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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Economy</title>
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		<title>Steve Moore &amp; Michael Barone at Restoration Weekend</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/steve-moore-michael-barone-at-restoration-weekend/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=steve-moore-michael-barone-at-restoration-weekend</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Dec 2014 05:50:07 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description><![CDATA[Two top conservative minds give their take on America's political and economic landscapes. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong style="color: #232323;">Below are the video and transcript to the panel discussion “Politics and the Economy,” which took place at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 20th Anniversary Restoration Weekend. The event was held Nov. 13th-16th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. </strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/115323365" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>When I was coming into this weekend I wasn&#8217;t even fully ready because I was like, wow, what an election we just had. Wow.  Then day three of Restoration Weekend and I&#8217;m like, wow, there is so much more to be done, and it&#8217;s so funny, this is the third year that I&#8217;ve been part of Restoration Weekend thanks to David and Michael Finch, and for years and years many of my friends who are here from Orange County, Marilyn, Cathy Grimmer, Paul and Sally Bender had said, &#8220;You&#8217;ve got to go to Restoration Weekend, no matter what the outcome of the election.  We go there and we leave feeling revived and ready to fight more.&#8221;  After this particular weekend I was thinking to myself, a weekend might not be long enough.  We should maybe start, David, Restoration Week. I don&#8217;t know.  Michael&#8217;s going to kill me for saying that.</p>
<p>We have a really great panel today.  We have two of the foremost minds of the conservative movement.  Their brains are so big that I&#8217;m intimidated to be on stage with them.  I&#8217;m going to introduce them both from left to right and they don&#8217;t need introductions, you all know them so I&#8217;ll make this quick.  Michael Barone, obviously a senior political analyst for the <i>Examiner</i>, Fox News contributor and the author of the <i>Almanac of American Politics</i>.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>Co-author.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>Co-author, foremost author, right?  Then second, Stephen Moore, long-time writer and editorial writer and columnist with <i>The Wall Street Journal</i>.  Now he&#8217;s the Chief Economist of the Heritage Foundation and I think his most impressive credential, because I&#8217;m biased, is that he&#8217;s also a columnist for the <i>Orange County Register</i> so, just saying.  We&#8217;re going to start our panel off with opening remarks.  We&#8217;ll start with Steve and then we&#8217;ll move to Michael with kind of their thoughts on what&#8217;s next on politics and the economy.  Then we&#8217;ll ask a couple of questions and then open it up for you all to get your questions answered as well.  Steven, let&#8217;s start with you.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Okay, so let me give you my quick &#8212; Michael is obviously the Dean of Politics.  I&#8217;m going to give you just a quick seven or eight minute kind of sketch on what&#8217;s going on with the economy.  Some of you have seen these slides before, and I&#8217;m sorry if I&#8217;m a little bit repetitive of what I said last year, but I think this is such an important message.  Let me just start by saying this, I&#8217;m incredibly bullish on the U.S. economy.  I think we&#8217;re going to see an incredible, especially after this election, I think we&#8217;re going to see a big burst out of growth.  We&#8217;ve been stuck in this 2 percent rut on growth now for six years.  This has been an incredibly weak recovery but because of a lot of factors I talk about, I just think we&#8217;re really prepped for a big recovery.  As I said last year, but I&#8217;ll repeat this, the one industry that has really almost carried the rest of the economy on its back for the last six years has been this oil and gas boom.  It&#8217;s not a surprise to anybody in this room by now.  This is an incredible expansion we are living through.  Politics is so rich with irony.  The irony of Barack Obama&#8217;s Presidency is that he will have presided over the biggest oil and gas boom in American history and this is a president who hates the oil and gas industry.  If you look at this chart you can see what&#8217;s going on here.  The red line is all employment in every industry outside of oil and gas over the last six years, and you can see the big decline obviously in employment that happened during the great recession of 2008 and 2009 and you can see what a really flimsy recovery this has been, and it has taken us so long to get back to zero.  By the way, this goes through the end of 2013.  If it went through today, we&#8217;re right back about zero; so that is to say it took us six years but we finally recovery of every job that was lost during the recession.  That&#8217;s a pretty, pretty long and slow recovery process.</p>
<p>Now look at the blue line. That&#8217;s the oil and gas industry, and it&#8217;s interesting, I was giving a talk this summer to the Oklahoma and Texas Oil and Gas Drillers Association.  By the way, I think that may even be more conservative than this group here and so I started off my speech by saying, &#8220;Congratulations, you&#8217;re the people who reelected Barack Obama.&#8221;  They weren&#8217;t real happy but without this boom, there is no way that Barack Obama would have ever been reelected because the economy would have still been in a recession in 2012.  Now what&#8217;s interesting about this boom are a couple of things.  It is not &#8212; as you know, Michael, my mentor was the Great Julian Simon and Julian Simon taught us that natural resources don&#8217;t come from the ground or from the earth. they come from the human mind.  This boom in oil and gas is such a perfect example of what Julian talked about; that the ultimate resource is the human mind because this massive amount of energy we have in this country.  It&#8217;s not as if all of a sudden overnight God endowed America with all this oil and gas. It has been there for hundreds of thousands of years.  This is a testament.  This breakthrough is a testament to incredible technological prowess.  Wild cat or entrepreneurs, most of this energy was not found by Chevron and Exxon and so on, but smaller oil drillers just went out there and found this stuff, and it&#8217;s also a result of incredible technology.  We&#8217;re just seeing technologies that have changed this industry in such a massive, massive way.</p>
<p>Now what&#8217;s interesting about this story are a couple of things.  One is that if we get this right, and I said this last year &#8212; actually I misspoke last year.  Last year I said if we get this right within five years, the United States of America is going to be energy independent.  That is to say we are going to be selling more of this stuff than we buy and that&#8217;s true, I&#8217;m going to stick with that.  It&#8217;s quite plausible that by the Year 2020 if not before, the United States will be a net exporter of oil and gas, and as you know, that is a complete game changer with respect to our economy, and it&#8217;s a game changer, by the way, with respect to our National Security.  If we can actually sell this stuff rather than buy it; you know that you&#8217;ve been reading about this, ISIS gets about $5 million a day, $5 million a day from petro dollars.  We are funding the people that are trying to kill us so if we don&#8217;t have to buy this stuff, it changes the whole geopolitical situation, but I&#8217;ve changed my tune on this.  I would simply say this.  I kind of underestimated how big this is.  Before I said five years from now we&#8217;re going to be energy independent.  Five years from now we&#8217;re going to be energy independent.</p>
<p>My new line on this is five years from now the United States of America; this great, great, great country of ours is going to be the energy dominant country in the world, the energy dominant country in the world.  The thing that&#8217;s amazing about this, if you look at that incredible boom &#8212; just think about this ladies and gentlemen, think about how big this would be and could be if you actually had a president who liked this industry.  This has happened at a time when Barack Obama is doing everything possible behind the scenes to completely decapitate this industry.  For example, the pipeline issue is a big one and, by the  way, we don&#8217;t just need the Keystone Pipeline, obviously we do; we need pipelines all over this country to get the oil and gas that we have to every area of the country and around the world where we need it.  So that&#8217;s number one, Obama is not allowing virtually any new pipelines to be built.</p>
<p>Second of all as you know, if you look at this oil and gas boom on that chart, almost all of that, 98 percent of that boom is happening on private land.  Almost none of it is happening on federal.  In fact, I saw a statistic the other day that we&#8217;re actually drilling less today on public land than we were six or seven years ago.  If we were to open up federal lands &#8212; and I&#8217;m not talking about drilling on Yosemite or Yellowstone or the precious national parks that are environmentally sensitive; I&#8217;m just talking about drilling on forest land and so on that&#8217;s basically vacant.  If we were able to do that we could literally raise trillions of dollars of revenue of the next ten years to repay our national debt or to do other things to raise revenues.  We could practically eliminate the corporate income tax and replace that with money that we could get from drilling on federal land.</p>
<p>So that&#8217;s the second one, and the third one that&#8217;s so important and that we should all be paying attention to is these new EPA Regulations that President Obama is talking about, and this insane deal that President Obama supposedly signed with the Chinese.  Did you all follow this that the Chinese are now going to agree to reduce their carbon emissions by 25 percent by the year 2030?  That is the biggest bald-faced lie I have ever heard.  The Chinese are not going to reduce their carbon emissions.  They are laughing at us today in Beijing.  The Chinese are building a new coal burning fire plant every month in China so they are using fossil fuels. They&#8217;re going to burn this and they said to Obama, &#8220;Yeah, you go back to the United States and you cut your carbon emissions by 25 percent and we&#8217;ll do the same,&#8221; wink, wink, wink.  That isn&#8217;t going to happen.  This is just unilateral economic disarmament by the United States, and let me make another point about this because I think it is such an important issue.  I think a lot of you probably know this but can anybody in this room tell me what country of all the industrialized nations in the world, which country has reduced its carbon emissions the most over the last six years.  We have.  How many of you know that?  The United States. If you read the school books or read the newspapers you would know that.  We have reduced our carbon emissions more than any other country.  Wait a minute, how could that possibly have happened?  How could that possibly be true?  We didn&#8217;t do cap and trade.  We didn&#8217;t do, I don&#8217;t think we ever signed the Kyoto Treaty.  I don&#8217;t think we ratified it.  We didn&#8217;t have a carbon tax, all these things that all these sanctimonious Europeans said that they did.  We&#8217;ve cut our carbon emissions more than they have and I think you all know the reason why &#8212; because we&#8217;re converting electricity to natural gas.  Natural gas has become the number one source of electricity in the United States; it just surpassed coal.  Natural gas is a wonder fuel.  It is like this amazing wonder fuel.  Think about this; 1) It is abundant, we have hundreds of years&#8217; worth of natural gas in this country; 2) It is made in the USA; 3) It&#8217;s incredibly cheap; and 4) It&#8217;s a clean burning fuel.  Now why in the world would anybody be against natural gas?</p>
<p>But you know what&#8217;s amazing, the environmentalists have turned against natural gas; they&#8217;re against it even though it reduces greenhouse gasses.  Stunning, isn&#8217;t it?  I&#8217;ll make one last point about this.  If you look at electricity production today in America, because you all know this – the master resource is energy.  You can&#8217;t produce anything without energy and everything that we have, a major component of that is cheap and affordable energy.  Well if you look at our electricity today, where do we get our electricity today?  I just told you the number one source of electricity today is natural gas.  The number two source of electricity is coal.  So they don&#8217;t want natural gas, right, because they don&#8217;t want fracking.  The second source of electricity in the United States is coal.  They don&#8217;t want coal; they&#8217;re shutting down coal mines all over the country.  The third source is nuclear power.  They hate nuclear power.  The fourth source is an incredibly good, very affordable source of renewable energy, which is what?  What&#8217;s the number one source of renewable energy in American today?  I heard somebody say it. Hydropower.  Actually hydropower is a very good source of energy.  They hate hydropower too.  Why do they hate hydropower?  Because then don&#8217;t want dams, it&#8217;s going to kill the fish.  So any form of electricity production that actually works they&#8217;re against.  This leads me to an important point that I want to make.</p>
<p>You know, David, at this conference we&#8217;ve been talking a lot about the sinister elements in America today, the communists and the Jihadist and the &#8220;so-called progressives.&#8221;  I want to make a point to you that I think is really important.  I would make the argument to you that the most dangerous movement in the world today is not all of these other groups, and I&#8217;m not saying they&#8217;re not dangerous.  The most dangerous movement in the world today is the Radical Green Movement.  These people are absolutely crazy.</p>
<p>So I&#8217;m going to just kind of move on and make a couple of other quick points.  This is the crux of my argument about the economy, and this drives liberals crazy, so I want just two or three minutes to walk you through this.  If you look at this chart, the way I put it is the last 50 years there have been two great economic crises in America.  The first of course was the late-1970s and early-1980s when the United States went through what I call a mini depression.  We all remember that period.  You all remember 20 percent mortgage interest rates and 14 percent inflation and the fact that in the late-70s and early-80s America was truly deindustrializing, and if actually you read about what liberals and even a lot of conservatives were saying at that time, you remember this, Michael: America is an empire in decline, the Japanese are going to take over and actually the Soviet Model works better than ours does and so on.  That was the kind of environment that Ronald Reagan took over in and of course, in 2008 Barack Obama took office during an incredible economic crisis.  There&#8217;s no question about it.  We had lost six million jobs, the real estate bubble had burst, and half of the banks in America had collapsed.  So when Barack Obama walked into the White House, he walked into office in an incredible crisis, as he says ever speech that he gives.</p>
<p>Now here is what makes this experiment so interesting.  These two presidents used diametrically opposite approaches to dealing with the crisis, right?  So you all know the Reagan formula. It was to cut tax rates; it was to get government spending under control.  He worked with Paul Volker to slay inflation by cutting the money supply, and in a sense what Ronald Reagan did was he empowered workers and entrepreneurs and businesses to rebuild the American economy, the supply side recovery.  Barack Obama came in and did exactly the opposite, right?  Barack Obama used every single page out of the Keynesian playbook and, by the way, I&#8217;m not going to blame this just on Obama.  I would say the last year and a half or two years of the Bush Administration were a disaster too. So what did we do in response to the 2008 crisis?  Well, we bailed out big banks, insurance companies and auto companies.  We passed an $850 billion dollar so-called spending stimulus bill.  We had ObamaCare.  We had tax increases on the rich.  We borrowed $7 trillion, in six years we have borrowed $7 trillion.  This is a Keynesian&#8217;s dream, right?  We threw everything in the Keynesian playbook at that recession.  If you look at this chart, what I think is really interesting and I don&#8217;t think liberals have a good response to this.  What this chart is showing you is that the U.S. economy has grown by 2 percent under Barack Obama under his Keynesian formulation.  In fact, I think I wrote a piece on this for you guys are OCR.  You can see, so the economy has grown by 11½ percent over that period.</p>
<p>Now that&#8217;s decent but then you look at what happened under President Reagan.  Under Ronald Reagan the economy didn&#8217;t grow at 11½ percent over the recovery period; it grew at nearly 25 percent.  Now that&#8217;s a big, big difference ladies and gentlemen, that&#8217;s a huge difference.  That means, and what the number there you&#8217;re looking at, what that means, and if I updated that to today &#8212; because I don&#8217;t have the last two quarters on here. The underlying point of this chart is if the U.S. economy had grown as rapidly under Barack Obama&#8217;s recovery as it did under Ronald Reagan&#8217;s, the GDP national output and national income of this country would be $2 trillion larger today, $2 trillion.  That&#8217;s a massive number. If we were to give that $2 trillion to every single family &#8212; by the way, that&#8217;s year after year after year we&#8217;d be $2 trillion larger.  If we didn&#8217;t have that growth gap and we prorated that money to every family in America, the average family in America today would have $15,000.00 more income. $15,000.00 more income.  Now here is the amazing part about this.  The average family in America doesn&#8217;t have $15,000.00 more income in this recovery.  I think most of you know this.  The average median income family in the United States has $1,500.00 less income than when this recovery, so-called recovery, began.</p>
<p>Now why is that so important?  I think that single statistic may more than anything else explain why the Democrats had their heads handed to them a week and a half ago. Barack Obama was saying just ten days before the election, &#8220;Every single statistic shows improvement while I&#8217;ve been President.&#8221;  Well he left out the one that Americans care the most about.  What Ronald Reagan used to call &#8220;real take home pay&#8221; and &#8220;real take home pay&#8221; has been reduced and not increased over Barack Obama&#8217;s presidency, and that explains in my opinion, Michael, why 51 percent of Americans today say that the United States of America is still in a recession – because for half of the Americans it still is a recession.  When you&#8217;re losing income relative to inflation, you&#8217;re not feeling better about things; you&#8217;re feeling worse and that&#8217;s a point we have to hammer home over and over again.  One quick final point.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>Okay, real quick though.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Okay, just the states.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>Michael wants to talk about something.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>No, I know. I agreed not to be too long, but this is so important.  No, I just got to do the Texas thing.  So this is just the last point.  If you really want to understand the superiority of our ideas versus their ideas, we&#8217;ve got such a great, great experiment here in the United States, and it turns out the four largest states in America, two red states, Texas and Florida are obviously red states.  The two biggest blue states are California and New York.  Correct me if I&#8217;m wrong about this Michael but I believe one out of three Americans lives in those four states.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>That&#8217;s right.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>So those are the states that really matter and the basic bottom line here is that these red states, and this is what my book is about, the red states are incredibly outperforming the blue states.  You know this, migration pattern – there is a huge migration out of the Midwest and out of the Northeast into the South and to states like Phoenix and Utah and so on, and this is what liberals cannot, they cannot explain this because they kept saying, &#8220;Look, they want higher minimum wages, higher tax rates on the rich, don&#8217;t allow drilling, more regulation&#8221; and so on.  All of these things were supposed to create a worker&#8217;s paradise for the workers.  What they can&#8217;t explain is if that&#8217;s the case why are people leaving those states and what this chart is showing you is that over the last 15 years, for every job that was created in California and New York, three to four jobs were created in Texas and Florida.  Look, what&#8217;s the income tax rate today in Texas and Florida?  Zero.  How many in this room are Californians or New Yorkers?  Do you know what your highest income tax rate in California and New York is today?</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>Don&#8217;t remind us.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>13.5%.  This stuff matters.  I debated Paul Krugman on this about a month ago, about the economy.  I showed him this chart and I said Paul, you&#8217;ve got the Nobel Prize in economics.  Please explain to me if your ideas are so much superior to ours, what explains this, and you&#8217;ll love this, Michael. He said, &#8220;Well there&#8217;s a very simple explanation.&#8221;  He said people are leaving because of the weather, because of the weather.  Now, actually, as with everything &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>The last year that Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex had something like 90 consecutive days of triple digit weather.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Exactly, you took my &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>I&#8217;d like to have Paul Krugman mow some lawns in that weather.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>I said to Krugman, well, Paul, that&#8217;s an interesting theory, that you say you know people, and by the way, there is some truth to that. People want to live in warmer places, and I said if that&#8217;s the thing, if this is all driven by weather, Paul, you&#8217;ve got the Nobel Prize, please explain this to me, why are people leaving San Diego and going to Houston?  He had no answer.  I&#8217;m going to stop there.  Thank you very much.  It&#8217;s been a pleasure.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>Thank you Steve, and all right, Michael, ready to give us the political scoop?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>Well I&#8217;ll try to give you my view of a couple of important things, including some reflections on the dialogues that have been going on here at the Restoration Weekend.  I can&#8217;t resist beginning with some census data because I can&#8217;t think of anything more interesting to do than to plow through historical census data, make tables and things like that.  Steve&#8217;s economic tables are no match for this and the match is my home State of Michigan versus the State of Texas.  When I was growing up in Michigan everybody said well Texas is going to progress, inevitably. They will get big labor unions and so forth.  They&#8217;ll have business corporations that will cooperate with the unions.  They&#8217;ll get big government.  They&#8217;ll have an income tax, they&#8217;ll be like us in Michigan and so forth – census date.  In 1970, Michigan had nine million people.  In 2010, 40 years later, Michigan had ten million people.  A little bit of growth over 40 years, not spectacular.  In 1970 Texas had 11 million people.  Just a little bit bigger than Michigan.  In 2010 Texas had 25 million people.  Explain that Professor Krugman.  You got cold winters in Michigan, but you sure got hot summers in Texas and you actually have some cold winters there too.  Anybody that&#8217;s moving to Texas for the weather is deluded.  So let me just make three major points here that have been to some extent inspired or amplified by what I&#8217;ve been hearing, listening and talking to people with about at the Restoration Weekend.</p>
<p>The first is about the macro economy in which I do not consider myself to be an expert by any means.  I do know that there was a congressman from New York that said if you tax something you get less of it; if you subsidize something you get more of it.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Would that be Jack Kemp?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>Yeah and Jack had the right idea.  Obviously we want to get the macro economy growing again.  Some conservatives are saying okay we&#8217;ll just reduce rates on the high end like Reagan did and that will be fine.  I think we need something more than that.  For one thing, tax rates are not as high as when Reagan entered office.  There&#8217;s less to be cut, but I think we&#8217;ve got to do something else.  We&#8217;ve got to lower some tax rates.  We&#8217;ve got to get rid of some of the really hostile and anti-growth regulatory things and the crazed religion of the Radical Greens.  I think we also have to try to do something about family formation.  If we want to unleash human capital &#8212; and Steve has written about this recently.  I don&#8217;t know if his former colleagues at the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> editorial board are a little miffed at you, but one of the things that I think is holding us back to some extent, although it&#8217;s difficult to quantify, is family formation or the lack thereof.  All the sociological studies show that children raised in two-parent families do better by all sorts of metrics from crime to economic growth and productivity.  No, I don&#8217;t want to say anything negative about single parents and so forth.  But almost 50 years ago Pat Moynihan wrote his family report and he said that we&#8217;ve got a real crisis because 25 percent of black children are born out of wedlock.  The figure today is 70 percent.  The figure for all children is 40.  That is higher form of magnitude than what Moynihan was looking at justifiably, presciently, with alarm back in 1965, so what can we do.  The Tax Code doesn&#8217;t automatically shape behavior.  I think there are ways society can send signals.  When you look back in history people like us like to talk about declines of morals.  There are also increases in moral behavior that occur in various ways.  The United States in 1820 was a nation of drunks.  Basically alcohol consumption was cut by about two-thirds over the next 40 or 50 years.  That was an advance in human capital among other things.</p>
<p>We had senators like Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, others talking about child tax credit increase, other things to send money and signals to people to try to encourage family formation, to encourage two-parent families to give kids the advantage.  I think that there are a lot of other ways that we can think about this in terms of economics; but that&#8217;s one way to send a signal, that&#8217;s one way to give what Cass Sunstein calls a &#8220;nudge,&#8221; which in this case I think is useful.  So I think that we ought to be thinking about that and those of you who are active, and many of you are, in the voluntary sector, those of you who create organizations who work and organizations to try to foster better behavior, I think this is something many of you probably already are thinking about: how do we strengthen that kind of behavior because there&#8217;s a lot of human capital over the last generation that could have been created and wasn&#8217;t created.  That&#8217;s a problem.  We&#8217;d like to do better in the next generation, and how are we going to do this?</p>
<p>The second point I want to make is in another sense about the new generation and that&#8217;s taking a look at the election data, and this one was kind of fun to take a look at.  I was always a little dismayed at reading the number on President Romney, is to take a lot at two groups that we&#8217;ve been told are going to be a larger part of the electorate in years hence, and they are, and that we were told were going to be part of an inevitable during natural and permanent Democratic Party majority in America – the Hispanics and the Millennials.  If you made straight line extrapolations from the 2008 exit pole you might very well have thought that.  Both those groups, Hispanics, a term invented by a census bureaucrat circa 1970; Millennials, people born after 1980 or the 18 to 29 year-old-age group among voters, voted approximately two to one for Barack Obama in 2008.  They will be a larger part of the electorate.  My move to amend the Constitution to raise the voting age to 35 is barred &#8212; and permanently barring from the vote anyone born after 1980, our chances for that solution has been missed.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>I wouldn&#8217;t be able to vote.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>There you go, okay, sorry about that.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>No it&#8217;s all right, it&#8217;s all right.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>I&#8217;ll listen to your recommendation and start voting.  Those things having failed, those groups were going to go by, and you have writers like <i>National Journal&#8217;s </i>Ron Brownstein, who is a very talented guy, talking in addition about the non-white majority – divides electorate into whites and non-whites and says there will be a non-white majority.  Well let&#8217;s see how that&#8217;s working out.  Let&#8217;s start off with the Millennials.  In 2008 they voted 66/32 to Barack Obama.  Expressing that vote as a democratic margin as percentage of the total electorate.  Take the democratic popular vote margin among Millennials as a percentage of the total electorate. It&#8217;s 7 percent of the total electorate.  Barack Obama&#8217;s margin among the total electorate that year, 7 percent.  Essentially all of this popular vote margin came from them.  What has happened in years since.  Well the Millennials down there in their parents&#8217; basements have not been doing so well.  They were told that there was hope and change – that Obama was a with-it sort of person and he was cool and the other people weren&#8217;t and so forth.  In 2012 the Obama margin among Millennials goes down to 60 to 38.  That&#8217;s actually the biggest decline arithmetically among any age group so there is some decline.</p>
<p>It brings to mind the fact of the baby boomer, the fate of the baby boom generation politically, which I guess I&#8217;m part.  I&#8217;d like to say that the good news is that the baby boom generation is going to die out.  The bad news is I&#8217;m going to die about the same time.  The baby boom generation was 50/50 in the Nixon/McGovern race when the rest of the country was 63/36 for Nixon.  In 2012, 40 years later the baby boom generation voted for Mitt Romney, so people are affected by the changes and the things they see in their life as well as by some of the conservatizing forces perhaps of growing older, perhaps wiser, but in any case, the initial vote is not destiny.  Where were the Millennials in this election?  Take a look at the Exit Poll, the national vote for House of Representatives, it was 54/43 Democratic.  Express that as a percentage of the total electorate, Democratic margin as a percentage of the total electorate is 1.5 percent, 7 percent in 2008, 1.5 percent.  Millennial turnout will be higher in the general election than it was in the off-year election, so 1.5 percent translates to about 2 percent general election terms.  That&#8217;s a handicap for republicans.  They&#8217;ve got to carry their age groups by a larger margin in order to win, they did so, winning 52/45 House popular vote overall in this year in 2014 as well as 2010.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s happened to the Millennials in large part it&#8217;s a lot of human capital that&#8217;s not being achieved, that&#8217;s not finding an outlet.  I think one of the things I have felt is that there is a misfit between the Millennial generation and the way that they want to customize their own world.  Set up their own Facebook page and all this stuff, iPod list, that&#8217;s pretty antique now.  The tension between that and the centralized command and control policies of the Obama Administration. Those are policies that were initially crafted by people in an industrial age – 40,000 people worked at the Ford Rouge Plant.  You had a huge union local, it had 60,000 members.  You had a corporation that was one of the largest in the world.  The building was built in 1916 to 1918 at a cost of $1 billion which was actually a lot of money then.  I went around the Ford Rouge Plant in a car this summer – it&#8217;s 5.0 miles to drive around the perimeter of that place.  That is an artifact of the Industrial Age.  So individuals are small cogs in large machines, that&#8217;s what you do, big government, the centralized experts Jonathan Gruber will take care of you, you&#8217;re too stupid to take care of yourself, that&#8217;s the Industrial Age policies.  That&#8217;s a bad fit with this generation.  We&#8217;re not in an industrial age, we are in an information age.  The Ford Rouge Plant is a symbol of the Industrial Era, this is a symbol of the Information age.  It&#8217;s got more data in here than the Ford Rouge Plant ever processed and these policies aren&#8217;t working for them.  I think they&#8217;re waking up to that.  White Millennials are a significant Republican margin of this election.  The black under 30 voters.  Actually male blacks under 30 actually are moving towards Republicans more than their elders.  So I think that there&#8217;s some hope there. They are looking for something.</p>
<p>The Republicans have an opportunity, they sure don&#8217;t have a mandate. But they&#8217;ve got an opportunity for getting in touch with these people for policies that will enable them to find work, to earn success in ways that maximize their own special talents – their own individual interests.  The contribution that that individual uniquely can make to society.  The other side&#8217;s programs don&#8217;t give you any access to society.  The other side&#8217;s program don&#8217;t give you any access to that – you&#8217;re just a cog in a large machine.  These programs &#8212; I think conservatives can come up with a couple of programs that allow human capital to flourish in ways that are particular to the individual.  I think there&#8217;s an opportunity there.</p>
<p>Hispanics – Brownstein likes to lump together all &#8220;non-whites.&#8221;  I think this is misleading.  Hispanics and Asians, the people that fall into these categories, do not share the history experiences and heritages of Black Americans, which are, as many Black Americans will tell you, they are unique and they are absolutely correct in saying that.  They&#8217;re not behaving that way.  When Asians come to this country these days they don&#8217;t see separate drinking fountains marked off for them and they aren&#8217;t prevented from voting and in fact, what we&#8217;ve got is very different numbers.  If you look at the Hispanics, they go 67/31 Obama, 2008, 71/27 Obama, 2012.  They don&#8217;t like the self-deportation comment of Mitt Romney and so forth.  This election they&#8217;re moving in the other direction.  You look at the Exit Poll. It&#8217;s 62/36 for Democratic candidates for the House nationally.  But this aggregated by state.  One of the things you see, about 40 percent of Hispanics live in California, New York and New Jersey.  They were voting over 70 percent on average for the Democratic Party.  They are increasing Democratic margins that would exist if there were not a single Hispanic in any of those states.  If you are looking at the rest of the country, you&#8217;re seeing a different pattern.  In Rick Perry&#8217;s Texas, John Cornyn carried Hispanics 49/48, Greg Abbott got 44 percent here in Florida, Rick Scott got 38.  In Kansas and in Georgia, states with growing Hispanic percentages that some Democrats think are going to carry those states for them, Hispanics voted for the Republican, Nathan Deal, David Purdue, Pat Roberts.</p>
<p>My observation is that Hispanics are voting more like their white neighbors than their black neighbors and depending on the state they&#8217;re in.  I think that once again here are people that are looking for opportunity.  Here are people that are disproportionately in their younger years.  Here is human capital; potential human capital that is being under-utilized in this economy and these individuals are not being given an opening under this Administration&#8217;s policies so I think that once again there is significant opportunities and the idea that this is a totally non-white 90/10 democratic majority is simply factually wrong.  I could add that the Asian numbers show a flip from 73/26 Obama 2012 to 50/49 Republican.  I&#8217;m not sure that&#8217;s good data.  Sorry folks we&#8217;d love to believe it but I think that you&#8217;ve got small and potentially unrepresentative samples, but I think it&#8217;s an interesting mix and some of you are in situations like that.</p>
<p>Let me move on to my third topic that I want to talk about and that is one that I know evokes controversy or strong feelings in this room and that is immigration.  I think again there is a potential to unleash and enhance human capital in the United States, which we are in danger of missing, which people on the other side of the political fence are in danger of missing, and I think we have a set of immigration laws that have built on a system, that is built on a series of laws, 1924, passed 90 years ago, 1965, passed 49 years ago.  We inadvertently got a system that prefers extended family reunification of mostly low-skill people to admission of high skill people.  We&#8217;ve got a system now which we&#8217;ve got to lobby for declaring legalization of illegals, primarily low-skilled, and there&#8217;s an effective lobby for that.  There&#8217;s an effective lobby for increasing the number of H1BVs, as they tend to tie high-skilled people to a particular firm.  Microsoft wants you to work.  Apple wants you to work.</p>
<p>I think we should take this opportunity, the fact that it&#8217;s obvious that we need to change our immigration laws, to take a new approach and not just do patch work.  I&#8217;m not going to get into arguments here about what we do about seasonal farm workers, that&#8217;s a collateral issue.  I think that one of the things we&#8217;ve seen now, unlike 2006 and 2007, which is when the sort of design of the bill that passed the Senate in 2013 was formulated.  That&#8217;s a period when most of us thought we were going to have an unending surge of migration, especially low-skill migration from Latin America and some of us thought the best thing we can do is regularize it through some legalization.  We thought also that our high tech system was going on fine, we didn&#8217;t have any problems there and we thought that we had plenty of demand for low skill workers because the economy was growing.  Well, the surge in that migration from Mexico to the United States from 2007 to 2012 was zero, we don&#8217;t have that problem, and I think the argument is stronger today in my opinion than it was then, that says that legalization measures incentivize illegal immigration, which wouldn&#8217;t otherwise occur.  I think prior to 2007 it was going to occur anyway.  I think now we saw with the influx of Central Americans in the Rio Grande that there is an argument that undercuts the argument for legalization or at least suggests caution.</p>
<p>What I think is most important is to encourage high-skill immigration.  Steve and I disagree, I don&#8217;t think we need a lot of low-skill people right now, new people.  He thinks we always do.  I think we always need high skilled people in this country and I think if you want to maximize human capital in the United States or in the world, we want high-skilled people in this country, as many as we can get.  We&#8217;ve got a system where we admit a grudging amount of them, tied to particular firms.  I think we might do better if we let in high-skilled people, people who can demonstrate that they have high skills and abilities and let them see what they can do in something that we have here despite the effects of the current Administration, which is called the free enterprise system, a free economy and work their way up there.  I see as a model of the systems of our Anglosphere cousins Canada and Australia.  Canada and Australia have high-skill immigration.  They have point systems.  I had a chance to talk here with Senator Sessions and I said to him, let&#8217;s look at how Canada and Australia do this.  Can something like this be adapted to the United States?</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Canadians and Australians don&#8217;t want us to do this.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>Well, a Canadian diplomat in Washington said to me please, please do not adopt our Canadian immigration system.  We want these high-skilled people in Vancouver and Calgary and Toronto and Montreal.  We don&#8217;t want them going to the United States.  We want them in Canada and Australia wants them in Australia.  I have a lot of affection for Canada or Australia but I say let&#8217;s give them a fight.  I think that we should try to restructure this so that instead of extended family reunification of low-skill people we move towards high skilled people that have demonstrated their abilities and so forth in this country.</p>
<p>As I look back over the three things I&#8217;m talking about, let&#8217;s liberate the economy from high taxes, but also incentivize family behavior that we&#8217;re not sure we can fully influence but at least move people towards behavior that tends to maximize human capital.  Present opportunities to growing groups of the electorate like Hispanics and Millennials so to maximize their human capital and to exchange our immigration system and not just tinker with band aids and stuff on the 90-year-old legislation and the 49-year-old legislation but actually reframe our immigration law.  Take this opportunity to proclaim that we are a land of the free, home of the brave and we have open arms to people who come here with high skills and want to contribute to the United States and the world through becoming Americans.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>I think that, Michael, microphones are going to be going around in a second.  I&#8217;m going to ask a quick question.  Having just moved out from my parents&#8217; basement, thanks Ally and Paul, and being Hispanic and a Millennial, I&#8217;d like to talk kind of specifically about some of those policies the Republicans just took to Congress, both houses.  If you were in a room advising John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and the leadership in the Republican Party, what would you advise them they should do going out the gate in 2015 and what would you advise them not to do?</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Well the first thing, how many of you have been following this issue, this esoteric issue of corporate inversions of companies that are leaving and I say this is actually a real crisis in this country, and I don&#8217;t think a lot of the politicians quite understand what&#8217;s going on here.  If we don&#8217;t fix our corporate tax system &#8212; and most Americans have no idea about the corporate tax system and I don&#8217;t think Barack Obama understands this either.  Our corporate tax, as most of you in this room know, we have the highest statutory corporate tax in the world.  We&#8217;re at 40 percent and it&#8217;s interesting.  If you look over the last 25 years it used to be, Michael, if you go back to 1990 the rest of the world was at about 45 percent.  You know what&#8217;s happened over the last 25 years?  The rest of the world is adopting Reaganonics – Ireland, England, Canada, they are cutting their rates very sharply and so it used to be we were 5 percentage points below the world average.  Today we&#8217;re 15 to 20 percent above the world average.  That doesn&#8217;t work anymore.  I describe this as a Head Start program for every country that we compete with, right?  It&#8217;s true and I would even make the case it is unpatriotic to support a 40 percent corporate tax.  The people who are harmed by this tax are not big, rich Wall Street fat cats who own stock, although it does reduce returns to sharers, but there&#8217;s a lot of really good evidence by some of my friends at the American Enterprise Institute and some of my colleagues at Heritage, that the people that are hurt the most by this high corporate tax when companies leave is American workers.  This affects their wages and affects their job opportunities, so I would make the case by that and if I could do one thing overnight I would say, let&#8217;s just get rid of the corporate income tax, right?  Let&#8217;s just get rid of the corporate income tax and tax it to the shareholders when they earn it as capital gain.</p>
<p>But if we can&#8217;t do that there is a mandate in my opinion, there is a necessity we get that corporate tax rate down to 20 to 25 percent because if we do not do this and if we do not act quickly &#8212; you&#8217;ve seen what&#8217;s happened in the last nine months.  Think about the companies.  Burger King. Burger King is leaving the United States.  Walgreen&#8217;s wants to leave.  Pfizer wants to leave.  I could name four or five other major Fortune 100 companies that are essentially renouncing their United States citizenship and leaving the United States and as you said, going to Canada, going to Ireland.  In Ireland the highest corporate tax rate is 4½ percent.  That means you can change your location from, say, New York to Dublin, and you can cut your corporate income tax by two-thirds.  Companies have a charge to maximize their return to their shareholders so that would be the number one thing – get rid of the corporate income tax and then number two, let&#8217;s just blow up the whole income tax and start over with a flat tax.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>I agree with both of those things and I think you know that, but how to Republicans send that credibly to Obama when he spent his entire Presidency demonizing corporations and saying they&#8217;re the Devil.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Let me just make one quick comment about this.  I believe one of the biggest, one of the turning points in this election &#8212; and correct me if I&#8217;m wrong you guys because you know politics better than I do.  That imbecilic comment that Hillary Clinton made seven days before the next.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>When she was giving her Elizabeth Warren imitation?</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Exactly.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>No there is going to be a very spirited competition if those two run against each other because we don&#8217;t know who&#8217;s going to carry Salem.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>My only point in bringing that up is I do believe Brian that the big problem with the Democrats today, the Democrats today are anti-business, right?  They are anti-business.  My old boss Dick Army, you know Dick Army was the House Majority Leader, he used to say, and he said it so perfectly, liberals love jobs and they hate employers.  Liberals love jobs and they have employers.  You can&#8217;t have one without the other.  This is where I think it gets to your point about Millennials saying, wait a minute, the Democrats said they were going to create all these jobs.  When is the last time?  Just a thought I want to put in your head.  When is the last time this President in the last six years said anything good about business?  When has he said, he is the same President who said two years ago, &#8220;you didn&#8217;t build that,&#8221; so that anti-business sentiment is the ruination of the Democratic Party in my opinion.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>Well, Steve starts off right with the populist to appeal and cut the corporate income tax.  You&#8217;re absolutely right on the arguments intellectually and I think there is a political avenue to do this and an openness to do this.  There is a lot of low-hanging fruit off there – the Keystone XL Pipeline, vote on a bunch of things where you&#8217;re going to get, by the way, a bunch of Democrats, 31 House Democrats voted for the Keystone Pipeline last week and so forth, that it&#8217;s a 70 percent issue.  You&#8217;ve got a bunch of 70 percent issues, but I guess I would just reiterate my thinking on the immigration thing.  I really think that we have an opportunity to change the trajectory of incoming immigration and so forth in the world in the years ahead.  I wrote this book, <i>Shaping Our Nation:  How Surges in Migration Transformed American Politics</i> and it&#8217;s about internal migrations and it&#8217;s about immigration migrations.  We&#8217;ve had these unexpected surges of migration.  Nobody in 1965 was predicting huge migration from Latin America.  We actually imposed a limit of something like 60,000 Mexicans a year in the &#8217;65 Act, did you know that?  It didn&#8217;t turn out to be very effective because of family reunification provisions and because of illegal immigration.  Migration from Mexico was ten times that approximately between 1982 and 2007 and then it stops and that&#8217;s a historic pattern too.  You get these surges that last one or two generations, they stop.  I want the next surges to be high-skilled people from around the world.</p>
<p>One of the statistics that I saw recently and perhaps appropriate of last night&#8217;s meeting was that the percentage of people in the United States &#8212; like some of President Reagan&#8217;s statistics this may be wrong, so I want to be fact checked on this.  The data was that of people born in Africa, that doesn&#8217;t include the President, people born in African in the United States today is something like 47 percent of them have college degrees and moving on to their accounting degree and getting that and we see that in Washington, DC.  Michelle Obama, that Minnesota gets the Somalians, we&#8217;ve got the Ethiopians and it&#8217;s better for our metro area.  But anyway, that&#8217;s an interesting data point.  Let&#8217;s get the high-skilled people across the world because it&#8217;s better for our country and a more prosperous, more creative America is better for the world.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>You know Michael I was in &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>It&#8217;s better for people all over the world because they in many ways have often been free riders on advances made in the United States and the people of the United States who make advances, who have economic success are also major supporters, not only through taxes and foreign aid but much more importantly through voluntary activities that have helped people around the world.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>I was just going to say, I got in a taxi in Washington, DC about two weeks ago and the driver was an Ethiopian and he kept staring at me, and he kept looking back at me, he had this big smile on his face, &#8220;You&#8217;re on Fox News, aren&#8217;t you.  I watch Fox News every day.&#8221;  I&#8217;m like these are our kind of people.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>All right let&#8217;s go to some questions from the audience.  We have a microphone in the back.</p>
<p><strong>Rep. Michele Bachmann: </strong>Thanks.  You guys are so brilliant and I want to thank you and I just want to see me too to Steve.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Michele you are irreplaceable in the United States Congress.  We love you.  You are awesome!  We need you to run against Mark Dayton for Governor of Minnesota.</p>
<p><strong><strong>Rep. Michele Bachmann</strong>: </strong>No I just want to say how much I love and underscore exactly what you said – in my former life I was a federal tax litigation attorney, before I came to the U.S. Congress and I think again this is a plus-up area where Republicans can go on offense in the next two years against Hillary Clinton or whoever the nominee is, because this is a job creations tax.  That&#8217;s what the Corporate Tax Code is, it&#8217;s a tax on job creation and we need to frame it in such a way so that people know that what we want to do is get rid of these job killing taxes and have job creation taxes and I&#8217;ll give you one perfect example based upon inversions.  Two weeks before the 2012 Election I sat down with all of the medical device industry in Minnesota from the baby startups all the way to the King Daddy which was Medtronic and all of them could be predictive.  They saw that this could very well go the way of Barack Obama and the way of the medical device tax and so they&#8217;d been out looking in Europe and other countries to see where they could move their industries, and they were very frank.  They said if we don&#8217;t take this election in 2012, we&#8217;re out of here because we&#8217;ve got better places to go for industry and so Medtronic is one of those companies that announced an inversion and then the Treasury Department came back and was basically going to cancel all those inversions but it&#8217;s human nature.  People go where they can make the income so I think this is a target rich environment for us to go on offense and I think we&#8217;ll get Millennials.  I think that we should compete for every bit of space for every voter because it&#8217;s about every voter, their job.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Let me make a broader point because I think that what you said is so important.  Tell me if you think I&#8217;m wrong about this, Michele, but I think Republicans have an incredible opportunity right now with the old Reagan blue collar industrial union workers; because think about that.  Put it like this, Michael.  How can Tom Steyer coexist in a party with unionized blue collar workers? Tom Steyer is trying to deindustrialize America.  He wants to destroy the jobs of pipe fitters, welders, electricians – he wants to destroy the jobs of Teamsters.  Your and my party, Michele, you&#8217;re the person to do this.  We ought to be going into these union halls, I&#8217;m serious, and we should be saying, we&#8217;re the ones who are trying to save your jobs.  It&#8217;s these wacko Green Environmentalists who are trying to destroy your jobs, right?  That should be our message.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>A question from Senator Sessions.</p>
