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<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; fiscal cliff</title>
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	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Will Obama Come For The Guns? &#8212; on The Finch Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/the-shattered-republican-spine-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-shattered-republican-spine-on-the-glazov-gang</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/the-shattered-republican-spine-on-the-glazov-gang/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:01:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bill whittle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservatives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dwight Schultz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[GOP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mike finch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paul croshaw]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[surrender]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=172194</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A frightening glimpse into the Radical-in-Chief's agenda for his second term. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/the-shattered-republican-spine-on-the-glazov-gang/gyu/" rel="attachment wp-att-173104"><img class=" wp-image-173104 alignleft" title="gyu" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/gyu-450x245.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="172" /></a>Don&#8217;t miss this special episode of The Glazov Gang in which Mike Finch, Chief Operating Officer at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, fills in for Jamie Glazov and hosts a fascinating discussion with Bill Whittle, Dwight Schultz and Paul Croshaw.</p>
<p>In <strong>Part I</strong>, the Gang focuses on <em>The Republicans&#8217; Shattered Spine. </em>In <strong>Part II</strong>, the Gang looks at <em>Will Obama Come For The Guns?</em> See both parts of the two part series below:</p>
<p><strong>Part I:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bL7DcrdpBS8" frameborder="0" width="400" height="300"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Part II:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/76TemM5NWjI" frameborder="0" width="400" height="300"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>You can make sure that </strong><a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/donate.html?key=ASY2NUM6OSJ9" target="_blank"><strong><em>Jamie Glazov Productions</em></strong></a><strong> continues to take you where no other media programs dare to go. Help us by </strong><a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/donate.html?key=ASY2NUM6OSJ9" target="_blank"><strong>clicking here</strong></a><strong> and making a tax deductible contribution today. To see the archives of </strong><a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUqCK5RFjwgmx2z4sOjqd-kQ&amp;feature=plcp"><strong><em>The Glazov Gang</em></strong></a><strong>, click here.</strong></p>
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		<slash:comments>96</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama Power Grabs on the Horizon</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obama-power-grabs-on-the-horizon/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-power-grabs-on-the-horizon</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obama-power-grabs-on-the-horizon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jan 2013 04:55:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt ceiling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gun Control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NRA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=172761</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the Democratic Party will show its totalitarian face in the coming weeks. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obama-power-grabs-on-the-horizon/picture-1-57/" rel="attachment wp-att-172767"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-172767" title="Picture 1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Picture-11.png" alt="" width="240" height="193" /></a>Leftists and their media advocates, well aware that the tragedy of Newtown must be exploited before Americans regain their emotional balance, are pulling out all the stops. Almost a dozen new gun control bills were <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/nearly-dozen-gun-control-bills-filed-as-new-congress-begins-87766/">introduced</a> on the first day of the new congressional session. Joe Biden&#8217;s task force continues its frenzied pace of activity, even as it <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-weighs-broad-gun-control-agenda-in-wake-of-newtown-shootings/2013/01/05/d281efe0-5682-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_print.html">broadens</a> its scope far beyond the reinstatement of the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, moving into such arenas as universal background checks for gun buyers, a national database tracking the movement and sale of weapons and measures that Obama could enact by executive order. Yet such an imperious manner of governance will not be limited to gun control. Obama and Democrats are embracing the same strategy with respect to raising the debt ceiling, absent any genuine spending cuts. In short, they&#8217;re acting like Republicans are irrelevant.</p>
