points out.</p>
<p>The Principal Financial Group, headquartered in Iowa, announced it would <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/health/policy/01insure.html">cease to sell</a> health insurance. This affects 840,000 people who get their insurance through employers served by the company.</p>
<p>Another 42,000 employees of small and median-size companies found out in January they would lose their health coverage with Guardian Life Insurance Company. Cigna said in its annual report it is no longer offering insurance coverage to small businesses in 16 states.</p>
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		<title>Best &amp; Worst in 2011 Education</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/best-worst-in-2011-education/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=best-worst-in-2011-education</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:00:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Atlanta]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[failing schools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hoover institution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public education]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Developments ranged from more charter schools to disruptive unions. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Picture-17.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-115695" title="Picture-17" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Picture-17.gif" alt="" width="375" height="246" /></a></p>
<p>Scholars at the Hoover Institution have now pinpointed the <a href="http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/best-and-worst-of-2011.pdf">best and worst</a> educational developments of the year, from growth in parental choice on one hand to the unruly union victory in Ohio, plus the Atlanta cheating scandal, on the other.</p>
<p>This annual Hoover Institution research helps to guide future educational reform. The analysis “evaluated hundreds of events, laws, programs and studies” in creating the list, explained Williamson M. Evers, Hoover research fellow and project coordinator of the education task force’s “Best and Worst” project.</p>
<p>The list of “five best” points to such positive events as increased parent choice of schools, greater transparency and teacher accountability. Heading the list was the reinvigoration of school choice through opportunity scholarships and vouchers. Result: Private school choice moved ahead in many parts of the U.S.</p>
<p>The worst development of the year, as graded by the task force of experts, was the misreporting of the Atlanta public schools cheating scandal. “When educators couldn’t successfully teach their students, they doctored the students’ test papers; but the news media let the cheating educators off the hook,” said Evers.</p>
<p>Regarding best developments, the study said, “Despite the attractive choice that private schools (especially Catholic schools) offer in many inner cities and not withstanding the Supreme Court’s resolution of issues of federal constitutionality, private school choice remained largely taboo politically until this year.”</p>
<p>In what history may see as a watershed, private school choice moved ahead, for example, in the District of Columbia “where the scholarship program was resuscitated in Congress by Speaker John Boehner; Indiana, where scholarships were made available” to about half the students in the state; and “Ohio, which lifted a too-tight cap on its program for kids exiting low performing schools.”</p>
<p>Second in best events: the rollback of collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in Wisconsin, Indiana, New Jersey, Idaho, and (temporarily) Ohio was marked progress.</p>
<p>Improving education is bogged down by union contracts that “impede sensible decisions about hiring, firing, deployment, and compensation of educators. CBAs also drive up costs. Moreover, many public sector workers are generously compensated&#8211;and enjoy relatively secure jobs—and their gold-plated benefit systems are bankrupting states and school systems. Voters and courageous state leaders finally put these issues on the table in 2011.” Five states made major reforms in the relevant statutes. (Ohio’s were undone in a November referendum.)</p>
<p>“Besides actual progress in modifying and limiting the scope of CBAs, states have now made CBAs into a normal area of reform.&#8221;</p>
<p>In the Atlanta cheating scandal, it was “truly harmful for standards-based education reform&#8230;.What the public should have learned from the Atlanta fiasco is that cheating is easily preventable&#8230;by having a huge bank of publicly available questions of which a subset appears on each year’s test” proctoring rooms where tests are given and online test administration.</p>
<p>The public has been misled into thinking that testing is somehow bad because it “creates so much stress that well meaning educators are pushed to the limit and eventually succumb (for the child’s sake, of course,) to the temptation to cheat, lie, and break the law.”</p>
<p>The cynicism of educators and administrators in Atlanta was “appalling” and a systematic, system-wide effort to mislead parents, public officials and the community that they were doing a good job.</p>
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		<title>Taking the &#8216;Family&#8217; Out of Family Farms</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/taking-the-family-out-of-family-farms/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=taking-the-family-out-of-family-farms</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Dec 2011 04:00:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Agriculture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family Farms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hilda Solis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Labor Department]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Government is meddling in parents' and kids’ right to choose. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/FamilyFarms.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-114828" title="FamilyFarms" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/FamilyFarms.gif" alt="" width="375" height="258" /></a></p>
<p>Barack Obama’s Labor Department wants to take the “family” out of family farms. The federal nanny state seeks to operate full force in the croplands and barnyards across America to keep farm kids from getting valuable work experience and subverting parental responsibility.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.dol.gov/whd/CL/AG_NPRM.htm">Labor Department’s proposal</a> would make “law-breakers” of young people learning such valuable lessons as how to care for animals, how machines run, how crops grow, and how a business works. The government would discourage youth enterprise at a time when the Obama depression and the pop culture have combined to denigrate the work ethic.</p>
<p>When child labor laws were enacted in the last century, family farms were exempted. But no more. The Obama Labor Department sees many chores as too dangerous for youngsters.</p>
<p>Here are some of what the Labor Department proposes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Strengthen child labor prohibitions regarding “agricultural work with animals in timber operations, manure pits, storage bins, and pesticide handling.”</li>
<li>Prohibit kids “under age 16 from employment in cultivation, harvesting and curing tobacco.”</li>
<li>Ban youth from using “electronic devices, including communication devices while operating power-driven equipment.”</li>
<li>Ban kids under age 16 from operating “almost all power-driven equipment.”</li>
<li>Prohibit “children under 18 from being employed in storing, marketing and transporting of farm-product raw materials…”</li>
</ul>
<p>So, the federal government, which always thinks it knows best, plans to make choices that farmers and farm kids themselves have made for generations.</p>
<p>Today the country has about 2 million farms. <a href="http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/demographics.html">Ninety percent</a> of them are family-owned farms.</p>
<p>Although the regulations say they would not apply to children working on a farm “owned” by their parents, they would apply to a farm owned by a grandparent, some other relative, or a farm legally structured as a corporation or business partnership, as so many family farms are these days. It makes sense for such farms to form corporations to take advantage of legal and accounting benefits.</p>
<p>For centuries, farming has been a family affair. Family members, including the children, worked from dawn to dusk to put food on their tables and the tables of the rest of the country—and much of the world—for many generations.</p>
<p>No one wants to see children exploited or endangered. When child labor laws were instituted in the last century, family farms were exempted. Now, however, as a Nov. 28 story in TriplePundit asked: Are the proposed new laws aimed at improving safety, or “do they <a href="http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/11/proposal-updated-child-labor-laws/">meddle too much</a> with parent and child rights to choose as individuals?”</p>
<p>The regulations could put an end to many jobs for farm kids, according to a Milwaukee Journal Nov. 22 article.</p>
<p>“As Americans,” Shelly Mayer was quoted as saying, “we are too protective of our children when it comes to physical labor.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have raised a generation of <a href="http://bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111203/NEWS0107/112030323/1159&amp;nav_category=">‘bubble-wrap babies</a>,’” she says.</p>
<p>&#8220;Parents dote so much on kids, they practically need an oxygen mask to go outside. And we wonder why they can&#8217;t function in society.&#8221;</p>
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