<p><strong>Sen. Jeff Sessions: </strong>Thank you, just briefly.  I recall having met with a Canadian who runs their system of immigration.  They are very happy with it. They are very pleased.  At a hearing two years ago in the Judiciary Committee, the Microsoft representative and group pushing for high-tech visas praised the Canadian system.  I said, well, Mr. Microsoft, I&#8217;ll adopt the Canadian system today.  Do you agree to that?  What do you think his answer was?  He had this rueful smile, and the reason was they made a deal.  They got their deal on the big bill.  La Raza and the businesses who want lower-skill workers and the political groups that want family reunification.  They made a partnership so that the package itself was unacceptable, in my opinion, so I guess I would say if we can break this bunch from their unholy comprehensive alliance and focus on the Canadian-type system, which gives points if you &#8212; millions of people speak English in the world.  If you&#8217;ve got two people to apply to American, why not choose the one who already speaks English?  Have we got two young people in Honduras and one has two years of college and one is a high school dropout, why not let the scholar get in?</p>
<p>We&#8217;ve got data to show that people with two years of education who come to America almost always succeed.  Data shows that people who come to American without a high school degree, without language skills, almost always remain in poverty for generations.  So I guess, Michael, I think you&#8217;re on the right track.  I also am dubious about some of the things they say.  Microsoft just laid off 18,000.  Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg, they only have 7,000 people.  This is not a big job industry.  If you travel the state like I do, and go in to business after business, it&#8217;s incredible the amount of robotics we&#8217;ve got.  We&#8217;re going to have more widgets made with fewer people every year for the next 30 years.  So we&#8217;ve got to think about how our people can be able to take the few jobs that exist out there, and we want to have their pay go up and not down.  So anyway, I&#8217;ve gone too long.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>I think that this is a great example, Senator, that we are in an area where we need good policy instead of good lobbying.  There&#8217;s a lobby for H1Bs because they stay with my company and you got indentured servitude or something like it.  But high skill hasn&#8217;t got a lobby.  It has got to find one.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>Why don&#8217;t we get a question over here and let&#8217;s walk to this side of the room too so there are a couple of questions over here.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Yeah, one thing you haven&#8217;t mentioned and please address it, is the toll on human beings of the Green Agenda.  The world and our country came into fruition on oil, on energy.  Nothing works, no one gets a better life without the energy to propel it.  If you look at the Green Agenda, as a matter of fact I live in Austin.  We have a little tabloid that&#8217;s called <i>The Austin Chronical.</i>  Yeah you laugh, but it&#8217;s amazingly effective.  They had some smartly groomed black kids calling green the new black, displayed on the cover of last&#8217;s week&#8217;s <em>Chronical</em>.  This is a lie.  It&#8217;s all a lie.  If you take away the energy, Africa stops.  They have no chance of ever getting out from under the chains of and if you look at China, what has propelled them forward at break neck speed?  Energy, energy, energy and they take that all away and would you please address that because that&#8217;s one of the human tolls of the Green Agenda.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>So I just got back my, it&#8217;s a great point.  I just got back from Zimbabwe.  My niece is a Peace Corps volunteer in this little village really out in the middle of nowhere.  When you were talking I was thinking about this because this village, they are incredibly great people.  I just fell in love with these people but you know, they&#8217;re living almost literally like it&#8217;s the 16<sup>th</sup> Century and you know what they don&#8217;t have in this town?  Electricity, electricity. You can&#8217;t do anything if you don&#8217;t have electric power, and for our government, for Barack Obama to run around the world telling these countries they should use fossil fuels, use less fossil fuels, that&#8217;s immoral, right?  He&#8217;s basically saying he wants to keep these countries poor and that&#8217;s a message we need to get through to people.</p>
<p>Just one other quick little story: we lost our electricity last summer when we had a big storm in Northern Virginia and I wrote a piece in the <i>Wall Street Journal, </i>and it got a huge response, and I just said what happened when the Morris electricity went out.  I have three kids, two teenagers who I don&#8217;t like very much and then I have an 11 year old but my teenagers when the electricity went out, they thought the first few hours were really cool. We had a fire and we had candles and so on and I&#8217;ve got to tell you.  After the first day, because we were without electricity for 72 hours, my kids were like screaming how do people live without electricity, my God they didn&#8217;t have any screen, they didn&#8217;t have cell phones.  The point is if we let the Green Agenda go forward as these people want to do, we&#8217;re going to have rolling brownouts and blackouts in this country.  If you want to see the American people get angry, it&#8217;s going to be when that happens.  If you turn out the lights, people get pretty upset.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Good morning, two quick points.  I find myself not surprised that once again I agree with Senator Sessions.  Good morning Senator.  Alan Greenspan testified before Chuck Shumer on April 30, 2009.  It&#8217;s just two sentences, I want to read this because I think we have too many high-tech workers from foreign countries competing with American high-tech workers which disincentivizes kids from going into those fields.  This is from Greenspan&#8217;s testimony.  &#8220;Greatly expanding our quotas for the highly skilled with lower wage premiums of the skilled over the lesser skilled.  Skill shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition.  Quotas have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism and in the process&#8221; &#8212; this word amazes me &#8212; &#8220;we have created a privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at non-competitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals.  Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of our income and equality.&#8221;  We need to get more American kids into those high tech industries, item number one.  Item number two, if you go to the UN web site you will find that they predict the two fastest ways of increasing remittances flowing from the U.S. to the Third World, sustainability, green, and in that comprehensive reform. We need to understand that our laws were based on the concept of protecting American lives and American jobs, first and foremost.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>Michael, what are your thoughts.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;m so concerned about protecting high-skill people from competition.  I think high skills are not are zero sum game.  Andrew Carnegie did not suffer because John D. Rockefeller was successful in business.  You got one immigrant and the other is the son of a confidence man.  You can make an argument I think particularly at the stage of employment that we have now.  Steve would not agree with it, but that low-skill employment is the zero sum game for the people and you let in more low-skills from other countries you drive down wages of low skill people in this country.  I think there&#8217;s something at least marginally to that.  High skill people are going to create and do things that you central planners didn&#8217;t think up.  They&#8217;re going to actually figure out new things and Andrew Carnegie figured out new things, the poor boy from Scotland.  So I&#8217;m for letting a lot of competition bloom with high-skilled people and I don&#8217;t think they ever crowd each other out.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Here&#8217;s why that&#8217;s completely wrong to say that our high-skilled workers or immigrants are taking jobs from American high-skilled workers.  There&#8217;s a very simple reason why that&#8217;s completely wrong.  It&#8217;s because 36 percent of the businesses in Silicon Valley that hire American high-tech workers were founded by immigrants.  So if the immigrants didn&#8217;t come here a lot of those businesses wouldn&#8217;t exist in the first place.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>What we&#8217;ve seen with a lot of Hispanic voters &#8212; the one seriously contested Senate race was a state with above national average Hispanic percentage, was in Colorado and in Colorado the Democrats, partly through an effort of very rich people putting together a pretty smart political operation that&#8217;s won the major offices there, they imposed a gentry liberal, my friend Joe Cochran&#8217;s phrase, a gentry liberal program: gun control.  Hispanic voters recalled one of the state senators that voted for it in Pueblo County, 42 percent Hispanic county.  They were going to have an anti-fracking referendum.  They decided to take that off the ballot because it was polling so badly they were going to get licked 80/20 or something like that.  Abortion absolutism, Senator Mark Udall became known by the liberal media as Mark Uterus, ran half his ads, the NARAL pro-choice ad said that there would be no contraceptives available in Colorado if Cory Gardner was elected to the U.S. senate.  We now have a chance to fact check that prediction since Gardner was elected and we&#8217;ll see if there are any condoms available in Colorado.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>Along with their marijuana.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>Well I&#8217;m not going to go there.  They are rejecting that agenda.  The question is do Republicans have an agenda that can go forward and that can help them maximize their human capital.  Help them achieve their dreams.  Help them earn success.  I think we&#8217;ve been trying up in the platform, a lot of you in the audience are working at this sort of thing.  Can&#8217;t give you a fast formula but I think there are Republicans working on it.  I think that we&#8217;ve got to get going and the other low hanging fruit.  What Michele mentioned, the medical devices tax.  We have these wonderful industries that produce things like prosthetics that enable wounded veterans to live full lives in a way that wouldn&#8217;t have ever been possible before and what does this crowd do? They want to tax it.  I think that there are a lot of opportunities here.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Well Michael let me just give you one, Hispanics are an obvious one but let me just put up one thought about black Americans.  Anybody in this room from Illinois?  A few.  What a great race, Bruce Rauner won one of the most important races in the country this year, and what&#8217;s interesting about Bruce Rauner, this is a near billionaire hedge fund manager.  They tried to run their own Mitt Romney campaign against him.  Here&#8217;s what interesting about Bruce Rauner.  I think every Republican in the country should take a page out of his book.  You know what he did?  Bruce Rauner spent a lot of his time going into black churches, black neighborhoods, black schools and he had a couple of messages.  One of the things he said, which every Republican should do when we&#8217;re talking to black audiences.  What have the Democrats done for you?  Really, what have the Democrats done for black American?  Nothing.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>No, I&#8217;m from Detroit and I&#8217;ve seen what happens.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>Yeah, right, exactly.  That was his point and what Bruce Rauner said is you elect me Governor of this State – I&#8217;m going to clean up your neighborhoods, I&#8217;m going to give you school choice, I&#8217;m going to clean up your schools, I&#8217;m going to give you jobs and you know what?  Bruce Ronner got 20 percent of the black vote in Illinois, so we can win a bigger percentage of black Americans with a message of economic growth.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Barone: </strong>Well, and here&#8217;s an Hispanic message.  California and Texas, we&#8217;ve been looking at the number of jobs.  Both of those states in the 2010 census were about 36 percent Hispanic.  Texas Hispanics get better test scores than California Hispanics.  Texas is non-union, non-ed run schools do a better job than California&#8217;s Teacher Union runs schools, okay?  Texas Hispanics make more money than California Hispanics.  Texas Hispanics have lower unemployment than California Hispanics.  We have a test case on whose policies help Hispanic people in American and I think also there&#8217;s a spirit of, well there&#8217;s a spirit of enterprise.  There&#8217;s also a cultural spirit.  When you go to Texas the people in Texas look at somebody that&#8217;s got stereotypical Latino features, they say that&#8217;s a Texan.  When rich Californians see somebody with that figure they hand them the keys to the car because they assume it&#8217;s a valet parking attendant.</p>
<p><strong>Stephen Moore: </strong>So the message here, folks, is we have to make America look more like Texas and less like New York and California.</p>
<p><strong>Brian Calle: </strong>Except for the weather, except for the weather.  Thank you all very much for taking the time to listen to us and let&#8217;s give one more round of applause to our great panel.</p>
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		<title>Bill Whittle: We&#8217;re Number Two</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/truthrevolt-org/bill-whittle-were-number-two/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bill-whittle-were-number-two</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2014 05:09:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[TruthRevolt.org]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[bill whittle]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247932</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Truth Revolt video. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="field-body">
<p><strong>Recently, China overtook the United States as the largest Economy in the World &#8212; at least when measured by the PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) metric. In Bill Whittle&#8217;s latest Firewall, he shows why this is not just a crying shame &#8212; it&#8217;s a crime &#8212; and he tells us what we can do about it. See the video and transcript below.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1EkVU-1HBDQ" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>TRANSCRIPT:</p>
<p>Hi everybody. I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall.</p>
<p>A few days ago, we rather quietly passed a milestone – a big one. For the first time since the 1870’s – that would be during the administration of President Ulysses S Grant – The United States is no longer the worlds largest economy.<br />
“Hold on to your hats, America,” reports Brett Arends of MarketWatch in his online article, “And throw away that big fat Styrofoam finger while you’re at it.”<br />
Now I don’t know anything about Brett Arends politics, but throwing away that big fat Styrofoam finger – the red, white and blue one that says “we’re number one!” is a long held-wish of the progressive left. It’s so gauche, so unspeakably vulgar, this Phillistine business of having pride in yourself.</p>
<p>This news about us taking second place, economically, to China is not a bug for the left – it’s a feature. They hate this country. Collectivists – like our President, let’s say &#8212; have always hated capitalism, always hated individuality, always hated the idea that more work leads to more rewards… in other words, always hated everything that America has stood for.</p>
<p>Just before he was elected, Barack Obama famously bragged that he and the progressive movement would “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” Is that something you would want to do to something or someone you loved – fundamentally transform it? Would the first promise you made to a new bride you claimed to adore be that you could not wait to fundamentally transform her? Progressives are happy we’ve fallen to second. It reduces global inequality.They’ll be happier yet when we’ve fallen to third, or tenth, or twentieth – the way our education system did when they got their hands on it.</p>
<p>Now China, needless to say, has a little more than four times the population of the United States. Surely we should be satisfied with that, right? That one-quarter of China’s population – America – produces just slightly less than they do?<br />
No, dammit, we should not be satisfied. First place is not a statistic. First place is an attitude. First place is an identity. First place is destiny, and the instant you become willing to come in second at anything you will find second place is a sliding slope to nowhere. not where you will remain.</p>
<p>That China is growing at an incredible pace is self-evident. A lot of that is not something we can do anything about – but a lot of it is something we can do something about, but won’t. A significant portion of China’s tech industry is – how should I put this delicately – STOLEN from western research and development. We don’t retaliate because we can’t add; our deficit spending makes us their slaves.<br />
And another significant portion – everything from pirated movie disks to “Adidos” running shoes to “Boreos” cookies to “Arm and Hatchet” baking soda are just flagrant theft worth trillions. But put all that aside. That’s just bitching about a bad call. Or two. Or three. Million.</p>
<p>The reason China has surpassed the US economy is pretty simple, really. The Socialist Chinese leadership has kept the dictatorial essence of socialism while allowing the Chinese people to embrace a capitalist ethic of hard work and reward for effort. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean the American Progressives are trying, and succeeding, in foisting laziness, envy, irresponsibility, government dependency and sloth – in other words, socialism &#8212; on the American people.</p>
<p>Record numbers of Americans are on food stamps, unemployment, and other forms of taxpayer support – in other words government forced redistribution of income, at the cost of long-term growth and prosperity. But it’s much worse than that.<br />
The Progressive left has throttled what might have been the most booming economic recovery in American history through irresponsible fiscal policy, higher taxes, and absurd regulations – mostly regulations advocated by environmental hysterics. And none of them make the slightest lick of sense: While doing everything he can to prevent America from cleanly burning the plentiful, inexpensive fossil fuels right beneath our feet, he then sells coal and oil to China – where it’s burned, and not very cleanly, in the same atmosphere we inhabit.</p>
<p>World dominant militaries depend on world dominant economies. World dominant research and innovation depends on the incentive of financial reward and freedom from ridiculous levels of regulation. When guys like Steve Jobs, the founder of the most cash-rich company in the world, says he could never start Apple in America today, that’s not because we’ve run out of garages, or capital, or people willing to risk that capital. Virtually all of the great ideas still come from right here. But the Progressive left, which is significantly too stupid and infinitely to lazy to go out and make their own wealth, taxes and regulates new start-ups to death to feed a government that costs about four thousand billion dollars a year… then you know these shackles are self-imposed, and what we could do if we would just release ourselves from these self-imposed chains would not just astonish the Chinese and the rest of the world – it would astonish us ourselves.</p>
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		<title>The Tax Noose Tightens</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mark-hendrickson/the-tax-noose-tightens/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-tax-noose-tightens</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mark-hendrickson/the-tax-noose-tightens/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Nov 2014 05:30:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Hendrickson]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244257</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Team Obama erects its invisible Berlin Wall. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/plk.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244264" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/plk-450x230.jpg" alt="plk" width="293" height="150" /></a>The political left in America remains obsessed with its grandiose visions of social engineering, increased government control of economic activity, and redistributive “justice.” For them, the state can never have too much power. Incurable<a href="http://www.viisionandvalues.org/2013/02/the-spendaholics-offensive/"> spendaholics</a> and, in President Obama’s case, actively pursuing a <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/obama-and-marxs-ten-point-platform-part-ii/">Marxist economic platform</a>, they never have enough money to spend; hence, they are constantly plotting and striving to confiscate ever-more of the wealth produced in the private sector. With their ravenous and insatiable appetite for more revenues, they behave like a pack of <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/19/team-obama-tax-predators-on-the-prowl/">tax predators</a>.</p>
<p>Even as Obama’s approval rating continues to sink, thereby jeopardizing Democratic control of the Senate after next Tuesday’s election, Team Obama has continued to tighten the tax noose around the necks of American citizens and businesses.</p>
<p>First, the pursuit of citizens: On Oct. 26, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-25/hundreds-give-up-u-s-passports-after-new-tax-rules-start.html">Bloomberg reported</a>, “The number of Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship increased 39 percent in the three months through September” from the year-earlier period, seemingly due to the intrusive asset-disclosure rules that took effect July 1 under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Obama still hasn&#8217;t achieved his ultimate tax fantasy—a UN-imposed and –administered global tax—but FATCA significantly ramped up the administration’s ability to monitor and pursue Americans’ wealth wherever in the world it may be.</p>
<p>Second, the aggression against businesses: Over the last few months, Team Obama has chided, vilified, and harassed American corporations that have been preparing to implement tax inversions—that is, purchasing a foreign corporation and then moving corporate headquarters to the foreign domicile to reduce the corporation’s tax liability. This has led to the nauseating spectacle of the minions of this most un-American of presidents publicly questioning the patriotism of Americans seeking refuge from the tax noose.</p>
<p>The common theme here is obvious: Americans are trying to escape the economic predations of our government. Let that sink in for a minute: For most of our history, America was a haven, a refuge—the place that people from around the world came to in order to escape the predations and oppressions of predatory governments. This was the Land of Opportunity, the place to come to pursue the American Dream—your dreams—in liberty, and get as rich as your talents and initiative would carry you.</p>
<p>Now, under the influence of progressive ideas, we have become politically corrupt and degenerate. Embracing the morally debased ethos that one is entitled to something for nothing in this world, and that it is right and proper for government to provide it even if it has to take property from others, we have approved of the erection of a massive transfer state characterized by an unseemly squabble over who gets what from whom. The government routinely takes the property of its citizens so politicians may buy the support of various voting blocs of individuals and of rent-seeking businesses practicing cronyism, not <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson-capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/">capitalism</a>. It is this morally and economically bankrupt state, sliding into a creeping tyranny of unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies which American citizens and businesses seek to escape.</p>
<p>Our founders would be heart-broken to see what succeeding generations have wrought. They would grieve that the current political class has turned America into a place where success is penalized, wealth is demeaned, the rich are persecuted, and property rights are disdained. It makes me sad and angry that America has become a place that people and businesses who have prospered feel they need to flee. This isn’t the real America.</p>
<p>Although the trend toward anti-America, the land of creeping tyranny, has been around for a long time, it is getting worse under Obama. A president who understood in American principles and believed in the American dream would seek to reduce the tax burden on individuals and businesses (the <a href="http://www.visionandvalues.org/2010/08/rethinking-the-corporate-income-tax/">optimum corporate income tax</a> rate would be zero percent) to make America more inviting to them, they instead treat them like criminals, enemies, or prisoners. FATCA represents the latest move to strip individuals of the last remaining shreds of financial privacy. The Treasury Department’s heavy-handed efforts to keep businesses from escaping offshore amount to the erection of an invisible Berlin Wall designed to thwart the desire to be free of an oppressive state.</p>
<p>Indeed, the way Team Obama is going about erecting that Berlin Wall is particularly egregious. In late September, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that the Treasury Department has drafted new rules designed to prevent corporations from undertaking tax inversions. This is one of the many ways in which Obama has been making good on his threat to bypass Congress and rule by executive fiat. Essentially, Obama, Lew and the Treasury Department usurped the legislative prerogative of Congress. It is Congress that always (and rightly) has written the tax laws that govern American corporations. One hopes that, after the election, Republicans will have enough backbone to challenge Lew’s new rules in court.</p>
<p>Another disturbing aspect of Team Obama’s maneuvers against tax inversions is its collusion with the unelected bureaucrats, both American and foreign, of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD has a plan called the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project that finds ways for national governments to gather and share more detailed information about corporations’ finances. The OECD also has been encouraging member countries not to engage in tax competition (i.e., not to cut tax rates to attract more businesses to their countries) but instead to keep tax rates high.</p>
<p>The OECD role in helping Team Obama to corral American corporations is galling in several respects: 1) It is completely hypocritical for OECD bureaucrats, whose generous salaries are tax-exempt, to plot with governments to avoid reducing taxes on others (although this stance shouldn’t be surprising, since the OECD is funded entirely by taxes collected by national governments, so they aren’t about to bite the hand that feeds them); 2) Foreign-based, unelected bureaucrats, many of them not even Americans, are using our own tax dollars against us to plot strategies to keep our tax burden high (another cynical example of “your tax dollars at work”); 3) The OECD needs to drop the “D”—“Development”—from its name. This multilateral cabal indeed practices “Cooperation” by conspiring with tax-hungry governments to keep business taxes high, but they are clueless about “Development.” By working to keep business taxes high, they are acting contrary to every known economic theory of development. Even Lord Keynes understood that taxes essentially impede development rather than assist it.</p>
<p>Team Obama, which now includes international bureaucrats, continues to tighten the tax noose around the necks of Americans. They are doing everything they can to make it more difficult for Americans to elude the noose. In the long run, this may help our cause: With no place to hide, we may reach critical mass and find enough Americans who realize that we have no alternative but to fight back.</p>
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		<title>Israel&#8217;s Bright Future</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/israels-bright-future/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israels-bright-future</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2014 04:03:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[development]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[How the Jewish State has matured into a resourceful developed nation. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/1931204827.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-242402" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/1931204827-450x338.jpg" alt="1931204827" width="309" height="232" /></a>A new year is generally a time to assess the past and consider the future. The year 5775 (in the Jewish calendar) is no different. A look back at this past year, with the grim reality of the Islamic State&#8217;s (IS) cruel terror, the general instability in the Middle East, and the recent 50-day war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist terror group Hamas, could easily lead one to despair. This mayhem and bloodshed has also obscured the dynamism and progress the marks Israel’s society.</p>
<p>A comparison between Israel, circa 1984, with Israel of 2014 reveals the country’s incredible growth and its maturity as a developed nation &#8211; a nation now commonly referred to as the “Start-Up Nation.” A few statistical facts convey the nation’s dramatic growth. Israel’s population in 1984 stood at 4.1 million, doubling in 30 years to 8.2 million. This means more security for the nation by virtue of a larger standing army and reserves, and less impact on the economy during military mobilization.</p>
<p>While Israel is faced with an existential threat from a nuclear Iran, terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, IS and al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front in Syria, and Hamas in Gaza, the disintegration of Iraq and Syria with their substantial armies and armament, have lessened the overall strategic threat facing the Jewish state. Egypt, under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the largest and most powerful Arab state, and Saudi Arabia, the primary Sunni Arab state, have found common cause with Israel. They share a concern over Iran’s quest for regional hegemony, and its drive for nuclear arms, as well as Israel’s opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, and other radical Islamist movements.</p>
<p>A nation’s strength is not measured by the size of its military, and its ability to deter its enemies alone. National strength is also a function of its economic, social, and cultural achievements. Since 1984 Israel has experienced dramatic improvements in its economy. The inflation rate has declined from 447% to 1.5%, and the interest banks charge declined from 771% to 5%; national debt as a percentage of the GNP has declined from 17% to 2.5%. Likewise, the defense expenditures as a percentage of the GNP went down from 20% to <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS/countries"><span style="color: #0433ff;">5.6</span></a>% (2013), still a bit higher than the U.S. military expenditure of 3.8%.  Foreign exchange reserves in dollars grew from $3.3 billion to $90 billion. Exports in 1984 were $10 billion and by 2013 had reached <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/israel/gdp"><span style="color: #0433ff;">$291.36 billion</span></a>, while per capita income in 1984 was $7000, and in 2013 it was <a href="http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/1.1"><span style="color: #0433ff;">$34,120</span></a>. Women in Israel’s labor force amounted to 30% in 1984; it now stands at 53%. And while the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the U.S. (2013) grew by 1.9%, in the U.K. 1.7%, France’s 0.2%, Israel’s GDP growth was <a href="http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/1.1"><span style="color: #0433ff;">3.3%. </span></a></p>
<p>Naturally, Israel has economic and social problems. To reach its full potential Israel needs to increase the number of ultra-orthodox Jews and Arabs in the labor market. The high cost of apartments (due to shortage in supply) has been especially difficult for young couples seeking their first home and is a factor in the emigration of bright young people.  There are not enough rental apartments for the post-military young. Defense expenditures are still high, but unavoidable. However, when compared with the rest of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) states, Israel’s situation is improving yearly, which is not the case elsewhere in Western countries.</p>
<p>OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria had this to say about Israel (March 8, 2011) “In a very short period, Israel has become an important contributor to OECD’s work. It is now a full member of more than 100 Committees and bodies, and vice-chairs of 5 of them. Its <a href="http://www.oecd.org/israel/introduction-of-president-shimon-peres.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">knowledge</span></a> on key areas for the viability of our economies, like water management, ‘clean-techs’ and entrepreneurship, is becoming a source of best practices. Its contribution to our privacy protection standards and consumer protection policy has been outstanding.  Its support for our work with the MENA countries is also highly valuable.”</p>
<p>An overview of the Israeli economy by the OECD pointed out that “Israel’s output growth has been <a href="http://www.oecd.org/israel/economic-survey-israel.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">impressive</span></a>, considering global economic weakness, and the output gap is close to zero in contrast to much of the OECD area. The unemployment rate is at a 30-year low, and labor force participation has been rising steadily. Furthermore, new natural gas fields have provided an additional boost to GDP in recent quarters. Substantial public spending cuts and revenue-raising measures legislated in the latest government budget are set to bring fiscal balances back on target for this year and next.”</p>
<p>Billionaire investor Warren Buffett described (5/2/2013) Israel as the “<a href="http://www.thetower.org/buffett-buys-remaining-shares-of-israeli-toolmaker-im-a-big-believer-in-israels-economy/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">most promising investment hub</span></a> outside the U.S.” Buffett added that, “[w]e are the world’s fifth-biggest investment firm, but for me the number-one country is Israel, which is far ahead of larger and richer countries.”</p>
<p>The United Nation’s Human Development Index (UN-HDI) for 2014 ranked Israel <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries"><span style="color: #0433ff;">#19</span></a> among 194 member states, ahead of France (#20), Austria and Belgium (#21), Finland (#24), and Italy (#26). The HDI measures life expectancy, education, and income levels in various countries.</p>
<p>In the cultural sphere, Israel is #1 in the world in the number of museums per person. It has over 200 museums, and counting. Israel leads the world in the re-use of sewage water (about 80%) while in second place, Australia’s rate is only 22%. The Jewish state leads the world in the number of people employed in research and development. For every 10,000 workers, Israel has 140 employees, while second place U.S. has 85 (According to Dr. Adam Reuter, CEO of Financial Immunities Consulting, and the Chairman of Reuter-Maydan Investment House). A <i>Wall Street/ NBC-TV</i> survey has found Israel to be the <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/most-educated-countries-world-f1B6065913"><span style="color: #0433ff;">second most educated</span></a> nation in the world following Canada, above Japan.</p>
<p>The British <i>Economist</i> survey on the best places in the world to be born and live placed Israel as the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/21566430-where-be-born-2013-lottery-life"><span style="color: #0433ff;">20</span><span style="color: #0433ff;"><sup>th</sup></span></a>, ahead the U.K., France, Italy, and Japan. A 2012 <i>Bloomberg</i> poll ranked Israel’s health system as the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2t79olZ3lc"><span style="color: #0433ff;">sixth</span></a> best in the world, ahead of the U.S. and many European states. Life expectancy for men in Israel ranked second among 146 states polled, women’s life expectancy in Israel was ranked 13.</p>
<p>According to <i>Reuter-Maydan Investment House</i> in 2013, for every 10 Jewish children born, there were 2.4 Arab children born, a decline from the year 2000, when the ratio was 10/3 Jewish to Arab children. Since 2000, the Arab population growth in Israel stabilized at around 40,000 births a year. Jewish births at the same time increased from 95,000 to 125,000 a year. Significantly, the Jewish-Israeli growth has come mostly from secular Jews, especially among immigrants from the former Soviet Union. There has also been a significant decline of birthrates in the Arab sector as a result of better education among Arab women, and Westernization in the Arab sector. Also noted was a dramatic decline in birthrates among Bedouin women, due to the lowering of national insurance paid to families with children.</p>
<p>The Israeli economy is strong. The newly found gas and oil tracts offshore will make Israel a net exporter of energy within five years. A low rate of unemployment and a high rate of investments make Israel an attractive destination for West European Jews fleeing anti-Semitism. Israel’s excellent health system and vibrant cultural life keep Israelis happy and proud of their country. While the recent Gaza war entailed hardship for many Israelis, the Israel Defense Forces proved more than capable in dealing with the situation.  In summary, despite the grim reality in the region, Israel’s future appears to be bright.</p>
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		<title>The New Shame of the Cities</title>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Aug 2014 04:59:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A new Freedom Center pamphlet unmasks America's Democrat-run holding cells for the poor. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ww.gif"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-238276" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ww-239x350.gif" alt="ww" width="239" height="350" /></a><strong>To order John Perazzo&#8217;s new Freedom Center pamphlet, &#8220;<em>The New Shame of the Cities</em>,&#8221; <a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenterstore.org/products/the-new-shame-of-the-cities">click here</a>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Introduction:</strong></p>
<p>American politics is dominated by an enduring myth—that Democrats are the party of the common man; the voiceless, the powerless, the poor. That if you care about what happens to the least among us, you will cast your vote in the Democratic column.</p>
<p>But the reality is this: the vast majority of voiceless, powerless and poor people are concentrated in Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, Atlanta, and America’s other large urban centers. All of them are run by Democrats and have been for 50 to 100 years. On the Democrats’ watch, these cities have become the equivalent of holding cells for the poor and minorities. Everything that’s wrong with America’s cities that can be affected by policy, Democrats are responsible for. There are poor to be helped, but Democrats have buried them deeper in poverty and powerlessness. There are minorities who seek opportunities, but Democrats have kept them second-class citizens. Democrats have been the problem rather than the solution.</p>
<p>In 1904, Lincoln Steffens, a major figure in the group of journalists Teddy Roosevelt called “muckrakers,” published a groundbreaking book called <em>Shame of the Cities</em>. In it he examined the inner workings of America’s great urban centers and found them swarming with graft and corruption. In his searing portraits of these cities, Steffens documented the inner workings of political machines across the country which were then imitating the apparatus built a few decades earlier by Tammany Hall’s notorious Boss Tweed, first of this new breed of crooked backroom Democratic princes of the city. Steffens showed how these machines ran over and flattened the lives of ordinary working people. But even more than corruption itself, Steffens was incensed by the complicity of intellectuals and opinion makers—people who knew that the political machines mangled democracy but had nonetheless allowed them to make America’s cities cesspools of poverty and despair.</p>
<p>If Lincoln Steffens was alive today, he would feel even greater outrage at the current disastrous state of America’s cities, as documented by John Perrazo in <em>The New Shame of the Cities</em>. Steffens would see in Perrazo’s portraits of the present-day machines of the Democrat Party, which have ruled America’s cities for a generation, today’s equivalent of Tammany Hall. He would see their governance not simply as an expression of failed policies, but as a massive human rights violation that has delivered the poor and minorities into a state of hopelessness and made them a permanent underclass. And, as he did in his own time, Steffens would feel contempt for today’s political class that has stood by and watched this urban tragedy unfold and bought into the Democrats’ myth that they are actually protectors of the poor.</p>
<p>It didn’t have to turn out this way. In part because of the issues Steffens himself raised at the turn of the twentieth century, good government movements took hold with the goal of making municipal government responsible and efficient and the cities themselves livable. By the 1930s, the metropolises of the United States had become centers of enterprise, commerce, and culture—“big shouldered,” in the phrase Carl Sandburg used to describe bustling Chicago, one of the most industrious—as they integrated a generation of new immigrants into the national fabric and welcomed the businesses and corporations that provided paychecks for workers and prosperity for the nation.</p>
<p>To be sure, the great American cities of the early 20<sup>th</sup> century were run for the most part by politicians whose allegiance was to the New Deal, many of them autocrats who held office for decades. But these politicians were judged on how well their policies produced real-life solutions for the poor and how well they advanced the poor into the middle class. Voters and residents were interested only in one thing: whether or not the cities these politicians managed “worked.”</p>
<p>That was then and this is now. As John Perazzo shows in <em>The New Shame of the Cities</em>, over the last fifty years America’s urban centers have slid into violence, corruption and savage dysfunction that make the snapshots of despair Lincoln Steffens produced at the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century seem mild by comparison. The cities that were once the engines powering the American Century have stopped functioning. Going back to the future, they are once again America’s shame.</p>
<p>From Atlanta to Newark and Washington, D.C. to St. Louis, Perazzo shows how contemporary urban life has become stuck in reverse, bankrupt in finance and in spirit. “Detroit, ruled by Democrats for nearly a half century, has hemorrhaged population, becoming a ghost town,” he writes, “as it has gone from being the automotive capital of America, producer of its dream machines, to the murder capital—according to <em>Forbes</em> magazine, the most dangerous city in the country.” About Baltimore, also governed by the Democratic Party for more than 50 years, the verdict is equally grim: “As a result of widespread political corruption, a damaged economy, astronomically high taxes, and escalating crime rates, population fell by 120,000 just in the 1990s, making the city blacker and poorer. Tens of thousands of homes were simply abandoned by residents desperate to escape.” The verdict on Chicago is rendered by its new street nickname “Chiraq,” a reference to the killings that have become commonplace and know no holiday truce: there were 45 shootings in the city on Easter weekend 2014 alone, six of the victims children.</p>
<p>Perrazo’s portraits of these once great American metropolises show how Democratic Party policies have made them into little more than holding cells for blacks and Hispanics and other minorities immiserated by the policies of their Democratic Party rulers. This urban tragedy isn’t the result of some impersonal historical process; nor is it, as the Democrats who have presided over the catastrophe like to claim, caused by racism or neglect by the federal government. The reasons for the decline of America’s cities are indeed complicated, but there should be no argument that it has occurred as a result of policies designed and implemented by the Democrats, or that this decline began in the 1960s, when the pragmatic centrists who had defined the Democratic Party for a generation and had built livable cities were defeated by “new politics” liberals, soon to label themselves “progressives,” who proceeded to make these cities into mad laboratories for their leftist ideological experiments.</p>
<p>Today’s Democrat power brokers have monopolized power even more ruthlessly than the bosses Lincoln Steffens targeted in his exposé over a hundred years ago (while piously claiming that they do so for “the people” in a way that even those otherwise shameless politicians would have considered hypocritical). They believe that the measure of a city’s administration is no longer whether it creates solutions that “work” or whether most of its residents’ lives are improving most of the time. Instead, success is now determined by the size of the municipal bureaucracy and the power it has over every aspect of individual lives; by scapegoating and stigmatization of the “greedy” businesses that had traditionally created the jobs providing each new American generation with greater social and financial opportunities than the previous one had enjoyed; by mortgaging the educational system, which once offered poor people their best opportunity to step out of caste, to the teachers’ unions which in return keep the political status quo in place with their money and votes.</p>
<p>The fiscal irresponsibility that has driven our cities to bankruptcy has daily, real-life, real-time consequences for citizens as budgets are slashed and first responders are cut back. “When Detroit residents place a call seeking help from the city’s understaffed police department,” Perazzo writes, “they must wait an average of 58 minutes for an officer to arrive at the scene.”</p>
<p>Today’s big-city Democrats, while utter failures at bettering the lives of their constituents, are very good at the class warfare rhetoric and conspiracy theories that make these constituents feel that the Party that has beaten them down is actually their last best hope. This is why Democrats routinely receive over 90% of the votes in elections whose nearly unanimous results call to mind those that once took place in the Soviet bloc.</p>
<p>In the background of Perazzo’s profiles of corruption and malfeasance that is literally criminal—America’s big-city mayors and administrators over the last several decades have gone to jail in astounding numbers—are national policies that have trickled down despair to the cities and to the African American and Hispanic poor, whom Democrats still cynically claim to protect. Welfare programs promoted since the 1960s by successive Democrat administrations in our urban centers have created the perverse incentives that lead to three quarters of black children being born out of wedlock and growing up in families without fathers; an outcome that haunts the community later on, since fatherless young black males commit crimes, most of them against other blacks, at astronomic rates. Access to subprime housing loans and lax lending standards promoted in the name of “social justice” during the 1990s by Democrat city and federal governments and by radical allies such as ACORN, caused the collapse of the national housing market that hit these minorities twice as hard as it hit whites and led to a huge reduction in family wealth among blacks and Hispanics.</p>
<p><em>The New Shame of the Cities</em> shows the same grim picture in city after city, where the poor have gotten poorer and the whites have moved away over the last generation, creating ghost neighborhoods where abandoned homes stand like pulled teeth. But what has been a catastrophe for the people unfortunate enough to still have to live in such places (a recent poll by the <em>Detroit Free Press</em> found that 40% of the city’s population, drastically reduced over the last 50 years, planned to move as soon as possible) has been a godsend for the Democrats in charge. <em>Forbes</em> magazine summarizes the moral of the story: “A politician or a political party can achieve long-term dominance by tipping the balance of votes in their direction through the implementation of policies that strangle and stifle economic growth. Counterintuitively, making a city poorer leads to political success for the engineers of that impoverishment.”<sup><sup>[1]</sup></sup> It is also a story with a cynical twist: most of these failing cities are now administered by black Democrats, which means that anyone criticizing their failed policies can be attacked as “racist.” Incompetent at everything else, these politicians have become adept at projecting blame onto the abstract other—Washington, exploitive businesses and businessmen, “white flight,” racism.</p>
<p>The statistics that Perrazo has assembled in this work, drearily similar in city after city, have the cumulative power of a punch in the face: Black unemployment at 16.3 percent (19.1 percent for young black males). Poverty rates of 37.5 percent and 35.5 percent, respectively, for Hispanic and black single parents. Sixty percent of rapists, 72 percent of adolescent murderers, and 70 percent of long-term prisoners, are men who grew up in fatherless families encouraged by Democratic welfare programs. And public school, once the way out, now a dead end with 45 percent and 43 percent of black and Hispanic students dropping out at a time when those who fail to graduate from high school in America earn only about half as much as those who do.</p>
<p>This urban chamber of horrors has been built on the watch of Democratic Party city governments, often with black mayors, who have helped turn our once-proud big cities into the equivalent of black reservations. African American sociologist Walter E. Williams had it exactly right when he once surveyed this urban wreckage and said, “The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do, what Jim Crow couldn’t do, what the harshest racism couldn’t do. And that is to destroy the black family.”<sup><sup>[2]</sup></sup></p>
<p><em>The New Shame of the Cities</em> gives the lie to the liberal idea—never anything more than a power grab disguised as compassion—that it takes a government to elevate an individual. By documenting the ruinous state of our once great cities, this work illumines a darker truth: that it takes a government to destroy the communities that give individual life dignity and purpose.   &#8211;Peter Collier</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em><strong>Detroit:</strong></em></p>
<p>Hard as it is to believe today—when Detroit has the desolate, bombed-out look of a conquered nation—fifty years ago there were few more exciting and attractive places for Americans, black and white, to live. As the social critic Matthew Josephson observed in the 1920s, when the city was on the move: “Nowhere in the world may the trend of the new industrial cycle be perceived more clearly than in Detroit. In this sense, it is the most modern city in the world, the city of tomorrow.”<sup><sup>[3]</sup></sup> University of Michigan historian Jeffrey Mirel puts it this way: “Throughout the 1920s, Detroit was the shining star of the new era, the very center of the American economic universe, where capitalism and technology combined to produce the greatest goods for the greatest numbers.”<sup><sup>[4]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Detroit is best known as the home of the “Big Three” auto makers—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—who made the U.S. and the rest of the world mobile and powered what at the time seemed an urban research-and-demonstration project. During the decades of the early to mid twentieth century, the auto industry’s need for massive quantities of steel, glass, copper, and (later) plastic gave rise to numerous enterprises related to car manufacture that employed hundreds of thousands of additional blue-collar workers in and around the city.<sup><sup>[5]</sup></sup> The assembly line was perfected here, and brought with it the idea that industrial workers could expect to enjoy a middle-class lifestyle.</p>
<p>During World War II, Detroit was a key part of the arsenal of democracy, producing tanks, jeeps and a host of other weapons that helped win the war. In the postwar years the city boomed, building the tail-finned, futuristic cars that in turn symbolized the American Dream—of mobility, financial stability, and success. By the 1950s, Detroit had become the fifth largest city in the United States, home to nearly two million residents.<sup><sup>[6]</sup></sup> By 1960, it had the highest per capita income of any city in the country.<sup><sup>[7]</sup></sup></p>
<p>As the Sixties progressed, Motown Records—founded in Detroit by one of its native sons, Berry Gordy Jr.— produced such megastars as Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson Five, the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Commodores, and Gladys Knight &amp; the Pips, who made the music America hummed. The city school system, meanwhile, turned out capable graduates.</p>