<p>Yet the administration is well aware that its &#8220;never let a crisis go to waste&#8221; approach is on tenuous ground regarding gun control. The <em>Washington Post</em> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/with-obamas-deadline-nearing-white-house-to-ramp-up-work-of-gun-violence-task-force/2013/01/08/20c8a9f2-5983-11e2-b8b2-0d18a64c8dfa_story.html">notes</a> that &#8220;as the shock and sorrow over the Newtown, Conn., shooting fades, the tough fight facing the White House and gun-control backers is growing clearer.&#8221; The paper then reminds Americans of several gun-related tragedies, such as the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, the Aurora movie theater massacre, the shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and one at an army base in Texas, &#8220;all of which occurred during Obama&#8217;s first term,&#8221; even as none of them elicited &#8220;national progress on curbing gun bloodshed.&#8221; The Associated Press also <a href="http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_289563/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=f3Ty48rc">speaks</a> to the urgency of getting comprehensive gun control legislation through Congress as quickly as possible, because &#8220;as the shock of the Newtown shooting fades, so, too, will the prospects that pro-gun lawmakers will work with the White House to tighten restrictions.&#8221;</p>
<p>The implications here are obvious: a president facing reelection was &#8220;powerless&#8221; to take on &#8220;entrenched interest groups,&#8221; as in law-abiding Americans who support the Second Amendment. Now that the election is over, Obama, much as he <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/obama-caught-on-hot-mic-tells-russian-pm-hell-have-more-flexibility-after-my-election/">promised</a> Russian President Dmitri Medvedev with respect to foreign policy, can be more &#8220;flexible&#8221; in his approach to gun control. Furthermore, because of the emotionalism necessary to sustain such broad (and likely unconstitutional) changes, time is of the essence. Ergo, Obama will be entirely justified in taking whatever steps are necessary as quickly as possible, even if that means pushing the boundaries of executive power &#8212; or stepping over them.</p>
<p>Such brinksmanship is hardly accidental. Although the president and Democrats knew as far back as August 2011 that the combination of tax increases and spending cuts engendered by the last debt ceiling debate would kick in on January 1, 2012, serious negotiations were put off until the very last minute&#8211;and beyond. This intransigence was intentional. The Democrat-controlled Senate tabled every spending bill sent to them by the Republican-controlled House, and failed to enact any budget for more than three-and-a-half years. The same party that completely derided the extension of the Bush tax cuts in 2010 as an unconscionable addition to the national debt, suddenly favored them. Yet in the end, the so-called &#8220;grand bargain&#8221; was a farce, producing little more than an additional $3.9 trillion dollars of debt over the next ten years, according to the CBO.</p>
<p>Furthermore, even as negotiations were ongoing, America once again reached its borrowing limit on December 31, as the national debt climbed to more than $16.3 trillion. On December 26, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/geithner-announces-emergency-steps-pre-empt-default-article-1.1227807">warned</a> he could take &#8220;extraordinary measures&#8221; to prevent America from defaulting on its obligations for a couple of months.</p>
<p>Now one might be inclined to think that national default would trump gun control as the most pressing issue of the day. Republicans certainly think so. “The biggest problem we have at the moment is spending and debt,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said last Sunday. “That’s going to dominate the Congress between now and the end of March. None of these issues will have the kind of priority as spending and debt over the next two or three months.” Yet once again, the president has indicated that he will <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/01/obama-calls-for-less-drama-brinkmanship/">push</a> the envelope. &#8220;While I will negotiate over many things, I won&#8217;t have another debate with this Congress on whether they should pay the bills we racked up in the past,&#8221; he said on January 2.</p>
<p>And just like they are doing with gun control, Democrats are urging the president to run over congressional Republicans, using executive authority. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has reportedly told other Democrats he <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/harry-reid-obama-debt-ceiling_n_2410557.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003">supports</a> such a move, using the 14th Amendment as a vehicle. Nancy Pelosi <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/275663-pelosi-urges-use-of-14th-amendment-to-avoid-debt-ceiling-crisis">echoed</a> that assessment. &#8220;I&#8217;ve made my view very clear on that subject: I would do it in a second,&#8221; said Pelosi on January 4. They are <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2011/07/31/possible_legal_loophole_would_be_risky_for_obama/">joined</a> by Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and James Clyburn (D-SC), the second- and third-ranking Democrats in the House, as well as Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and former president Bill Clinton, who claimed he would do it “without hesitation and force the courts to stop me.’’</p>
<p>Section 4 of the 14th Amendment states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.&#8221; Harvard law professor and former Obama advisor Laurence Tribe underscores the arrogant nature of Democrats&#8217; thinking. “We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking the 14th Amendment gives [Obama] this authority,” he warned. &#8220;It&#8217;s just a fantasy.” John Yoo, a former legal adviser to President George W. Bush, agreed. “The Framers wanted the president to exercise emergency power in response to national security threats, not over domestic affairs where Congress and the president have had plenty of time to deliberate and figure out a solution,&#8221; he wrote in an e-mail.</p>