<p>The Sixties was also the moment when Detroit began to experience its reversal of fortune. The city was hit particularly hard by the social turbulence of this revolutionary era, most notably a rising militancy among local community organizers angered by what they perceived to be the slow pace of civil-rights reforms<sup><sup>[8]</sup></sup>—although Detroit had a large and prosperous black middle class, higher-than-normal wages for unskilled black workers because of the auto industry, and two black U.S. congressmen. Moreover, Detroit had acquired millions in federal funds through President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs and invested them almost exclusively in the inner city, where poverty and social problems were concentrated. The <em>Washington Post</em> claimed that Detroit’s inner-city schools were undergoing “the country’s leading and most forceful reforms in education.”<sup><sup>[9]</sup></sup> Housing conditions were not viewed as worse than those of other Northern cities. In 1965, the American Institute of Architects gave Detroit an award for urban redevelopment.<sup><sup>[10]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Nonetheless, Rev. Albert Cleague and other Detroit-area activists openly called for black separatism and self-determination on the premise that whites would never voluntarily choose to share political power with blacks.<sup><sup>[11]</sup></sup> At a July 1967 Black Power rally in Detroit, the radical H. Rap Brown gave voice to the city’s growing unrest when he warned “Motown” that if it did not make sufficient reforms, “we are going to burn you down.”<sup><sup>[12]</sup></sup></p>
<p>This inflammatory racial discontent grew at a time when the Democratic Party, claiming to be sensitive to the problems of minorities, was completing a takeover of city government. In 1961, the reins of political power in the city fell permanently into Democrats’ hands. In the 53 years that have passed since then, Detroit has not had a single Republican mayor. Indeed, it has elected only one Republican to its City Council since 1970.<sup><sup>[13]</sup></sup> As it was becoming a failed city, it was also becoming a political monoculture.</p>
<p>The first mayor of Detroit’s Democratic Party era, Jerome Cavanagh (1962-70), was a white liberal who greatly expanded the role of government in the city and took pains to appoint blacks to prominent positions in his administration.<sup><sup>[14]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Cavanagh also served on the “Model Cities” task force that President Johnson launched in 1966 as part of his Great Society and War on Poverty programs. Although it distantly echoed Soviet efforts to rebuild urban areas in Eastern Europe, this centralized approach to urban development was seen in the ’60s as the hallmark of a new era. Along with United Auto Workers president Walter Reuther, Cavanagh persuaded President Johnson to designate a nine-square-mile section of Detroit—an area where 134,000 people (one-ninth of the city’s population) resided—as a pilot location for the Model Cities initiative.<sup><sup>[15]</sup></sup> The overriding objective of Model Cities was to demonstrate the amazing ability of federal grants to rehabilitate slums and replace them with publicly financed “affordable housing”; alleviate poverty by injecting rivers of taxpayer money into social programs; provide ghetto dwellers with federally funded jobs at municipal and nonprofit agencies; and create a host of job-training, healthcare, educational, and recreational facilities for the poor.<sup><sup>[16]</sup></sup> In just a few short years, $490 million in federal funds were poured into Detroit to bankroll these programs.<sup><sup>[17]</sup></sup> On top of this, Cavanaugh was able to get Michigan’s state legislature to pass new taxes that would help pay for the Model Cities program and would be borne entirely by “the rich.”<sup><sup>[18]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The government giveaways not only failed in their immediate goals of creating changes that would lead to upward social mobility, but actually fostered resentment at the paternalism at the heart of the Model Cities program—the idea that “disadvantaged” people’s decisions about where they could live, where they could build businesses, and how they should run those enterprises should be micromanaged by a bureaucratic elite.<sup><sup>[19]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In the final analysis, for all the hugger mugger at its launching, Detroit’s Model City program and the half-a-billion taxpayer dollars that funded it purchased very little in terms of urban regeneration. Some contend that the program “worked,” in the sense that it temporarily—albeit at an unsustainable cost—decreased poverty and unemployment slightly in the targeted communities. But instead of encouraging entrepreneurship and self-reliance, it mainly promoted dependence on government and thus led to no lasting gains for its “beneficiaries.” By 1990, Detroit’s Model City area had lost 63% of its population and 45% of its housing units, statistics that rendered a sobering verdict on the program.<sup><sup>[20]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Mayor Cavanaugh’s political and economic policies not only failed to resuscitate Detroit’s blighted neighborhoods, but also intensified the percolating rage of local black militants. Every guilty gesture of appeasement and recompense made by the Democratic city administration only increased radicals’ indignation about the condescending inadequacy of those gestures and stoked the fires of a “revolution of rising expectations.” And then, in July 1967, H. Rap Brown’s threat became a reality as Detroit was set on fire by radicals, becoming the scene of the decade’s most horrific urban race riot—43 deaths, 1,200 injuries, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed.<sup><sup>[21]</sup></sup> This calamity would continue to resonate in the years to come as a massive “white flight” that led some 140,000 people to evacuate the central city within a mere 18 months. Detroit would never be the same again.<sup><sup>[22]</sup></sup></p>
<p>By now the Democratic Party—increasingly radicalized by the growing influence of the New Left—was making the city into a laboratory experiment for destructive urban policies. In 1974, Democrat Coleman Young, a secret member of the Communist Party, began a 20-year stint as Detroit’s first black mayor. Scholar Steven Malanga writes that Young, from an economic standpoint, “lacked a plan except to go to war with the city’s major institutions and demand that the federal government save it with subsidies”—a strategy that critics referred to as “tin-cup urbanism.”<sup><sup>[23]</sup></sup> Under Young’s disastrous stewardship, Detroit’s debt rating reached junk status.<sup><sup>[24]</sup></sup> By 1987, 34% of Detroit residents were on welfare rolls—more than 4 times as many as in 1967.<sup><sup>[25]</sup></sup> During that same two-decade period, nearly 200,000 jobs were lost in the city.<sup><sup>[26]</sup></sup> The late political scientist James Q. Wilson wrote that by the end of Young’s mayoralty, Detroit was “a fiscal and social wreck.”<sup><sup>[27]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Young also further poisoned the waters of black-white relations in Detroit, routinely playing the race card to maintain his hold on city hall by engaging in an “us-against-them” style of politics that essentially branded anyone who opposed him as a “racist.”<sup><sup>[28]</sup></sup> This tactic increased racial polarization, drove multitudes of whites out of the city, and helped plunge Detroit ever deeper into social and economic chaos.<sup><sup>[29]</sup></sup> <em>TIME</em> editor Daniel Okrent has portrayed Young’s mayoralty as the “corrosive two-decade rule of a black politician who cared more about retribution than about resurrection.”<sup><sup>[30]</sup></sup> The <em>Washington Post</em>, similarly, describes Young as someone who promoted “racial divisiveness” and “did little to try and mend fences broken down along racial lines.”<sup><sup>[31]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Nowhere was this more apparent than in Young’s policies vis à vis law-enforcement. Dividing his city’s police department along racial lines, the mayor created separate layoff lists for white and black officers. Young made it clear, moreover, that policing practices which resulted in disproportionately high numbers of arrests or citations of African Americans, whether or not they committed the preponderance of crimes, would not be tolerated. As one black officer bluntly told journalist Tamar Jacoby: “I wouldn’t write tickets for black kids.”<sup><sup>[32]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 1976, Young cut the Detroit police force by 20% as a means of addressing the city’s budget deficit, and Detroit became one of the most violent cities in the United States.<sup><sup>[33]</sup></sup> By 1987, the city’s homicide rate was 3 times higher than it had been two decades earlier.<sup><sup>[34]</sup></sup> But when local residents complained about runaway crime, the mayor sneered that their calls for “law and order” were nothing more than “code” for “Keep the ni**ers in their place.”<sup><sup>[35]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Young further debased Detroit law-enforcement by putting his own corrupt people in charge. He appointed as police chief his close friend William Hart,<sup><sup>[36]</sup></sup> who in 1992 was convicted of embezzling $1.3 million from a police undercover anti-drug fund—money which he then lavished on female paramours while lying repeatedly to cover up his crimes.<sup><sup>[37]</sup></sup> Hart was eventually sentenced to 15 years in prison.<sup><sup>[38]</sup></sup></p>
<p>For good measure, Young also appointed his business associate and former investment advisor Kenneth Weiner—who had no prior police experience—as Detroit’s civilian deputy police chief.<sup><sup>[39]</sup></sup> While in that post, Weiner conspired with William Hart to illegally divert another $1.3 million to phony corporations that Weiner controlled.<sup><sup>[40]</sup></sup> For this, Weiner would be incarcerated for five years.<sup><sup>[41]</sup></sup> In yet another matter, Weiner was convicted of all 40 counts against him for his role in a pyramid scheme through which he and Coleman Young had duped investors out of millions of dollars.<sup><sup>[42]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Corruption by Democratic Party politicians has remained a hallmark of Detroit politics ever since Young’s tenure. Some lowlights:</p>
<p>In 2006, former Detroit City Council member Alonzo Bates was convicted of having improperly put one of his relatives on the city payroll, a transgression for which he was sentenced to 33 months in prison.<sup><sup>[43]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 2009, Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers, wife of U.S. House Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges and went on to serve 27 months in a federal penitentiary.<sup><sup>[44]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 2008, Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick agreed to resign from his office and spend four months in jail for two obstruction-of-justice felony counts.<sup><sup>[45]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 2010, Kilpatrick was sentenced to additional jail time for violating the terms of his probation related to the 2008 conviction.<sup><sup>[46]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In March 2013, Kilpatrick was found guilty of 24 offenses including fraud, racketeering and extortion.<sup><sup>[47]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 2012, Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. retired when it became publicly known that he was sexually involved with a female officer in the department.<sup><sup>[48]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 2013, two Detroit city officials—pension-fund lawyer Ronald Zajac and Police &amp; Fire pension trustee Paul Stewart—were indicted in a bribery scandal.<sup><sup>[49]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Under the unbroken chain of Democrats who have led the city ever since 1961, Detroit has taken on some of the characteristics of an experiment in how to create a social underclass. Its population today is 82.7% black and 10.6% white,<sup><sup>[50]</sup></sup> a generation of racial hostility having destroyed what was once a racially balanced population. Under this new regime, traditional nuclear families, once the norm in Detroit’s black community, are now a rarity. The city’s out-of-wedlock birth rate exceeds 75%, and married-parent families with children younger than 18 constitute only 9.2% of all residents.<sup><sup>[51]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Ruled by a series of black mayors, the Motor City’s economic catastrophe is now both widespread and profound. Indeed, the population of Detroit has a per capita income of just $14,861 (scarcely half the national average), a median household income of $26,955 (about half the national median), and a poverty rate of 38.1% (about 2.5 times the U.S. average).<sup><sup>[52]</sup></sup> Since 1970, the number of Detroiters with jobs has dropped by more than 53%.<sup><sup>[53]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Detroit’s economic malaise has been brought about by decades of Democratic governance and practices that sociologist Thomas Sowell has termed the “Detroit Pattern,” a reference to “increasing taxes, harassing businesses, and pandering to unions.”<sup><sup>[54]</sup></sup> In any analysis of Detroit’s tragic decline, these three factors bear close examination:</p>
<p><em><strong>(1) Taxes:</strong> </em></p>
<p>Because of the middle-class population exodus caused by policies that inflamed race relations, Detroit’s tax base has been in free fall, leading city leaders from the 1960s onward to try repeatedly to regain lost revenue through tax increases.<sup><sup>[55]</sup></sup> Today, Detroit’s property-tax rates are the highest in America and generally twice as high as the overall average nationwide,<sup><sup>[56]</sup></sup> establishing a vicious cycle that continues to drive businesses away and cause taxpayers to relocate to the suburbs in still-larger numbers. By 2012, Detroit’s tax <em>revenues</em>—notwithstanding the high <em>rates</em>—were 40% lower, in constant 2012 dollars, than they had been in 1962.<sup><sup>[57]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Another reason why Detroit’s stratospheric tax rates have resulted in meager government revenues is because of the city’s rapidly declining property values. Over the past half-century, the total assessed value of property in Detroit has fallen (in inflation-adjusted dollars) by 77%.<sup><sup>[58]</sup></sup> The median home price in Motown is now just $40,000, and many dwellings in the city’s most blighted areas sell for less than $1,000.<sup><sup>[59]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The non-payment of property taxes has also become a widespread phenomenon in Detroit. In 2012, for example, some 47% of all homeowners in the city elected not to pay their taxes — mainly because the city’s cash-strapped government had failed to provide most of the basic services normally funded by such revenues.<sup><sup>[60]</sup></sup></p>
<p><em><strong>(2) Harassing Businesses:</strong> </em></p>
<p>In recent decades, the Democrats in control of Detroit have cultivated an oppressive climate for small businesses by instituting a complex constellation of protectionist regulations.<sup><sup>[61]</sup></sup> In 2013, economist Dean Stansel conducted an “economic freedom” study that ranked the regulatory and tax climates of 384 U.S. metro areas, and found that Detroit placed 345th.<sup><sup>[62]</sup></sup> The Institute For Justice (IFJ) observes that the massive amounts of “time and money” that business owners must expend in order to comply with “all the regulatory requirements” of Detroit’s “stupefying bureaucracy” cause many aspiring entrepreneurs to “simply give up their business dreams.”<sup><sup>[63]</sup></sup></p>
<p><em><strong>Adds IFJ:</strong></em></p>
<p>“Multiple inspections and inspection fees, incomprehensible building requirements, expensive, mandatory public hearings, arbitrary discretion by officials, and lengthy processing delays combine to discourage entrepreneurs from undertaking business ventures or improving existing ones. From sign taxes to restrictions on planting trees, the bureaucratic shuffle has gotten so out of hand that one business owner explained, ‘We operate on the basis that we just do what we want to do and the permits will catch up with us sometime.’”<sup><sup>[64]</sup></sup></p>
<p>According to one survey, 56% of small-business owners in Detroit are unsure whether they are operating in full compliance with the law.<sup><sup>[65]</sup></sup></p>
<p><strong><em>(3) Pandering to Unions:</em></strong></p>
<p>Detroit’s network of nearly incomprehensible business regulations is largely the creation of its vast public bureaucracy, which is dominated by approximately four-dozen labor unions. Over time, the long succession of Democratic political administrations that have run Detroit have lavished such high salaries and lucrative pensions and health-benefit packages on members of these unions (whom they regard as their core political constituency), that it is now virtually impossible for the city to balance its budget and meet its financial obligations.<sup><sup>[66]</sup></sup> One of the consequences of this unholy alliance between Democratic politicians and union bosses is that current employee contributions can’t keep pace with the needs of current pension recipients.</p>
<p>Today, Detroit’s government sends monthly checks (with an average value of $1,600 apiece) to some 21,000 public-sector retirees and their families. This is more than twice the number of workers (9,700) who are currently employed by the city.<sup><sup>[67]</sup></sup> The pension obligations that Detroit owes to its retirees account for about half of the city’s $18-to-$20 billion in long-term unfunded debt.<sup><sup>[68]</sup></sup></p>
<p>By early 2013, Detroit’s finances had become so chaotic that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed attorney Kevyn Orr to serve as the city’s emergency financial manager in a last-resort effort to avoid the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. According to the<em> New York Times</em>, Orr was authorized “to cut city spending, change contracts with labor unions, merge or eliminate city departments, urge the sale of city assets and even, if all else fail[s], recommend bankruptcy proceedings.”<sup><sup>[69]</sup></sup> Orr attributed Detroit’s “dysfunctional and wasteful” operations to “years of budgetary restrictions, mismanagement, crippling operational practices and, in some cases, indifference or corruption.”<sup><sup>[70]</sup></sup> In May 2013, he issued a report stating that the city was “clearly insolvent on a cash flow basis,”<sup><sup>[71]</sup></sup> that its budget deficit was approaching $386 million,<sup><sup>[72]</sup></sup> and that fully one-third of its budget was being spent on retiree benefits for former public-sector employees.<sup><sup>[73]</sup></sup> It was clear that without judicious and substantial cuts to retiree benefits, there would be no stopping this runaway fiscal train. But in July 2013, Detroit’s two largest municipal pension funds filed suit in state court specifically to prevent Orr from instituting such cuts. Thus the city went ahead and filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.<sup><sup>[74]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Another major financial drain on taxpayers has been the money that the city spends on its Detroit Public School (DPS) system—more than $15,500 per pupil, or nearly 50% more than the national average.<sup><sup>[75]</sup></sup> Notwithstanding these enormous outlays, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan characterized DPS as a “national disgrace” in 2009.<sup><sup>[76]</sup></sup></p>
<p>That same year, DPS was put under the control of an emergency financial manager—the Washington, DC Board of Education’s former president, Robert Bobb—in an attempt to prevent bankruptcy. Bobb found that many of DPS’s financial problems stemmed from willful corruption.<sup><sup>[77]</sup></sup> For instance:</p>
<p>In June 2009, Bobb enlisted the services of a team of forensic accounting analysts who discovered that 257 “ghost” employees were illegally receiving paychecks from DPS.</p>
<p>Two months later, seven additional public officials were charged with felonies for operating an embezzlement scheme that siphoned tens of thousands of dollars out of the school system.<sup><sup>[78]</sup></sup></p>
<p>It was also discovered that some 500 people who had been illegally enrolled as healthcare-plan dependents were costing the school district millions of dollars per year.</p>
<p>In 2012, a DPS contract accountant and her daughter, who was a schoolteacher, were indicted by the FBI on charges of fraud, conspiracy, and tax offenses.<sup><sup>[79]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The appointment of DPS’s emergency manager did nothing to improve student performance. In the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a U.S. Department of Education standardized test, fourth- and eighth-graders in the city’s public schools currently read at a level that is 73% below the national average, and lower than that of students in any other urban school district in the country.<sup><sup>[80]</sup></sup> Similarly, the reading skills of Detroit’s eighth-graders are 60% below the national average, and their math scores in 2009 were the lowest ever recorded in the then-40-year history of the exam.<sup><sup>[81]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The results of exams that the Michigan Educational Assessment Program administered in 2012-13 to measure students’ abilities in a variety of different subject areas provide further evidence of DPS’s failed track record:</p>
<p>The percentage of students whose scores indicated proficiency in math were: 15.7% of third-graders; 18.8% of fourth-graders; 17% of fifth-graders; 13.6% of sixth-graders; 13.2% of seventh-graders; and fewer than 11.1% of eighth-graders.</p>
<p>The percentage of students whose scores indicated proficiency in reading were: 42.7% of third-graders; 40.7% of fourth-graders; 44.5% of fifth-graders; 45.3% of sixth-graders; 33% of seventh-graders; and 45.8% of eighth-graders.</p>
<p>Only fifth- and eighth-graders were tested in science, and fewer than 10% of each group registered scores that indicated proficiency.</p>
<p>Only sixth- and ninth-graders were tested in social studies, and fewer than 10% of each group registered scores that indicated proficiency.</p>
<p>Only fourth- and seventh-graders were tested in writing, and just 19.5% of the former and 28% of the latter registered scores that indicated proficiency.<sup><sup>[82]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 1927, <em>New Republic</em> described the Detroit school system as “one of the finest in the world.”<sup><sup>[83]</sup></sup> Today, it is one of the worst in the country. It is little wonder that a recent survey of Detroit-area parents found that 79% of respondents did not want their children educated by the city’s public schools.<sup><sup>[84]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Apart from its catastrophic fiscal and educational problems, Detroit has long ranked as one of the most dangerous places in the United States.<sup><sup>[85]</sup></sup> Each year from 2009 through 2013, for instance, <em>Forbes</em> magazine rated Detroit as America’s Most Dangerous City.<sup><sup>[86]</sup></sup> FBI data confirm that Detroit’s metro division has the highest violent-crime rate in the nation.<sup><sup>[87]</sup></sup> Indeed, the city’s homicide rate is now at its highest level in 40 years, and is more than 10 times greater than the national average.<sup><sup>[88]</sup></sup> In addition, the robbery rate in Detroit is about 6.1 times the national average; the assault rate is 5.5 times the national average; and property crimes like burglary and auto theft occur at rates that are 3 and 7 times higher, respectively, than the national average.<sup><sup>[89]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The crime rates that plague Detroit are exacerbated by the fact that the city’s financial woes have necessitated budget (and manpower) cuts to the local police force. Thus, when Detroit residents place a phone call seeking help from the city’s understaffed police department, they must wait an average of 58 minutes for an officer to arrive on the scene (vs. a national average of 11 minutes).<sup><sup>[90]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Given this brief profile of steep urban decline, it is hardly surprising that a 2013 <em>Forbes</em> magazine analysis named Detroit as America’s “most miserable” city.<sup><sup>[91]</sup></sup> Signs of this misery are everywhere visible in the city’s blighted landscape. For example, Detroit has been the site of 11,000 to 12,000 fires every year for the past decade; it currently has just 370 functioning street lights per square mile, compared to 812 for Cleveland and 785 for St. Louis; more than half of its parks have been closed down since 2008; and it has approximately 99,000 vacant housing units (out of a total of 363,000).<sup><sup>[92]</sup></sup></p>
<p>As far as Detroit has fallen, the city’s future appears even bleaker than its present. The Democratic Party and the cadre of corrupt politicians it has empowered over the past fifty years have driven millions from this once-thriving metropolis and have left the remaining, largely black population to suffer in its ruins with little chance of escape. Yet they haven’t stopped thinking about it; a 2012 <em>Detroit News</em> poll found that 40% of the city’s residents hoped to leave Detroit within five years.<sup><sup>[93]</sup></sup></p>
<p><em><strong>Baltimore, MD:</strong></em></p>
<p>In the 1950s and early ’60s, Baltimore was booming. Known for its thriving industries—particularly manufacturing and shipping—these large enterprises created some three-fourths of all the jobs held by people in its metropolitan region.<sup><sup>[94]</sup></sup> The city at that time had nearly a million residents, 23% of whom were black. The median family income was 7% higher than the national average; the percentage of Baltimore families earning middle-class wages was about one-fifth higher than in the U.S. as a whole; and the proportion of Baltimoreans living in poverty was roughly one-fifth lower than the corresponding national figure.<sup><sup>[95]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 1967, however, this prosperity began to vanish when the city government was taken over by a string of Democratic mayors, persisting into the present day, who have made Baltimore into the grim and dangerous urban environment portrayed so chillingly in the television series <em>The Wire</em>. As in the case of other big cities around the country, while the Democratic Party machine was taking control of the ballot box, the people were voting with their feet by leaving the city. Today Baltimore’s population has declined to 622,000, 64% of it black.<sup><sup>[96]</sup></sup></p>
<p>William Donald Schaefer, Baltimore’s mayor from 1971-87, set the stage for economic decline in his city by championing an ever-expanding public sector as well as extensive government regulation of private business.<sup><sup>[97]</sup></sup> Further, he relied heavily on federal grants and city bonds to finance a host of development projects throughout Baltimore. As the <em>City Journal</em> reports: “[W]hen those monies proved insufficient, [Schaefer] &#8230; created his own city bank to seed development: the Loan and Guarantee Fund. The fund financed itself by selling city property and then leasing it back to itself, and by selling bonds that would stick future taxpayers with much of the bill.”<sup><sup>[98]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Along with fiscal improvidence, Schaefer’s administration was replete with the corruption and cronyism that has become the hallmark of the Democrats’ big-city political machines over the last generation. For instance:</p>
<p>The mayor’s finance director, Charles Benton, once steered $5.6 million in public money to a repair project on an apartment building owned by a Schaefer political supporter.<sup><sup>[99]</sup></sup></p>
<p>On another occasion, Benton directed more than $4 million in taxpayer funds to the refurbishing of a hotel owned by a longtime friend of the mayor. The hotel went bankrupt shortly after Schaefer’s mayoral tenure ended.<sup><sup>[100]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In the 1970s, Schaefer’s deputy public works director was incarcerated for rigging bids on city contracts.<sup><sup>[101]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In the ’80s, the federal government shut down Baltimore’s Urban Development Action Grants program due to its many abuses.<sup><sup>[102]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 1987, Schaefer was succeeded by Baltimore’s first elected black mayor, Kurt Schmoke, who, during his 12 years in office, continued his white predecessor’s policy of extracting as much taxpayer money as possible from Annapolis and Washington. By 2001, such state and federal subsidies accounted for 40% of Baltimore’s operating budget.<sup><sup>[103]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Schmoke was a close friend of President Bill Clinton and had connections to a number of Clinton administration officials—most notably the disgraced Henry Cisneros and Andrew Cuomo, both heads of the Department of Housing &amp; Urban Development (HUD)—ensuring that Baltimore’s city programs would continue to receive high levels of federal support.<sup><sup>[104]</sup></sup> One such initiative—bankrolled by a ten-year, $100 million federal grant—was the establishment of an Empowerment Zone whose goal was to transform “distressed” areas of the city into “neighborhoods of choice” by implementing a host of job-training, workforce-development, home-construction, and drug-treatment pro-grams.<sup><sup>[105]</sup></sup> All told, Baltimore’s Empowerment Zone (EZ) covered nearly 10% of the city’s total area.<sup><sup>[106]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The results of this endeavor, though, were largely disappointing. As the <em>Baltimore Sun</em> reported in 2002, “the areas that make up the city’s federally funded empowerment zone remain deeply troubled.” Some specifics:</p>
<p>The poverty rate within the EZ had dropped slightly (from 41.9% to 35.6%), but was still about 50% higher than the corresponding rate citywide.</p>
<p>Median household income had risen in slightly more than half of the EZ area, but had declined in the rest and was below the citywide median in 92% of the EZ area.</p>
<p>Homeownership rates in the EZ had increased modestly, from 30% to 35%—but not nearly as much as officials had predicted; moreover, homeownership in the EZ was still 15 percentage points lower than the citywide rate.</p>
<p>Unemployment in the EZ had increased from 14.9% to 16.5%, and was about 50% higher than Baltimore’s overall rate.</p>
<p>And perhaps most tellingly, the EZ region had lost population at more than double the rate of the city as a whole.<sup><sup>[107]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Like Schaefer’s, the Schmoke administration was scarred by corruption. In the mid-1990s, for instance, federal officials were alerted to the fact that the mayor’s Housing Authority had squandered—via no-bid contracts, massive cost overruns, and blatant cronyism—some $25.6 million in Department of Housing &amp; Urban Development (HUD) funds that had been earmarked for housing repairs. Ultimately, the scandal resulted in federal convictions against 13 contractors.<sup><sup>[108]</sup></sup></p>
<p>For awhile it appeared that even Schmoke himself might find his political career in jeopardy when, in 1998, HUD’s inspector general announced a probe of the mayor’s handling of federal housing aid. However, both Schmoke and his housing chief, Dan Henson, were able to disarm investigators by playing the race card. At their instigation, West Baltimore black Congressman Elijah Cummings demanded that the White House launch a special investigation into the inspector general’s investigation. In the end, Schmoke escaped unscathed when HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo quashed the probe.<sup><sup>[109]</sup></sup></p>
<p>America as a whole may have flourished in the 1990s, but Baltimore’s economy foundered under Democrats’ stewardship. Contributing to this state of affairs was the fact that in the preceding decades, Baltimore’s property taxes, the highest in all of Maryland, had been repeatedly raised. Businesses, in turn, voted with their feet and many of the city’s leading private-sector firms, in search of a more business-friendly climate, relocated to the suburbs during the Nineties. Thus, between 1990 and 1999, Baltimore lost some 58,000 jobs. These included approximately 13,000 in the manufacturing sector; another 12,300 in the finance, insurance, and real-estate industries; and 23,400 in retail and wholesale businesses. During the worst of times on Mayor Schmoke’s watch, Baltimore’s overall work force shrank by an average of 722 people <em>per month</em>. The city’s unemployment rate during the ’90s was twice that of the rest of Maryland.<sup><sup>[110]</sup></sup></p>
<p>While Baltimore’s industry and finance were in steep decline, crime was on the rise—thanks, in large measure, to Schmoke’s decision to focus the city’s policing strategy on decriminalizing drugs rather than on tackling violent crime. As a result, by the end of the 1990s, the murder rate in Baltimore was six times higher than in New York<sup><sup>[111]</sup></sup> (where a variety of proactive policing practices instituted by mayor Rudy Guiliani had dramatically reduced serious crime.)<sup><sup>[112]</sup></sup> Throughout the Nineties, Baltimore was the scene of more than 300 murders every year, prompting locals to nickname their city—which had become the second-deadliest in the nation—“Bodymore, Murderland.” Approx-imately 75% of Baltimore’s killings were drug-related—symptoms of an ongoing, brutal drug-turf war that was allowed to engulf many black neighborhoods. Police, meanwhile, were frustrated by the fact that those drug dealers they arrested were routinely released a short time later, as a result of Schmoke’s “philosophy,” free to resume their criminal activities on the streets. One police sergeant lamented that under Schmoke’s leadership, Baltimore had become a city “in love with its own victimhood.”<sup><sup>[113]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The casual attitude on the part of Baltimore’s leadership toward drug crimes may have pleased the city’s liberal elites, but it devastated the minority community, whose champion it otherwise pretended to be. As of 2000, only 23 detectives in the entire city were actively investigating narcotics cases—even while epidemics of heroin and cocaine abuse, particularly among black males, reached levels unmatched in virtually any other American city. Further, just four officers in all of Baltimore were tasked with tracking down the suspects who had been named in some 54,000 open arrest warrants—250 of them for murder or attempted murder.<sup><sup>[114]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Baltimore’s widespread political corruption, failing economy, high taxes, and escalating crime rates, caused its population to fall by more than 120,000 during the 1990s, making the city blacker and poorer.<sup><sup>[115]</sup></sup> Tens of thousands of homes were simply abandoned by residents desperate to leave town.</p>
<p>In 1999, Democratic city councilman Martin O’Malley won Baltimore’s mayoral race by campaigning on a law-and-order platform, but in part because of the legacy he inherited, he was ultimately unable to fulfill his crime-reduction pledges. In 2005, when his tenure was nearing its end, criminal-justice statistics for Baltimore indicated that 17.6 violent crimes were committed for every 1,000 residents—a figure almost 80% higher than America’s big-city average. Baltimore’s murder rate, meanwhile, was nearly three times higher than the big-city average—just as it had been when O’Malley first took office in 2000. Robberies and aggravated assaults (including nonfatal shootings) had dropped slightly since 2000, but were still more than twice as prevalent as in other large American cities.<sup><sup>[116]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Meanwhile, Baltimore’s anemic economy lagged even further under O’Malley’s stewardship. Between 2001 and 2004, the city lost nearly 5% of all its remaining jobs, including a quarter of its manufacturing jobs, 15% of its banking and finance jobs, and 5% of its retail jobs.<sup><sup>[117]</sup></sup> From 2000 to 2007, private-sector employment in Baltimore shrank by 10.4%—a loss of approximately 33,600 jobs. During that same seven-year period, employment in the areas immediately <em>outside</em> of Baltimore grew by 13.9%—after having grown by 25.1% during the 1990s.<sup><sup>[118]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 2007, O’Malley was succeeded as mayor by fellow Democrat Sheila Dixon, who was forced to resign three years later when convicted of embezzlement and perjury.<sup><sup>[119]</sup></sup> Replacing Dixon was another black Democrat, city council president Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.</p>
<p>Today, Baltimore’s residents have a median household income of $38,721 (about 45% below Maryland’s state average) and a poverty rate of 25.1% (about 1.7 times the national average).<sup><sup>[120]</sup></sup> Among America’s 100 most populous cities, Baltimore ranks 87th in median household income.<sup><sup>[121]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The violent crime rate in Baltimore is currently 3.7 times higher than the national average. This figure includes astronomical rates of murder (6.6 times the national average), rape (twice the national average), robbery (4.8 times the national average), and assault (3.2 times the national average).<sup><sup>[122]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Once Baltimore’s public schools were racially balanced; today 84% of the students are black and another 6% are Hispanic.<sup><sup>[123]</sup></sup> Baltimore’s Democratic leaders claim to be looking out for the welfare of the city’s minorities, yet find its minority students easy to ignore.</p>
<p>Funding is not a problem. The Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) spend, on average, $15,483 for each K-12 student in their jurisdiction—almost 50% more than the national average.<sup><sup>[124]</sup></sup> But achievement is paltry. Baltimore’s students perform near the bottom on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a standardized test that measures the academic abilities of children in elementary and junior high school. In 2013, for example, NAEP results indicated that only 14% of Baltimore’s fourth-graders, and 16% of its eighth-graders, were able to read proficiently. In math, the corresponding proficiency figures for fourth- and eighth-graders were 19% and 13%.<sup><sup>[125]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Notwithstanding this abysmal track record, the Baltimore Teachers Union (BTU), which is a reliable bulwark for Democratic Party causes and candidates in the city, has successfully opposed any calls for a voucher program that would enable low-income parents to take their children out of the city’s failing public schools and send them instead—for a fraction of the cost—to a private or parochial school.<sup><sup>[126]</sup></sup> And of course Baltimore Democrats, knowing that a substantial portion of BTU union dues are funneled directly into their party’s coffers, likewise abjure voucher proposals—just as Democrats have done in city after city across the United States. Joel Klein, former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, once explained candidly: “[P]oliticians—especially Democratic politicians—generally do what the unions want. And the unions, in turn, are very clear about what that is. They want, first, happy members, so that those who run the unions get reelected; and, second, more members, so their power, money, and influence grow.”<sup><sup>[127]</sup></sup></p>
<p>This educational train wreck is largely funded by Baltimore’s stratospheric property taxes, twice as high as those of any other jurisdiction in Maryland or the District of Columbia.<sup><sup>[128]</sup></sup> The city’s residents have become accustomed not only to high taxation, but to the use of taxes as a weapon in a war of divide-and-conquer. As economists Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins University and Stephen Walters of Loyola University write: “In modern Baltimore, the [political] machine has exploited class divisions, not ethnic ones. Officials raised property taxes 21 times between 1950 and 1985 … causing many homeowners and entrepreneurs—disproportionately Republicans—to flee.”<sup><sup>[129]</sup></sup></p>
<p>But just as high taxes have failed to buy a decent education for Baltimore’s schoolchildren, so have they failed to cover the costs of runaway government spending under a long succession of fiscally irresponsible Democrats in high office. By December 2012, the unfunded pension liabilities that Baltimore owed to its retired police and firefighters had reached an unprecedented $765 million.<sup><sup>[130]</sup></sup></p>
<p>As a result of Baltimore’s multiple social, economic, and educational problems, some 47,000 abandoned houses and 16,000 vacant buildings now stand like pulled teeth in Baltimore’s once vibrant but now depleted and depressed neighborhoods.<sup><sup>[131]</sup></sup></p>
<p><em><strong>Washington, DC:</strong></em></p>
<p>Founded in 1790 and named after the first President, Washington, DC was established by the U.S. Constitution to serve as the seat of America’s federal government.<sup><sup>[132]</sup></sup> Between 1800 and 1820, DC’s population grew from about 5,000 to more than 13,200, making it the country’s ninth largest city.<sup><sup>[133]</sup></sup> By 1840, that figure had mushroomed to 23,364, and two decades later it stood at 61,122.<sup><sup>[134]</sup></sup></p>
<p>As a Southern city, DC, from its earliest days, always had a substantial African American population that included a growing number of free blacks who worked as craftsmen, hack drivers, businessmen and laborers. Slavery was abolished in the capital on April 16, 1862—about eight months before President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.<sup><sup>[135]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Beginning in 1871, DC was governed by a three-member Board of Commissioners, two of whom were appointed by the U.S. President after approval by the Senate, and a third who was selected from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The city would retain this political arrangement for nearly a century, until 1967 when Congress passed a law eliminating the three-commissioner form of government and replacing it with a single commissioner and a nine-member city council, all appointed by the President.</p>
<p>During the latter decades of the 19th century, DC continued to grow at a brisk pace; by 1900 its population had reached 278,718.<sup><sup>[136]</sup></sup> Many new roads were built in the city at that time, so as to extend, like an ever-expanding network, to its remotest reaches. And in 1900, Congress formed the Senate Park Improvement Commission which drew up an architectural plan for the redevelopment of the National Mall—with an eye toward emulating the grandeur of European capitals such as Paris, London, and Rome.</p>
<p>After World War II, Washington was a destination for large numbers of Southern blacks emigrating to Northern cities in pursuit of job opportunities. By 1957, DC had become the first major American city with a majority-black population.<sup><sup>[137]</sup></sup> Six years later, Washington took center stage in the American Civil Rights Movement when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.</p>
<p>Following King’s assassination in Memphis in April 1968, DC was devastated by four days of race riots that resulted in 10 deaths, at least 1,200 fires, more than 7,600 arrests, and over $13 million in property damage. The violence had a profound effect on the people of DC, causing many whites, middle-class blacks, and business owners to flee the city and resettle elsewhere.<sup><sup>[138]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which for the first time placed the city under the governance of a directly elected mayor and a Council. The first elected mayor under this new arrangement was Walter Washington. And every DC mayor since then has been, like Mr. Washington, a Democrat.</p>
<p>Mayor Washington opposed the increasing tendency of his party to pit blacks and whites against one another for their own political advantage—“playing the race card,” it would later be called. The <em>Washington Post </em>once quoted him as saying, “This city is already too much divided along race and income lines. We have got to take the lead and set the example in bringing this city together. We’ve got to become just one Washington.” He was also an effective administrator; by the time he left office in 1978, DC’s city government was running a $40 million yearly surplus.<sup><sup>[139] </sup></sup>But Mayor Washington’s successor, Marion Barry, was a master at racial division, and also incompetent and crooked. During his administration, the nation’s capital became a center of scandal and something of a national joke.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, Barry, who had worked for the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as a young man, served as president of the DC Board of Education and as a member of the DC Council.<sup><sup>[140]</sup></sup> He won his first mayoral race in 1978 and was subsequently reelected by wide margins in 1982 and 1986. “During his tenure in the 1980s,” reports the <em>City Journal</em>, “unchecked corruption, ineptly delivered city services, soaring crime, horrendous public schools, financial chaos, and racial tensions made the city a byword for dysfunction nationally.”<sup><sup>[141]</sup></sup> By the early 1990s, DC was the site of several hundred homicides per year and was dubbed the “murder capital” of the nation (a dubious honor that would rotate among almost all of the country’s big cities in the years to come.)<sup><sup>[142]</sup></sup> The city’s economy, meanwhile, was in shambles—notwithstanding the $400 million in federal aid it received each year.<sup><sup>[143]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Throughout his years as mayor, Barry worked hard to expand the rolls of Washington’s public employees. Indeed, even as the District’s population fell by nearly 30,000 during Barry’s three terms (1979-1991), the number of public-sector bureaucrats in the city increased by some 10,000.<sup><sup>[144]</sup></sup> By 1992, an astonishing 52,000 people—one in twelve city residents—were on DC’s municipal payroll. Los Angeles—a city whose population was five times larger than DC’s—had 14,000 fewer taxpayer-funded workers.<sup><sup>[145]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Despite the massive number of public employees in DC, vital city services were hopelessly inefficient and chaotic. As a 1990 <em>Los Angeles Times</em> piece stated: “The city is under court order to correct prison and mental health facilities. Nearly half of all public housing sits idle for lack of repairs. Bureaucrats are so incompetent, arrogant and slothful, critics say, that even 9-1-1 calls go unanswered and ambulances may not arrive until tomorrow.”<sup><sup>[146]</sup></sup> On seven separate occasions between 1987 and 1990, judges cited DC for the systematic mistreatment of juvenile delinquents, prison inmates, and mentally handicapped residents in its custody in specialized facilities.<sup><sup>[147]</sup></sup> In 1989, the <em>Washington Monthly</em> characterized Barry’s administration as “the worst city government in America.”<sup><sup>[148]</sup></sup> The mayor, unfazed by such assessments, routinely chalked them up to racism on the part of his critics.<sup><sup>[149]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Barry’s mayoralty was infamous not only for its gross incompetence but also for the magnitude of its corruption. One of his appointments that drew attention was that of Ivanhoe Donaldson, his longtime friend and ally from SNCC, whom he appointed deputy mayor for economic development. In 1985, Donaldson pled guilty to stealing $190,000 from the city, and eventually wound up in prison for his crime. For good measure, Donaldson also obstructed justice by attempting to persuade four individuals to submit false affidavits to DC inspectors.<sup><sup>[150]</sup></sup></p>
<p>After Barry’s 1986 reelection, two more DC deputy mayors and ten additional city officials were charged with corruption.<sup><sup>[151]</sup></sup> One of these, deputy mayor for finance Alphonse G. Hill, was indicted on eleven counts of extortion, income tax evasion, and defrauding the District government—charges to which he eventually pled guilty.<sup><sup>[152]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Standing behind the corruption was Barry himself and his personal problems. Throughout the ’80s, rumors circulated about his frequent cocaine use. Though the evidence to that effect was highly credible, Barry for years managed to elude the grip of law-enforcement authorities—thanks, in large part, to friends and supporters who helped him stonewall investigations. One such ally, Karen K. Johnson, was paid $25,000 to keep silent regarding the cocaine allegations and was cited for contempt of court when she refused to testify before a federal grand jury that was probing the matter. The truth was finally revealed, however, in a January 18, 1990 sting operation, when Barry—lured to a Washington hotel room by a former girlfriend-turned-FBI-informant—was secretly filmed smoking a crack pipe.<sup><sup>[153]</sup></sup></p>
<p>At his subsequent indictment, Barry once again raised the specter of race, lamenting that he was the victim of a “political lynching.”<sup><sup>[154]</sup></sup> The charge of racism was picked up by civil rights professionals such as NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks, who denounced Barry’s prosecution as “Nazilike,” charging that “overzealous, hostile—if not openly racist—district and U.S. attorneys will bring a black official to trial on the flimsiest of evidence.”<sup><sup>[155]</sup></sup></p>
<p>When Barry was tried for 14 counts of cocaine possession and lying to a grand jury, a jury of ten blacks and two whites convicted him of only a single cocaine-possession charge, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison.<sup><sup>[156]</sup></sup> Black columnist Carl Rowan put the Barry case in perspective: “These jurors were saying: The mayor may be a cocaine junkie, a crack addict, a sexual scoundrel, but he is <em>our</em> junkie, <em>our</em> addict, <em>our</em> scoundrel, and we aren’t going to let you white folks put him in jail.”<sup><sup>[157]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Just two months after his release from prison in 1992, Barry—disgraced but not chastened—filed papers to run for DC’s Ward 8 Council seat in that year’s upcoming election. Campaigning under the slogan, “He May Not Be Perfect, But He’s Perfect for DC,” Barry won the race easily.<sup><sup>[158]</sup></sup> Two years after that, he decided to set his political sights higher and was elected to a fourth term (1995-99) as mayor.</p>
<p>After taking some time away from politics, Barry won election to the DC Council in 2004 with 95% of the vote and continues in that office.<sup><sup>[159]</sup></sup></p>
<p>A mainstay of the Democratic Party, Marion Barry has been a larger-than-life figure in Washington DC politics in terms of his corruption, criminality and race-baiting. But those who followed him in city leadership have come close to matching his sordid record. Indeed, half of DC’s top government officials, at one time or another, were under investigation by either federal authorities or the city’s board of elections in the period 2008-2012.<sup><sup>[160]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The following snapshots from recent DC politics give a sense of the corruption presided over by the Democratic Party, corruption that has become standard operating procedure:</p>
<p>In October 2005, the <em>Washington Post</em> reported that DC Councilman Jack Evans had used money from a political action committee to cover personal expenses, including sporting-event tickets and a friend’s trip to China.<sup><sup>[161]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In November 2007, Harriette Walters, manager of the DC Real Property Tax Administration Adjustments Unit, was one of 11 people arrested for her role in the largest fraud scheme in the history of DC’s city government. As <em>The New York Times</em> reports, “Walters used her job as a tax manager for the district treasury to issue $48 million in bogus property tax refunds for herself and her co-conspirators, who included family, friends and a bank manager.” The refunds—which amounted, on average, to  $388,000 per month—were used to purchase such items as clothing, jewelry, other luxury goods, and even homes. Walters was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for her crimes.<sup><sup>[162]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In January 2011, DC’s newly elected mayor, Vince Gray, was accused of improperly hiring relatives of his supporters and staffers for city jobs.<sup><sup>[163]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In February 2011, while DC was facing a projected annual budget deficit of $400 million, it was learned that city taxpayers were making lease payments on two luxury automobiles—each in the amount of approximately $1,900 per month—for Council chairman Kwame Brown. Brown had initially requested a fully loaded, extended-wheelbase Lincoln Navigator with a black interior. When he instead received a Navigator with a gray interior, he defiantly ordered the second vehicle—and had the city pay an additional $1,500 for its expedited shipping.<sup><sup>[164]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In June 2011, a video surfaced of Ted Loza, former chief of staff to DC Councilman Jim Graham, accepting a $1,500 bribe from an FBI informant in return for pushing legislation that was beneficial to some in the taxi-cab industry through the DC Council. Loza was eventually sentenced to eight months in prison.<sup><sup>[165]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In July 2011, the DC Board of Elections and Ethics referred, to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, allegations that DC Council chairman Kwame Brown’s 2008 reelection campaign had failed to report more than $170,000 in contributions while inaccurately reporting almost $350,000 in spending. In 2012, Brown pled guilty to bank fraud and resigned from his post.<sup><sup>[166]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In January 2012, Ward 5 councilman Harry Thomas Jr. pled guilty to the felony of embezzling some $353,000 in public funds that had been intended mostly for a youth baseball program. Thomas used the money instead to purchase for himself such items as designer shoes, a $58,000 luxury automobile, a $23,000 motorcycle, and lavish vacations. He was sentenced to 38 months in prison.<sup><sup>[167]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In June 2013, DC Council member Michael Brown pled guilty to accepting $55,000 in cash bribes from undercover agents posing as businessmen seeking city contracts.<sup><sup>[168]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In March 2014, businessman Jeffrey E. Thompson pled guilty to conspiring to break federal and local campaign-finance laws. At issue was more than $668,000 in illegal donations he had given to the Vince Gray mayoral campaign, with Gray’s full knowledge. Moreover, Thompson had secretly spent $812,146 in support of seven other candidates for mayor and DC Council.<sup><sup>[169]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In addition to becoming America’s urban capital of political corruption, the District of Columbia has also become a synonym for criminality and violence. Though the city’s crime rates today are below the stratospheric levels which they reached during Marion Barry’s heyday, DC remains an unsafe place by any measure. Today it is America’s 5<sup>th</sup> most dangerous city among those with populations of more than 500,000, and the 21<sup>st</sup> most dangerous city overall.<sup><sup>[170]</sup></sup> Indeed, 95% of all urban areas in the U.S. are statistically safer than Washington,<sup><sup>[171]</sup></sup> whose rates of homicide and robbery are, respectively, 3 and 5 times higher than the national average.<sup><sup>[172]</sup></sup> In 2012 alone, there were 7,448 violent crimes and 29,264 property crimes reported in DC.<sup><sup>[173]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Yet another major problem area for the nation’s capital is its public school system. As bad as many of them are, no other system in America has a more glaring record of failure. When the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests were administered, most recently, to fourth- and eigth-grade students in 2013:</p>
<p>Just 25% of DC fourth-graders performed well enough to be classified as “proficient” in grade-level reading.<sup><sup>[174]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Only 30% of DC fourth-graders performed well enough to be classified as “proficient” in grade-level math.<sup><sup>[175]</sup></sup></p>
<p>A paltry 17% of DC eighth-graders performed well enough to be categorized as “proficient” in grade-level reading.<sup><sup>[176]</sup></sup></p>
<p>And a mere 16% of DC eighth-graders performed well enough to be deemed “proficient” in grade-level math.<sup><sup>[177]</sup></sup></p>
<p>When Adrian Fenty became mayor in 2007, the teacher-to-pupil ratio in Washington’s public school classrooms was approximately 12-to-1, while taxpayers provided nearly $29,000 per year to educate each child therein. This massive sum was equivalent to the cost of tuition at the most elite private schools in the country, where children received the best education that money could buy.<sup><sup>[178]</sup></sup> A contrarian Democrat, Fenty tried to do something about this outrage. He hired Michelle Rhee, an education reformer, as the new school chancellor. He closed dangerous and underused schools and laid off incompetent teachers. He waged a successful two-year battle to get a new union contract, which ended lifetime tenure and connected financial reward to teacher performance. Michelle Rhee fired 241 incompetent teachers and put another 737 on notice for being rated “minimally effective.”<sup><sup>[179]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The results were dramatic. At Sousa Middle School—located in one of the district’s most impoverished neighborhoods—84% of the students had math and reading scores below the minimal standards when Fenty and Rhee took charge. In just one year of the Fenty-Rhee reform administration, students at Sousa gained 17 points in reading proficiency and 25 in math, meeting the federal benchmarks for progress for the first time in the history of the school.<sup><sup>[180]</sup></sup></p>
<p>But the teachers’ unions struck back in 2012, supporting another Democrat, Vincent Gray, who would turn back the clock on Fenty’s reforms. The party backed Gray, and the head of the AFL-CIO himself came to town to campaign against Fenty and seal his defeat. In the process, he also sealed the fate of the many students, most of them black, who were stuck in the city’s atrocious public schools.</p>
<p><em><strong>Chicago:</strong></em></p>
<p><em>Hog Butcher for the World,<br />
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,<br />
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;<br />
Stormy, husky, brawling &#8230;</em></p>
<p>This is how Carl Sandberg saw Chicago in his famous poem about the city published in 1914.<sup><sup>[181]</sup></sup> He was right to use the language of enterprise and simple hard work, since the Windy City, standing at the crossroads of the United States, was so intimately associated with the nation-building epic. Chicago was the site of stockyards for the livestock that fed the country . It was the home of such technological and commercial innovations as the first refrigerated railroad car (1878), the first mail-order retailing corporations (Sears-Roebuck in 1893 and Montgomery Ward in 1872), and the first car radio manufacture (1920s).<sup><sup>[182]</sup></sup> Also during the Twenties, new construction boomed throughout the city, punctuated by the completion in 1930 of such landmarks as the Chicago Board of Trade Building and the famed Merchandise Mart (whose 4 million square feet of office space made it the world’s largest building at the time). The fact that it was also the home turf of gangsters like Al Capone and the G-men like Elliot Ness who hunted him down only added to the legendary status it acquired in the nation’s imagination.</p>
<p>“Chicagoland,” as the city is now sometimes called, is meant to conjure a zesty sense of urban uniqueness, but the term has instead become a synonym for corrupt power politics and urban malaise in what has become the murder capital of the United States. Chicago has been led exclusively by Democratic mayors since 1931. Under the administrations of Richard J. Daley (1955-76), Michael Bilandic (1976-79), Jane Byrne (1979-83), and Harold Washington (1983-87), the city’s economic and social fabric deteriorated markedly. Chicago lost its power and romance.<sup><sup>[183]</sup></sup> According to urban analyst Aaron Renn, by 1976 Chicago was “a grim, decaying city” that “was failing on nearly every measure.” Renn elaborates: “The city was losing people, losing businesses, and losing jobs&#8230;. Manufacturing was collapsing and the middle class was fleeing, leading to neighborhood decline and eroding the city’s tax base, which in turn degraded the city services residents had come to expect and demand. The decline in services and neighborhoods drove more people away, which led to further declines, perpetuating a vicious cycle.”<sup><sup>[184]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In a similar vein, <em>Chicago Tribune</em> correspondent Richard Longworth, author of a powerful front-page series in 1981 titled “A City on the Brink,” concluded: “Chicago has become an economic invalid. The situation may be permanent.” University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Pierre de Vise, for his part, saw “very little hope for locating economic activities here again.” And a local business executive asked, “Is the city being anni-hilated? It’s probably inevitable.”<sup><sup>[185]</sup></sup> The economic malaise that plagued Chicago during this period was accompanied by a steep decline in the city’s population, which fell from 3.62 million in 1950 to 2.78 million by 1990.<sup><sup>[186]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Harold Washington, an African American who served as Chicago’s mayor from 1983-87, was an icon of the progressive left that now dominates the city’s politics. Washington’s election represented a break from the postwar Democratic Party machine whose symbolic figure was the first Mayor Richard Daley (Daley’s son by the same name also became mayor of Chicago). Daley was one of the last of the big-city “bosses” who angered the left—especially with his zero-tolerance policy toward demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic Party convention—but his critics admitted that he presided over “a city that worked.” Harold Washington was in effect the anti-Daley—an influence on the rising young local activist Barack Obama and on Obama’s pastor and mentor, Jeremiah Wright, who mobilized black and Hispanic voters in support of Washington’s electoral campaigns.</p>
<p>Close to the Chicago contingent of the Democratic Socialists of America, Washington calculated that he could most effectively advance his leftist agendas by calling himself a “liberal” and working within the Democratic Party. Unlike the first Mayor Daley, who used his immense power to make the machinery of city government run smoothly, Washington prioritized ideology. Stanley Kurtz, author and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who has closely followed Chicago politics, explains that Washington rose to political prominence by assembling “a ‘rainbow’ coalition of blacks, Hispanics, and left-leaning whites” whose ultimate aim was to “pus[h] the Democrats to the left by polarizing the country along class lines.”<sup><sup>[187]</sup></sup></p>
<p>During his 1983 campaign, Washington vowed to reduce regressive local taxes and rely more heavily on money from the State of Illinois. Once elected, however, he raised taxes on Chicagoans by hundreds of millions of dollars.<sup><sup>[188]</sup></sup> As one of his constituents later said, “All he did was tax, tax, tax.”<sup><sup>[189]</sup></sup> Through a 1985 executive order, Washington enacted one of his major priorities as mayor: the implementation of an aggressive affirmative action program setting aside at least 25% of all city contracts for minority-owned business enterprises and another 5% for women-owned businesses.<sup><sup>[190]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Under Washington, whose mayoralty ended suddenly in November 1987 when he died of a heart attack just a few months into his second term, Chicago’s civic life deteriorated rapidly. One clear example involved the Chicago Housing Authority—a massive municipal agency that had been created to own and operate public housing built by the federal government—which was brought to the brink of insolvency by Washington’s appointees.<sup><sup>[191]</sup></sup> The U.S. Secretary of Education in 1987 described the city’s school system—where students were mostly poor and nonwhite—as the very worst in America.<sup><sup>[192]</sup></sup> Also during Mayor Washington’s tenure, crime rates in the city exploded: Between 1982 and 1987, the annual incidence of robbery rose by 44%, while the corresponding increases for other crimes included 37% for burglary, more than 20% for both larceny-theft and auto theft, over 40% for arson, and at least 300% for aggravated assault.<sup><sup>[193]</sup></sup> Because this violent environment was toxic to local retail and service establishments, many business owners simply pulled up their roots and relocated to more welcoming places. All told, Chicago suffered a net loss of 45,000+ jobs during the ’80s—a period of great economic prosperity and employment growth for most of the country—and many of the Windy City’s job losses occurred on Mayor Washington’s watch.<sup><sup>[194]</sup></sup> Likewise, Chicago’s overall population declined, on average, by more than 20,000 residents per year.<sup><sup>[195]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Under Mayor Richard M. Daley (1989-2011), son and namesake of Mayor Richard J. Daley, Chicago rebounded a bit in the 1990s when it enjoyed a lower unemployment rate and stronger per-capita income growth than either New York or Los Angeles. It also added some 560,000 new jobs and gained more than 100,000 residents. During that same period, Chicago spent billions of dollars on a host of development projects including the construction of an elevated train line to Midway Airport, a wide-ranging street-beautification initiative, and the creation of impressive cultural facilities such as the $450 million Millennium Park.<sup><sup>[196]</sup></sup></p>
<p>But in the first decade of the 21st century, these successes faded. Fiscal mismanagement by the Daley administration began to manifest itself in Chicago’s economy, causing 7.1% of the city’s jobs to dry up and disappear. Chicago’s famous Loop, the second-largest central business district in the nation, was especially hard hit—losing 18.6% of its private-sector jobs. The city government, meanwhile, began incurring massive levels of debt, running an annual budget deficit of approximately $650 million.<sup><sup>[197]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Contributing heavily to these shortfalls were ever-escalating expenditures on lavish benefits and pensions for Chicago’s public-sector union employees, whose political support had been decisive in the succession of Democrat mayoral administrations. The employee pensions were, by mandate of the Illinois state constitution, permanently immune to cutbacks.<sup><sup>[198]</sup></sup> According to the <em>Washington Post</em>, Chicago today owes nearly $14 billion in outstanding General Obligation bond debt,<sup><sup>[199]</sup></sup> and the city’s pension funds owe $27 billion in unfunded obligations to police, firefighters, teachers, and municipal employees who have been courted—and rewarded—by administrations since the time of the first Mayor Daley. This shortfall amounts to more than $9,900 per city resident.<sup><sup>[200]</sup></sup> In Chicago’s fire department alone, unfunded liabilities exceed 650% of payroll, meaning that they total more than 6.5 times what the city spends each year to pay all of its active firefighters. Similarly, the Chicago police department’s unfunded liabilities amount to just above 600% of payroll.<sup><sup>[201]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 2008, Mayor Richard M. Daley sought to address his city’s budget deficit, in part, by means of his now-infamous parking-meter lease, whereby—in exchange for $1.1 billion up front—the city sold its right to 75 years worth of parking revenues to the private company Chicago Parking Meters LLC. Just two years into the deal, the city had already spent 84% of that $1.1 billion and was looking at the loss of countless billions in revenue over the next seven decades.<sup><sup>[202]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Also in typical Democrat fashion, Chicago politicos have repeatedly sought to balance their budgets by raising local property and sales taxes. Today Chicago has the nation’s highest sales tax rate, whose impact on the city is amplified by Illinois’ already-high state taxes.<sup><sup>[203]</sup></sup> According to a March 2013 <em>Wall Street Journal</em> report, the state and local taxes currently paid by Chicagoans are higher than those paid by their counterparts in all but four other American cities.<sup><sup>[204]</sup></sup> This oppressive tax climate has dealt a painful blow to Chicago’s residents and business owners alike.</p>
<p>In July 2013, Moody’s Investors Service—citing Chicago’s “very large and growing pension liabilities and accelerating budget pressures associated with those liabilities”—downgraded the city’s General Obligation (GO) and sales-tax ratings from AA3 to A3.<sup><sup>[205]</sup></sup> Four months later, another major ratings agency—Fitch Ratings, Inc.—likewise downgraded Chicago’s debt worthiness after the Illinois legislature failed to pass a budget fix.<sup><sup>[206]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Another factor harming small businesses in Chicago is the system of “aldermanic privilege” that dominates the city’s politics and serves as a fertile breeding ground for corruption. As urban-affairs analyst Aaron Renn explains, Chicago’s aldermen—i.e., city council members—have “nearly dictatorial control over what happens in their wards, from zoning changes to sidewalk café permits.” As Renn notes, “This dumps political risk onto the shoulders of every would-be entrepreneur, who knows that he must stay on the alderman’s good side to be in business. It’s also a recipe for sleaze: 31 aldermen have been convicted of corruption since 1970.”<sup><sup>[207]</sup></sup> According to a University of Illinois report issued in 2012, Chicago is the most politically corrupt city in the United States, having averaged 51 public corruption convictions annually since 1976.<sup><sup>[208]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Chicago’s entrepreneurs are further handicapped by the byzantine regulations and red tape that make it prohibitively expensive and complicated to run a business within the city’s confines. According to Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce CEO Jerry Roper, such “unnecessary and burdensome regulation” has placed Chicago “at a competitive disadvantage with other cities.”<sup><sup>[209]</sup></sup> The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for its part, has described the litigation environment of Cook County—where Chicago is located—as the most unfair and unreasonable of any jurisdiction in the United States.<sup><sup>[210]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Yet another reality that has had a severely negative impact on life in Chicago is violent crime. Since the mid-1970s, the annual homicide tally within the Windy City has ranged between 435 and 970, with the trends and fluctuations more-or-less mirroring those observable nationwide.<sup><sup>[211]</sup></sup> In 2012 and 2013, Chicago led all U.S. cities in homicides, with a combined total of 931 during that two-year period—far more than any other American city. In 2012, approximately one in every 1,000 Chicagoans was shot (either fatally or non-fatally) at some point during that year—a rate 6 times higher than in New York City.<sup><sup>[212]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Whites, who constitute roughly 28% of Chicago’s population, commit about 4% of all homicides in the city. African Americans, who are 35% of the population, are responsible for three-fourths of the homicides. The statistics for Chicago’s black youth, many of whom have become involved in a culture of gang violence, are paricularly grim. Between 2003 and 2008, black youngsters accounted for 78% of all juvenile arrests in the city.<sup><sup>[213]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Driving the trend of stratospheric crime rates in Chicago’s black community is a high incidence of single motherhood. Between 75% and 80% of the city’s black children are born out-of-wedlock.<sup><sup>[214]</sup></sup> For decades, empirical research has demonstrated conclusively that growing up without a father is a far better forecaster of a boy’s future criminality than either race or poverty. Indeed, regardless of race, 70% of all young people in state reform institutions were raised in fatherless homes, as were 60% of rapists, 72% of adolescent murderers, and 70% of long-term prison inmates.<sup><sup>[215]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In recent years, Chicago has been the scene of dozens of violent, black-on-white “flash mob” attacks, as documented by author Colin Flaherty. One of the most recent, high-profile incidents occurred at the end of March 2013, when some 500 blacks stormed the so-called Magnificent Mile, an upscale shopping area, randomly assaulting innocent people and destroying property.<sup><sup>[216]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The response of Chicago’s leadership to this type of criminality has been far less assertive than that of New York, for instance, where Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Chief William Bratton in the 1990s instituted a proactive, aggressive, and highly successful anti-crime strategy that incorporated “stop-and-frisk” policies and so-called “broken windows” law-enforcement philosophy. Their approach—which was subsequently continued, to similar effect, by Giuliani’s Republican successor Michael Bloomberg—reversed a long trend of escalating criminality that had plagued New York City in the pre-Giuliani years.<sup><sup>[217]</sup></sup></p>
<p>By contrast, Chicago’s politicians, community activists, and religious leaders alike have largely turned their backs on such policing philosophies. As a former Chicago deputy superintendent of police once observed: “Mayor Daley [who served from 1989-2011] is not a cop supporter.”<sup><sup>[218]</sup></sup> Chicago’s failure to establish control over either its economy or its crime problem is mirrored by the persistent inability of its lavishly funded public-school system to educate the city’s children. There is little to show for the more than $13,000 spent annually on the education-related expenses of each K-12 student in the city.<sup><sup>[219]</sup></sup> In the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), stand-ardized exams designed to measure students’ academic abilities:</p>
<p>Just 21% of Chicago fourth-graders performed well enough to be classified as “proficient” or better in grade-level reading—vs. 34% of fourth-graders nationally.<sup><sup>[220]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Only 27% of Chicago fourth-graders performed well enough to be classified as “proficient” or better in grade-level math—vs. 42% of fourth-graders nationally.<sup><sup>[221]</sup></sup></p>
<p>A mere 20% of Chicago eighth-graders performed well enough to be categorized as “proficient” or better in grade-level reading, vs. 35% of eighth-graders nationally.<sup><sup>[222]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Just 20% of Chicago eighth-graders performed well enough to be deemed “proficient” or better in grade-level math, vs. 34% of eighth-graders nationally.<sup><sup>[223]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Moreover, only 63% of Chicago’s public high-school students graduate on time (within four years)—well below the national average of 78%.<sup><sup>[224]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In June 2013, Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis, a Democrat, attributed the failures of the Chicago Public Schools not to any shortcomings in the city’s educational apparatus, but rather to the “fact that rich white people think they know what’s in the best interest of children of African-Americans and Latinos, no matter what the parents’ income or education level.” She elaborated on this charge that racism caused educational failure: “If you look at the majority of the tax base for property taxes in Chicago, they’re mostly white, who don’t have a real interest in paying for the education of poor black and brown children.”<sup><sup>[225]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Following a pattern that is seen repeatedly in Democrat-controlled cities across the United States, Chicago’s toxic brew of high taxes, out-of-control crime rates, failing schools, mounting public debt, and anti-business economic climate has driven away massive numbers of residents and entrepreneurs. After the city’s population peaked at 3.62 million in 1950,<sup><sup>[226]</sup></sup> it underwent a half-century of decline that leveled off only temporarily in the 1990s. In the first decade of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, some 200,000 people (including 175,000 African Americans) moved out of Chicago during—an exodus exceeded in magnitude only in Detroit.<sup><sup>[227]</sup></sup> According to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau Report, Chicago’s population was 2,695,598 and falling.<sup><sup>[228]</sup></sup></p>
<p><em><strong>Milwaukee, WI:</strong></em></p>
<p>For years it was the world’s foremost beer-producing city, home to four of the largest breweries in the world (Schlitz, Blatz, Pabst, and Miller). Almost every major American brewery, in fact, had at least one factory in Milwaukee. These employed thousands of local residents in jobs that formed the foundation of the city’s solid middle class.<sup><sup>[229]</sup></sup> Other major corporations in the city during the first half of the twentieth century included the A. F. Gallun &amp; Sons leather tanning company; the machinery manufacturer Allis-Chalmers; the heavy-mining equipment producer Bucyrus Erie Company; the Falk Corporation, producer of industrial power transmission products; the electrical component maker Cutler-Hammer; and the A.O. Smith Corporation, a major manufacturer of automotive frames.<sup><sup>[230]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Most of them are gone now and Milwaukee is a different place.</p>
<p>Every Milwaukee mayor of the past 106 years has been a Democrat—with the exception of three who were Socialists. The first of the Socialists—in fact the first Socialist mayor of any major American city—was Emil Seidel, who held office from 1910-12. Next came Daniel Webster Hoan in 1916, whose 24-year tenure in office</p>
<p>was the longest continuous Socialist administration in American history. The city’s third Socialist mayor was Frank Paul Zeidler, who served three terms from 1948-60 and whose administration oversaw the large-scale construction of public housing as a means of promoting racial and economic justice.<sup><sup>[231]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Zeidler spoke out forcefully in favor of what he termed “public enterprise,” the notion that government could improve the condition of the poor via the efficient dispensation of taxpayer-funded public services.<sup><sup>[232]</sup></sup> But demographic trends capsized this theory. During Zeidler’s time in office, Milwaukee’s black population nearly quintupled, from 13,000 in 1945 to more than 62,000 in 1960, as Southern blacks began their northward migration away from segregation and toward jobs. They were packed into a few areas as a result of “de facto” segregation.<sup><sup>[233]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Local black radicals, allied ideologically with the black militancy that was sweeping many American cities in the Sixties, were dissatisfied with what they viewed as the inadequate pace of racial reforms. And in the summer of 1967, the race riots that rocked Detroit and Newark sparked a similar—though less devastating—outburst in Milwaukee which resulted in 3 deaths, about 100 injuries, and 1,740 arrests.<sup><sup>[234]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In response to the rioting, Democrat Henry Maier, who served as mayor of Milwaukee from 1960-88, swiftly unveiled a “39-Point Program” designed to address the inner-city problems of poverty and racism that liberal Democrats widely cited as the causes of the riots. This program was based on pouring massive amounts of local, state, and federal money into initiatives like housing construction, youth programs, and “community renewal” to pacify an angry populace.<sup><sup>[235]</sup></sup> But in the eyes of local black leftists, it was too little, too late. As Mrs. Vel Phillips, a black member of Milwaukee’s Common Council, said in April 1968, the mayor’s 39-point program had failed to demonstrate any “visible effect on the root causes” of ghetto unrest: “I don’t believe in violence, and I hope we don’t have any more. But we’d all better realize that many young Negroes have reached the point where they’re ready and willing to die because they figure they have nothing to lose.”<sup><sup>[236]</sup></sup></p>
<p>As of 1970, seven of Milwaukee’s top ten companies were engaged in manufacturing and employed nearly 47,000 people.<sup><sup>[237]</sup></sup> But as the cost of manufacturing in the U.S. skyrocketed in subsequent decades and the city became fiscally inhospitable many of these businesses moved their operations. Between 1970 and 2011, Milwaukee lost no fewer than 40% of its manufacturing jobs—a severe economic blow to the entire city. From 1970 to 2007, the percentage of families in the Milwaukee metro area that were middle-class declined from 37% to 24%, while the percentage of households that were poor spiked from 23% to 31%.<sup><sup>[238]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Today, per capita income in Milwaukee is $19,199 (32% below the national average); median household income is $35,823 (33% below the national average); and the poverty rate is 28.3% (nearly double the national average).<sup><sup>[239]</sup></sup></p>
<p>While joblessness and poverty plague many Milwaukeeans, crime may be an even larger affliction in their lives. Milwaukee today has a violent crime rate that is 2.6 times greater than the national average, including a robbery rate of 4.4 times the national average and a murder rate that is triple the national average.<sup><sup>[240]</sup></sup> In 2012, 80% of all homicide victims in the city were black, as were three-fourths of the known suspects in these crimes.<sup><sup>[241]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Though the city’s public school system annually spends some $14,200 (about one-third more than the national average) in taxpayer funds on the education of each K-12 student in its jurisdiction,<sup><sup>[242]</sup></sup> the overall high-school graduation rate in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is a paltry 62.8%—far below Wisconsin’s 87% statewide average.<sup><sup>[243]</sup></sup> On standardized National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests administered in 2013 to measure students’ academic abilities:</p>
<p>Only 18% of Milwaukee’s fourth-graders scored as proficient or better in math.<sup><sup>[244]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Just 11% of Milwaukee’s eighth-graders scored as proficient or better in math.<sup><sup>[245]</sup></sup></p>
<p>A mere 16% of Milwaukee’s fourth-graders scored as proficient or better in reading.<sup><sup>[246]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Only 13% of Milwaukee’s eighth-graders scored as proficient or better in reading.<sup><sup>[247]</sup></sup></p>
<p>But unlike their counterparts in other cities, some Milwaukee students, thanks to a handful of civic leaders and activists as well as vital funding from the Bradley Foundation, have access to a school voucher program. In response to a long effort by this group of advocates, in 1990 the Wisconsin State Legislature passed a bill creating the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the first publicly funded voucher initiative in the United States.<sup><sup>[248]</sup></sup> Though lawmakers initially restricted it to just 1,000 low-income public school students within the city, MPCP has since grown, largely as a result of private fundraising, to become the largest voucher program in America, serving more than 20,000 students.<sup><sup>[249]</sup></sup> A 2011 study published by School Choice Wisconsin indicated that students in the MPCP had a graduation rate 18% higher than their counterparts in the Milwaukee Public Schools.<sup><sup>[250]</sup></sup> Showing also that the massive per-pupil outlays championed by teachers’ unions are unnecessary to increase achievement, the MPCP spends $6,442 per scholarship to educate its students—less than half of what the non-voucher public schools spend.<sup><sup>[251]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The Democrat-controlled teachers’ unions have fought the MPCP tooth-and-nail.<sup><sup>[252]</sup></sup> So has a group called the Educators’ Network for Social Justice (ENSJ), a leftist alliance of classroom teachers and post-secondary instructors who have allied themselves with the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County and a number of local Democrat politicians. Committed to “promoting pro-justice curricula and policies so that all students in the Milwaukee area are better served,” ENSJ also opposes the use of standardized tests to measure student achievement and aptitude.<sup><sup>[253]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The poverty, crime, unemployment, and dysfunctional school system that have become the hallmarks of life in Milwaukee have led the city’s population to decline markedly in recent decades, from 741,000 in 1960 to just 599,000 today.<sup><sup>[254]</sup></sup> An estimated 5,000 houses—mostly in impoverished neighborhoods—stand vacant and abandoned, a mute testament to peoples’ desire to get out of town.<sup><sup>[255]</sup></sup></p>
<p><em><strong>Newark, NJ:</strong></em></p>
<p>The city of Newark, New Jersey has been led exclusively by Democrat mayors for the past 81 years. The entrenched power of the Democratic Party is reflected in the near-unanimous support its candidates receive from Newark voters in political elections on every level. For example, in the 2009 gubernatorial race, Newark voters cast 90.2% of their ballots for Democrat Jon Corzine, vs. just 8.3% for Republican Chris Christie, the ultimate winner.<sup><sup>[256]</sup></sup> And in the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama captured 90.8% of the Newark vote, vs. 7.0% for Republican John McCain.<sup><sup>[257]</sup></sup></p>
<p>At one time, Newark was bustling and prosperous. As of 1922, it had 63 live theaters and 46 movie theaters, and its so-called “Four Corners”—where Market and Broad Streets intersected—was widely considered the busiest intersection in the country. In 1927, a prominent businessman observed: “Great is Newark’s vitality. It is the red blood in its veins—this basic strength that is going to carry it over whatever hurdles it may encounter, enable it to recover from whatever losses it may suffer and battle its way to still higher achievement industrially and financially, making it eventually perhaps the greatest industrial center in the world.”<sup><sup>[258]</sup></sup> The realities of Newark today make these words sound like they were written in a foreign language.</p>
<p>Between 1950 and 1967, Newark’s black population rose from 70,000 to 220,000, largely as a result of the arrival of African Americans leaving the segregated south for northern job opportunities. Newark educator Nathan Wright Jr. noted that “no typical American city has as yet experienced such a precipitous change from a white to a black majority.”<sup><sup>[259]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In response to the influx, the city’s Democratic leadership launched major urban-renewal initiatives during the 1960s, persuading the federal government to cover 100% of the costs associated with constructing new public housing projects. Eventually, Newark had a higher percentage of its residents living in public housing than any other city in the United States.<sup><sup>[260]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Black militants in the city, however, derided this and other costly programs that displaced some black residential neighborhoods as “Negro removal.” The militants were angered by plans to build superhighways that would bisect the city’s black community. They likewise condemned a proposal in early 1967 for the “clearance” of 150 acres of predominantly black “slum” land on which a medical school/hospital complex would be built.<sup><sup>[261]</sup></sup>In 1967, the rage of Newark’s black militants exploded in the form of devastating race riots. The incident precipitating the violence was the police beating of a black cabbie on the night of July 12, 1967. The rioting persisted for six days and resulted in 23 deaths, 725 injuries, nearly 1,500 arrests, $10 million in property damage, and the destruction of approximately 1,000 stores and business establishments.<sup><sup>[262]</sup></sup> As was the case in other cities that experienced similar violence during this era, Newark never really recovered from these riots.</p>
<p>In addition to the race problem, Newark was also struggling with political corruption. The city’s politics have been plagued by Mob influence for generations. According to the <em>City Journal</em>, for instance, the bootlegger Abner “Longy” Zwillman, who smuggled through Newark nearly 40% of all the liquor sold on the East Coast during Prohibition, “bought off enough local officials to take control of the city’s politics from the late 1920s until his death in 1959.”<sup><sup>[263]</sup></sup> In 1962, Angelo “Ray” DeCarlo, a capo in New York’s Genovese crime family, helped fix the Newark mayoral election for Democrat Hugh Addonizio. “Federal investigations into Addonizio’s sleazy administration later revealed that almost every aspect of Newark’s government operated like a racket,” writes Manhattan Institute scholar Steven Malanga. “Officials fattened the cost of contracts by 10 percent for kickbacks, and city government even used the same bought-and-paid-for auditors as the mob did. Every Newark citizen and firm paid a corruption tax.” Partly because of this, Newark at that time had the most expensive government of any midsize American city—spending almost twice as much per capita as the average urban area.<sup><sup>[264]</sup></sup> By 1967, Newark’s property tax rate was $7.75 per $100 of assessed value, the highest in America. As the Newark <em>Star-Ledger</em> notes: “If taxed at that rate today, an average home in New Jersey—valued at $350,000—would owe more than $27,000 a year in property taxes.”<sup><sup>[265]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Lawlessness in high places, in conjunction with escalating costs and a volatile racial atmosphere, made Newark an increasingly undesirable place to live. “Fearful and without faith in Newark’s blatantly crooked government,” writes Steven Malanga, “the middle class fled. The city’s population shrank to just 270,000 mostly low-income residents—a 40 percent decline.”<sup><sup>[266]</sup></sup> Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, manufacturers and entrepreneurs in Newark pulled up their roots and sought out other locations that were less expensive, more business-friendly, and less socially combustible. Between 1950 and 1960, the city’s white population fell by nearly a third, from 363,000 to 265,000.<sup><sup>[267]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Addonizio’s successor was Kenneth Gibson, the city’s first black mayor. Amiri Baraka—the black nationalist, anti-Semitic poet/playwright, and self-avowed Marxist-Leninist—played a key role in galvanizing black voters to support Gibson at the polls. “We will nationalize the city’s institutions, as if it were liberated territory in Zimbabwe or Angola,” Baraka declared at the time.<sup><sup>[268]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Upon his election, Gibson boldly proclaimed: “Wherever American cities are going, Newark will get there first.”<sup><sup>[269]</sup></sup>   Gibson was right: Newark would lead the rush toward insolvency, corruption and racial conflict that marked America’s future urban reality. Contradicting the expectations of Baraka and other radical intellectuals who had supported him, the new mayor inaugurated policies that had a strong negative impact on blacks and the poor in Newark. The city continued to hemorrhage industrial jobs, as employment rates declined and the welfare rolls swelled. As more and more factories were abandoned, the number of taxable properties in the city decreased, cutting sharply into the city’s income and bringing it to the threshold of bankruptcy several times. Neighborhood programs and services—including trash collection—were cut repeatedly throughout the ’70s. Indeed, massive, stinking piles of uncollected garbage became a dismaying symbol of life in Newark during the decade.<sup><sup>[270]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Gibson’s administration was also afflicted by significant corruption. In 1982, investigators jailed numerous city officials for various infractions. Gibson himself faced state charges of having conspired to create a no-show job specifically for a former Newark official but was acquitted in 1982.<sup><sup>[271]</sup></sup> By 1986, Gibson’s last year in office, the city’s unemployment rate was nearly 50% higher than it had been at the start of his mayoralty. A Manhattan Institute report states that by the end of Gibson’s tenure in office, “failed government policies and middle-class flight had weakened much of Newark, except for a few corporate-supported blocks downtown and a few enclaves&#8230;.”<sup><sup>[272]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Every Newark mayor since Gibson has also been African American. His successor in 1986 was Democrat Sharpe James, who went on to hold office for two decades. Conditions in James’s own neighborhood, the South Ward, were particularly grim—replete with decrepit, crime-infested public housing projects and hundreds of vacant lots.<sup><sup>[273]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The James administration became infamous for its corruption. In 1996, for instance, Newark’s police commissioner pled guilty to stealing money that had been intended to finance local undercover narcotics investigations.<sup><sup>[274]</sup></sup> The following year, the mayor’s chief of staff, Jackie Mattison, was convicted of taking bribes to help steer city contracts to a particular insurance broker.<sup><sup>[275]</sup></sup> And during his final term in office, James himself sold a number of the city’s publicly owned vacant lots to his friends and supporters—for pennies on the dollar. One of the buyers was James’s mistress, Tamika Riley, who between 2001 and 2005 spent a grand total of $46,000 to purchase nine tracts of land from the city, which in each instance she promptly resold for a large profit. All told, Ms. Riley collected $665,000 from these sales.<sup><sup>[276]</sup></sup> For his involvement in this scam, James was convicted in 2008 on five counts of fraud and conspiracy charges; he subsequently spent 27 months in prison and was fined $100,000. Prosecutors dropped additional charges that James had billed the city for a host of personal expenses including meals, pornography, and body lotions, when they concluded that convictions for these items would not add any time to his prison sentence.<sup><sup>[277]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Mayor James’s ethical failure became standard operating procedure in Newark politics. Since 1962, every mayor of Newark except Cory Booker (2006- 2013) has been indicted for crimes committed while in office.<sup><sup>[278]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Newark’s woes are exacerbated by the fact that it is currently the second most highly taxed city in the United States. One study in 2013 estimated that the average three-person family with $50,000 in annual income owed $8,327 per year in local school and property taxes alone.<sup><sup>[279]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Newark’s unemployment rate is approximately two-thirds higher than that of New Jersey as a whole, and more than twice the national average.<sup><sup>[280]</sup></sup> Per capita income in Newark is just $17,161 per year (38% below the national average and less than half the New Jersey average), and median household income is $34,387 (about 36% below the national average).<sup><sup>[281]</sup></sup> The poverty rate citywide is 31%, and the child-advocacy organization New Jersey Kids Count estimates that about a quarter of Newark children under age 5 live in “extreme poverty.”<sup><sup>[282]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The city’s disastrously ineffective public education system spends an astronomical $23,000 on each K-12 pupil in its jurisdiction.<sup><sup>[283]</sup></sup> But in tests that were administered to elementary through junior-high-school students in 2013, just 19% of Newark’s third-graders registered scores indicating that they were “proficient” in English; the corresponding figure in math was 21%. The numbers were similar for students in grades 4 through 8.<sup><sup>[284]</sup></sup></p>
<p>According to the New Jersey Department of Education, the dropout rate for Newark’s high-school students is nearly 40%.<sup><sup>[285]</sup></sup> Among those who do manage to graduate, only about 3-in-10 are able to pass a state proficiency exam indicating that they are qualified for college-level work. Dan Gaby, executive director of the education-reform group E3, puts these numbers in perspective by estimating that Newark taxpayers spend approximately <em>$1.3 million</em> on the education-related expenses of each <em>qualified</em> student who earns a diploma from one of the city’s public high schools.<sup><sup>[286]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Compounding the academic decline in Newark is the fact that the city’s school district has been mismanaged into a state of financial chaos. At the start of the 2013-14 school year, the district faced a projected budget shortfall of $57 million.<sup><sup>[287]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Perhaps the biggest drain on Newark’s quality of life, however, is the city’s high rate of violent crime—including a murder rate that is roughly 7.2 times the national average and a robbery rate of 6.2 times the national average.<sup><sup>[288]</sup></sup> Newark’s criminal element has long understood that it can break the law with virtual impunity. As of 2007, the county prosecutor’s office responsible for Newark had the worst conviction rate of any county in New Jersey—in part because, as the <em>City Journal</em> notes, it has been “a haven for political appointees who aren’t necessarily qualified investigators or prosecutors.”<sup><sup>[289]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In September 2011, the combination of high taxes and intolerable crime rates led a large group of angry residents, predominantly black, of Newark’s East Ward, to stage a protest demonstration at city hall.<sup><sup>[290]</sup></sup> Many others, meanwhile, have protested with their feet. Newark’s population, which stood at 429,760 in 1940, is just 77,000 today.<sup><sup>[291]</sup></sup></p>
<p><em><strong>St. Louis:</strong></em></p>
<p>During World War II, St. Louis, Missouri was a bustling place replete with factories that produced such necessities as ammunition, uniforms and footwear, K-rations, chemicals and medicines, and even aircraft. Soon after the war, in 1949, an era of Democratic rule began that continues in the city to this day. Indeed, it has been 65 years since a Republican was elected mayor of St. Louis. This entrenched Democratic dominance is reflected in the fact that in each of the past three U.S. presidential elections, voters in St. Louis cast between 80 and 84 percent of their ballots for the Democrat candidate.<sup><sup>[292]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Between 1940 and 1970, St. Louis was one of the major destinations for the millions of blacks who migrated away from the rural South to take advantage of newly available job opportunities in Northern cities. During this 30-year period, St. Louis’s black population nearly tripled, from approximately 108,000 to more than 317,000.<sup><sup>[293]</sup></sup> By 1970, it was a majority-black city—a fact that, in light of theoverwhelming degree to which African Americans identify as Democrats, would have immense political implications for the city and its future.</p>
<p>The start of St. Louis’s Democratic era, which began with the mayoralty of Joseph Darst, coincided with President Harry Truman’s signing of the American Housing Act of 1949. This legislation greatly expanded the role of federal funds in the construction of public housing, and kick-started the “urban redevelopment” (also known as “urban renewal”) programs that would reshape a host of American cities. Darst, like so many Democrats, was a strong proponent of such federal intervention in local affairs.<sup><sup>[294]</sup></sup> By the end of his four-year term as mayor, approximately 700 public housing units had been completed citywide, with an additional 17,000 under construction and 4,000 in the planning stages.</p>
<p>Darst’s successor was Raymond Tucker, a longtime professor of mechanical engineering at Washington University, who went on to serve three terms as St. Louis mayor from 1953-65. The early part of his tenure coincided with the passage of the Housing Act of 1954, which, under the authority of the Federal Housing Administration, was initially drafted to create 140,000 public housing units in cities across the U.S., including St. Louis. Like Darst before him, Tucker was a staunch believer in the transformative powers of urban renewal—a strategy that, in the words of University of Illinois political science professor Dennis Judd, “was now the big game in town.”<sup><sup>[295]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Amid this wave of optimism, St. Louis issued bonds in 1953 to finance the completion of the St. Louis Gateway Mall and a number of high-rise housing projects. The most famous of these was the federally funded Pruitt-Igoe housing project which consisted of 33 eleven-story buildings with nearly 3,000 units in total. But showering the local population with federal cash—a longstanding Democrat tradition—was not the recipe for lasting success its proponents hoped. Indeed, just a few years after Pruitt-Igoe first opened its doors in 1956, it fell into disrepair and became a hotbed of crime and vandalism. As Alexander von Hoffman of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies writes: “Large numbers of vacancies indicated that even poor people preferred to live anywhere but Pruitt-Igoe. In 1972, after spending more than $5 million in vain to cure the problems at Pruitt-Igoe, the St. Louis Housing Authority, in a highly publicized event, demolished three of the high-rise buildings. A year later, in concert with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, it declared Pruitt-Igoe unsalvageable and razed the remaining buildings.”<sup><sup>[296]</sup></sup></p>
<p>The Pruitt-Igoe experience was typical of urban renewal endeavors across the United States. By the time the urban renewal era ended in 1973, it was widely regarded as a colossal failure.<sup><sup>[297]</sup></sup></p>
<p>During 1950-70, a period which coincided with the era of urban renewal, close to 60% of St. Louis’s white residents relocated to other towns and cities.<sup><sup>[298]</sup></sup> According to University of Iowa history professor Colin Gordon, who authored the 2008 book <em>Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City</em>, St. Louis during this period became “the poster child of white flight.”<sup><sup>[299]</sup></sup></p>
<p>But this was not simply a case of racial phobia. Gordon also notes that whites were not alone in their eagerness to escape St. Louis’s crime-infested streets. “White flight in St. Louis was followed closely by black flight,” he explains, “leaving large tracts of the North Side virtually vacant and much of the ‘urban crisis’ now located in North County’s inner suburbs.”<sup><sup>[300]</sup></sup> Between 1970 and 1980, as St. Louis’s overall population fell from about 622,000 to just 453,000, the city’s black population likewise declined from 317,000 to about 206,000.<sup><sup>[301]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 1993, St. Louis elected its first black mayor, Democrat Freeman Bosley Jr., whose four years in office were marked by a failure to deal with an exploding crime problem. From the beginning of his tenure in office, Bosley tried quixotically to arrange friendly meetings between himself and local gang members, urging them to stay in school and assuring them that he was “committed to finding you jobs.” He convinced a number of corporate sponsors to offer 500 paying jobs to city students in the summer of 2004; he established eight community schools with recreation centers open until 10 p.m. each night, in an effort to help keep young people out of trouble; and city corporations bankrolled a Midnight Basketball League for similar purposes.<sup><sup>[302]</sup></sup> Notwithstanding all these efforts, Bosley’s first year in office was the bloodiest in city history, with 267 homicides.<sup><sup>[303]</sup></sup></p>
<p>By the end of the Nineties, social and economic decay were evident throughout much of St. Louis, as evidenced by the following excerpt from the 1999 St. Louis City Plan:</p>
<p>“[A] visual survey of the neighborhood reveals a tree-lined block of stable, well-kept, two- and four-family homes followed by a block of overgrown board-ups on a one-to-one ratio with intact housing&#8230;. Two blocks later, a once commercial area of St. Louis Avenue is now totally empty with vacated lots and derelict buildings. This trend is not specific to St. Louis Avenue; the same can be said of Taylor, Greer, Labadie, and most other neighborhood streets. For businesses, the situation appears even worse. Signs of life are few and far between the corner store board-ups and chain-link-fence-covered storefronts.”<sup><sup>[304]</sup></sup></p>
<p>By the year 2000, the total population of St. Louis—which had peaked at about 857,000 in 1950—had fallen to 348,000.<sup><sup>[305]</sup></sup> Remarkably, this figure was smaller than that which had been recorded in the city’s census 120 years earlier.<sup><sup>[306]</sup></sup> According to New Geography.com: “Among the world’s municipalities that have ever achieved 500,000 population, none have lost so much as the city of St. Louis.”<sup><sup>[307]</sup></sup></p>
<p>After decades of Democratic leadership, St. Louis today is a city facing severe economic challenges. It has a per capita income of just $22,551 (about 20% below the national average), a median household income of $34,384 (some 35% below the national median), and a poverty rate of 27% (nearly twice the national average).<sup><sup>[308]</sup></sup></p>
<p>According to <em>CQ Press, </em>which annually publishes crime rankings that compare cities across the United States in terms of their respective incidences of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft, St. Louis was “America’s Most Dangerous City” in 2006 and 2010, while in other recent years it has ranked consistently near the top of that same list.<sup><sup>[309]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Closely analyzing St. Louis’s crime statistics can be a dispiriting experience. The city’s incidence (per 100,000 residents) of violent crime is more than 4.5 times higher than the national average—including 7.5 times the national average for murder, 5.8 times the national average for robberies, 2.2 times the national average for rapes, and 4.6 times the national average for assaults.<sup><sup>[310]</sup></sup> The vast majority of St. Louis residents victimized by these crimes in any given year are African Americans. Indeed, blacks were victims in 502 of the 567 homicides that occurred in the city between 2008 and 2011. Virtually all of the killers, as well, were black.<sup><sup>[311]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 2008, Charles Quincy Troupe, alderman of one crime-infested ward in North St. Louis, openly advised his constituents to arm themselves because criminality in the area had become so rampant that the police force would be unable to keep it in check. “The community has to be ready to defend itself,” Troupe said, “because it’s clear the economy is going to get worse, and criminals are getting more bold.”<sup><sup>[312]</sup></sup> In a November 2013 story about life in St. Louis, the <em>New York Times</em> interviewed one longtime black resident who, fearful of the ubiquitous violence that surrounded him, avoided going outdoors after dark and regularly slept with a shotgun by his bed. “There’s a sense of hopelessness on behalf of a lot of people,” the man lamented. Another St. Louis resident told the <em>Times</em>: “It’s scary, man. Whoever tells you they ain’t scared of this life, they [sic] lying to you.”<sup><sup>[313]</sup></sup></p>