<p>Obama himself has said he will <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/26/14th-amendment-obama_n_910398.html">not bypass</a> Congress and invoke the Amendment, but given the president&#8217;s track record of lying and/or changing his mind at the last minute, Americans should take no comfort from the statement. What Americans should take from this issue, and the issue of gun control, is that Democrats are more than willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want, and &#8220;force the courts to stop&#8221; them, even if it necessitates creating one of the most divisive atmospheres Americans have ever endured in the process.</p>
<p>That is the essence of imperiousness <em>and</em> brinksmanship. Thus, while they are rushing gun control legislation while emotions are still raw, they will delay debt ceiling negotiations until they can gin up a similar level of public frustration on that issue. That is why Obama, despite getting his tax increases on the &#8220;rich,&#8221; wants to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/04/politics/obama-congress/index.html">re-negotate</a> tax increases. &#8220;Now, if Republicans think that I will finish the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone&#8230;then they&#8217;ve got another think coming. That&#8217;s not how it&#8217;s going to work,&#8221; he said, two days <em>after</em> the fiscal cliff deal was made. &#8220;It&#8217;s going to have to be a matter of shared sacrifice, at least as long as I&#8217;m president. And I&#8217;m going to be president for the next four years.&#8221;</p>
<p>And for the next two years at least, Republicans will control the House of Representatives. In a logical world, that would mean Democrats have to find some common ground with the GOP. Yet somehow the president and his party have convinced themselves that Republicans are an obstacle &#8212; not a partner &#8212; in solving America&#8217;s most pressing problems. No doubt a large part of their arrogance is due to the reality that, when Americans get utterly disgusted by this continuing spectacle, they have the utmost confidence the mainstream media will blame Republicans for any and every debacle.</p>
<p>Yet that odious arrangement may be far more tenuous than both Democrats and their media sycophants realize. A substantial number of Democratic voters were <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/6/obama-supporters-shocked-angry-new-tax-increases/">shocked</a> to discover that <em>their</em> taxes went up when the temporary payroll tax deduction enacted in 2009 went back up from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent. For many of them, that may have been one of the first indications that the &#8220;raise taxes on the rich&#8221; narrative promoted by the unholy Democrat-media alliance was a fraud. If the president and his party continue to push the envelope on imperious governance and brinksmanship, it won&#8217;t be the last shock they receive. Not by a long shot.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Fairer Taxes in Russia Than America?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/fairer-taxes-in-russia/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fairer-taxes-in-russia</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/fairer-taxes-in-russia/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2013 04:03:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[1%]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[employment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jobs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=172335</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the "fiscal cliff" deal will punish job producers. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/fairer-taxes-in-russia/tax-3/" rel="attachment wp-att-172390"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-172390" title="Tax" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Tax.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="184" /></a>Isn’t it the 1 percent of America who is creating jobs and stirring the American economy more than anyone else? So how can it be that just because someone succeeds and makes it by earning more than $400,000 they should be demonized – or penalized for succeeding as the new tax laws delineate.</p>
<p>Growing up in the Bronx in the 1980s, I could have never imagined reading as I did today that Russia<strong> </strong>has a flat 13-percent <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ronn-torossian/taxing-the-successful-to-death/">tax</a><strong> </strong>rate. Could one imagine? The successful in Russia are treated better than the 1 percent that the Obama administration and so many others in America today view as evil.</p>
<p>I grew up in the Bronx in a single-parent household, and attended (bad) New York City public schools. I traveled an hour and a half a day each way to attend the elite public Stuyvesant High School, leaving home at 6:30 every morning and returning often after 7 o’clock, following basketball games and practice. I was a “latch-key kid” because my mother had to work so my sister and I could eat and live. And I started working in a local pizzeria from the age of 12, often 50 hours a week.</p>
<p>We didn’t have money, and it was a struggle: I am a first-generation American, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, who grew up with few relatives or family because my family was wiped out in Europe. My mother always pushed me to make the most of myself, raising me to never take anything from anyone and to work hard.</p>
<p>Growing up, I always swore my children would never want for money, as I did. Today, not yet 40 years of age ten years after opening my <a href="http://www.5wpr.com/">PR agency</a>, I am blessed to employ more than 100 people. I worked damn hard to get here &#8211; drive, ambition, sacrifice and working long hours is what made my dream come true. I don’t owe a dime to anyone. And now I am being punished for succeeding?</p>
<p>And I am damn angry that I am now going to have to pay more taxes – the highest tax rate since 1979 &#8212; because of the ridiculous new fiscal cliff laws. I am not to blame for succeeding and should not be penalized for it.</p>