<p>St. Louis’s decay is evident also in its woeful public education system. Though the city’s Public School District annually spends over $15,000 per K-12 pupil—at least 40% more than the national average—the children (and the taxpayers) of St. Louis get very little in return.<sup><sup>[314]</sup></sup> The high-school graduation rates of St. Louis students range between about 46% and 60% in any given year—a far cry from Missouri’s overall figure of approximately 85%.<sup><sup>[315]</sup></sup></p>
<p>According to Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which publishes an Annual Performance Report evaluating every school district in the state, the St. Louis Public Schools in 2013 scored a meager 24.6% on a scale of zero to 100%.<sup><sup>[316]</sup></sup> Further, students in the vast majority of the city’s public schools performed poorly on Missouri Assessment Program tests designed to measure proficiency in English, math and science. For example:</p>
<p>In 87% of St. Louis public schools, fewer than half of all students registered scores high enough to qualify them as “proficient” in English. In 37% of the schools, <em>fewer than one-fifth</em> of students were proficient in English.<sup><sup>[317]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 92% of St. Louis public schools, fewer than half of all students registered scores high enough to qualify them as “proficient” in math. In 39% of the schools, <em>fewer than one-fifth</em> of students were proficient in math.<sup><sup>[318]</sup></sup></p>
<p>In 85% of St. Louis public schools, fewer than half of all students registered scores high enough to qualify them as “proficient” in science. In an astonishing 62% of the schools, <em>fewer than one-fifth</em> of students were proficient in science. In fact, in 31 separate schools the proficiency rate was below 10%, and in 7 schools the figure was a flat 0%.<sup><sup>[319]</sup></sup></p>
<p><em><strong>Atlanta:</strong></em></p>
<p>The city of Atlanta, Georgia has not been governed by a Republican mayor since 1879, the era of Reconstruction. Since the 1960s and early ’70s, Atlanta’s mayors have not only been Democrats, but “progressives” as well.</p>
<p>Because it is home to the prestigious historically black colleges Morehouse and Spelman, Atlanta has often been seen as the intellectual capital of black America, and the black Democrat mayors it has elected over the past four decades have automatically become important national figures.</p>
<p>Maynard Jackson was the first; he was elected in 1974 and went on to hold the mayor’s office for three (non-consecutive) four-year terms: 1974-78, 1978–82, and 1990–94. He is often credited with improving race relations in Atlanta as the city moved away from its segregated past and into its role as capital of the New South that emerged after the civil rights era. Yet he was also a divisive figure who ran Atlanta in the dictatorial manner of the big-city bosses of the American past. In May 1974, soon after first taking office, Jackson stoked racial tensions in Atlanta when he attempted, over the strong objections of the city’s white police officers, to fire the incumbent (white) police chief, John Inman. A Fulton County court judge upheld Inman’s right to retain his job, but a few months later the Georgia Supreme Court upheld a new city charter authorizing Mayor Jackson and Atlanta’s City Council to reorganize their city’s police department in any way they wished. This enabled Jackson to undermine Inman’s authority and turn him into a figurehead subservient to the newly created “public safety commissioner” authorized to oversee the police, fire, and civil defense departments.<sup><sup>[320]</sup></sup></p>
<p>To fill the role of public safety commissioner, Jackson appointed his former college classmate, black activist Reginald Eaves, who had no safety experience. Eaves’ attitude toward his new role was symbolized by his defiant use of public money to purchase extra options on his fully loaded city vehicle. When criticized, he said defiantly: “If I can’t ride in a little bit of comfort, to hell with it.”<sup><sup>[321]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Eaves sparked further controversy when he appointed an ex-convict as his personal secretary and instituted a quota system that gave preference to African Americans for hirings and promotions within the police department. Eventually, in 1978, Mayor Jackson was forced to fire Eaves for his role in a scandal in which certain police officers were allowed to cheat on promotions exams. (Eaves’ unethical conduct continued later on when he became a member of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and took bribes from local businessmen in exchange for ensuring that their projects were approved.)<sup><sup>[322]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Between 1978 and 1979 alone, Atlanta experienced a 69% increase in homicides and now had the highest murder rate—and overall crime rate—of any city in the United States. But while crime was exploding, Jackson reduced the police force by 25% between 1975 and 1979.<sup><sup>[323]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Jackson effectively presented himself as an advocate for poor blacks throughout his political career, in large part by pressing for affirmative action and set asides for blacks in public works projects and municipal contracts.<sup><sup>[324]</sup></sup> But in January 1994, as his third and final term as mayor was winding down, a federal court jury cast a shadow over his repeated use of these strategies. In one of the most politically explosive trials in Atlanta history—centered on an affirmative action program by which Jackson’s administration had tried to increase the presence of black-owned shops and businesses at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport—the jury convicted a former airport commissioner and councilman on 83 counts of mail fraud, 4 counts of tax evasion, and 43 counts of accepting bribes from an airport concessionaire in return for favorable treatment, such as reduced rent at the airport.<sup><sup>[325]</sup></sup></p>
<p>These proceedings did considerable damage to Jackson’s legacy, leaving the impression that the mayor’s affirmative action program had been, as the <em>New York Times</em> described it, little more than “a scheme to benefit white businessmen, politically connected blacks, and black political leaders.”<sup><sup>[326]</sup></sup> Bob Holmes, a Democratic State Representative from Atlanta and director of Atlanta University’s Southern Center for Studies in Public Policy, put it this way in a 1994 interview: “People are going to ask if other minority participation arrangements were really fronts and whether Atlanta’s business is conducted on the basis of political payoff rather than competency and efficiency. It casts the image of impropriety and suggests a 20-year relationship where folks were rewarded merely for supporting Maynard.”<sup><sup>[327]</sup></sup>Holmes’s words proved prophetic. In 2002, when an investigation by the <em>Atlanta Journal Constitution</em> found that friends of Jackson and his successor as Atlanta mayor, Bill Campbell (1994-2002), had for years received “the vast majority” of contracts awarded by the Atlanta airport which were supposed to go to the black community generally. In at least 80 of the 100 contracts reviewed during the probe, one or more of the business partners involved had cultivated a relationship with either Jackson, Campbell, or both. Further, most of those partners had contributed money to the Jackson and/or Campbell mayoral campaigns.<sup><sup>[328]</sup></sup></p>
<p>As for Campbell, this was by no means his only brush with political scandal. Indeed, a seven-year federal corruption probe resulted in the 2006 convictions of 10 city officials tied to his administration. Also in 2006, prosecutors charged Campbell with personally accepting more than $160,000 worth of illegal campaign contributions, cash payments, junkets, and home improvements from city contractors during his years as mayor. Ultimately, he was convicted only of three counts of federal tax evasion.<sup><sup>[329]</sup></sup></p>
<p>For many years Atlanta’s political leaders—in exchange for the slavish political support of unionized public-sector workers—promised an unending array of unsustainable pension benefits to those employees. Consequently, by 2011 Atlanta’s city government owed no less than $1.5 billion in unfunded liabilities on the pensions of its public-sector workers—an ominous figure that forced the Atlanta City Council to restructure the city’s pension system so that all police officers, firefighters and city employees must now contribute an additional 5% of their wages to the pension system to keep it solvent.<sup><sup>[330]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Political mismanagement and incompetence have had serious consequences for Atlanta’s residents, more than 26% of whom currently live in poverty.<sup><sup>[331]</sup></sup> As with other urban centers led by Democrats, blacks are hit hardest. Among the nation’s 40 largest urban areas, Atlanta has the fifth-highest black poverty rate.<sup><sup>[332]</sup></sup> And according to a study released by the Brookings Institution in February 2014, Atlanta has a greater disparity between rich and poor than any other urban area in America.<sup><sup>[333]</sup></sup></p>
<p>As in so many Democrat-run U.S. cities, Atlanta’s public-school system has grown, over time, into a bureaucratic monstrosity of waste and ineptitude. Every year the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) system gobbles up some 15,000 taxpayer dollars—nearly 50% more than the national average—for the education-related expenses of each K-12 pupil in its jurisdiction.<sup><sup>[334]</sup></sup> Despite this investment, proficiency rates for APS eighth-graders in 2013 were a meager 22% in reading and 17% in math.<sup><sup>[335]</sup></sup>For about a decade, a cabal of Atlanta educators and school administrators carefully orchestrated a secret campaign to conceal this woeful educational track record—and to enrich themselves in the process. The roots of that campaign go back to 1999, when black educator Beverly L. Hall, who had just finished serving four years as superintendent of the Newark Public Schools, was hired as APS superintendent and hailed as a highly innovative reformer—even as she remained the target of a New Jersey State Senate probe examining a $58 million deficit that had accrued under her watch in Newark.<sup><sup>[336]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Under the leadership of Hall who aligns herself with Democratic Party causes<sup><sup>[337]</sup></sup> and donated money to the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, the standardized test scores of Atlanta students began to rise—inexplicably to some observers of the troubled school system. In 2008, according to standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind law, every elementary school in Atlanta demonstrated “adequate yearly progress” as measured by student scores.<sup><sup>[338]</sup></sup> More noticeably, in many cases, Atlanta pupils from poor and minority backgrounds were outperforming their white peers from wealthier suburban districts on the exams.<sup><sup>[339]</sup></sup> In recognition of this rather startling trend, the American Association of School Administrators in 2009 gave Hall its coveted National Superintendent of the Year award, crediting her “leadership” with having “turned Atlanta into a model of urban school reform.”<sup><sup>[340]</sup></sup> That same year, President Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan invited Hall to be recognized at the White House.<sup><sup>[341]</sup></sup></p>
<p>But then, soon after, the <em>Atl</em><em>anta Journal-Constitution</em> examined closely the large gains that APS students had been making in their Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) scores, and published a series of articles reporting that some of those scores were statistically improbable.<sup><sup>[342]</sup></sup> A subsequent probe by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation—the results of which were made public in July 2011—found that a significant number of teachers and principals at 58 Atlanta schools had secretly corrected and/or fabricated many of the answers on the CRCT tests, so as to give the false impression of improving student performance.<sup><sup>[343]</sup></sup> All told, the investigation implicated 38 principals and 140 teachers, making it the most extensive cheating scandal in the history of American education.<sup><sup>[344]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Prior to these revelations, many of the educators involved in the scandal had been handsomely rewarded for their malfeasance. Indeed, Atlanta’s <em>Channel 2 Action News</em> reported that teachers at 13 schools in particular had received a combined $500,000 in merit-pay bonuses in 2009 alone.<sup><sup>[345]</sup></sup> And Beverly Hall, for her part, had raked in approximately $580,000 in “performance” bonuses.<sup><sup>[346]</sup></sup> This self-enrichment took place at the same time that the APS was racking up a budget deficit that, by 2014, amounted to no less than $45 million.<sup><sup>[347]</sup></sup> Following Georgia’s investigation into the APS cheating scandal, Superintendent Hall was allowed to resign without penalty in 2010 but was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury in 2013.<sup><sup>[348]</sup></sup></p>
<p>Administrators such as Hall have come and gone in Atlanta, but the children remain behind to pay the price for their malfeasance. According to Binghamton University Professor Lawrence C. Stedman, APS students lag one to two years behind national averages on the NAEP. “At current rates,” Stedman writes, “it will take from 50 to 110 years to bring all students to proficiency.”<sup><sup>[349]</sup></sup></p>
<p>No profile of Atlanta would be complete without mentioning the crime rates that plagued the city at least since the mayorship of Maynard Jackson. Today, the city’s rates of murder, robbery, and auto theft exceed the corresponding national averages by 300%, 360%, and 410%, respectively.<sup><sup>[350]</sup></sup> In 2012, Atlanta ranked, as the ninth most dangerous U.S. city with a population of 200,000 or more.<sup><sup>[351]</sup></sup> The incidence of murders in Atlanta is about the same as in South Africa, a nation infamous for its exceedingly high homicide rate.<sup><sup>[352]</sup></sup></p>
<p><strong>Notes:</strong></p>
<p><sup><sup>[1]</sup></sup>http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/05/31/president-obamas-wealth-destroying-goal-taking-the-curley-effect-nationwide/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[2]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704881304576094221050061598</p>
<p><sup><sup>[3]</sup></sup>http://books.google.com/books?id=5ceGeWusD7gC&amp;pg=PA217&amp;source=gbs_toc_r&amp;cad=3#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[4]</sup></sup>http://books.google.com/books?id=5ceGeWusD7gC&amp;pg=PA217&amp;source=gbs_toc_r&amp;cad=3#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[5]</sup></sup>http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/politics-reform/essays/motor-city-story-detroit</p>
<p><sup><sup>[6]</sup></sup>http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/politics-reform/essays/motor-city-story-detroit</p>
<p><sup><sup>[7]</sup></sup>http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353862/detroit-goes-down-kevin-d-williamson</p>
<p><sup><sup>[8]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/ktf3564</p>
<p><sup><sup>[9]</sup></sup>http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/27/1227025/-Detroit-s-Long-Road-to-Bankruptcy-Began-Because-of-Resentment-Towards-it-s-First-Black-Mayor#</p>
<p><sup><sup>[10]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/mxguzry</p>
<p><sup><sup>[11]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/ktf3564</p>
<p><sup><sup>[12]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/km2993h</p>
<p><sup><sup>[13]</sup></sup>http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/07/22/how-democrats-and-unions-destroyed-detroit</p>
<p><sup><sup>[14]</sup></sup>http://dailyreckoning.com/detroits-socialist-nightmare-is-americas-future/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[15]</sup></sup>http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/Miriani-Crackdown.html; http://books.google.com/books?id=c_LpEOQMEq4C&amp;pg=PA111&amp;lpg=PA111&amp;dq=#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[16]</sup></sup>http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/Miriani-Crackdown.html; http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/; http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?12355-This-week-in-Detroit-City-History-1968-Federal-quot-Model-Cities-quot-program</p>
<p><sup><sup>[17]</sup></sup>http://detroitplanninghistory.weebly.com/jerome-cavanagh-elected-mayor.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[18]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/how-the-democrats-destroyed-detroit/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[19]</sup></sup>http://dailyreckoning.com/detroits-socialist-nightmare-is-americas-future/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[20]</sup></sup>http://books.google.com/books?id=c_LpEOQMEq4C&amp;pg=PA111&amp;lpg=PA111&amp;dq=#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[21]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/how-the-democrats-destroyed-detroit/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[22]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[23]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324110404578625581152645480</p>
<p><sup><sup>[24]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/07/19/what-killed-detroit-lets-not-forget-the-who/;</p>
<p><sup><sup>[25]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/k8e8vfz</p>
<p><sup><sup>[26]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/k8e8vfz</p>
<p><sup><sup>[27]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324110404578625581152645480</p>
<p><sup><sup>[28]</sup></sup>http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&amp;dat=19930626&amp;id=lVdPAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=VAMEAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=6310,6814490</p>
<p><sup><sup>[29]</sup></sup>http://www.examiner.com/article/detroit-s-collapse-the-young-years</p>
<p><sup><sup>[30]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/07/19/what-killed-detroit-lets-not-forget-the-who/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[31]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/07/19/what-killed-detroit-lets-not-forget-the-who/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[32]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324110404578625581152645480</p>
<p><sup><sup>[33]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324110404578625581152645480</p>
<p><sup><sup>[34]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/k8e8vfz</p>
<p><sup><sup>[35]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324110404578625581152645480</p>
<p><sup><sup>[36]</sup></sup>http://www.cnn.com/US/9711/29/young.obit.pm/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[37]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/08/us/former-detroit-police-chief-convicted-of-embezzlement.html; http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1992/Prosecutor-Ex-Chief-s-$2-6-Million-Theft-Shows-How-Power-Corrupts/id-5ca60a54bd33a361740eb2a6c1f037c2</p>
<p><sup><sup>[38]</sup></sup>http://www.nationalbcc.org/news/beyond-the-rhetoric/1694-detroit-free-falls-as-its-leaders-are-in-denial</p>
<p><sup><sup>[39]</sup></sup>http://articles.latimes.com/1990-04-20/news/mn-1412_1_south-african-gold-coins; http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-02-13/news/9101130805_1_coleman-young-appointees-teresa-blossom</p>
<p><sup><sup>[40]</sup></sup>http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1992/Prosecutor-Ex-Chief-s-$2-6-Million-Theft-Shows-How-Power-Corrupts/id-5ca60a54bd33a361740eb2a6c1f037c2</p>
<p><sup><sup>[41]</sup></sup>http://www.nationalbcc.org/news/beyond-the-rhetoric/1694-detroit-free-falls-as-its-leaders-are-in-denial</p>
<p><sup><sup>[42]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/16/us/ex-official-guilty-in-detroit-fraud.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[43]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/; http://www.freep.com/article/20130311/NEWS0102/130311042/Elected-leaders-their-legal-issues</p>
<p><sup><sup>[44]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[45]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/;</p>
<p><sup><sup>[46]</sup></sup>http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/25/judge-sentences-detroit-mayor-kwame-kilpatrick-years-prison/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[47]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/us/kwame-kilpatrick-ex-mayor-of-detroit-convicted-in-corruption-case.html?_r=0&amp;gwh=C9121B44C5BA0D101AFE9BA29981FFB8&amp;gwt=pay</p>
<p><sup><sup>[48]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/; http://www.freep.com/article/20121008/NEWS01/121008028</p>
<p><sup><sup>[49]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/;</p>
<p><sup><sup>[50]</sup></sup>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[51]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[52]</sup></sup>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html; http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[53]</sup></sup>http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/12/02/19-facts-about-detroit-bankruptcy/3823355/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[54]</sup></sup>http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2011/03/22/obama_adminstration_is_following_the_detroit_pattern/page/full</p>
<p><sup><sup>[55]</sup></sup>http://www.freep.com/interactive/article/20130915/NEWS01/130801004/Detroit-Bankruptcy-history-1950-debt-pension-revenue</p>
<p><sup><sup>[56]</sup></sup>http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/chrisedwards/2013/07/29/detroits-high-property-taxes-n1651149</p>
<p><sup><sup>[57]</sup></sup>http://www.freep.com/interactive/article/20130915/NEWS01/130801004/Detroit-Bankruptcy-history-1950-debt-pension-revenue</p>
<p><sup><sup>[58]</sup></sup>http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/12/02/19-facts-about-detroit-bankruptcy/3823355/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[59]</sup></sup>http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/02/21/detroit-tops-2013-list-of-americas-most-miserable-cities/; http://www.newgeography.com/content/003897-root-causes-detroit-s-decline-should-not-go-ignored</p>
<p><sup><sup>[60]</sup></sup>http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130221/METRO01/302210375; http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/how-the-democrats-destroyed-detroit/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[61]</sup></sup>http://www.newgeography.com/content/003897-root-causes-detroit-s-decline-should-not-go-ignored</p>
<p><sup><sup>[62]</sup></sup>http://www.jrap-journal.org/pastvolumes/2010/v43/v43_n1_a2_stansel.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[63]</sup></sup>http://ij.org/detroit</p>
<p><sup><sup>[64]</sup></sup>http://ij.org/detroit</p>
<p><sup><sup>[65]</sup></sup>http://ippsr.msu.edu/policy/13MayPolicyBrief.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[66]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/how-the-democrats-destroyed-detroit/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[67]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/19/detroits-pension-problems-in-one-chart/; http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/12/02/19-facts-about-detroit-bankruptcy/3823355/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[68]</sup></sup>http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/22/detroit-and-the-bankruptcy-of-liberalism/; http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/12/02/19-facts-about-detroit-bankruptcy/3823355/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[69]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/us/michigan-appoints-emergency-manager-for-detroit.html?hp&amp;_r=0&amp;gwh=62AECD70ABA2A0FBD24C1D41934CDC29&amp;gwt=pay</p>
<p><sup><sup>[70]</sup></sup>http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/13/report-by-emergency-manager-says-detroit-finances-are-crumbling-and-future-is/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[71]</sup></sup>http://www.bbc.com/news/business-22514588</p>
<p><sup><sup>[72]</sup></sup>http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/13/report-by-emergency-manager-says-detroit-finances-are-crumbling-and-future-is/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[73]</sup></sup>http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/13/detroit-emergency-financial-manager-report/2155081/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[74]</sup></sup>http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/18/detroit-prepares-bankruptcy-filing-friday/2552819/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[75]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/detroit-public-schools-bankrupting-minority-students-futures/; http://detroit2020.com/2011/06/21/comparing-school-district-spending/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[76]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB124813472753066949?mg=reno64-wsj&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB124813472753066949.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[77]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/; http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/detroit-public-schools-bankrupting-minority-students-futures/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[78]</sup></sup>http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2009/08/more-corruption-detroit/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[79]</sup></sup>http://www.fbi.gov/detroit/press-releases/2012/former-detroit-public-schools-accountant-teacher-indicted-on-fraud-and-money-laundering-charges</p>
<p><sup><sup>[80]</sup></sup>http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2010/05/nations_report_card_detroit_st.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[81]</sup></sup>http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2009/12/detroit_students_notch_lowest.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[82]</sup></sup>https://www.mischooldata.org/DistrictSchoolProfiles/AssessmentResults/Meap/MeapPerformanceSummary.aspx</p>
<p><sup><sup>[83]</sup></sup>http://books.google.com/books?id=5ceGeWusD7gC&amp;pg=PA217&amp;source=gbs_toc_r&amp;cad=3#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[84]</sup></sup>http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121011/METRO01/210110335/1409/metro/Detroit-parents-embrace-school-choice-poll-says</p>
<p><sup><sup>[85]</sup></sup>http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/12/02/19-facts-about-detroit-bankruptcy/3823355/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[86]</sup></sup>http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/10/22/detroit-again-tops-list-of-most-dangerous-cities-but-crime-rate-dips/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[87]</sup></sup>http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/02/21/detroit-tops-2013-list-of-americas-most-miserable-cities/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[88]</sup></sup>http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/12/02/19-facts-about-detroit-bankruptcy/3823355/; http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/10/22/detroit-again-tops-list-of-most-dangerous-cities-but-crime-rate-dips/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[89]</sup></sup>http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Detroit-Michigan.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[90]</sup></sup>http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/12/02/19-facts-about-detroit-bankruptcy/3823355/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[91]</sup></sup>http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/02/21/detroit-tops-2013-list-of-americas-most-miserable-cities/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[92]</sup></sup>http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/12/02/19-facts-about-detroit-bankruptcy/3823355/; http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/toxic-government-by-democrats-detroit-2/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[93]</sup></sup>http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121009/METRO01/210090369</p>
<p><sup><sup>[94]</sup></sup>http://www.nathanielturner.com/robertmooreand1199union3.htm</p>
<p><sup><sup>[95]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576510794280560566; http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/blame-taxes-baltimores-rot</p>
<p><sup><sup>[96]</sup></sup>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/24/24510.html;</p>
<p><sup><sup>[97]</sup></sup>http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/001400/001489/html/msa01489.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[98]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[99]</sup></sup>http://citypaper.com/news/saint-or-sinner-1.1144574</p>
<p><sup><sup>[100]</sup></sup>http://citypaper.com/news/saint-or-sinner-1.1144574</p>
<p><sup><sup>[101]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[102]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[103]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[104]</sup></sup>http://www2.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=3501; http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/2416/index.php</p>
<p><sup><sup>[105]</sup></sup>http://www.ubalt.edu/jfi/jfi/reports/EBMCJobCreation0905.pdf; http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-2240408.html; http://carnegie.org/about-us/board-of-directors/kurt-l-schmoke/; http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2002-11-05/news/0211050405_1_empowerment-basu-census;</p>
<p><sup><sup>[106]</sup></sup>http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2002-11-05/news/0211050405_1_empowerment-basu-census</p>
<p><sup><sup>[107]</sup></sup>http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/2416/index.php; http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2002-11-05/news/0211050405_1_empowerment-basu-census</p>
<p><sup><sup>[108]</sup></sup> http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[109]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html; http://www2.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=3501</p>
<p><sup><sup>[110]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB20001424053111903480904576510794280560566; http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[111]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[112]</sup></sup>http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1633; http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1629</p>
<p><sup><sup>[113]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[114]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[115]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_can_mayor_omalley.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[116]</sup></sup>http://www2.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=12855</p>
<p><sup><sup>[117]</sup></sup>http://www2.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=12855</p>
<p><sup><sup>[118]</sup></sup>http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/blame-taxes-baltimores-rot</p>
<p><sup><sup>[119]</sup></sup>http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-02-04/news/bal-dixon-sentenced0204_1_ronald-h-lipscomb-plea-deal-perjury</p>
<p><sup><sup>[120]</sup></sup>http://www.city-data.com/city/Baltimore-Maryland.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[121]</sup></sup>http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/blame-taxes-baltimores-rot</p>
<p><sup><sup>[122]</sup></sup> http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Baltimore-Maryland.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[123]</sup></sup>http://www.bpichicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Beshon+Smith+presentation.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[124]</sup></sup>https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/governments/cb13-92.html; http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66</p>
<p><sup><sup>[125]</sup></sup>http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-12-18/news/bs-md-ci-tuda-results-20131218_1_common-core-trial-urban-district-assessment-average-reading-scores</p>
<p><sup><sup>[126]</sup></sup>http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/cms/lib/MD01001351/Centricity/Domain/8861/PDF/2014-LegislativePlatform.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[127]</sup></sup>http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/06/the-failure-of-american-schools/308497/?single_page=true</p>
<p><sup><sup>[128]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576510794280560566</p>
<p><sup><sup>[129]</sup></sup>https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2011/08/27/are-high-property-taxes-“killing”-baltimore/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[130]</sup></sup>http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bal-city-police-and-fire-unfunded-pension-liabilities-grow-by-60m-20131216,0,430951.story</p>
<p><sup><sup>[131]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576510794280560566; http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2013/05/second-life-some-baltimores-vacant-lots/5764/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[132]</sup></sup>http://washington.org/DC-information/washington-dc-history</p>
<p><sup><sup>[133]</sup></sup>http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/capital.htm; http://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/fast_facts/1820_fast_facts.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[134]</sup></sup>http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab07.txt; http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab09.txt</p>
<p><sup><sup>[135]</sup></sup>http://washington.org/DC-information/washington-dc-history</p>
<p><sup><sup>[136]</sup></sup>http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab13.txt</p>
<p><sup><sup>[137]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_1_washington-dc.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[138]</sup></sup>http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/10005/43-years-ago-today-dc-stopped-burning/; http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/responsible-living/stories/washington-dc-is-booming-but-racial-divide-causes-unease</p>
<p><sup><sup>[139]</sup></sup>http://www.answers.com/topic/walter-washington</p>
<p><sup><sup>[140]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/barry/timeline.htm</p>
<p><sup><sup>[141]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_1_washington-dc.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[142]</sup></sup>http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-04-29/news/1991119021_1_crime-increased-violent-crime-capita</p>
<p><sup><sup>[143]</sup></sup>http://articles.latimes.com/1990-01-07/news/mn-442_1_marion-barry/6</p>
<p><sup><sup>[144]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/12/us/two-worlds-of-washington-turmoil-and-growth.html?pagewanted=print; http://articles.latimes.com/1990-01-07/news/mn-442_1_marion-barry/6</p>
<p><sup><sup>[145]</sup></sup>http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=36213</p>
<p><sup><sup>[146]</sup></sup>http://articles.latimes.com/1990-01-07/news/mn-442_1_marion-barry/6</p>
<p><sup><sup>[147]</sup></sup>http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9007301339/marion-barrys-untold-legacy</p>
<p><sup><sup>[148]</sup></sup>http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+worst+city+government.-a07371279; http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97may/kennedy2.htm</p>
<p><sup><sup>[149]</sup></sup>http://articles.latimes.com/1990-01-07/news/mn-442_1_marion-barry/2</p>
<p><sup><sup>[150]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/barry/87prof.htm; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/barry/timeline.htm; http://keywiki.org/index.php/Ivanhoe_Donaldson</p>
<p><sup><sup>[151]</sup></sup>m http://books.google.com/books?id=EUVXKwkHuaQC&amp;pg=PA12&amp;lpg=PA12&amp;dq=mayor+#v=onepage&amp;q=mayor%20&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[152]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/barry/timeline.htm</p>
<p><sup><sup>[153]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/barry/timeline.htm; http://www.wtop.com/41/2894587/A-timeline-of-DCs-troubled-political-past-; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/barry/video.htm</p>
<p><sup><sup>[154]</sup></sup>http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&amp;dat=19900215&amp;id=CTsdAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=IKYEAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=2734,3894746</p>
<p><sup><sup>[155]</sup></sup> http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1994-05-20/news/1994140041_1_marion-barry-witness-barry-knew</p>
<p><sup><sup>[156]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/barry/timeline.htm; http://www.wtop.com/41/2894587/A-timeline-of-DCs-troubled-political-past-</p>
<p><sup><sup>[157]</sup></sup>http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113906/al-sharpton-after-trayvon-martin-end-racial-demagoguery</p>
<p><sup><sup>[158]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/arts/television/10barry.html?_r=0</p>
<p><sup><sup>[159]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/l6x5ph8</p>
<p><sup><sup>[160]</sup></sup>http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/dcs-delinquents-top-corrupt-politicians-washington/story?id=16520422</p>
<p><sup><sup>[161]</sup></sup>http://www.wtop.com/41/2894587/A-timeline-of-DCs-troubled-political-past-; http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/45047/swagger-jack/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[162]</sup></sup>http://www.wtop.com/41/2894587/A-timeline-of-DCs-troubled-political-past-; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/us/01embezzle.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[163]</sup></sup>http://www.wtop.com/41/2894587/A-timeline-of-DCs-troubled-political-past-</p>
<p><sup><sup>[164]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021904613.html; http://www.wtop.com/41/2894587/A-timeline-of-DCs-troubled-political-past-;</p>
<p><sup><sup>[165]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/pyvmsrc</p>
<p><sup><sup>[166]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/pvsenj6</p>
<p><sup><sup>[167]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/ms8xaa4</p>
<p><sup><sup>[168]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/former-dc-council-member-michael-brown-expected-to-plead-guilty-to-bribe-charge-monday/2013/06/10/7bf75812-d1d5-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_story.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[169]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/jeffrey-thompson-alleged-shadow-campaign-funder-is-charged-in-federal-court/2014/03/10/7bf6ca14-99a8-11e3-80ac-63a8ba7f7942_story.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[170]</sup></sup>http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-most-dangerous-cities-in-america-2012-10?op=1</p>
<p><sup><sup>[171]</sup></sup>http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/dc/washington/crime/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[172]</sup></sup>http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Washington-District-of-Columbia.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[173]</sup></sup>http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/8tabledatadecpdf/table-8-state-cuts/table_8_offenses_known_to_law_enforcement_by_district_of_columbia_by_city_2012.xls</p>
<p><sup><sup>[174]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014467XW4.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[175]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014468XW4.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[176]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014467XW8.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[177]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014468XW8.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[178]</sup></sup>http://blog.heritage.org/2012/07/25/d-c-public-schools-spend-almost-30000-per-student/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[179]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/education/24teachers.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[180]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303362404575580221511231074</p>
<p><sup><sup>[181]</sup></sup>http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/2043</p>
<p><sup><sup>[182]</sup></sup>http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/about/history.html; http://www.radiomuseum.org/forum/first_car_radios_history_and_development_of_early_car_radios.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[183]</sup></sup> http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[184]</sup></sup> http://www.urbanophile.com/2012/06/24/state-of-chicago-the-decline-and-rise/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[185]</sup></sup> http://www.urbanophile.com/2012/06/24/state-of-chicago-the-decline-and-rise/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[186]</sup></sup>http://physics.bu.edu/~redner/projects/population/cities/chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[187]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/stanley-kurtz/radical-in-chief-3/; http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/249390/obama%C3%ADs-radical-past-stanley-kurtz</p>
<p><sup><sup>[188]</sup></sup>http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-02-08/news/8701100450_1_jane-byrne-tax-increases-city-taxes</p>
<p><sup><sup>[189]</sup></sup>http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-11-30/news/8703300109_1_prayed-late-mayor-harold-washington</p>
<p><sup><sup>[190]</sup></sup>https://www.isba.org/committees/minorities/newsletter/2009/11/thecityofchicagorenewsitscommitmenttominorityandw; http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-05-30/news/8702090883_1_city-contracts-civil-rights-law-mayor-harold-washington</p>
<p><sup><sup>[191]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/26/opinion/harold-washington-s-chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[192]</sup></sup>http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-12-13/opinion/ct-emanuel-byrd-bennett-cps-education-perception-s-20131213_1_cps-schools-chicago-public-schools-mayor-and-schools-chief; http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/26/opinion/harold-washington-s-chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[193]</sup></sup>https://archive.org/stream/uniformcrimerepo1982unit#page/n7/mode/2up; https://archive.org/stream/uniformcrimerepoa1987unit#page/74/mode/2up</p>
<p><sup><sup>[194]</sup></sup>http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-08-19/news/9003090558_1_service-sector-manufacturing-jobs-state-employment-data</p>
<p><sup><sup>[195]</sup></sup>http://physics.bu.edu/~redner/projects/population/cities/chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[196]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[197]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html; http://www.cdobs.com/archive/crime/demography-and-the-shellacking-of-chicago/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[198]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[199]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/18/chicagos-mind-blowing-33-billion-debt-and-pension-obligations/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[200]</sup></sup>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/10/chicagos-own-pension-cris_n_4418720.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[201]</sup></sup>http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130521/BLOGS02/130529975/city-halls-pension-spiral-worsens#</p>
<p><sup><sup>[202]</sup></sup>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/chicago-parking-meter-dea_n_3612219.html; http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html; http://theexpiredmeter.com/tag/chicago-parking-meter-lease-deal/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[203]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[204]</sup></sup>http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Chicagoans-Pay-Fifth-Highest-Taxes-194516951.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[205]</sup></sup>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/18/chicagos-mind-blowing-33-billion-debt-and-pension-obligations/; https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-downgrades-Chicago-to-A3-from-Aa3-affecting-82-billion&#8211;PR_278069</p>
<p><sup><sup>[206]</sup></sup>http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-11-11/news/ct-met-chicago-bond-rating-1112-20131112_1_government-worker-pension-pension-issue-pension-problem</p>
<p><sup><sup>[207]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[208]</sup></sup>http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0215/Chicago-area-called-most-corrupt-in-US.-Why-Rahm-Emanuel-is-under-fire;</p>
<p><sup><sup>[209]</sup></sup> http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[210]</sup></sup>http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-10/business/chi-legal-climate-clouds-business-in-illinois-4-other-states-20120910_1_survey-legal-climate-institute-for-legal-reform</p>
<p><sup><sup>[211]</sup></sup>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago#Homicides_in_Chicago_by_year</p>
<p><sup><sup>[212]</sup></sup>http://pjmedia.com/blog/march-mayhem-mayor-never-waste-a-crisis-oversees-chicago-free-fall/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[213]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_1_chicago-crime.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[214]</sup></sup> http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_1_chicago-crime.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[215]</sup></sup>http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-07/local/me-2237_1_young-black-men; Mona Charen, “Liberal Tinkering Has Put Our Civilization at Risk,” <em>Conservative Chronicle</em> (August 24, 1994), p. 21.</p>
<p><sup><sup>[216]</sup></sup> http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/colin-flaherty/chicago-running-out-of-euphemisms/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[217]</sup></sup>http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1633; http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1629</p>
<p><sup><sup>[218]</sup></sup> http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_1_chicago-crime.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[219]</sup></sup>http://www.chicagonow.com/windy-city-young-republicans/2012/04/chicago-public-schools-by-the-numbers/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[220]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014467XC4.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[221]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014468xc4.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[222]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014467XC8.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[223]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014468xc8.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[224]</sup></sup>http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/chicago-high-school-graduation-rate-63-percent-209156451.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[225]</sup></sup> http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/19/Chicago-Teachers-Union-rich-white</p>
<p><sup><sup>[226]</sup></sup>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703312904576146741729857936</p>
<p><sup><sup>[227]</sup></sup>http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02-15/news/ct-met-2010-census-20110215_1_census-data-collar-counties-population; http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[228]</sup></sup> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703312904576146741729857936</p>
<p><sup><sup>[229]</sup></sup>http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/a-look-at-the-decline-of-milwaukees-middle-class-b9949923z1-214822101.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[230]</sup></sup>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/business-economy-financial-crisis/two-american-families/photos-milwaukees-industrial-past/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[231]</sup></sup>http://tinyurl.com/nnja5ke</p>
<p><sup><sup>[232]</sup></sup>http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&amp;address=103&#215;223344</p>
<p><sup><sup>[233]</sup></sup>http://www.milwaukeehistory.net/education/milwaukee-timeline/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[234]</sup></sup> http://www.milwaukeehistory.net/education/milwaukee-timeline/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[235]</sup></sup> http://www.milwaukeehistory.net/education/milwaukee-timeline/; http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&amp;dat=19680109&amp;id=QX9QAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=mRAEAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=6074,2636309</p>
<p><sup><sup>[236]</sup></sup>http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/45005251/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[237]</sup></sup>http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/a-look-at-the-decline-of-milwaukees-middle-class-b9949923z1-214822101.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[238]</sup></sup>http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/free-falling-in-milwaukee-a-close-up-on-one-citys-middle-class-decline/250100/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[239]</sup></sup> http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/55/5553000.html; http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[240]</sup></sup> http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Milwaukee-Wisconsin.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[241]</sup></sup> http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/milwaukees-racism-most-murders-black-on-black/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[242]</sup></sup> http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/mps-wisconsin-rank-high-in-per-pupil-spending-b9915750z1-208377331.html; http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/mps-wisconsin-rank-high-in-per-pupil-spending-b9915750z1-208377331.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[243]</sup></sup>http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/state-mps-post-improved-high-school-graduation-rates-875f3om-151883025.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[244]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014468XK4.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[245]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014468XK8.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[246]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014467XK4.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[247]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014467XK8.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[248]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_1_a1.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[249]</sup></sup>http://blog.heritage.org/2011/01/12/voucher-students-soar-in-milwaukee/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[250]</sup></sup>http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100202006097/en/Study-Graduation-Rate-Milwaukee-Voucher-Students-18#.U2ARR2ByFWM</p>
<p><sup><sup>[251]</sup></sup>http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100202006097/en/Study-Graduation-Rate-Milwaukee-Voucher-Students-18#.U2ARR2ByFWM; http://blog.heritage.org/2011/01/12/voucher-students-soar-in-milwaukee/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[252]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_1_a1.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[253]</sup></sup>http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7777;</p>
<p><sup><sup>[254]</sup></sup>http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922422.html; http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/55/5553000.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[255]</sup></sup>http://www.milwaukeemag.com/article/1222014-AbandonedDreams</p>
<p><sup><sup>[256]</sup></sup>http://www.state.nj.us/state/elections/election-results/2009-governor_results-essex.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[257]</sup></sup>http://www.state.nj.us/state/elections/election-results/2008-gen-elect-presidential-results-essex.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[258]</sup></sup>http://books.google.com/books?id=lwave_qPlYUC&amp;pg=PA275&amp;lpg=PA275&amp;dq=#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[259]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/npm34lg</p>
<p><sup><sup>[260]</sup></sup>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Newark,_New_Jersey</p>
<p><sup><sup>[261]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/ltb4pcc</p>
<p><sup><sup>[262]</sup></sup>http://scholar.library.miami.edu/sixtiesChron/ch07.html; http://webatomics.com/jason/Images/thesisone.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[263]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_cory_booker.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[264]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_cory_booker.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[265]</sup></sup>http://blog.nj.com/ledgernewark/2007/07/crossroads_part_1.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[266]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_cory_booker.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[267]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_cory_booker.html; http://webatomics.com/jason/Images/thesisone.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[268]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/k9vcwxa</p>
<p><sup><sup>[269]</sup></sup>http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=799&amp;dat=19730308&amp;id=jVgzAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=WlIDAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=700,4399913</p>
<p><sup><sup>[270]</sup></sup>http://webatomics.com/jason/Images/thesisone.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[271]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/nyregion/30folo.html?_r=0</p>
<p><sup><sup>[272]</sup></sup> http://www.manhattan-institute.org/email/crd_newsletter07-07.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[273]</sup></sup>http://www.manhattan-institute.org/email/crd_newsletter07-07.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[274]</sup></sup> http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_new_jersey.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[275]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/nyregion/14james.html?fta=y&amp;_r=0&amp;gwh=C6CF51C78E8F7038AEC410DE2C97D0CB&amp;gwt=pay</p>