<p>My office lease for <a href="http://www.5wpr.com/">5WPR</a> runs out this summer in our uber-luxury building, where George Soros, Vornado Realty and other companies also have their headquarters. We have grown too large for this office space, and I now need to rent an office in midtown Manhattan for 35,000 square feet &#8211; an expensive proposition. But my taxes are going way up, thanks to the new laws. Is that good for business? What if it’s not? What would happen if I decided to sell or close up shop? What good would that do for my 100+ employees?</p>
<p>Owning a business is often a scary proposition – even today it has been less than 15 years since I was broke and working in a pizzeria. But I succeeded, and will continue succeeding, and creating jobs. My children have a better life and more opportunities than I did, and I will continue building for future generations of my family.</p>
<p>But it’s not my obligation to pay for anyone else’s family. That is surely not the greatness of what America is about.  And it should make every American shudder to realize that Russia has a much better tax program than America. Who’s leading whom?</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Obama Tax Fairness Means Middle Class Pay More Than Rich</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-tax-fairness-means-middle-class-pay-more-than-rich/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-tax-fairness-means-middle-class-pay-more-than-rich</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-tax-fairness-means-middle-class-pay-more-than-rich/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:28:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=172245</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Middle-class workers will take a bigger hit to their income proportionately than those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 under the new fiscal cliff deal, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-tax-fairness-means-middle-class-pay-more-than-rich/obama-cash/" rel="attachment wp-att-172246"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-172246" title="obama-cash" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/obama-cash.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="265" /></a></p>
<p>Forget the propaganda, the left isn&#8217;t really into raising taxes on the upper class. The left mainly hails from the upper class. Obama handily won the richest counties in the country. It&#8217;s the middle class that the left has always hated because they represent economic aspiration and the backbone of capitalism. And <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/01/worst-jobs-president-ever-unemployment-jumps-to-7-8/">they&#8217;re the ones who get punished</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Middle-class workers will take a bigger hit to their income proportionately than those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 under the new fiscal cliff deal, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.</p>
<p>Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more &#8211; or an additional $2,711 &#8211; in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent &#8211; or up to $1,784 &#8211; the D.C.-based think tank reported.</p>
<p>Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.</p></blockquote>
<p>Four more years. Someone&#8217;s got to subsidize the welfare state and the wealthy don&#8217;t have nearly enough money to do that. You have to spread the pain to the Middle Class while shouting a lot about Wall Street even while you cash Wall Street checks and run for election on Wall Street money.</p>
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		<title>Taking Up the Debt Ceiling War</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/taking-up-the-debt-ceiling-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=taking-up-the-debt-ceiling-war</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/taking-up-the-debt-ceiling-war/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 04:55:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt ceiling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171964</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why conservatives must rally the nation against Obama's mission to take us over the bankruptcy cliff. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/taking-up-the-debt-ceiling-war/1338295140307-cached/" rel="attachment wp-att-171970"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-171970" title="1338295140307.cached" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/1338295140307.cached.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="200" /></a>The tax battle is over. Democrats, President Obama and their media cheerleaders succeeded in getting a nervous and divided Republican Party to acquiesce to a bitter bargain. They allowed taxes to rise, while getting almost nothing in return in terms of spending cuts, other than vague promises to be fulfilled sometime in the future. Given the tenor of the times &#8212; with entitlement mentality run amok, our spendthrift president&#8217;s reelection in November, and the certainty that anything short of capitulation would have been framed by the media as a Republican-created debacle &#8212; perhaps it was the only reasonable course of action Republicans could take right now. In the upcoming and far more serious battle over the debt ceiling, Republicans must unify for the simplest of reasons: either they extract serious spending cuts from Democrats and the Obama administration in exchange for raising the debt ceiling &#8212; or the nation is headed for fiscal collapse.</p>