<p><sup><sup>[276]</sup></sup>http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/topstories/index.ssf/2008/04/newark_exmayor_sharpe_james_fo.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[277]</sup></sup>http://www.newsweek.com/swamps-jersey-69529; http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/topstories/index.ssf/2008/04/newark_exmayor_sharpe_james_fo.html; http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/sharpe_james_is_released_from.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[278]</sup></sup> http://www.newsweek.com/swamps-jersey-69529</p>
<p><sup><sup>[279]</sup></sup>http://blogs.hrblock.com/2013/02/05/the-top-10-most-taxed-cities-in-america-infographic/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[280]</sup></sup>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/18/cory-booker-newark_n_4123455.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[281]</sup></sup>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/34/3451000.html; http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[282]</sup></sup> http://www.city-data.com/poverty/poverty-Newark-New-Jersey.html; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/18/cory-booker-newark_n_4123455.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[283]</sup></sup>http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/06/nj_school_report_cards_release.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[284]</sup></sup>http://www.waynepost.com/article/20130830/NEWS/130839998/10057/NEWS</p>
<p><sup><sup>[285]</sup></sup>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/18/cory-booker-newark_n_4123455.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[286]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_cory_booker.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[287]</sup></sup> http://www.edlawcenter.org/news/archives/school-funding/state-operated-newark-schools-face-staggering-$57-million-budget-deficit.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[288]</sup></sup>http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Newark-New-Jersey.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[289]</sup></sup>http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_cory_booker.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[290]</sup></sup>http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/09/high_taxes_rising_crime_push_n.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[291]</sup></sup>http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922422.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[292]</sup></sup>http://www.city-data.com/city/St.-Louis-Missouri.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[293]</sup></sup>http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922422.html; http://physics.bu.edu/~redner/projects/population/cities/stlouis.html; http://books.google.com/books?id=n7ixiFDFApAC&amp;pg=PA11&amp;lpg=PA11&amp;dq=#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[294]</sup></sup>http://books.google.com/books?id=n7ixiFDFApAC&amp;pg=PA51&amp;lpg=PA51&amp;dq=#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[295]</sup></sup>http://books.google.com/books?id=n7ixiFDFApAC&amp;pg=PA51&amp;lpg=PA51&amp;dq=#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false; http://books.google.com/books?id=XyXBLu-DolwC&amp;pg=PA87&amp;lpg=PA87&amp;dq=#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false</p>
<p><sup><sup>[296]</sup></sup>http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/PruittIgoe.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[297]</sup></sup>http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Urban_renewal.aspx</p>
<p><sup><sup>[298]</sup></sup>http://mappingdecline.lib.uiowa.edu/map/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[299]</sup></sup> http://www.stlmag.com/St-Louis-Magazine/December-2008/Mapping-the-Divide/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[300]</sup></sup> http://www.stlmag.com/St-Louis-Magazine/December-2008/Mapping-the-Divide/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[301]</sup></sup>http://mappingdecline.lib.uiowa.edu/map/; http://books.google.com/books?id=X9XG-2fWgWcC&amp;pg=PA207&amp;lpg=PA207&amp;dq=#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false; https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[302]</sup></sup>http://www.csmonitor.com/1994/0418/19021.html/(page)/2</p>
<p><sup><sup>[303]</sup></sup>http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_7a896a3a-29a1-11e0-b19d-001cc4c03286.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[304]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/plf4gq7</p>
<p><sup><sup>[305]</sup></sup>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_United_States_by_population_by_decade#1950; http://mappingdecline.lib.uiowa.edu/map/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[306]</sup></sup>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_United_States_by_population_by_decade#1880</p>
<p><sup><sup>[307]</sup></sup>http://www.newgeography.com/content/002078-city-st-louis-suffers-huge-population-loss</p>
<p><sup><sup>[308]</sup></sup>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/29/29510.html; http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[309]</sup></sup>http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-30-city-crime_x.htm; http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2010/11/st_louis_named_most_dangerous_city_2010.php</p>
<p><sup><sup>[310]</sup></sup>http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-St.-Louis-Missouri.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[311]</sup></sup> http://nextstl.com/2013/01/understanding-st-louis-homicides-2005-2012/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[312]</sup></sup>http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/12/02/st-louis-city-leader-says-police-ineffective-tells-residents-to-get-armed/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[313]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/us/in-neighborhoods-like-north-st-louis-gunfire-still-rules-the-night.html?gwh=D7D202615208310C2840856196321249&amp;gwt=pay</p>
<p><sup><sup>[314]</sup></sup>http://www.showmedaily.org/2013/09/what-is-the-cost-of-not-educating-students.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[315]</sup></sup>http://www.stlparent.com/story/can-900-million-help-st-louis-drop-out-rate; http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1012/star102112.php3#.U2A2MGByFWN</p>
<p><sup><sup>[316]</sup></sup>http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/st-louis-schools-score-unaccredited-range-under-new-grading-scale-wont-lose-accreditation</p>
<p><sup><sup>[317]</sup></sup>http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/interactive-map-st-louis-city-school-test-scores/html_968f94e4-b851-529a-88fd-be036d17fcb9.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[318]</sup></sup>http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/interactive-map-st-louis-city-school-test-scores/html_968f94e4-b851-529a-88fd-be036d17fcb9.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[319]</sup></sup>http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/interactive-map-st-louis-city-school-test-scores/html_968f94e4-b851-529a-88fd-be036d17fcb9.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[320]</sup></sup>http://books.google.com/books?id=yaseH2ICEX4C&amp;pg=PA88&amp;lpg=PA88&amp;dq=#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false; http://biography.yourdictionary.com/maynard-holbrook-jackson-jr</p>
<p><sup><sup>[321]</sup></sup>http://www.atlantamagazine.com/features/anniversary/scalawag/story.aspx?ID=1454471</p>
<p><sup><sup>[322]</sup></sup>http://biography.yourdictionary.com/maynard-holbrook-jackson-jr; http://www.atlantamagazine.com/features/anniversary/scalawag/story.aspx?ID=1454471</p>
<p><sup><sup>[323]</sup></sup> http://crimevictimsmediareport.com/?p=938</p>
<p><sup><sup>[324]</sup></sup>http://biography.yourdictionary.com/maynard-holbrook-jackson-jr</p>
<p><sup><sup>[325]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/24/us/2-are-convicted-in-atlanta-in-airport-corruption-trial.html; http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/05/us/atlanta-watches-nervously-as-corruption-trial-begins.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[326]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/24/us/2-are-convicted-in-atlanta-in-airport-corruption-trial.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[327]</sup></sup>http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/05/us/atlanta-watches-nervously-as-corruption-trial-begins.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[328]</sup></sup>http://archives.californiaaviation.org/airport/msg47607.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[329]</sup></sup> http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2006/01/former-atlanta-mayor-goes-trial-fraud-and-corruption/; http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/06/13/former-atlanta-mayor-bill-campbell-sentenced-to-2-12-years-for-tax-evasio-348548466/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[330]</sup></sup>http://www.businessinsider.com/atlantas-huge-pension-overhaul-is-major-win-for-public-pension-reform-2011-7</p>
<p><sup><sup>[331]</sup></sup>http://www.city-data.com/city/Atlanta-Georgia.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[332]</sup></sup>http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/end-black-politics-we-knew-it-will-atlantas-next-mayor-be-white-should-we-even-care</p>
<p><sup><sup>[333]</sup></sup>http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2014/mar/05/atlanta-breaking-poverty-cycle-proves-difficult/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[334]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013307.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[335]</sup></sup>http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014467XA8.pdf; http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/dst2013/pdf/2014468XA8.pdf</p>
<p><sup><sup>[336]</sup></sup>http://focusdailynews.com/oped-beverly-hall-a-classic-case-of-moral-turpitude-against-atlantas-ch-p4239-1.htm; http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/atlanta-public-schools-cheat-their-own-students/; http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/15/nyregion/state-bailout-to-rescue-financially-troubled-newark-school-district.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[337]</sup></sup>http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.php?capcode=wsmyx&amp;name=Hall,%20Beverly&amp;state=GA&amp;zip=&amp;employ=&amp;cand=</p>
<p><sup><sup>[338]</sup></sup>http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.php?capcode=wsmyx&amp;name=Hall,%20Beverly&amp;state=GA&amp;zip=&amp;employ=&amp;cand=</p>
<p><sup><sup>[339]</sup></sup> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/us/former-school-chief-in-atlanta-indicted-in-cheating-scandal.html?pagewanted=all&amp;gwh=7B8B320A9D9EA9CBE348D9500979FF97&amp;gwt=pay</p>
<p><sup><sup>[340]</sup></sup> http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas040413.php3#.U2A-jmByFWN; http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/29/us/georgia-cheating-scandal/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[341]</sup></sup>http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas040413.php3#.U2A-vGByFWN</p>
<p><sup><sup>[342]</sup></sup> http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/are-drastic-swings-in-crct-scores-valid/nQYQm/; http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/georgia-superintendent-orchestrated-cheating-scandal-article-1.1303002</p>
<p><sup><sup>[343]</sup></sup> http://tinyurl.com/od7a6qs</p>
<p><sup><sup>[344]</sup></sup> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/aps-atlanta-public-schools-embroiled-in-cheating-scandal/2011/07/11/gIQAJl9m8H_blog.html; http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0705/America-s-biggest-teacher-and-principal-cheating-scandal-unfolds-in-Atlanta</p>
<p><sup><sup>[345]</sup></sup> http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/08/cheating_atlanta_schools_received_500k_in_bonuses_what_now.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[346]</sup></sup> http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/atlanta-public-schools-cheat-their-own-students/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[347]</sup></sup>http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/atlanta-school-board-must-find-savings/ndcKq/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[348]</sup></sup>http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/29/us/georgia-cheating-scandal/; http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/atlanta-public-schools-cheat-their-own-students/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[349]</sup></sup>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/atlanta-public-schools-cheat-their-own-students/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[350]</sup></sup> http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Atlanta-Georgia.html</p>
<p><sup><sup>[351]</sup></sup> http://lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/crime/10-dangerous-large/</p>
<p><sup><sup>[352]</sup></sup>http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/01/gun-violence-us-cities-compared-deadliest-nations-world/4412/</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Thanks to Obama, Iran’s Economy Is Booming</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/thanks-to-obama-irans-economy-is-booming/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=thanks-to-obama-irans-economy-is-booming</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/thanks-to-obama-irans-economy-is-booming/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Aug 2014 04:30:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[growth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Mullahs are back in business. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/iran-nuclear-rouhani.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238378" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/iran-nuclear-rouhani-450x299.jpg" alt="iran-nuclear-rouhani" width="278" height="185" /></a>According to the latest statistics, Iran’s economy is being stabilized, with oil exports increasing by approximately 30 percent. This economic recovery has emboldened and empowered the ruling clerics in the Islamic republic who are fighting several proxy wars in the Middle East by funding and arming Hamas and sending troops to Iraq to ensure the power of the Shiite coalition of Prime Minister Nori Al Maleki and by supporting the Assad regime financially, politically, militarily, and through intelligence.</p>
<p>This is mainly due to the Obama administration’s push to strike any kind of flimsy nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic to avoid taking serious actions. It is also due to President Obama’s efforts to remove economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>As the ruling clerics regain their economy, they will also be more empowered to reach the nuclear break out capacity, obtain nuclear weapons, and defy the West.</p>
<p>A year has passed since President Hassan Rouhani has assumed office. He received the blessings of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and was elected predominantly to recover Iran’s economy, regain Iran’s currency (Rial) value, and get a flimsy nuclear deal without giving concessions, which will allow the Islamic Republic to continue enriching uranium and spinning its centrifuges.</p>
<p>The question is: how have the Obama administration’s foreign policies towards the Islamic Republic impacted Iran’s economy after a year? Has Iran’s economy, which had been deteriorating since the Iraq-Iran war due to domestic mismanagement and international economic sanctions, shifted its path?</p>
<p>According to reports, the ruling clerics in the Islamic Republic have witnessed the addition of billions of dollars to their revenues. <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2014/car040414a.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">According to the</span></a> latest survey by the International Monetary Fund, “Iran has taken important steps to lower inflation… The Islamic Republic of Iran has made progress toward stabilizing its economy in recent months…”</p>
<p>In addition, according to Bloomberg Businessweek and the Iran Project, Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department, pointed out to reporters in Tehran on Tuesday that “The process of stabilization has taken hold and we do see the results already in a dramatic improvement in inflation… [The] inflation rate has eased and currency rate has been stable and such improvements are the results of measures taken by the Iranian government…”</p>
<p>Several crucial factors play a role in this positive and promising economic recovery. First of all, thanks to the Obama administration’s altering of the Islamic Republic’s outlook in the international arena, as well as the progress in nuclear talks between the Islamic Republic and P5+1 (the United States, Russia, China,  United Kingdom, and France, plus Germany), Iran has <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/23/fact-sheet-first-step-understandings-regarding-islamic-republic-iran-s-n"><span style="color: #0433ff;">received</span></a> billions of dollars, unfrozen its assets, removed the economic sanctions on some of its crucial industries including gold, precious metals, Iran&#8217;s auto industry, Iran&#8217;s petrochemical exports, and increased its oil exports particularly to Asia.</p>
<p>The aforementioned measures added billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic’s revenue.  Secondly, the new administration in the Islamic Republic has attempted to lure mostly Asian (Chinese, Indian, etc.) investors and reform its contractual as well as economic policies in this regard.</p>
<p>For example, Iran’s oil exports have increased by approximately <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/uk-asia-iran-crude-idUKKBN0G00C320140731"><span style="color: #0433ff;">25 percent</span></a> in the first six months of 2014. The top importers of Iran’s oil are China and India. China alone has <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/uk-asia-iran-crude-idUKKBN0G00C320140731"><span style="color: #0433ff;">increased</span></a> its oil import from Iran by fifty percent, India by nineteen percent, and Japan by 48.6 percent and South Korea’s import in the last year increased by seven percent thanks to the P5+1’s diplomatic headways with the Islamic Republic and the loosening of economic sanctions.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930120000786"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Fars News</span></a> and International Monetary Fund, Iran’s economy and GDP will stop contracting and will grow by approximately one to two percent in 2014, which will be a crucial factor in stabilizing Iran’s economy. The year before, Iran’s economy contracted by 1.7 percent. In 2015, the IMF report predicts that the Islamic Republic’s economy and GDP will increase by 2.3 percent.</p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930120000786"><span style="color: #0433ff;">according to IMF’s report</span></a>, the inflation in the Islamic Republic has significantly declined by 29 percent  &#8220;The exchange rate has appreciated markedly in the bureau/parallel market. The CBI has kept a lid on base money growth thanks to tighter credit to the banking system and some fiscal consolidation, and inflation has declined to about 29 percent in January 2014.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Rial has also been <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-one-year-under-rouhani-639273557"><span style="color: #0433ff;">strengthened</span></a>. This also lead to a boost in the confidence of the Iranian regime, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Cops (which dominates the economy), and the elite Quds forces (which fights in foreign countries).</p>
<p>Without doubt, President Obama has helped the ruling clerics in the Islamic Republic to make a considerable amount of progress in the last year in stabilizing the domestic economy, strengthening the Rial, reducing the inflation, filling the gap in the revenues and government’s budget, and turning the negative growth and contraction of its economy to a positive path.</p>
<p>As the nuclear talks project, a final flimsy nuclear deal is on the way. This will ensure the further strengthening of the power of the ruling cleric.</p>
<p>Most of this money goes to the regime’s revenues to achieve its ideological, geopolitical and regional hegemonic ambitions. Ordinary Iranian people have not yet received any of these benefits. For example, the unemployment rate is still in the double digits. According to the <a href="http://tehrantimes.com/economy-and-business/115225-unemployment-has-reached-a-critical-level-in-iran"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Statistical Center of Iran</span></a>, the unemployment rate hit 10.4 percent. In addition, in Spring 2014, <a href="http://www.payvand.com/news/14/aug/1017.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">700,000</span></a> less workers have been employed in comparison to the previous year, and in urban areas, the consumption of households declined by 5 percent, while in villages it went down by 12 percent.</p>
<p>In addition, the domestic crack down has increased as the regime becomes more powerful economically. As the regime and ruling clerics economic empowerment continue &#8212; thanks to the Obama administration’s efforts &#8212; the regime will ensure the reelection of the President Rouhani and achieve its hegemonic regional ambitions and Islamists ideological objectives more assertively.</p>
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		<title>Part-Time Nation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/part-time-nation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=part-time-nation</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2014 04:50:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[A deceptive jobs report obscures the dark truth about the Obama economy. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/o-FAST-FOOD-WORKER-facebook.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-235823" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/o-FAST-FOOD-WORKER-facebook-450x314.jpg" alt="Fast Food Freebies" width="298" height="208" /></a>Last Thursday, an Obama-centric mainstream media <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/03/investing/june-jobs-report/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">trumpeted</span></a> the creation of 288,000 jobs and the reduction in the unemployment rate from 6.3 percent to 6.1 percent. Lost in the manufactured euphoria are the sobering details: America is well on its way to becoming a nation where millions of workers can only find part-time, lower-paying jobs.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">On the surface, the numbers are impressive. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the aforementioned 288,000 jobs gain, while the household survey reported a gain of 407,000. Yet those numbers pale in comparison to the rise in the number of voluntary and involuntary part-time jobs, coming in at 840,000 and 275,000, respectively. Since the BLS uses seasonally-adjusted figures to calculate jobs data, one cannot subtract the total number of part-time jobs from full-time jobs. However, data regarding seasonally-adjusted full-time jobs <i>can</i> be compared on a month-to-month basis and therein lies the true tale of woe.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">A whopping 523,000 full-time jobs were <i>lost</i> in June.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">As the graphs <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-03/june-full-time-jobs-plunge-over-half-million-part-time-jobs-surge-800k-most-1993"><span style="color: #1255cc;">here</span></a> indicate, this is the second largest decline of full-time jobs in the past year, but by far the largest addition of part-time jobs. So far this year the economy has created 926,000 full-time jobs and 646,000 part-time jobs. Overall, America now has 118 million full-time jobs compared to 28 million part-time jobs, according to the BLS. Thus, 23.7 percent, or nearly one-out-of-every four Americans, is working part-time.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Just over a year ago, it was <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/07/25/a_nation_of_part-timers_119356.html#ixzz2aThQSM2y"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reported</span></a> that economist Scott Anderson analyzed employment gains since January 2009 and found that in June part-time jobs accounted for 19.5 percent of total employment, amounting to &#8220;exactly the average share &#8230; since January 2009.” One might think an increase of nearly 18 percent in that average share might be cause for concern amidst the euphoria.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">One would be wrong. For those uninterested in the details, the quantity of jobs rather than the quality of jobs is all that matters.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Yet it is precisely that quality that should concern every American. As the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> noted while June jobs gains were broad-based, &#8220;lower-wage sectors continued to account for the bulk.” While there was an increase of 67,000 jobs in the professional and business services sector, they were offset by the more than 40,000 jobs in the retail industry and 30,000 jobs in leisure and hospitality businesses. &#8220;Higher-paying sectors continued to lag behind in the jobs recovery,” the paper reported. &#8220;Manufacturing added 16,000 new jobs and construction added 6,000.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">As for the &#8220;official unemployment rate” of 6.1 percent, the number listed under BLS’s &#8220;U-3&#8243; heading, more and more Americans are becoming aware of the bogus nature of this particular statistic, given that it doesn&#8217;t account for such realities as the number of part-time workers who want full-time jobs, or the number of people marginally attached to the workforce. The more accurate U-6 number, which takes these factors into account, puts the unemployment rate at 12.1 percent.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Yet both of those numbers would be even higher if they took into account the number of people who have dropped out of the labor force altogether. While the economy ostensibly surged, the number of Americans 16 and older who did not participate in the labor force <i>really</i> surged to a <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/record-number-americans-not-labor-force-june"><span style="color: #1255cc;">record-setting</span></a> 92,120,000 in June. That number represents a jump of 111,000 since April, and the labor force participation rate of 62.8 percent matched a 36-year low. In other words, job growth isn’t keeping up with population growth.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Another factor that skews the job numbers is something called <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/06/02/labor-dept-s-p-e-e-distorts-jobs-numbers/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Performance Enhancing Estimates</span></a> (P.E.E.). They are little more than educated guesstimates regarding the aforementioned seasonal adjustments as well as birth/death estimates determining how many companies were created or destroyed. In ominous context, a Brookings Institution study released last month <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/05/u-s-businesses-are-being-destroyed-faster-than-theyre-being-created/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reveals</span></a> that the U.S.&#8217;s economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last 30 years. Moreover, from 2009-2011, the last three years the study looked at, businesses were dying faster than they were being born—a dubious first time achievement. Thus, unless one assumes there has been a radical turnaround in the last three years, the long-term trend for job creation will be what the authors contend is &#8220;a continuation of slow growth for the indefinite future.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The Federal Reserve seemingly <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-interest-rates-20140706-story.html#page=1"><span style="color: #1255cc;">concurs</span></a>. While Fed policy-makers have insisted a growing economy will lead to higher interest rates, 12 of the 16 members of the policy committee expect those rates to rise only as high as 1.5 percent by the end of 2015, and a majority expect a rise to 2.5 percent or less a year after that. For comparison sake, the interest rate in 2007 was more than double, at 5.25 percent. Anemic interest rates portend an economy like that of Japan’s, which has remained largely stagnant for more than two decades. Such conditions will more than likely exacerbate income inequality as well, because low interest rates favor corporate borrowers and the stock market, even as they crush those who want a decent return on their savings.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Does ObamaCare figure into the part-time employment mix? In March, the Huffington Post was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/07/obamacare-part-time_n_4919117.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">sure</span></a> the dire predictions <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/101196459#"><span style="color: #1255cc;">made</span></a> a year ago were overwrought and that the &#8220;opposite seems to be happening&#8221; because the number of part-time workers had fallen to 27.3 million in February. The addition of 700,000 part-time jobs since then is inconclusive, but the Obama administration’s grim determination to unilaterally <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/obamacare-employer-mandate-108578.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">postpone</span></a> the implementation of the so-called business mandate—twice—in the last year is at least somewhat indicative. So is a 2013 Duke/CFO magazine <a href="http://www.cfosurvey.org/13q4/PressRelease.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">survey</span></a> indicating that 38 percent of the 60 percent of businesses that increased their proportion of part-time workers cited ObamaCare as a reason. And a regularly updated <a href="http://news.investors.com/politics-obamacare/062414-669013-obamacare-employer-mandate-a-list-of-cuts-to-work-hours-jobs.htm"><span style="color: #1255cc;">chart</span></a> complied by Investors Business Daily shows that 429 mostly public employers have cut hours of employment (when they’re not eliminating jobs outright) below the 30-hour “full time employee” threshold that would subject them to the healthcare mandate.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Human Events staff writer John Hayward has a far more Machiavellian view of the &#8220;Great Leap Forward in the Obamanomics transformation of the American economy into a shrunken, underemployed workforce.” He contends the American left has figured out a way to eliminate the inevitable tension between the Makers and the Takers that thwarts their quest for a social utopia. &#8220;The true Middle Class is defined by its <i>independence,&#8221; </i>he writes<i>.</i> &#8220;Get them hooked on government subsidies, and they lose that independence.  Make enough of them truly <i>dependent </i>on those subsidies for the necessities of life, and their political threat is permanently neutralized.” (Italics in the original.) Part-time jobs and ObamaCare produce such hybrid Maker/Takers who ultimately come to believe that &#8220;prosperity is something the government must seize and redistribute.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">One can choose to believe or dismiss Hayward’s assessment, but there is little doubt the economy remains as fragile as ever. Even if one buys into the media-anointed “jobs surge” it is impossible to dismiss the gargantuan number of part-time workers that drove it.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">And that’s while the stock market remains at or near record highs that may be as <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/07/05/why-the-17000-dow-is-bound-to-crash/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">illusory</span></a> as our so-called economic recovery. “The US middle class and low-income workers are broke,” contends Chadwick Financial Advisors CEO Mike Chadwick. “They are leveraged up to the hilt.” Corporate earnings remain stagnant and sales remain flat. “Corporations are squeezing more out of workers, outsourcing jobs, whatever they can do&#8211;everything except generating additional sales,” says Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&amp;P Capital IQ.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">And finally, Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist of the Economic Outlook Group, sees a <a href="http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article/20140706/NEWS01/307060026/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">shift</span></a> in the way employers view employees that may indicate where the full-time vs. part-time jobs picture is <i>really</i> headed. “Companies view labor more as inventory that is to be hired when they need it and let go when they don’t need it,” he said.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">One hopes for better days ahead. But an economy where more businesses are dying than are being born—and human being are viewed as “inventory”—does not inspire anything resembling enduring confidence.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Economy Suffers Worst Drop Since Recession in 2009</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/economy-suffers-worst-drop-since-recession-in-2009/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=economy-suffers-worst-drop-since-recession-in-2009</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/economy-suffers-worst-drop-since-recession-in-2009/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jun 2014 14:09:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=234891</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Exports declined 8.9%,]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/100716121859resized_Obama_Money.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-234892" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/100716121859resized_Obama_Money.jpg" alt="100716121859resized_Obama_Money" width="300" height="215" /></a></p>
<p>Pshht. Here&#8217;s a little secret. The recession never actually ended. The media and handpicked economics experts have been insisting that everything is fine now. And just like their Global Warmist colleagues, their numbers don&#8217;t reflect reality.</p>
<p>They keep putting out optimistic expectations that <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/06/25/economy-first-quarter/11332011/">get crushed by the actual real</a> world numbers. <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/25/economy-in-freefall-1q-revision-shows-shrinkage-2/">And now that happened again</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>The U.S. economy turned in its worst quarter in five years during the first three months of 2014, shrinking more sharply than previously estimated.</p>
<p>The decline was the sharpest since growth tumbled 5.4% in the first quarter of 2009 during the Great Recession. The last time the economy shrank was in the first quarter of 2011, slipping 1.3%.</p>
<p>Also, exports declined 8.9%, vs. the 6% drop previously estimated.</p>
<p>The U.S. economy shrank at 2.9 percent annual rate in in the first quarter, a far more alarming downward pace than announced in two previous government estimates, according to the Commerce Department.</p>
<p>The figure is nearly three times lower than the  preliminary estimate of 1 percent released last month, and marks the worst performance for a three-month period since 2009.</p></blockquote>
<p>Somehow the real figures keep undercutting the estimates. But the blame is being assigned to winter, because weather is apparently a new phenomenon. It&#8217;s true though that while winters did exist before, Warmist hijacking of climate science led to a prediction of a warmer winter. That prediction was false and cost people&#8217;s lives.</p>
<p>But the left always puts ideology ahead of science and people.</p>
<p>And let&#8217;s not forget ObamaCare.</p>
<blockquote><p>The Commerce Department said its final revision reflected a weaker-than-expected pace of healthcare spending, which caused a downgrading of the consumer spending estimate.</p></blockquote>
<p>Obama is the gift that just keeps on giving. So long as you remember that in German, &#8216;Gift&#8217; has a very different meaning.</p>
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		<title>Louis XVI &amp; Marie Antoinette Circa 2013</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/louis-xvi-marie-antoinette-circa-2013/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=louis-xvi-marie-antoinette-circa-2013</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/louis-xvi-marie-antoinette-circa-2013/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jun 2014 04:35:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shared sacrifice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vacation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233838</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["Let them eat cake."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Vacation Photos 2013</strong></p>
<p>Honestly, you just haven&#8217;t lived &#8217;til you&#8217;ve stayed in a private 3-story villa at a 5-Star luxury hotel, the Villa Padierna.</p>
<p>It only cost $95,000, and I was able to hold the total bill under $500,000 for the week. What a bargain!</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/1.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233841" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/1.2739585580-450x262.jpg" alt="1.2739585580" width="450" height="262" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-233843" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2.2739585580.jpg" alt="2.2739585580" width="305" height="247" /></a></p>
<p>Thank you also for the use of Air Force Two and the 70 Secret Service personnel who tagged along to be sure we were safe and cared for at all times.</p>
<p>Air Force Two (which costs $11,351 per hour to operate according to Government Accounting Office reports) only used 47,500 gallons of jet fuel for this trip and carbon emissions were a mere 1,031 tons of CO2.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s quite a carbon footprint as my good friend Al Gore would say, so we must ask the American citizens to drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars and drive less too, so we can lessen our combined carbon footprint.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/3.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233844" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/3.2739585580-450x298.jpg" alt="3.2739585580" width="450" height="298" /></a></p>
<p>But hey, Barack&#8217;s Air Force One costs about $200,000 per hour to operate and with his many trips, he spent almost half a billion dollars on flights alone last year. Yeah, that&#8217;s with a B? $500,000,000.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/4.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233845" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/4.2739585580-450x315.jpg" alt="4.2739585580" width="450" height="315" /></a></p>
<p>By the way, if you happen to be visiting the Costa del Sol, I highly recommend the Buenaventura Plaza restaurant in Marbella; great lobster with rice and oysters!</p>
<p>I&#8217;m ashamed to admit the lobsters we ate in Martha&#8217;s Vineyard were not quite as tasty, but what can you do if you&#8217;re not in Europe, you have to just grin and bear it.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/5.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233846" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/5.2739585580-450x337.jpg" alt="5.2739585580" width="450" height="337" /></a></p>
<p>I know times are hard and millions of you are struggling to put food on the table and trying to make ends meet. So I do appreciate your sacrifices and do hope you find work soon.</p>
<p>I was really exhausted after Barack took our family on a luxury vacation in Maine a few weeks ago. I just had to get away for a few days.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/6.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233847" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/6.2739585580-450x303.jpg" alt="6.2739585580" width="450" height="303" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/7.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233848" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/7.2739585580-311x350.jpg" alt="7.2739585580" width="311" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Cordially,</p>
<p>Michelle Obama</p>
<p>P.S. Thank you as well for the $2 BILLION dollar trip to India!</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/8.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-233849" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/8.2739585580.jpg" alt="8.2739585580" width="164" height="241" /></a><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/9.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-233850" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/9.2739585580.jpg" alt="9.2739585580" width="269" height="340" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/10.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-233851" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/10.2739585580.jpg" alt="10.2739585580" width="240" height="312" /></a></p>
<p>P.S.S. Thank you, too, for that vacation trip to Martha&#8217;s Vineyard &#8211; It was fabulous!<br />
And thanks for that second smaller jet that took our dog Bo to Martha&#8217;s Vineyard so we and the children could have him with us while we were away from the White House for eleven days.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/11.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233853" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/11.2739585580-450x291.jpg" alt="11.2739585580" width="450" height="291" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/12.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-233854" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/12.2739585580.jpg" alt="12.2739585580" width="298" height="204" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/13.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233855" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/13.2739585580-398x350.jpg" alt="13.2739585580" width="398" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>P.S.S.S. Oh, I almost forgot to say thanks also for our two-week trip to Hawaii at Christmas. That 7,000 square foot house was great!</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/14.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233856" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/14.2739585580-450x244.jpg" alt="14.2739585580" width="450" height="244" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/15.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233857" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/15.2739585580-450x260.jpg" alt="15.2739585580" width="450" height="260" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/16.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233858" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/16.2739585580-450x274.jpg" alt="16.2739585580" width="450" height="274" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/a17.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233869" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/a17.2739585580-450x242.jpg" alt="a17.2739585580" width="450" height="242" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/18.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233859" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/18.2739585580-450x327.jpg" alt="18.2739585580" width="450" height="327" /></a></p>
<p>P.S.S.S.S. We all had a fabulous time in Africa visiting Barack’s birthplace. What a wonderful place!</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/19.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-233860" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/19.2739585580.jpg" alt="19.2739585580" width="438" height="315" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/20.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-233861" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/20.2739585580.jpg" alt="20.2739585580" width="250" height="315" /></a></p>
<p>P.S.S.S.S.S. Now the girls and I are back in Africa with my mom.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/21.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233862" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/21.2739585580-257x350.jpg" alt="21.2739585580" width="257" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Don&#8217;t forget my ski trip to Vail this winter.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/22.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233863" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/22.2739585580-450x251.jpg" alt="22.2739585580" width="450" height="251" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/23.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233864" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/23.2739585580-450x236.jpg" alt="23.2739585580" width="450" height="236" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/24.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233865" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/24.2739585580-337x350.jpg" alt="24.2739585580" width="337" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>All this while Barack plays golf!</p>
<p>Thanks, America! But you owe it to me!</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/25.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233866" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/25.2739585580-450x300.jpg" alt="25.2739585580" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Love ya!</p>
<p>Remember, we all have to share the pain of these hard economic times equally!<br />
We love to redistribute and share the wealth.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/26.2739585580.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-233867" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/26.2739585580-370x350.jpg" alt="26.2739585580" width="370" height="350" /></a></p>
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		<title>Obama Economy Added 14.5 Mil People, 1.7 Million Jobs</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obama-economy-added-14-5-mil-people-1-7-million-jobs/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-economy-added-14-5-mil-people-1-7-million-jobs</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obama-economy-added-14-5-mil-people-1-7-million-jobs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Jun 2014 19:45:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233465</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The media is claiming for the twentieth time that the recession is over. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/bad-economy.gif"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-100848" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/bad-economy-300x200.gif" alt="bad-economy" width="374" height="249" /></a></p>
<p>The media is claiming for the twentieth time <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-economy/big-questions/don-t-get-too-excited-about-the-new-jobs-report-20140606">that the recession is over</a>. The recession has already ended so many times, it could have begun all over again.</p>
<blockquote><p>On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the U.S. economy added 217,000 jobs in May, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 6.3 percent. The economy needed to add 113,000 to pass the prerecession peak number of jobs from January 2008. The United States lost 8.7 million jobs in the recession. But this overlooks the simple fact that there are more working-age people in the U.S. now than there were six years ago.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s one way of looking at that. There were 7.6 million unemployed people in the U.S. in January 2008, and the unemployment rate was 4.9 percent. Today, there are 9.8 million unemployed Americans, well over 2 million more than before the recession, and the unemployment rate is much higher.</p>
<p>So, while on its face it looks like the U.S. regained all the jobs lost over the past six years, that perspective doesn&#8217;t take into account the number of new people in the labor force or address the labor market gap created by those new people. Heidi Shierholz of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute notes that, as of last month, there was a 7.1 million-job gap from prerecession levels.</p></blockquote>
<p>Or <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-jobs-strain-to-deliver-middle-class-wages-2014-06-06?reflink=MW_news_stmp">to put it another way</a>,</p>
<blockquote><p>In this time, the U.S. civilian population increased by nearly 14.5 million people, although the labor force grew by just 1.7 million new jobs, according to BLS data.</p></blockquote>
<p>A million immigrants come to the US each year. So we had 7 million immigrants and 1.7 million jobs. And the jobs are at the lower end of the pool which is why immigrants tend to show higher employment figures.</p>
<blockquote><p>Significantly, employment in temporary help jobs has grown by 45% in the recovery and accounted for 10% of overall employment gains, as employers have waded tepidly back into hiring decisions. Employment in accommodation and food services — where many of our economy’s minimum-wage jobs exist — grew 13% and accounted for 17% of total new employment.</p></blockquote>
<p>The &#8220;recovery&#8221; consists of millions of immigrants competing for a small number of low income jobs.</p>
<blockquote><p>The civilian labor force participation rate was unchanged in May, at 62.8 percent. The participation rate has shown no clear trend since this past October but is down by 0.6 percentage point over the year.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is what an Obama recovery looks like.</p>
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		<title>America: The Come Back Story</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/america-the-come-back-story/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=america-the-come-back-story</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/america-the-come-back-story/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Jun 2014 04:57:07 +0000</pubDate>
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				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Energy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fracking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[natural gas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[steve moore]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Steve Moore sheds light on the heart of the U.S. economy -- and how Obama is destroying it. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Editor’s note: Below are the video and transcript to Stephen Moore&#8217;s address at the Freedom Center’s 2014 Texas Weekend. The event took place May 2nd-4th at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas.</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/96508783" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Steve Moore:</strong> So, I am upbeat, Michael. I do think that things are going to get better. I agree with Pat Caddell. I guess my message is that we are really one election away from a real economic renaissance in this country. And I feel very strongly about that. And I kind of want to walk you through this.</p>
<p>And I&#8217;ll start by talking &#8212; I was chatting with some people at breakfast about this. I mean, there is so much good news actually that&#8217;s going on in America that doesn&#8217;t get enough attention. It gets a lot of attention here in Texas. And I know a lot of you in this room are Texans.</p>
<p>But if you look at the US economy over the last six years, there is one industry that has almost literally been carrying the rest of the economy on its back. And what industry is that?</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Speaker:</strong> Oil.</p>
<p><strong>Steve Moore: </strong>Yeah, the energy industry, the oil and gas industry. And this is an amazing story. And it&#8217;s not just a story about America being, you know, so richly endowed with natural resources; we are. There&#8217;s no question about it. But other countries have natural resources. This story of American renewal and energy production is really about American ingenuity, it&#8217;s about entrepreneurship, it&#8217;s about technological progress.</p>
<p>And by the way, it&#8217;s not the big oil companies &#8212; the Chevrons and the Exxons and the BPs &#8212; that have made this possible. These are small and medium-sized wildcatters who went out there and found this oil, the shale oil and gas, and found a way to get at these natural resources that have been there for millions of years; we just never had the technological capacity to get at it.</p>
<p>And, you know, many of you heard me tell many times the story about my trip about two or three years ago to North Dakota. How many of you have ever been to North Dakota, by the way? Raise your hand. About half of you have. I had never been to North Dakota. I&#8217;d been to every continental state in the United States. And I go to North Dakota, because of course North Dakota sits atop the Bakken Shale, which is the biggest oil find in North America in at least 50 years. And it&#8217;s an amazing place to go to.</p>
<p>You go to this little town of Williston, North Dakota, it feels like what it must&#8217;ve been like during the Gold Rush era in California. I mean, literally, it&#8217;s a town that just &#8212; bigger and bigger and bigger almost every day. And they just can&#8217;t keep up with the incredible population growth. And it&#8217;s just a stunning thing to spend time with the geologists to explain what&#8217;s happening.</p>
<p>By the way, you all know, right, that North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. Right? I mean, North Dakota&#8217;s unemployment rate officially &#8212; the statistics that came out yesterday &#8212; you saw the unemployment numbers came out yesterday &#8212; they say that the unemployment rate in North Dakota is 3.1 percent. I&#8217;m here to tell you that&#8217;s a bald-faced lie. The unemployment rate is not 3.1 percent in North Dakota; it is negative. It is negative. That is to say there are about 15,000 more jobs in North Dakota than there are people to fill those jobs.</p>
<p>Whenever I see panhandlers in Washington, DC or New York, I say &#8212; go to North Dakota. That&#8217;s where the jobs are.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>So it&#8217;s a great story. And it&#8217;s all being driven, of course, by these two incredible technologies &#8212; horizontal drilling &#8212; which all of you have heard about, where these drills now can go in any direction. And that is a huge seismic breakthrough in terms of the productivity and efficiency of our oil exploration. And the other, of course, is hydraulic fracturing.</p>
<p>And you know, I just have to say this. This is an amazing thing. I was giving a talk in Florida a few weeks ago to a kind of community group. And they actually had me talk to the valedictorians at the high school in the area. And these were all really impressive kids, 18- and 19-year-old kids, and really smart kids, and very inquisitive. And I was really impressed with them, about 20 kids in the room.</p>
<p>And we were just chatting about the things that were going on in America. And I talked a little bit about this energy revolution. And then it kind of occurred to me that they were kind of skeptical about this. And so I said to these kids &#8212; again, these are the smartest kids in the schools in Florida &#8212; I said &#8212; how many of you kids know what fracking is? They all raised their hand. And then I said &#8212; how many of you kids think that fracking is a good thing? Two of them raised their hand. Two of them. How many of you think fracking is a bad thing? Fifteen of them raised their hand.</p>
<p>We are losing this kind of propaganda &#8212; there is a left-wing propaganda campaign against the greatest innovation, I would argue, in 30 years, in any area. I mean, to be against fracking, to put it very simply, is like being against a cure for cancer. Right? I mean, this is a huge, huge thing.</p>
<p>Now, what I would say about this is a couple things &#8212; one, because of these new technologies &#8212; by the way, it&#8217;s not just happening in North Dakota. You all know it&#8217;s happening big time here in Texas. And the great story about Texas is that in the last four years, in just four years, Texas has almost tripled its oil and gas output. That&#8217;s an amazing thing to think about. It&#8217;s happening in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has doubled its oil output.</p>
<p>You all know about the Marcellus Shale on the East Coast. The Marcellus Shale is the biggest natural gas find in the world that we&#8217;ve had any time in the last hundred years. The Marcellus Shale, by the way, has 150 years&#8217; worth of natural gas. One hundred fifty years. And by the way, every time they drill, they&#8217;re finding more of it.</p>
<p>President Obama &#8212; by the way, one thing that&#8217;s really interesting about this &#8212; if you had gone back five and six years ago, nobody saw this coming. Nobody in their right mind thought that the United States would become the number-one natural gas producer in the world. It&#8217;s a perfect example of the problem of government central planning. Because what were they all doing five and six years ago? I mean, in fact, as recently as three years ago, President Obama&#8217;s running around the country telling the American people we&#8217;re running out of oil and gas.</p>
<p>Ladies and gentlemen, we are not running out of natural gas and oil; we are running into it, right, in a big, big way. And by the way, nobody &#8212; I mean, even people on our side &#8212; nobody saw it coming. It was these entrepreneurs who made it happen.</p>
<p>Now, the cool thing about this story &#8212; we are way, way ahead of the rest of the world in these technologies. And so, it gives us a huge strategic advantage in terms of our ability to produce these natural resources.</p>
<p>And imagine, by the way, how big this would be, how huge this would be, if we actually had a President who wanted it to happen. Right? I mean, we have a President who is more hostile to the fossil fuels industry than any President in American history. I mean, this is a President who really hates fossil fuels. He believes that if we keep burning these fossil fuels, the oceans are going to rise, and we&#8217;re going to have hurricanes, and all these things. He really buys into that. So everything that he has done has been to try to stop this from happening.</p>
<p>Now, that is a tragedy. Because if we want this economy to grow &#8212; let me just show you one &#8212; got to show you this chart, because this is pretty amazing. This is the US economy, this is job production in the US over the last, oh, six or seven years. Look at this &#8212; the red line is all industries, except oil and gas. The blue line is the oil and gas industry. You know, I know some of you in the oil and gas industry &#8212; congratulations, you helped reelect Barack Obama. Because if it had not been for the oil and gas boom, there is no way that Barack &#8212; we would still be &#8212; let me put it very simply. If it were not for this boom that we&#8217;re seeing in oil and gas, we would still effectively be in a recession today. The US economy would not be growing at all.</p>
<p>So that&#8217;s an amazing thing to think about. I mean, it is stunning &#8212; and by the way, these are good jobs. That&#8217;s the other thing. We&#8217;re not talking about $30,000- or $40,000-a-year jobs. We&#8217;re talking about jobs that pay $70,000, $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 a year.</p>
<p>One of the most dastardly acts that I&#8217;ve seen in the last two or three years in politics is President Obama saying he&#8217;s not going to build the Keystone XL pipeline. I mean, this is craziness. And by the way, he&#8217;s not even a good &#8212; you know, we always say that Barack Obama is a Saul Alinskyite, you know, &#8220;Rules for Radicals?&#8221; He&#8217;s too ideological to even be an Alinskyite. I mean, Saul Alinsky would say build that pipeline, you know, get the issue behind them. But he will not do it.</p>
<p>And this is one of the themes that I think Republicans should really be pushing hard on. And a lot of you are instrumental opinion leaders in America. Republicans, I believe, have an incredible opportunity in the next two elections to win back the old blue-collar Reagan Democrats.</p>
<p>Because there is a crackup right now that is just starting to emerge in the Democratic coalition that we have to exploit. And that crackup is between the radical Greens, who fund the party &#8212; the people like Tom Steyer, and the billionaire Democrats who really don&#8217;t care about these people whose jobs they&#8217;re destroying &#8212; we need to go to the union halls, the blue-collar industrial &#8212; and I&#8217;m not talking about the teachers&#8217; unions and the public sector unions. They&#8217;re always going to be the bedrock of the Democratic Party. I&#8217;m talking about people who actually do industrial jobs &#8212; pipefitters, teamsters, construction workers, people like that; and say &#8212; we care about your job; they don&#8217;t care about your job. We care about protecting your livelihood; they don&#8217;t.</p>
<p>Are you with me on that? Shouldn&#8217;t we be doing that? We should be going out and saying we&#8217;re the party that will protect your livelihood. And so it&#8217;s an important story with respect to that.</p>
<p>Now, let me show you another kind of interesting thing. If you look at the second panel here, what you&#8217;re looking at is the &#8212; the first one is just total production. But look at the growth in production.</p>
<p>And by the way, just so I&#8217;m bipartisan here &#8212; because I know this is a bipartisan &#8212; a nonpartisan group &#8211;</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>&#8211; some of the craziness that&#8217;s gone on in energy policy actually started under George W. Bush.</p>
<p>I mean, George W. Bush invested hugely in these crazy green energy policies. A lot of this started in 2005 and 2007. So under Bush and Obama, over the last six years, we have spent $100 billion of taxpayer money, $100 billion, on wind and solar power, to try &#8212; because these are infant industries, right? I mean, windmills. We never had windmills before. But you know, this is a technology that goes back to the Middle Ages, and they say it&#8217;s an infant technology.</p>
<p>But in any case &#8212; so we&#8217;ve spent $100 billion on this, and look at what&#8217;s happened. Have we gotten anything in return for that money? I mean, there&#8217;s almost been no growth. And then look at the oil and gas output, which, by the way, gets almost no subsidy, zero subsidy. In fact, the oil and gas industry pays more taxes to the federal government than any other industry in America. And look at the difference in the growth.</p>
<p>An interesting question for you all, because I want this to be a little bit participatory &#8212; after spending $100 billion on wind and solar energy, anybody in this room want to take a guess at what percentage of our electricity production in America today comes from wind and solar power? I heard somebody say one, I heard two, three. We&#8217;re up to 2.6 percent. So we spent $100 billion; we&#8217;re up to 2.6 percent.</p>
<p>Let me just put it very simply &#8212; we have an $18 trillion industrial economy. We are not going to power this industrial economy of $18 trillion with windmills and solar power. It&#8217;s just not going to happen. We need to power this with what we&#8217;ve got, right? Which is &#8212; we are the Saudi Arabia of coal, we&#8217;re the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, and we&#8217;re becoming the Saudi Arabia of oil. And we can do this. And the fact that we&#8217;re holding it back is such a tragedy.</p>
<p>Now, here&#8217;s the exciting thing about this story. I think &#8212; you know, when I started talking about this a few years ago at these conferences, people kind of, you know, were stunned by this. I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re so stunned by it today, because it&#8217;s become almost a conventional wisdom. But within five years &#8212; by the year 2020, if not before &#8212; the United States of America is going to move from being an oil and gas import country to an oil and gas export country.</p>
<p>Now, that is huge. That is a game-changer in terms of our economy. What do we spend more money importing than anything else in the world? Oil. We spend about $300 billion. You&#8217;ve been hearing the last couple days from foreign policy experts who know a lot more about it than I do.</p>
<p>But think about what this means for our national security, if we actually start selling this stuff rather than buying it. Think about what it means, how it changes the whole geopolitics of the Middle East. Think about the countries that hate us, that harbor terrorists &#8212; countries like Venezuela, countries like Saudi Arabia, countries like Iran. If we don&#8217;t have to buy this stuff from them but sell it, it&#8217;s huge.</p>
<p>And it also changes the whole geopolitics of what&#8217;s happening in Europe. Right? I mean, what is Ukraine really about? It&#8217;s about pipelines, it&#8217;s about oil and natural gas. The pipelines go right through Crimea, which is why Russia &#8212; and Russia supplies 80 to 90 percent of the natural gas and oil to Western Europe. That&#8217;s why this is a big deal. Guess who should be supplying the oil and gas to Europe? We should. And we have the capacity to do that. We don&#8217;t just need pipelines &#8212; hell yes, we need pipelines &#8212; we also need to be building LNG terminals so we can liquefy this stuff, send it over to Europe.</p>
<p>I keep making a line on Fox almost every day &#8212; if you really want to break the back of Putin, who is such a monster, start selling this stuff to Europe, so they&#8217;re not wholly dependent on Russia for gas.</p>
<p>So this is a good-news story. And by the way, it has huge ramifications for all of the other industries in America that will benefit from this. So we&#8217;re seeing &#8212; I don&#8217;t know how many of you are aware of this, but there is a mini-renaissance going on in this country in manufacturing. America&#8217;s making things again. You know, we&#8217;ve complained for the last 25 years we don&#8217;t make anything anymore? We do make stuff.</p>
<p>I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan last month. Grand Rapids is going through a boom period. They&#8217;re producing steel, they&#8217;re producing all sorts of light manufacturing products, the auto industry parts and assembly materials. And that&#8217;s all &#8212; not all of it, but a big part of that is happening because &#8212; guess what country in the world today has the lowest electric power costs? We do. We do. This has given us a huge strategic advantage.</p>
<p>So for example, our natural gas prices are $4; they pay $8 to $10 in Europe, and they&#8217;re paying $12 in Asia. So when we compete against the Chinese, when we compete against the Indians, when we compete against the Germans and the French and the Italians, this has put American companies at a huge, huge strategic advantage.</p>
<p>So we&#8217;ve got to go full speed ahead with this. And I think if you got a President who actually wanted it to happen, it would an amazing thing for the US economy.</p>
<p>So, what&#8217;s the next part of this story? This is something I really want to stress so importantly. Because again, this is the sound bite we have to keep using over and over and over again when we debate the Left. And I always try to make these charts as simple and as concise as possible. And by the way, this doesn&#8217;t even include the numbers that just came in this week. I haven&#8217;t quite updated this yet; I have to do this.</p>
<p>So, I was in a debate. We all know who Paul Krugman is, the leftie from the New York Times? So I was debating Paul Krugman about Keynesian economics and so on. And I showed this chart, and it infuriated him. I mean, I knew I was making a strike, because he was getting so angry about this.</p>
<p>But here&#8217;s the point &#8212; we&#8217;ve had two Presidents in the last 30 years who&#8217;ve come into office during great periods of economic crisis. How many of you remember 20 percent mortgage interest rates and 14 percent inflation, America de-industrializing in the late &#8217;70s? When Ronald Reagan stepped into office, the American economy was in a collapse. We had suffered a 12-year bear market; stocks in real terms had lost 60 percent of their value. You couldn&#8217;t even get a job as a college graduate. I remember this, because I graduated college at this time. Even as a burger-flipper, things were so bad.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s also true Barack Obama stepped into office. He says this every day, right? I came into office &#8212; we&#8217;d lost seven million jobs, the stock market was in collapse. No question.</p>
<p>So we have a great natural experiment here, right? Two Presidents came in during a complete collapse. And then you ask the question &#8212; well, which &#8212; and by the way, they used completely opposite strategic attempts to get us out of this crisis. Reagan came in, and you all know the story. What did he do? He cut tax rates significantly &#8212; the top rate (inaudible) from 70 to 28 percent. We deregulated the economy, we got government spending under control, we got control of the money supply. We depended on the supply side of the economy, the producers and the businesses, to get us out of this terrible recession.</p>
<p>Obama comes in and does exactly the opposite. Right? You all remember the $830 billion stimulus plan. Then we had Obamacare. Remember Cash for Clunkers? Remember that program, where government paid you to buy cars?</p>
<p>You know, the other day, Joe Biden made another one of his crazy &#8212; I mean, almost every day he&#8217;s saying something stupid. And so, there was a great cartoon in the Washington Times, I don&#8217;t know if you all saw it. But President Obama&#8217;s carrying Joe Biden around like he&#8217;s a piece of lumber. And he goes to this window, it says Cash for Clunkers.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>I love that.</p>
<p>But anyway, Obama and Reagan do exactly the opposite. And then you ask the question &#8212; which worked? You know, which strategy worked? And this is an amazing statistic. So what this is saying is that if the economy under Barack Obama had grown as fast as it did under Ronald Reagan, the American economy today would be &#8212; the new number is $2.1 trillion larger. $2.1 trillion. Now, these are numbers that are so large they&#8217;re hard to comprehend. But let me just put this in kind of a context for people. If we were to divide that $2.1 trillion every year evenly among every household in America, every household in America would have about $15,000 more income.</p>
<p>So this is a huge loss. This is the growth deficit that we&#8217;ve seen under Barack Obama. And it&#8217;s getting worse; it&#8217;s not getting better. We have 0.1 percent GDP growth next month. So we&#8217;re not in a recession; we&#8217;re just not growing nearly fast enough.</p>
<p>And by the way, Krugman has no response to this. Barack Obama has no response. Liberals have no way of explaining this. If their ideas work so well, explain why we have this $2 trillion deficit. And there is no response, except for the fact that their ideas don&#8217;t work.</p>
<p>Now, let me show you this. This is a fun one. So I have a new book out that I just did with Arthur Laffer, on the &#8212; it&#8217;s called &#8220;The Wealth of States.&#8221; And the story is the red-versus-blue states phenomena. And you all know what&#8217;s going on. The red states &#8212; the states of the south are getting richer, they&#8217;re getting more and more people.</p>
<p>Did you all see the story the other day about Toyota moving out of California into Texas? This is just a &#8211;</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p>Yeah, that&#8217;s great news, right? So this is happening day after day after day.</p>
<p>And so, what I did &#8212; this one chart really summarizes the whole book. I still want you to stimulate the economy by buying the book. But this chart really summarizes the argument, which is &#8212; red states have got it right. Right? I mean, Texas is such a prototype state that does almost everything right.</p>
<p>But here&#8217;s the point &#8212; the red states, you know, are low-tax states, they&#8217;re states that are right-to-work states, they&#8217;re states that don&#8217;t have heavy regulation, they&#8217;re states that are going full speed ahead with drilling and so on. And the blue states just do the opposite &#8212; they&#8217;re raising tax rates, they&#8217;re not right-to-work states, they&#8217;re [forced] union states. They have high government spending, high government debt. They give a huge amount of power to the public sector employee unions, and so on and so forth.</p>
<p>Now, what&#8217;s the point of this? So, this is just job growth over the last 20 years. Job growth over the last 20 years. And the nice thing about this &#8212; this is another wonderful national experiment. Because it turns out, our four biggest states in America &#8212; of these four states &#8212; Texas, Florida, California and New York &#8212; they account for one third of the population of the US. So these are huge mega-players in the US economy. And it turns out, just by sort of luck, as a statistician, that two of those states are red states, and two of them are blue states.</p>
<p>So all I did was I said &#8212; Arthur and I said &#8212; well, let&#8217;s look at what&#8217;s happening in these states &#8212; which model works better? Texas and Florida have basically created about four times as many jobs over the last 20 years as [New York and California]. Now, what possible explanation is there for that?</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll tell you what Paul Krugman said in our debate, because he didn&#8217;t like this argument too much, either. Because they don&#8217;t have much of a response to this. So he said &#8212; Steve, this is happening because of the weather. Right?</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>I mean, you know, he said that people &#8212; and by the way, there is some truth to this, right? I mean, there&#8217;s a lot of truth to this. I mean, would you rather live in Minneapolis, Minnesota; or would you rather live in Fort Lauderdale? There&#8217;s no question people are &#8212; especially as we get older, people are moving to warmer climates, no question about that.</p>
<p>But it certainly doesn&#8217;t account for everything. And I had so much fun with Krugman. Because you know, he&#8217;s such an asshole. I mean, I just cannot &#8211;</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>&#8211; he&#8217;s such an arrogant jerk. Sorry, Mike. I know we&#8217;re not supposed to use that kind of language at these, but he really is.</p>
<p>So you know, he says to me &#8212; so he says it&#8217;s all weather-related. And so, I just zinged him. I said okay. Dr. Krugman &#8212; I was very respectful &#8212; I said &#8212; I didn&#8217;t call him an asshole at this meeting.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>I said &#8212; Dr. Krugman, if you think this is all a result of the weather, then please explain this to me, Dr. Krugman, with your Nobel Prize in economics &#8212; why is it that people are moving from San Diego to Houston? Because they&#8217;re not moving from San Diego to Houston for the weather. Right? And he was like &#8212; he had no response to that at all.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>I mean, don&#8217;t you all agree this is great vindication and validation of our ideas? We have to keep pushing this metric.</p>
<p>The cool thing about this, by the way, is that that Toyota example &#8212; I mean, this is happening every single day in America. So the red states are getting more prosperous; the blue states &#8212; and by the way, I&#8217;m from a blue state. I&#8217;m from the state of Illinois. I mean, it&#8217;s tragedy what&#8217;s happening in our state. It&#8217;s just a tragedy.</p>
<p>When I was growing up, Illinois was one of the richest states in the country. Illinois is getting bled dry because of preposterous policies. You know, five years ago, the highest income tax rate in Illinois was three percent. So we had a flat-rate income tax of three percent. The governor just recently raised it to six percent. And now, there&#8217;s going to be an initiative on the ballot sponsored by the teachers&#8217; unions to raise it to nine percent. To nine percent.</p>
<p>Now, I talked to Mike Pence the other day &#8212; you know, the governor of Indiana who&#8217;s a great dark horse for the Republican candidacy for President. And I asked him, I said &#8212; Mike, what do you think of this? And he was so great. He said, you know &#8212; Steve, I&#8217;ve got to tell you this. He said &#8212; living next &#8212; being a neighboring state to Illinois, here in Indiana, it&#8217;s like living down the street from the Simpsons.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>I just thought that was a great line, you know.</p>
<p>But anyway, these things have to be &#8212; we have to keep pushing the red state message. Because I think it is so important.</p>
<p>One or two other points if I may, and then I&#8217;ll open it up to some questions for you. I just thought I&#8217;d show this to you. This is an indication of where &#8212; or kind of forecast of which states &#8212; not which states have grown the most, but based on our kind of formula of which policies are the most pro-growth in states. I just thought I&#8217;d show this to you because so many of you are from different states.</p>
<p>I know a lot of you are Texans. By the way, I always get asked &#8212; why is Texas 21 on this list? It&#8217;s because Texas is so good already, it&#8217;s hard to find policies much to improve here. But you know, over the last 10 years, you&#8217;ve grown much, much faster than any other state.</p>
<p>But the point is, you look at the states that are growing and have the best forecast &#8212; Utah, South Dakota, Indiana, North Dakota, Idaho, North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wyoming. What do all those states have in common? They are red states that are growing.</p>
<p>Look, just cast your eyes, if you will, on the bottom six or seven states. You guys probably can&#8217;t read this, so let me read it for you &#8212; New Jersey, Minnesota, California, Illinois, Vermont, New York. Those states, every year after year, are losing people, they&#8217;re losing businesses, they&#8217;re losing capital.</p>
<p>And by the way, how many of you here are from California? How many &#8212; a lot of you are. Mike, maybe you can explain this to me &#8212; how do you screw up California? I mean, really? I mean, I love &#8212; every time I go out for your conferences and visit you out there, it&#8217;s like &#8212; this is like heaven on earth. Right? I mean, beautiful mountains and beautiful beaches, and beautiful, 70-degree weather and sunshine, and beautiful women. I mean, what&#8217;s not to like about this great, great state of California?</p>
<p>And it really shows how politicians can screw a place up. So, tragically, the people want to actually move out of this great state.</p>
<p>The next point I want to make &#8212; I know I am running out of time &#8212; I just want to show you one other quick thing, if I may. Oh, by the way, I don&#8217;t know how many have seen this. This is the new flat tax that Barack Obama just came up &#8212; how much money did you make? Send it in.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a &#8212; I mean, can it get any simpler than this? You can put that on a postcard.</p>
<p>But I wanted to show you one other thing. Oh, okay. So we were chatting a little bit about this at breakfast, about what&#8217;s happening in the money supply. And I think Pat Caddell mentioned this, about Americans really concerned about our money supply. They should be. They should be.</p>
<p>Look at this. We&#8217;ve never seen anything like this before in the country&#8217;s history. This is the supply of money. Look at what happened in 2009 &#8212; I mean, 2008. That was during the meltdown of the economy. And then, you can see QE1, QE2, QE3. And those are just fancy terms for saying what we&#8217;re doing is just printing more and more money. Right?</p>
<p>And this is unchartered territory. We&#8217;ve never seen anything like this before. We&#8217;ve more than doubled and tripled the supply of dollars in the economy.</p>
<p>Now, you all know this from your Economics 100 course &#8212; what is the likely impact of all that money printing? Inflation, right? You reduce the value of your currency. And that&#8217;s what&#8217;s been happening in America.</p>
<p>By the way, I don&#8217;t know how many of you saw &#8212; there was a report that came up from the New York Times. It&#8217;s somewhat suspect, because the New York Times reported this. But they were basically saying that the average Canadian is now &#8212; did you all see this? The average Canadian has a higher living standard than the average American. Now, I don&#8217;t believe that to be true. But it is true, over the last 10 years, Canada&#8217;s been catching up in a big way.</p>
<p>And this reporter put 2,500 words into this, talking about this. And they came up with all sorts of explanations. But one of the explanations that they did not mention, which is one of the key factors for why Canada lately has been doing so much better than the United States &#8212; have you all been seeing what&#8217;s happened to the Canadian dollar versus the US dollar? The Canadian dollar has gone way up. I mean, remember 20 years ago, the Canadian dollar was, what, 65 to 70 cents for a dollar. Now, it&#8217;s &#8212; actually, it went above the US dollar, didn&#8217;t it, for awhile. I think right now, it&#8217;s at about par.</p>
<p>When you devalue the value of your currency, what happens to the standard of living of people? Right? And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re doing here.</p>
<p>And by the way, if I showed you that chart, and I didn&#8217;t even tell you what country that was, you know, you&#8217;d probably say &#8212; that&#8217;s Argentina. Right? That&#8217;s Mexico, that&#8217;s Bolivia. I mean, that&#8217;s what countries do when they get in a debt crisis. And it&#8217;s a &#8212; I would make a case to you, it&#8217;s a very, very dangerous situation.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll just show you one more on this money stuff. It&#8217;s kind of interesting. These are the interest rates in the US. You all see the &#8217;70s &#8212; remember when the interest rates went up and up and up and up? And then, look what happened when Reagan came into office. Anybody remember who the Fed chairman was in 1981? Volcker. So this is the Reagan-Volcker disinflation, one of the great economic triumphs of the last 50 years.</p>
<p>And look at this. Look at what &#8212; you want to see a beautiful picture, look at the last 30 years &#8212; down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down go interest rates. You know, and now they&#8217;re &#8212; this is a little out of date &#8212; we&#8217;re at about 2.5, 2.75 on the Ten Year Treasury Bond.</p>
<p>But I will make a bet to any and all of you in this room. If, let&#8217;s say. we were to re-gather two or three or five years from now &#8212; I&#8217;m willing to bet $100 to any and all of you that interest rates are going to be higher then than they are today.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>Anybody want to take me up on that? I mean, it&#8217;s not a very bold bet. We are &#8212; and by the way, I&#8217;m an optimist. I am an optimist. But I will say this &#8212; one of the things that keeps me up at night &#8212; think about what happens if those interest rates start to rise just to the average of where they&#8217;ve been in the last 30 years. So let&#8217;s say the Ten Year Treasury bill goes from 2.5 to 4.5 or five percent. What institution in the world is the biggest debtor in the world? The US government. Right? So what country is the most exposed to an interest rate effect? We are.</p>
<p>If you see those interest rates go up to, say, five percent &#8212; which again, that would only be the average of what they&#8217;ve been over the last 40 years &#8212; if those interest rates go up from 2.5 to five percent, that will increase the national debt, our borrowing, our deficit over the next 10 years, by $2.5 trillion.</p>
<p>So we are extremely susceptible to an interest rate shock. We got to stop borrowing.</p>
<p>Just quickly show this. Some of you have seen this. But if you want to see where prices are out of control on the American economy, it&#8217;s education and healthcare. You know, if you look at basic consumer items, they&#8217;ve actually been falling in price. Software and computers and clothing and vehicles, and almost anything you can buy at a Walmart &#8212; those things are falling in price, which is a good thing. Isn&#8217;t it interesting &#8212; the two industries in America where prices are completely out of control are healthcare and education.</p>
<p>Now, who runs those two industries? The government does, right? And you want to see &#8212; healthcare prices are going to continue to go up.</p>
<p>Did you see, by the way, what President Obama said when the GDP report came out on Wednesday? He said &#8212; this is really good news, because healthcare spending went way up. And that shows that Obamacare is working. I mean, he actually &#8212; I&#8217;m not kidding, he actually made this statement.</p>
<p>Now, wait a minute! Then he told us that if we put in Obamacare, it would cause the prices to fall! And he&#8217;s celebrating the fact that they&#8217;re rising.</p>
<p>Education and healthcare. How many of you in this room have a son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter, in college today? Raise your hand. The greatest scam in America today is how much universities are charging in tuition, right? And Republicans should be doing something about that.</p>
<p>And I have a great article in the paper next week about a school, College of the Ozarks, that charges zero for tuition. You know how they do it? The kids work. The kids work. Isn&#8217;t that a dramatic idea?</p>
<p>So, I can tell that Michael&#8217;s hyperventilating a little back in the room, because I&#8217;ve used more time than I should. I&#8217;ll simply say this &#8212; there is only one thing standing between America and an incredible economic renaissance, like we had in the &#8217;80s and &#8217;90s, where the economy just booms, the stock market rockets, and America becomes the number-one competitive country in the world. Only one thing stands in our way. And that is Hillary. We have to beat Hillary.</p>
<p>But if we do, if we do &#8212; and I think we are going to beat her &#8212; if we win that 2016 election, you&#8217;re going to see the biggest boom in this country you ever saw.</p>
<p>Thank you very much. Great pleasure to be with you.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p>Is there any time for questions, or &#8211;? Two or three. Okay. Really quickly, I&#8217;ll try to get through &#8212; yes. Go ahead. [Edelle]?</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> Assuming the boom scenario &#8212; at what pace would the federal debt reduce? What&#8217;s the offset to the money supply and the federal debt?</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Speaker:</strong> I&#8217;ll let you ask your question now.</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> Some bloggers think that deflation is a higher probability than inflation. What is your opinion on that?</p>
<p><strong>Steve Moore:</strong> I think those people are absolutely crazy. I mean, if you&#8217;re printing more and more money, how does that lead to deflation? Right?</p>
<p>Now look, it is true inflation is very low right now. I mean, the CPI indicator&#8217;s only going up by 1.5 percent. But that&#8217;s only because the economy&#8217;s growing so slowly. Right? The money isn&#8217;t turning over.</p>
<p>One of the things that&#8217;s going to kind of retard this boom that I&#8217;m talking about &#8212; as people start spending more money, as investors start investing and as banks start lending it, what&#8217;s going to happen to the inflation rate? It&#8217;s going to start to go up. Right?</p>
<p>So anybody who thinks we&#8217;re in an era of deflation &#8212; I think you&#8217;re &#8212; I just don&#8217;t see it. I think the debt is too high &#8212; and by the way, one of the things that&#8217;s scary is, if we actually had a rush of inflation, the government actually benefits from that. Because it reduces the real value of the debt. So I just don&#8217;t &#8212; how many of you think we&#8217;re going to see deflation over the next &#8212; how many think we&#8217;re going to see inflation? So, I think you&#8217;re right. I would go with you on that.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m sorry, (inaudible) &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member: </strong>(Inaudible)</p>
<p>Oh yeah, right. Look, here&#8217;s the thing &#8212; we should be on a four percent growth path. This is what Reagan created. Reagan created an American growth path of four percent for seven years.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know how many have ever read the book by my hero, Bob Bartley, who was the original Wall Street Journal Editorial Page editor. But Bartley wrote a great, great, great book. If you want to read a great history book, read &#8220;The Seven Fat Years.&#8221; It was about the incredible success of what happened when Reagan cut tax rates. When he deregulated the economy, when he got money under control and inflation fell, we saw the biggest boom in this country ever. And it hit every class &#8212; the low-income people, the middle-class people, the people in the upper class. We can do that again.</p>
<p>And you get back to four percent growth, and then the deficit will fall very dramatically. You will see people&#8217;s incomes start to rise. I mean, I was struck &#8212; I didn&#8217;t hear all of Pat Caddell&#8217;s comments this morning, but I heard a few of them. And he is so right. Americans &#8212; the most amazing statistic &#8212; and he talked a little bit about this &#8212; over half of Americans today, 52 percent according to the latest Fox poll, think America&#8217;s still in a recession. Wait a minute &#8212; this recovery began in June of 2009. We&#8217;re almost five and six years into this recovery, and half of Americans think we&#8217;re still in a recession. Why is that? Why is that?</p>
<p>Well, I&#8217;ll tell you. If you look &#8212; the Left always talks about &#8212; oh, we care about the middle class and so on. The middle class has gotten crushed under Obama. The average middle-class family has lost $1,800 in income during this so-called recovery. So they aren&#8217;t getting richer; they&#8217;re getting poorer. They are getting creamed by Obama policies. And that is the message Republicans have to say over and over.</p>
<p>One last one, and then I promise I&#8217;ll end, Mike. Go ahead.</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> (Inaudible question &#8212; microphone inaccessible) &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Steve Moore:</strong> Oh, this is &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> (Inaudible question &#8212; microphone inaccessible).</p>
<p><strong>Steve Moore:</strong> Well, I am worried about &#8212; on this electricity issue, our electric prices should be falling very dramatically. Because we&#8217;re &#8212; you know, look, where do we get most of our electricity from today? There&#8217;s two sources that we get 80 percent of our electricity from. What are they? Coal and natural gas, right? And about 40 percent comes from coal and about 40 percent from natural gas.</p>
<p>This is a roundabout way of answering the question, but I got to tell you a statistic. Can I just take two more minutes? I know you&#8217;re running behind, but I bet this will stun everyone in this room, and it&#8217;s a great thing to throw in the face of liberals.</p>
<p>So they say all they care about is global warming, got to stop the oceans from rising, and so on. If you look over the last five years &#8212; I bet, if you read The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page, you probably know this &#8212; over the last five years, what country in the world, of all the developed countries, do you think has reduced its carbon emissions the most?</p>
<p><strong>Audience:</strong> We have.</p>
<p><strong>Steve Moore:</strong> We have. Now, that&#8217;s stunning, right? How could we have reduced our carbon emissions more than Europe and Asia? We never signed the Kyoto Treaty, right? We never passed Cap and Trade. We never did, you know, the carbon tax, all the stuff &#8212; for the last 10 years, Europe has been talking so sanctimoniously &#8212; oh, we&#8217;re doing all this stuff to stop global warming. We&#8217;ve done more to reduce carbon than they have! Why? What&#8217;s going on? Why is it our carbon emissions have fallen so much?</p>
<p>Natural gas!</p>
<p><strong>Unidentified Audience Member:</strong> &#8212; [50] percent coal, and now we&#8217;re 40 percent (inaudible) &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Steve Moore:</strong> Exactly. You&#8217;ve got it exactly right, sir.</p>
<p>And so what&#8217;s going on is natural gas &#8212; it turns out natural gas is a wonder-fuel. Right? This is like the most amazing fuel ever invented. Why? Number one, it&#8217;s abundant. Right? We&#8217;ve got hundreds and hundreds of years&#8217; worth of natural gas. Number two, it&#8217;s American. We have more natural gas than anybody else in the world. It&#8217;s homemade energy supply. Number three, it&#8217;s cheap. Right? And number four, it emits very few carbons into the atmosphere. Right?</p>
<p>So you would think &#8212; right &#8212; you would think that the Left would be celebrating the natural gas revolution. This is the solution to global warming. But do they like natural gas? They hate it, right?</p>
<p>My view is that the Left has a very, very sinister campaign going on here. It is not about global warming, it is not about cleaning the air or cleaning the water. What is this really about? It is stopping growth, it is stopping capitalism, and it is stopping progress.</p>
<p>And this gets back to the point that I just want to stress one last time before Michael punts me over the goal &#8212; we can win back sensible middle-class Americans. Because when I talk to Democrats who are not in office, or who talk to me off the record, you know what they tell me? Steve, our party, the Democratic Party, we&#8217;re on the wrong side of the energy issue. They are. Right? They bet the farm on wind and solar power, and it doesn&#8217;t work! Right? It can&#8217;t possibly compete with this natural gas and oil revolution.</p>
<p>We&#8217;ve got to shove this down their throats, and say &#8212; we are going to create millions and millions of high-paying jobs in this country that are going to bring back the middle class.</p>
<p>And the Democrats, and these wackos like Tom Steyer &#8212; do you all know who Tom Steyer is? He&#8217;s given $100 million to the Democratic Party. Those are the opponents of the American Dream.</p>
<p>Thank you very much. Been great to be here.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
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		<title>Italy Meets EU Standards with a Drugs and Prostitution GDP</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/italy-meets-eu-standards-with-a-drugs-and-prostitution-gdp/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=italy-meets-eu-standards-with-a-drugs-and-prostitution-gdp</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/italy-meets-eu-standards-with-a-drugs-and-prostitution-gdp/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 31 May 2014 13:25:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Italy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226506</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Meet the new world economy. It's as fake as a three-dollar bill.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/the-godfather-1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-226507" alt="the-godfather-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/the-godfather-1-450x253.jpg" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>Just when you thought that Italy&#8217;s crazy government couldn&#8217;t get any more insane, it hit on a gimmick for improving the international perception of its economy. Just include the black market in its GDP. Never mind that the black market<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/05/27/italy-drugs-prostitution-economy-gdp/9631573/"> isn&#8217;t taxable, difficult to estimate and not exactly a good thing</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Italy is changing how it calculates its gross domestic product, a measurement of the overall economy, to include black market activity — everything from prostitution to illegal drug sales to smuggling and arms trafficking. Economists predict illegal sales will add 1.3 percentage points to GDP this year.</p>
<p>Hey, it&#8217;s one way to boost growth.</p>
<p>By including the black market, for which there are no concrete ways to measure and accurately determine value, the Italian government will be able to manipulate its GDP numbers in a way that&#8217;s bound to open it to criticism and agitate its Northern neighbors. Simultaneously, investors will learn to dismiss, or at least, discount, Italy&#8217;s statistics, since they won&#8217;t be regarded as &#8220;real.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>So Italy is creating a fake GDP based on imaginary numbers linked to organized crime. And this will not convince any investors of anything (except maybe in Russia, which is already buying into Italy).</p>
<blockquote><p>A larger overall economy will enable Italy to lower its debt-to-GDP ratio, which is an essential part of meeting the EU&#8217;s financial standards. EU countries are not supposed to let their yearly bills reach more than 3% of the overall economy (or their debt exceed 60% of GDP.) If they do, they&#8217;re hit with hefty fines.</p>
<p>The other benefit of lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio, is that Italy should theoretically be able to borrow more money.</p></blockquote>
<p>No, no and no.</p>
<p>Is Germany going to look at Italy&#8217;s new drugs and prostitution numbers and sign off on them? Is the City? I don&#8217;t think so.</p>
<p>This is a pointless gimmick that makes Italy look worse than before by an utterly insane government that could be replaced by zoo animals on cocaine with no one being the wiser.</p>
<blockquote><p>While Italy&#8217;s move may be considered unorthodox, even shady, it&#8217;s not illegal. The EU seems to encourage the creative accounting; To give countries such as Italy a lifeline, new EU rules require member states to include the value of all income-producing activity in GDP calculations — and illegal activity is often income-producing. Italy is the first and only country to take advantage. Others, such as Spain (for which 20% of the overall economy is believed to be black market), and Greece, may soon follow.</p></blockquote>
<p>You can see why the EU is on its last legs. It&#8217;s a giant fraud machine.</p>
<blockquote><p>Last month, Nigeria declared itself the biggest economy on the continent of Africa by recalculating GDP. Ghana added 60% to its economy in 2010 by establishing new GDP accounting rules. Even the U.S. managed to tack on an additional $504 billion to our economy last year by giving credit to Hollywood and creative industries.</p></blockquote>
<p>Meet the new world economy. It&#8217;s as fake as a three-dollar bill.</p>
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		<title>Recovery: US Economy has Worst Quarter in 3 Years</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/recovery-us-economy-has-worst-quarter-in-3-years/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=recovery-us-economy-has-worst-quarter-in-3-years</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/recovery-us-economy-has-worst-quarter-in-3-years/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 29 May 2014 15:47:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226502</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter of 2014]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/roller-coaster-19.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-226503" alt="roller-coaster-19" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/roller-coaster-19.jpg" width="400" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>That recovery that Obama and the media keep talking about&#8230; <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-gdp-contracted-at-1-pace-in-first-quarter-1401366873">it&#8217;s coming any day now</a>. That must be why <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2014/05/29/u-s-gdp-dropped-1-in-the-first-quarter-2014-down-from-first-estimate/">the economic results </a><a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/05/disaster-first-quarter-gdp-revised-down-to-1-0/">every month keep underperforming the optimistic</a> projections.</p>
<p>And while the recovery remains a talking point on Pennsylvania Avenue, rather than a reality on Main Street.</p>
<blockquote><p>The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter of 2014, the latest stumble for a recovery that has struggled to find its footing since the recession ended almost five years ago.</p>
<p>Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, contracted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.0% in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said Thursday. It was the first time economic output contracted since the first quarter of 2011, when it declined at a 1.3% pace.</p></blockquote>
<p>Naturally the official word blames the cold because that way they can switch to promoting the total destruction of the economy through carbon credit taxation.</p>
<blockquote><p>The estimate is down significantly from BEA’s 0.1% advance estimate released last month and makes Q1 the U.S. economy’s worst quarter in three years.</p></blockquote>
<p>But don&#8217;t worry. The economists have more optimistic economic projections. They consulted the entrails, donated to Organizing for Action and they&#8217;re promising a bright future ahead. And then the real numbers will come down.</p>
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		<title>Will Detroit Be Healed by Searching for &#8216;Subtle Racism&#8217;?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ben-shapiro/will-detroit-be-healed-by-searching-for-subtle-racism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-detroit-be-healed-by-searching-for-subtle-racism</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 22 May 2014 04:31:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Eight Mile Line]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[management]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Racism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226010</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Denial and destruction in a once-great American city. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/detroit-fight-shows-why-public-pensions-are-bound-for-problems.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-226011" alt="detroit-fight-shows-why-public-pensions-are-bound-for-problems" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/detroit-fight-shows-why-public-pensions-are-bound-for-problems-450x337.jpg" width="315" height="236" /></a>Just off of the James C. Lodge Freeway in Detroit is Eight Mile Road. The stretch near the freeway is just east of the famed area that provided the basis for the Eminem film of the same name. To its north lie predominantly white suburbs — over 77 percent of those who live in Oakland County are white — with median family income in excess of $65,000. Married couples comprise approximately half of households, with fewer than 15 percent of households led by a single female. Since 1990, the population of Oakland County has jumped from 1.083 million to 1.202 million.</p>
<p>South of Eight Mile Road lies the city of Detroit, with a nearly 83 percent black population and a median household income of under $27,000. Almost 74 percent of households in Detroit are led by single parents, nearly all women. The population of the city has dropped from 1.027 million in that same period to approximately 713,000.</p>
<p>Eight Mile Road itself paints a bleak picture. In the middle of a weekday, the streets are sparsely populated; old, solid-structure brick houses with rotten roofs dot the side streets; beaten-up Pontiacs from the early 1990s sitting forlornly in driveways. Hair salons, liquors stores and rim stores are open for business, but they&#8217;re located between defunct hair stores, liquor stores and rim stores.</p>
<p>What happened in Detroit? Horrific governance destroyed the industrial infrastructure that created the growing mixed-population base of the city; it centralized employment in the government while devastating the business and tax base. Businesses fled to the suburbs, as did whites. The bulk of the black population, trapped in a cycle of poverty and government dependence, sold a bill of goods by Detroit&#8217;s politicians, stayed behind.</p>
<p>Those politicians covered their mismanagement with racially charged rhetoric, from former Mayor Coleman Young to jailed former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. When Detroit went bankrupt in 2013, it was the final result of decades of failed policy decisions based on central planning.</p>
<p>When financial analysts look at Eight Mile Road, they see the tragedy of a once-proud city separated. On one side of the road, Detroit; on the other side, Detroit without the mismanagement. To fix the situation would require good governance — slashing regulations, lowering taxes, attracting business, creating jobs.</p>
<p>Instead, politicians offer more of the same. This week, Attorney General Eric Holder stated that America&#8217;s racial disparities are a result of continued racism and suggested that neutral laws had reinforced an enduring &#8220;subtle racism&#8221; throughout the country. Holder cited particular disciplinary practices in schools and sentencing guidelines as repositories of racism.</p>
<p>None of this will heal Detroit or places like it. Economic health requires a dedicated workforce, a free entrepreneurial climate, protection against crime. Those, in turn, require solid two-parent families, a competitive educational environment and a dedication to equal application of the law rather than equal results under it.</p>
<p>Eight Mile Road is a blot on a once-beautiful city. It will remain a dividing line so long as America&#8217;s politicians continue to use it as one.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Israel at 66: Not a Pariah, Not Isolated</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/gideonisrael/israel-at-66-not-a-pariah-not-isolated/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israel-at-66-not-a-pariah-not-isolated</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 09 May 2014 04:44:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Gideon Israel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[66th birthday]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[birthday]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslims]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=225057</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the future of the Jewish State remains bright.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/lhg.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-225090" alt="lhg" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/lhg-450x306.jpg" width="315" height="214" /></a>As the modern state of Israel turned 66 this week, it is important to realize that, despite the dreary predictions to the contrary, Israel is not a pariah state, nor is it isolated.  However, voices inside and outside of Israel continue to espouse their gloom and doom forecast that failure of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will increase Israel’s pariah status and/or lead them into isolation.  Yet, we don’t need to search very far to find those voices and examine what constituency they represent &#8211; since Tzippi Livni, Israel’s Justice Minister and chief negotiator, repeatedly makes this assertion.</p>
<p>She has said, “<a href="http://en.alalam.ir/news/1556638">peace negotiations</a> are the wall stopping the wave [of international boycott pressure],” and in 2013, “we are at the <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-may-face-isolation-if-peace-agreement-not-reached/">last minute</a> before isolation.”  In <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/kadima-leader-livni-israel-can-save-itself-from-global-isolation-1.294704">2010</a>, “Israel is becoming isolated from the world,&#8221; and indicted PM Netanyahu <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/livni-to-netanyahu-with-you-in-power-israel-is-a-pariah-state-1.264081">saying</a>, &#8220;since you took control, Israel has become a pariah country in the world.”</p>
<p>These statements, and other similar pronouncements, are never supported with data or backed up with facts.  However, Livni, other ‘friends’ of Israel and like-minded pundits believe that these types of statements, combined with pictures of fringe groups around the globe supporting BDS, is enough to scare the public into buying into their vision.</p>
<p>But, is Israel really isolated?  Even more so, what is the nature of the isolation which Livni, Kerry and others speak about?  They certainly haven’t elaborated on what they mean since their pronouncements lack factual support.   A country might be considered isolated when most other countries sever relations with them for an extended and indefinite period of time.  This might include a cessation of economic, diplomatic, cultural ties and/or an arms embargo.  This might also be coupled with UN Security Council sanctions (not to be mistaken for UNGA condemnations which carry absolutely no weight).  Since policymakers have made statements warning of isolation, it is important to refute those claims, lest they spread.</p>
<p>Prior to his visit to Israel in 2013, senior Chinese Communist Official in charge of information, media and culture, Liu Qibao, discussed <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/Opening-a-new-chapter-in-the-China-Israel-relationship-329263">Chinese-Israel relations</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Our bilateral relationship has grown robust and mature over the past 21 years of diplomatic relations…exchange of visits between senior officials is frequent…trade and economic ties grow fast. China is now Israel’s largest trading partner in Asia…Cooperation in science and technology is fruitful. Cultural and people-to-people exchanges are more and more active…China-Israel relationship will undoubtedly embrace a bright future.</p></blockquote>
<p>Throughout the whole interview the Israeli-Arab conflict was not mentioned once.  And while there might be calls for boycott and divestment in Israel China not only hasn’t joined those calls, but is also going ahead with the <a href="http://www.dw.de/china-seeks-strategic-foothold-in-israel/a-17507052">Red-Med</a> project to build a railroad from Eilat to Ashdod.</p>
<p>Israel-Indian ties also continue to grow stronger.  Israel is India’s second largest supplier of <a href="http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/india-israel-defense-cooperation/">arms </a>after Russia with bi-lateral arms trade over the last decade estimated at $10 billion.  <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-01-12/news/30619683_1_unforgettable-leaders-bilateral-ties-israeli-president">India’s foreign minister</a> Krishna visited Israel in 2012, and the visit of the <a href="http://www.tlvfaces.com/indias-military-chief-concludes-visit-israel/">Chief of Staff</a> of India’s army, Maj. Gen. Bikram Singh, to Israel in March, 2014, focused on joint cooperation.  Israel currently has more than <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/16/the-future-of-the-india-israel-relationship.html">27 agricultural projects</a> with India and will be sponsoring more than 100 post-doctoral scholarships for Indians in Israel.  Additionally, <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/india-2014-elections-narendra-modi-israels-best-friend-south-asia-1561837">Narendra Modi</a>, head of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), and likely the next Prime Minister of India, has long courted political and economic ties with Israel.</p>
<p>Both India and China, as Professor Efraim Inbar <a href="http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/MSPS99Eng.pdf">wrote</a>, “treat the Jewish State with reverence as they see in it a similar old civilization that reached remarkable achievements.”</p>
<p>Russia is very interested in Israel’s high-tech and especially its UAVs.  [President] <a href="http://english.dohainstitute.org/release/ca69e135-b737-40ce-b72c-58e0ff50787a">Putin</a> has already visited Israel twice and the last four Israeli Prime Ministers, as well as Shimon Peres, FM Lieberman and Defense Minister, Ehud Barak have all been to Moscow in their official capacity.  In 2010, Russia and Israel signed an agreement for <a href="http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=15455.php">bilateral cooperation</a> in industrial scientific-research and design-experimental work, and the following year, Israel and Russia agreed to expand <a href="http://voiceofrussia.com/2011/03/28/48091534/">space cooperation</a>, and joint cooperation in the sciences and nanotechnology continue.</p>
<p>In Central Asia, Israel has strong relationships with Kazakhstan, with whom they entered into an <a href="http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/01/21/kazakhstan-is-latest-central-asian-state-to-sign-defense-accord-with-israel/">agreement</a> for defense exports and joint cooperation in January, 2014.  Azerbaijan, neighboring Iran, is a country with good economic and political relations with Israel, whose <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-03-030513.html">foreign minister</a> visited Israel last year. It has even been speculated that Israel might use Azerbaijan airfields to attack Iran.</p>
<p>“Praise to Allah and Israeli doctors” is a phrase that could be commonly heard in Nukus, the capital of Karakalapakstan (an autonomous republic in Uzbekistan), where a few years ago, <a href="http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutTheMinistry/Events/Pages/Recent%20MASHAV%20activities%20in%20Uzbekistan%20Dec%202006.aspx">Israeli surgeons</a> restored eyesight to 150 people who were either blind or had a severe cataract condition.  In <a href="http://www.gmfus.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files_mf/1342636966Laruelle_IsraelCentralAsia_Jul12.pdf">Uzbekistan</a>, Israel also has programs in medical training, agriculture and high-tech.  The <a href="http://www.gmfus.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files_mf/1342636966Laruelle_IsraelCentralAsia_Jul12.pdf">GMF foreign policy report</a> summarized the relationship saying, “even though they consider Palestinian claims legitimate, the Central Asian states hope for Israel’s increased involvement in the region, especially in terms of state and private trade, and growing security oriented cooperation in the arms and high technology sectors.”</p>
<p>South Korea, whose sees in itself many geo-political similarities with Israel, also has a prosperous relationship with Israel.  Trade between Israel and South Korea is approximately $2.5 billion annually. Additionally, the interactions between the two countries include <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Strategic-dimensions-of-Israel-S-Korea-relations">security cooperation</a>, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/South-Korea-sees-Israel-as-partner-in-security-and-peace">economic ties</a>, technology cooperation, and exchanges between policy institutes.   Recently, the Korea-Israel High-Tech Network <a href="http://usasearch.dainfo.com/Industries_KR_IL_Companies/Template1/Pages/StartSearchPage.aspx">website</a> was launched, which will facilitate connections and the creation of joint ventures between Israeli and South Korean companies.</p>
<p>While Europe might be Israel’s toughest arena, they also have many friends there.  Just last month, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/A-common-destiny-Strengthening-relations-between-Israel-and-Europe-340259">24 leading European Parliamentarians</a> from eleven European countries, including five deputy speakers met with their Israeli counterparts to find out how they can support Israel in the European arena.  On the website of the Polish embassy in Israel, the <a href="http://telawiw.msz.gov.pl/en/bilateral_cooperation/">bi-lateral relations page</a> is titled: “Extraordinary Cooperation Between Poland and Israel.” The article goes on to mention that in 2011, Israel and Polish relations were upgraded to the highest possible government-to-government dialogue.</p>
<p>When David Cameron visited Israel last month, he <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26526096">rejected</a> all calls for boycotts to Israel saying, “Britain opposes boycotts…Delegitimising the state of Israel is wrong. It&#8217;s abhorrent. And together we will defeat it.”</p>
<p>In addition to all of the above, Israel’ most important friend and ally remains the United States.  Yet, even its relationship with the United States, only started to blossom during President Eisenhower’s second term when he began to see Israel as a strategic asset, instead of a liability.  As this perspective shift happened, Eisenhower’s rhetoric concerning territorial compromises to the Arabs began to abate.  The following anecdote epitomizes the solid foundations of US-Israel relations.  In <a href="http://data.statesmanship.org.il/site/2014/US%20aid%20to%20Israel%20new.pdf">May 1998</a>, it was reported that President Clinton had issued an ultimatum to Prime Minister Netanyahu to cede certain territories to the Palestinians. Congressman from all sides of the aisle came out swinging condemning the White House,  called the administration&#8217;s initiative absolutely outrageous and extortion.  Other Congressman remarked that regarding the peace process Congress is on Israel’s side, ‘come what may’, and that no matter what pressures the administration applies to Netanyahu, the Israeli leader is on firm ground with Congress.</p>
<p>So, given the strong ties Israel has with many countries, what isolation are Kerry and Livni talking about?  Many of Israel’s relationships with countries worldwide are built on foundations of mutual interest, not capricious, erratic diplomatic support.  One wonders if John Kerry’s statements concerning isolation are a self-fulfilling prophecy, and for Livni, they speak of her frustration at not being received warmly in her favorite European capitals.</p>
<p>Abba Eban, in his book <i>Personal Witness</i>, mentions that as the new President of the Weizmann Institute he was always looking for new initiatives. In 1960, he organized the “Rehovot Conference on the Role of Science and Technology in Developing States.” The purpose of the conference was to organize periodic encounters between leaders in science and technology and those who determine the policies of new states.  Eban believed that science could help accelerate the development of new states, and that the scientists could be challenged to tackle some of the real problems facing society, thus creating a reciprocal advantage.</p>
<p>When Eban proposed the conference, one could truly say that Israel was isolated.  During the greater part of the 1950s the only world leader to visit Israel was the Prime Minister of Burma, U Nu, as most heads of state looked to safeguard their interests in the Arab world, and hence avoided visiting Israel. However, Eban writes, the conference drew, “prime ministers, foreign ministers, economic ministers, directors of development, and leading educators from thirty countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, together with heads of UN specialized agencies, representatives of leading United Nations bodies, renowned scientists and Nobel Laureates.”</p>
<p>The response to the conference was so overwhelming that Prime Minister Ben Gurion, in a speech to the Knesset, wondered how a private citizen (Eban) was able to bring more leaders of states and Nobel Prize winners to Israel than any of the government ministries.  Golda Meir, in her autobiography, remarked that the Rehovot Conference was something of a breakthrough in Israel’s international relations. In Eban’s own words, “The Rehovot Conference helped to take Israel out of diplomatic isolation.”</p>
<p>International relations are driven by common interests, projects, and reciprocal advantages that countries can provide to each another.  Diplomats who think that international relations is based only on cocktail parties, empty slogans, and joint press conferences where government ministers take turns embellishing on their countries “common values and aspirations” have missed the boat.</p>
<p>Israel is not a pariah, nor is it isolated.  Attempts by its own Ministers or by those who pose as friends of Israel to make such a claim is deplorable and self-serving.   As Israel’s economic strength continues to rise, so will its standing worldwide, and as more countries join the war against radical Muslims, Israel will be more sought out.  The future for Israel remains bright!</p>
<p><i>Gideon Israel is a research analyst for Sohlberg Consulting and </i><i>the</i><i> author of a comprehensive policy paper on the </i><a href="http://data.statesmanship.org.il/site/2014/US%20aid%20to%20Israel%20new.pdf"><i>US aid to Israel</i></a><i>.  </i></p>
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		<title>Media Celebrates &#8220;Great Job Report&#8221; as Real Unemployment Rises to Highest Level Since 1978</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/media-celebrates-great-job-report-as-unemployment-rises-to-highest-level-since-1978/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=media-celebrates-great-job-report-as-unemployment-rises-to-highest-level-since-1978</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2014 23:16:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=224684</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It's going to be okay. If you just close your eyes and believe.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/jobs-obama.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-224686" alt="jobs obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/jobs-obama-450x253.jpg" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>Comrades, workers and peasants. The latest harvest has been brought in at 97% demonstrating once again the foresight and wisdom of the People&#8217;s Republic of Mediastan.</p>
<p>Jobs are being created left and right. <a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140502/EMPLOYMENT/140509957/why-april-unemployment-report-fails-to-spark-markets">Unemployment has been virtually eliminated</a>. Health care is free. Food is healthy.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s going to be okay. If you just close your eyes and believe.</p>
<blockquote><p>The US economy created 288,000 jobs in April, the strongest monthly job creation since January 2012. The unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, according to the latest figures from the US Labor Department.</p></blockquote>
<p>That sounds super. Tell us more.</p>
<blockquote><p> It is the lowest unemployment rate since September 2008.</p></blockquote>
<p>Mr. Obama finally fixed that pesky old economy. Is there a catch?</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a flat out good report. All of the metrics that you want to see improve, did,&#8221; said Tom Porcelli, chief US economist, RBC Capital Markets.</p></blockquote>
<p>Whew. No catch.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;The one thing I would be careful with though is the decline in the unemployment rate, the decline in the unemployment rate was a function of the labour force falling by 806,000, that is gargantuan decline,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>&#8220;What’s more, that good news was offset by some equally surprising bad news,&#8221; Peter Coy writes. &#8220;An alternate measure of employment, surveying households rather than establishments, showed an outright decline of 73,000 jobs. The only reason the unemployment rate fell is that the labor force shrank by about 800,000 people.&#8221;</p>
<p>The so-called participation rate, which indicates the share of working-age people in the labor force, decreased to 62.8 percent, matching the lowest level since 1978, from 63.2 percent a month earlier.</p></blockquote>
<p>288,000 jobs created. 806,000 jobs lost. Good thing no one in the media knows anything except Common Core math.</p>
<p>Well at least we&#8217;re only back to 1978. Too bad we&#8217;re not back to 1978 prices. Or a 1978 standard of living.</p>
<blockquote><p>In other unexpected news&#8230; &#8220;Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Climb to Nine-Week High&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Like all bad economic news under Obama, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-01/jobless-claims-in-u-s-unexpectedly-climb-to-nine-week-high.html">this was completely unexpected</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Jobless claims rose by 14,000 to 344,000 in the period ended April 26. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 320,000.</p></blockquote>
<p>And somehow reality keeps beating the optimistic forecasts. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-jobs-unemployment-stagnant-20140502,0,4381772.story#axzz30b8mD6mH">And the news keeps getting worse</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>And the number of people who held part-time jobs (holders of full-time jobs who lost hours, or who work part-time because they can’t find full-time work) remained steady, as did the number of people considered “discouraged workers” – people who want to work but who have given up hope of finding a job. In fact, the gap between part-time workers and the unemployment rate continued to widen, suggesting that those getting jobs aren&#8217;t necessarily getting full-time work.</p></blockquote>
<p>But at least there&#8217;s someone to blame. Congress. At least according to the LA Times. When the economy was bad under Bush and a Dem Congress, it was Bush&#8217;s fault. Now under Obama and a GOP House, it&#8217;s the fault of the GOP.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s Common Core history.</p>
<p>But <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/more-americans-are-finding-work-work-isnt-good-it-used-be-1579630">at least some jobs are being created</a>. Right?</p>
<blockquote><p>“Lower wage industries accounted for 22 percent of job losses during the recession, but 44 percent of recent employment growth,” concluded a study released this week from the nonprofit National Employment Law Project (NELP). “Today, lower-wage industries employ 1.85 million more workers than at the start of the recession.”</p>
<p>According to the NELP analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, almost 2 million jobs that pay less than $14 an hour were lost during and in the eight months after the recession, but since February 2010 more than 3.8 million of these low-paying jobs have been created, largely thanks to a strong rebound in low-wage jobs, such as retail. At the same time, 6.8 million jobs paying between $14 and $33 an hour were lost in the recessionary period while only 4.9 million have since been created. In other words, the jobless recovery is looking like a jobs-for-less-pay recovery.</p></blockquote>
<p>Obama sure has created a lot of jobs. Everyone should get at least two to get back to where they were under Bush.</p>
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		<title>Obama Knows Best</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/obama-knows-best/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-knows-best</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Apr 2014 04:25:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Putin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ukraine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=223844</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A tribute to the president's know-how and competence. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Copy-of-Obama-smug-look.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223845" alt="Copy-of-Obama-smug-look" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Copy-of-Obama-smug-look.jpg" width="245" height="272" /></a>In February, before Russia moved into Crimea, Present Barack Obama claimed, “any violation of Ukrainian territory is destabilizing, and that&#8217;s not in Russia&#8217;s interest.” This week, now that Crimea is firmly in Russia’s hands, Obama stated, “Mr. Putin’s decisions aren’t just bad for Ukraine. Over the long term, they’re going to be bad for Russia.” Despite worldwide negative attention, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s current approval ratings are above 80 percent according to independent polls by the Levada Center.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On numerous occasions, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14603">Obama has said “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Putin’s core aggressive nature, as a nationalist who stands up for Russians, resonates with ordinary, regular Russians.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who was dubbed King Bibi by Time Magazine – is the longest-serving Israeli Prime Minister for the past 50 years.  </span></p>
<p>Knowing about what is best for others is consistent with Obama’s ideology of big government without limits – and telling others what to do.  It isn’t limited to foreign leaders &#8211; In 2011, he said of the automobile industry bailout in Cannon Falls, MN, &#8220;If we&#8217;re going to help you, then you&#8217;ve got to change your ways.&#8221; &#8220;You can&#8217;t just make money on SUVs and trucks.  There is a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you have got to understand the market.&#8221; As he knows Russia better than Putin and Israel better than Netanyahu, he also knows cars better than car manufacturers.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With Obamacare, many Americans no longer have the right to choose their own healthcare. Many have had their policies cancelled, and are required to buy all sorts of medical coverage.  Businesses are also not free to choose as they wish.  Across the board, health care costs continue to radically rise. The Obama State has decided what kind of health insurance Americans need.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In 2013 it was unveiled that the Obama Administration had unleashed a “Behavioral Insights Team&#8221; which seeks to influence the behavior of Americans. The White House is known to be working with agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. He knows how Americans should behave.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In The Washington Post, we learn that Obama’s Presidential Daily Brief is “not briefed to him.” Unlike any other President, he does not meet daily with senior intelligence officials. The subtext is of course that as Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said, Obama is “among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet.” Obama knows intelligence – his years as a community organizer must have helped. (Vietor started as a driver of a van for Obama when he was a Senator and is a long-time Obama loyalist.)</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In a September 2008 New York Times profile, Obama said, “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters.  I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Barack Obama &#8212; in his own mind – knows it all.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Obama Administration, which spies on foreign leaders and oversees the largest intelligence network in the world, is collecting the phone records of millions of Americans.  They have said that they can kill Americans anywhere in the world at will. They spy on reporters and who knows who else. Obama is an inept, totalitarian ego-maniac.  He is a terrible American President &#8212; yet, he sees fit to lecture to Americans and the world on how they should behave and what is best for them.  Obama believes he knows everything about everything. Obama knows what is good for your children better than you do.  He knows what is best for your business better than you do. He knows what medicines you need. What foods you should eat.</span></p>
<p>Simply Obama is king.  He is the ultimate supreme. He’s brilliant at foreign relations, the economy, healthcare, human behavior, intelligence, and everything else – and everyone in the world is beneath him. All hail his master Barack Obama.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>How the Mullahs Prop Up Assad</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/how-the-mullahs-prop-up-assad/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-the-mullahs-prop-up-assad</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2014 04:10:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ayatollah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=223147</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Duplicity is the Islamic Republic's game.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Hassan-Rouhani.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223148" alt="Hassan-Rouhani" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Hassan-Rouhani-450x345.jpg" width="315" height="241" /></a>This week, top Iranian officials, including deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian, pointed out that their assistance and aid to the Assad government is solely humanitarian and based on good will.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iranian official state media made international news, which spread in the liberal mainstream media, by announcing that the Islamic Republic of Iran has delivered 30,000 tons of food supplies to Syria on Tuesday in order to assist the Syrian government in dealing with its food shortages created by the internal conflict, terrorism, and civil war.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Abdollahian insisted and emphasized that the Islamic Republic’s assistance to Syria is only restricted to humanitarian aid and goods such as medicine and food. He continued that the Islamic Republic is not involved in other military actions.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The double standards, hypocrisy, mendacity, and duplicity of the ruling clerics, Ayatollahs, and Iranian regime have been profoundly manifested in the actual geopolitical, economic, and geostrategic position they have taken on the Assad regime. Although the Obama administration has been incompetent and weak, with no particular foreign policy agenda towards Syria, the Ayatollahs have been very determined and clear about their stance towards Assad’s regime through their military, economic, advisory, intelligence support and their thousands of troops on the ground.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Recently, Tehran extended a $3.6 billion credit line to Damascus. The credit line enables Damascus to buy oil products from Tehran and assist in shoring up Syrian currency (Pound), which has significantly devalued in the last two years.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">First of all, the Islamic Republic has been instrumental in preventing the Syrian government’s economy from collapsing.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Assad’s government lost its daily revenue of approximately 7 millions dollar from oil exports after the US and European countries banned oil exports from Damascus. Moreover, Damascus lost an estimated 7 billion dollars in revenue a year from tourism. Before the conflict, Syria had the capability of producing most of its domestic food necessities as well as exporting wheat. Nevertheless, according to the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), Syria will hit a record low this year by producing 1.7 to 2 million tons of wheat. Iran’s economic support is not only pivotal in sustaining the economic status of Assad, but also in assisting the regime to pay for its army, militia groups, and intelligence forces.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In addition to the extension of billions of dollars in credit and economic assistance, the Islamic Republic has been playing a crucial function, through its proxy Hezbollah as well as the Quds Forces— a special forces unit of Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guards Corps— to provide military, intelligence, geopolitical, strategic and advisory aid and backing to ensure that Assad’s government will retain its power for over the last three years of conflict. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iran’s Islamist proxy and ally, Hezbollah with the leadership of Hassan Nasrallah, as well as other militia groups have been sent by the Iranian regime, ruling cleric and Ayatollahs to wage street warfare and assist al-Assad.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iranian Ayatollahs, who claim that Islam is the only true value supporting human rights and that the Islamist state is the only legitimate power system to fulfill this mission, have been providing the required military capabilities, training, intelligence and financial means for the Assad regime to continue the crack down, bombardment and violence.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to the United Nations, the official documented numbers reveal that more than 150,000 people have been killed. In this, history’s most-documented manmade disaster, nine million Syrian civilians, roughly 42 percent of the population, have been forced out of their homes, according to the UN. This would be an equivalent of 132 million people in the United States being driven out of their houses. Among the refugees, an estimated number 1.3 millions are children, half a million less than the age of 6, where 90 percent do not have access to education and basic needs.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With the assistance of the Ayatollahs and Iranian leaders, and with their direct military interventionist policies, intelligence, sophisticated training, economic and advisory aid, the Syrian regime has recently intensified its bombardment of neighborhoods with missiles, heavy artillery, tanks, chemical weapons, poisonous gas, and explosive barrels.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With the backing and aid of the Islamist regime of Iran and with the direct interventionist policies of the Ayatollahs, approximately 700,000 homes have been ruined, unemployment reached 50 percent according to the Damascus-based Syrian Center for Policy Research, and approximately 50 percent of Syria’s hospitals damaged. Thousands of people have been dying from malnutrition impacts and easily preventable disease causes. According to the United Nations Children&#8217;s Fund (Unicef), 5.5 million children need urgent aid. Approximately one fifth of young girls are forced into marriage in neighboring Islamic countries.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This week, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay briefed the U.N. Security Council and called for the opening of a case in International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecuting war criminals in Syria.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The UN Security Council will have to unanimously vote for approval and referral of the case to the ICC, but it goes without saying that Russia and China will veto the referral and will shield the Syrian regime.  If the referral passes though, Iranian officials, who have been instrumental in preserving and ratcheting up the ongoing violence by keeping Assad in power through their continued aid, should be held responsible in the International Criminal Court as well. Without the Islamist regime of Iran, Assad would not have been capable of keeping power so long and the war would have not been ratcheted up to this level with this heartbreaking record of human rights violations.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Robert Reich&#8217;s Revolutionary Rants</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/robert-reichs-revolutionary-rants/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=robert-reichs-revolutionary-rants</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Feb 2014 05:50:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inequality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[minimum wage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MoveOn video]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Robert Reich]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=218564</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Leftist economist "connects the dots" and uncovers a free market conspiracy. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/rr_edited-1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-218569" alt="rr_edited-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/rr_edited-1.jpg" width="420" height="196" /></a>To distract from Barack Obama&#8217;s failing presidency and the misery it is causing millions of Americans, leftist gadfly Robert Reich is wheeling out tired old paranoid rhetoric about class warfare and &#8220;inequality.&#8221;</p>
<p>Using language out of the <i>Communist Manifesto</i>, Reich inveighs against an invisible, cartoonish, Monopoly Man-type villain. Of course, Reich has no interest in talking about the vicious war that President Obama and his allies are waging against productive members of society, those who have affordable health insurance, and those who pay the taxes used up by the nonproductive.</p>
<p>Long a thuggish shill of the now-dying labor movement, Reich rants that</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Opposing a minimum wage hike, blocking unemployment insurance, cutting food stamps, keeping millions from accessing Medicaid &#8230; I believe these positions are part of a concerted effort to keep struggling folks down that represents nothing less than a war on the poor and working class.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Although poll after poll has shown that &#8220;inequality&#8221; doesn&#8217;t register on American voters&#8217; radar screens, Reich and the Left are pushing hard to raise the federal minimum wage, a move that will hit the young, especially young people of color, the hardest. Under 3 percent of all workers in the nation (and an even lower percentage of full-time workers) earn the minimum wage.</p>
<p>Hiking the minimum wage has never been about helping low-income people. In fact it has racist origins and was originally used <a href="http://amarillo.com/opinion/opinion-columnist/weekly-opinion-columnist/2013-03-05/williams-minimum-wage-has-racist">to hurt minorities</a>. It doesn&#8217;t help fast food workers. Increasing the minimum wage would benefit wealthier, white teens at the expense of minority teens, <a href="http://freebeacon.com/study-minimum-wage-hike-would-do-little-to-alleviate-poverty/">according</a> to American Action Forum:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Instead of combating income inequality, an increase in the minimum wage may actually enlarge the income gap by limiting earnings from those who need them most (the jobless) and directing them to those who need it least, the top 20% of earners.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Those living below the poverty line are more likely to be unemployed, as opposed to earning a minimum wage, so they probably wouldn&#8217;t benefit from hiking the wage rate, Doug Holtz-Eakin, head of American Action Forum and a former Congressional Budget Office director.</p>
<p>“Minimum wage jobs are meant to be stepping stones, in which workers find internal promotions,” Holtz-Eakin said. “The key to not being poor is work. You have to have a robustly growing economy with job opportunities and we haven’t had that over the past five years.”</p>
<p>“If you raise the minimum wage and stop someone from getting hired, you’re transferring wages from the unemployed to someone already working,” he said.</p>
<p>In Europe unsustainable employee costs are forcing restaurants to replace fast food order-takers with machines, and plans are in place for automated food preparation. It will happen here too, especially in places like SeaTac, Wash., where voters recently approved a job-killing $15-an-hour minimum wage.</p>
<p>The minimum wage eliminates jobs from the workforce, forcing people onto welfare, and helps unions by restricting competition among those offering their labor. People who are dependent on the government tend to support Democrats.</p>
<p>Raising the hourly minimum wage, whether to $9, $10.10 as President Obama proposes, or $15, isn&#8217;t really about helping people.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s about recruiting voters and creating dependent Americans who will help to perpetuate the power of the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>Like mom, apple pie, and puppies, increasing the minimum wage often scores well in opinion polls. Left-wing activist groups support raising the minimum wage because it helps them to mobilize voters and their own troops.</p>
<p>ACORN used to put minimum wage propositions on the ballot in order to drive up turn out among poor voters. &#8220;We would like it to become a fact of political life where every year the other side has to contend with a minimum wage law in some state,&#8221; said Jen Kern, director of ACORN&#8217;s Living Wage Resource Center.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is what moves people to the polls now. This is our gay marriage,&#8221; she said a few years ago in a reference to the now-abandoned conservative tactic of putting anti-same sex referendums on the ballot in order to drive up conservative voter turnout.</p>
<p>But facts matter little to <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2023">Reich</a>, a radical true believer and undistinguished left-wing economist with the gift of gab who served as President Clinton&#8217;s labor secretary. Reich is repackaging the arguments that &#8220;social justice&#8221; crusaders have long used to prey on the naive and ignorant.</p>
<p>Reich is doing this in part to promote his new movie, <i>Inequality for All</i>. Reich <a href="http://billmoyers.com/segment/robert-reich%E2%80%99s-plan-for-fixing-america%E2%80%99s-economy/">says</a> his piece of radical agitprop is aimed at ensuring there is “upward mobility again, in our society and in our economy.” Getting Americans politically involved will help “change the rules” that he falsely claims contributed to the recession that began under George W. Bush and has since intensified under Barack Obama.</p>
<p>In a new <a href="http://front.moveon.org/war_on_the_poor_reich/#.UvlA9n-9KSM">MoveOn video</a>, Reich accuses mysterious, unnamed forces &#8212; he calls them &#8220;they&#8221; &#8212; of plotting against low-income people. This rhetorical use of the pronoun <i>they</i> ought to be referred to as the Paranoid Third Person. It&#8217;s a staple of conspiracy theorists, community organizers, and Saul Alinsky devotees and it&#8217;s part of the same whiny refrain we&#8217;ve been hearing from Reich and his Sixties leftover friends like <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1183">Roger Hickey</a> for decades now.</p>
<p>It ties in well with the current work of MoveOn, the leftist group that was created to get the neo-Marxists of the modern Democratic Party back on-message by distracting from Bill Clinton&#8217;s Oval Office sexual affair with a young intern. True to form, MoveOn is now bringing up marginal or irrelevant economic issues to bail out Barack Obama.</p>
<p>Invisible forces are conspiring against poor and working-class Americans, according to Reich. &#8220;What are they really after?&#8221;</p>
<p>In his musings, Reich urges viewers to &#8220;connect these seven dots.&#8221; Cue the violins:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;They&#8217;re against extending unemployment benefits to people who have been out of work for more than six months even though there&#8217;s still only one job for every three unemployed.</p>
<p>They don&#8217;t want to raise the minimum wage even though today&#8217;s federal minimum is 25 percent below what it was in 1968, adjusted for inflation.</p>
<p>They&#8217;re against extending Medicaid benefits to millions of low-wage workers</p>
<p>They want to cut food stamps.</p>
<p>They refuse to invest in education or job training.</p>
<p>They don&#8217;t want to rebuild America&#8217;s crumbling infrastructure or have any other jobs programs.</p>
<p>They&#8217;re out to bust unions.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Like any good snake oil salesman, he offers up a simplistic solution:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Do you see a pattern here? They&#8217;re waging a war against the poor and the working class in order to keep people down because when you&#8217;re unemployed, without any support, without any bargaining power and you have to feed your family, you&#8217;re desperate, and when you&#8217;re desperate you&#8217;ll take whatever they are willing to pay you even if it&#8217;s next to nothing. And you won&#8217;t dare make a fuss. You won&#8217;t complain about unsafe work conditions or toxic chemicals leaking out of storage tanks or anything else. You won&#8217;t run the risk of trying to form a union. You won&#8217;t get involved in politics. You won&#8217;t make a ruckus or rock the boat in any way. You&#8217;ll take whatever they choose to give you because you are sinking. Make no mistake this war against the poor and working class is designed to make sure Americans who&#8217;ve been losing ground for 30 years don&#8217;t dare do anything about it. Without extended unemployment benefits, a declining real minimum wage, no Medicaid, no food stamps, no education, job training, or jobs program, and no union, you&#8217;ll do exactly as they tell you and that&#8217;s fine with them but it&#8217;s bad for America.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>This litany of nonsense and overblown rhetoric is what we&#8217;ve come to expect from Reich and his ilk.</p>
<p>This is Chicken Little, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/kathy-shaidle/they%E2%80%99re-called-boobs-the-toxic-lies-of-erin-brockovich/">Erin Brockovich</a>-style horror propaganda that has no relationship to life in the real world. In our severely over-regulated society Americans aren&#8217;t at peril from unsafe work conditions or toxic chemicals. Americans aren&#8217;t dropping dead because of &#8220;crumbling&#8221; highways. They aren&#8217;t clamoring to join unions, which they correctly view as obstacles to progress and self-advancement. No one is trying to abolish the social safety net, get rid of food stamps, Medicaid, or government-subsidized education and job training.</p>
<p>But telling the truth isn&#8217;t good for recruiting.</p>
<p>Reich needs to sell an apocalyptic fantasy in order to hoodwink Americans into joining his cause. In fact Reich and his friends in the Obama administration are the ones waging war against the poor and workers, creating more poor people, more unemployed people, more underemployed people, and driving people out of the labor force altogether. With the national debt closing in on $17.3 trillion and the trillions of dollars wasted over the years on the War on Poverty, Americans have little to show after decades of following the policy prescriptions of the Left.</p>
<p>Reich&#8217;s noise-making is about the politics of distraction, misdirecting public attention, trying to change the national political conversation, moving it away from the stagnant economy, the failing Obamacare program, the political scandals that are becoming too numerous to count, and the other grave problems in American society that left-wingers have caused and exacerbated.</p>
<p>Given the mainstream media&#8217;s continuing love affair with the telegenic Reich, he&#8217;s likely to be in the spotlight, deceiving the American public, for a long time to come.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
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		<title>Puerto Rico: The Next Detroit?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/puerto-rico-could-be-the-next-detroit/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=puerto-rico-could-be-the-next-detroit</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/puerto-rico-could-be-the-next-detroit/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Feb 2014 05:30:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[credit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[downgrade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Puerto Rico]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[standard and poor's]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Downgraded and out of options. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/0205-puertorico_full_600.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-218213" alt="0205-puertorico_full_600" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/0205-puertorico_full_600-431x350.jpg" width="302" height="245" /></a>On Tuesday, credit ratings agency Standard &amp; Poor’s </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/02/05/puerto-rico-needs-to-prepare-for-its-default/">downgraded</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Puerto Rico’s general-obligation bonds to BB+, a level that is considered junk status. Similar action by rating agencies Moody’s and Fitch appears virtually certain, as the island territory copes with a staggering $70 billion of debt, all of which needs to be repaid with interest. Unfortunately, Puerto Rico has been in what amounts to a continuous recession since 2006, and its economy is currently shrinking at a 6 percent pace. The official unemployment rate is 14.7 percent, and its debt-to-GDP ratio is 93 percent.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Furthermore, the island is experiencing the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/puerto-rico-with-at-least-70-billion-in-debt-confronts-a-rising-economic-misery/2013/11/30/f40a22c6-5376-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html">largest</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> population outflow since the 1950s, when 500,000 residents left for better job prospects on the U.S. mainland. Between, 2010 and 2012 the commonwealth lost 54,000 residents, and </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/01/02/puerto-ricos-population-continues-rapid-decline">another</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> 36,000 from July 1, 2012, to July 1, 2013. The percentage of decline is more than seven times the decline of second-ranked West Virginia. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Working-age Puerto Ricans who leave are being replaced largely by retirees highly unlikely to provide anything resembling the economic boost Puerto Rico so desperately needs. The vicious cycle has left the territory with a woeful workforce participation rate: only 41 percent of working age Puerto Ricans have a job or are looking for one.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Exacerbating this trend is the reality that only </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/482879/Puerto-Rico/54538/Armed-forces-and-police#toc54539">half</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of Puerto Ricans over age 25 have graduated from high school, and only twenty-five percent of those graduates earn a bachelor&#8217;s degree. The homicide rate is six times the nation average. Moreover, since the U.S. dollar is Puerto Rico&#8217;s currency, the option of devaluation as a means of making the island more attractive to outside investment remains off the table.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Puerto Rico&#8217;s troubles have unknown implications for the municipal bond market. According to the independent investment research firm Morningstar, the island territory&#8217;s debt is held by about 70 percent of U.S. municipal mutual funds. Those bonds have been attractive to many investors, as the yield on them have increased right along with the soaring debt that engendered that increase. Also their earnings remain free from state and federal taxes, and Puerto Rico’s constitution provides bondholders with strong guarantees that they would be paid off before pensioners and public workers if the government defaulted.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Nevertheless, high risk accompanies high interest rates, and as of now it appears that bondholders will be taking substantial losses. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Puerto Rican Gov. Alejandro Javier Garcia Padilla has been determined to restore growth, and ran on a platform of creating 50,000 jobs. Toward that end, his government is in the process of offering manufacturers tax incentives and electricity tax credits, with the latter effort aimed at enticing firms that might otherwise be dissuaded by the island&#8217;s sky high rates, which are double those on the mainland. Government officials are also making an effort to boost tourism, and they are currently searching for someone to handle a $300 million port project to handle larger ships that will be en route to an expanded Panama Canal.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Despite these efforts, Padilla&#8217;s top priority remains bringing the debt under control. He has continued the government job cuts begun by his predecessor, and the combined cuts have culled one-in-ten government jobs. Many of the remaining workers have been switched from traditional pensions to 401(k)s. Padilla also enacted a monumental tax increase of $1.3 billion, comprised of corporate taxes, sales taxes and a gross receipts tax. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The results have been fairly dramatic. The reforms have put the government on a path to possibly reduce 2013&#8242;s estimated $2.2 billion budget deficit this year, with the idea of eliminating budget deficits entirely by 2016.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Unfortunately, it may be too little too late. Government workers </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">still</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> comprise a quarter of the island&#8217;s workforce, compared to the U.S. average of 16 percent. Moreover, the government faces an additional $37 billion in unfunded pension obligations </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">on top</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of the $70 billion in outstanding debt. This has led inexorably to the higher interest rates Puerto Rico must pay on its debt obligations, as the commonwealth continues to fund its day-to-day operations with borrowed money. “You cannot pay daily expenses with your credit card, and that’s what Puerto Rico has been doing for years,” said Deepak Lamba-Nieves, research director of the Center for a New Economy, a San Juan think tank. “We borrowed just to keep the lights on.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That borrowing, a combination of bonds issued by the government and private corporations, including authorities for water and sewer, as well as highways and electric power, led to a tripling of Puerto Rico&#8217;s debt since 2000. Successive administrations on the island used the bond market to plug budget holes, a process that ramped into high gear during the economic slowdown. In 2006, deficits were exacerbated by the phasing out of a tax credit for manufacturers, and a housing bust that eliminated three of the island&#8217;s banks. That bust left many residents handling a personal debt crises similar to the one afflicting the government.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For many decades, a combination of low-cost labor and favorable tax laws had led many manufacturers to set up shop on the island, led by shoe factories and textile mills, and followed by drug manufacturers. The former group moved to more promising business locations, followed by the drug companies downsizing their output due a series of patent expirations. the one-two punch led to a precipitous decline in factory jobs from 160,000 to 75,000 since 1996. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As a result, more and more Puerto Ricans have come to rely on government for their survival, with a third of the population receiving food stamps. Residents are also twice as likely to receive Social Security disability benefits than their mainland counterparts.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Standard &amp; Poor downgrade </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jYKENesm5KGKTTiHy-iyF4mQghTA?docId=70409e3c-2b35-4415-8425-b95ffc6c5b55&amp;hl=en">reflects</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> all of this depressing reality. &#8220;Puerto Rico has limited liquidity without access to the debt market by either GDB  (Government Development Bank) or directly by the Commonwealth for sizable amounts of debt,&#8221; the agency said. &#8220;In our view, there is little margin for error over the next two years.&#8221; There was a smidgen of upbeat news as S&amp;P recognized the government&#8217;s progress regarding spending cuts. &#8220;We view the reform as significant and could contribute to a sustainable path to fiscal stability,&#8221; the agency said, explaining that was the reason the commonwealth didn&#8217;t get a lower rating.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yet the future remains murky. “The full implications of this downgrade are a real unknown,” said Matt Fabian, managing director of Municipal Market Advisors, a firm that tracks the municipal bond market. “How will bondholders react?” he wondered. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It is more complicated than that. There is no chapter in the bankruptcy code that pertains to Puerto Rico, and absent that code it remains to be seen how a likely plethora of court cases revolving around sovereign immunity, and the contractual rights of bondholders, will be adjudicated. A bailout might help, but the U.S. government has already given Puerto Rico a back-door &#8212; and </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://blogs.reuters.com/muniland/2014/02/02/puerto-ricos-solvency-may-hang-on-a-potentially-unconstitutional-corporate-tax/">constitutionally dubious</a> <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8211; bailout. The move, worth nearly $2 billion per year, was accomplished by allowing U.S. multinationals operating on the island to credit taxes paid to Puerto Rico on their federal tax bill. Yet it hasn&#8217;t done much to alter the island&#8217;s financial trajectory, and anything formal would likely be politically toxic for the same Obama administration that has allowed Detroit to endure the trials and tribulations of bankruptcy largely on its own.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The coming weeks will give a clearer indication of where Puerto Rico is ultimately headed. The government still needs to come to the bond market for financing on debt already accumulated. That would be a $3.7 trillion bond market already shaken by Detroit&#8217;s default. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yet the government will push on. “While we are disappointed with Standard &amp; Poor’s decision, we remain committed to the implementation of our fiscal and economic development plans, said Treasury Secretary Melba Acosta Febo</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=25474411&amp;privcapId=353893&amp;previousCapId=392761&amp;previousTitle=W%20HOLDING%20COMPANY%20INC"> </a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">and GDB president David H. Chafey, in a written statement. &#8220;We believe the investment community will recognize the positive impact of the reforms that the Garcia Padilla Administration has enacted in due course.” Or, much like Detroit, the investment community might conclude additional financing no longer makes any sense. Only time will tell &#8212; but time is growing short. </span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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