<p>Republicans desperately need to educate Americans about our current trajectory. In the last four years, the national debt has increased by more than $5 trillion, including $2.1 trillion of additional debt accumulated since August 2011, when the debt ceiling was raised from $14.3 trillion to $16.4 trillion. Thus, a mere seventeen months later, America technically went <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/the_real_country-killer_in_2013.html">bankrupt</a> <em>again </em>on New Year&#8217;s Eve. This means that until further credit is authorized by the House in the form of raising the debt ceiling &#8211; <em>again </em>&#8211; Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will have to move money around in federal accounts, a process he claims will buy us about two more months before technical bankruptcy becomes genuine bankruptcy.</p>
<p>Now one might think that our runaway freight train of deficit spending would have chastened our elected representatives. One would be completely and utterly wrong. Despite the great fiscal cliff &#8220;victory&#8221; being touted by Democrats and their media enablers, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/economy/275095-cbo-fiscal-cliff-deal-carries-4-trillion-price-tag">revealed</a> that the heart of that victory, raising taxes on wealthy Americans, is little more than emotional boob bait for the masses: as a result of the deal, $3.9 trillion will be <em>added</em> to the national debt over the next ten years, bringing us up to more than $20 trillion.</p>
<p>Unfortunately and incredibly, this is small potatoes compared to America&#8217;s unfunded obligations. Christopher Cox, former chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Bill Archer, former chairman of the House Ways &amp; Means Committee, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323353204578127374039087636.html">reveal</a> the true scope of America&#8217;s problem in a <em>Wall Street Journal</em> article. &#8220;The actual liabilities of the federal government&#8211;including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees&#8217; future retirement benefits&#8211;already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP,&#8221; they write.</p>
<p>Yet the most important part of the article addresses the reality of taxation. &#8220;When the accrued expenses of the government&#8217;s entitlement programs are counted, it becomes clear that to collect enough tax revenue <em>just to avoid going deeper into debt </em>would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually&#8230;Some public officials and pundits claim we can dig our way out through tax increases on upper-income earners, or even all taxpayers. In reality, that would amount to bailing out the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon,&#8221; they warn (italics added).</p>
<p>In response to this reality, our intrepid president and his party have brought their teaspoons to the battle. Even as the fiscal cliff deal was on the cusp of being made, Obama <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/2012/12/31/obama-no-deal-on-defense-cuts/">insisted</a> that the one atom of relative sanity, the spending cuts mandated by sequestration, conveniently kicked down the road for another two months, were a bridge too far. “We’re using an axe instead of a scalpel,” he contended. For perspective&#8217;s sake, it should be noted that the <em>total amount</em> of spending scheduled to be &#8220;axed,&#8221; absent the further whittling that will more than likely occur when the political class inevitably reprises its lament regarding “draconian cuts,” comes to <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/14/news/economy/white-house-spending-cuts/index.html">$1 trillion</a> <em>over</em> <em>ten</em> <em>years</em>.</p>
<p>Such unseriousness, courtesy of reckless Democrats and, in some respects, spineless Republicans, is precisely what brought the nation to the brink of insolvency. If one compares the minuscule level of cuts deemed &#8220;draconian,&#8221; with the gargantuan and growing level of spending that is somehow &#8220;manageable,&#8221; as long as the &#8220;rich&#8221; pay their &#8220;fair share,&#8221; only one logical, if painful, conclusion can be reached:</p>
<p>Despite their past culpability, either Republicans stand firm, take control of the federal spending debate immediately and endure the coordinated and massive attacks that are sure to accompany any effort to bring the nation&#8217;s spending addiction under control, or the country will face dire consequences.</p>
<p>Such attacks have already begun. <em>Huffington Post</em> columnist Jason Linkins <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/fiscal-cliff-debt-ceiling_n_2398091.html">refers</a> to debt ceiling &#8220;hostage takers&#8221; who are &#8220;dangerous psychopaths, full stop.&#8221;  House Democrat Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who must have missed the memo regarding over-the-top language, <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/27/hoyer-compares-gop-debt-limit-tactics-to-hostage-taker-threatening-to-shoot-child/">referred</a> to Republicans seeking to leverage the debt ceiling as &#8220;somewhat like taking your child hostage and saying to somebody else, &#8216;I&#8217;m going to shoot my child if you don&#8217;t do what I want done.&#8217;&#8221; Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) chairman of the Finance Committee, was less incendiary, but equally unrealistic. &#8220;It’s anachronistic,” he <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-03/republicans-reprise-2011-debt-limit-threat-in-cliff-talks.html">said</a>.  “We’ve already voted on spending and revenue, and so the debt ceiling is just a confirmation of what we voted on.”</p>
<p>Baucus is disingenuous at best, and an outright liar at worst. Over the course of the last three and a half years, House Republicans have sent budget proposal after budget proposal to the Democratically-controlled Senate. Every one of them has died <em>without</em> a vote. Despite being required by law to do so, the Senate has not only <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203611404577042181534236806.html">failed to pass</a> a budget in those same three and a half years, they failed to even <em>draft</em> one in 2011 or 2012. The House also passed a bill in October to avoid the fiscal cliff, and Democrats not only tabled it, but sent out Chuck Schumer to warn Republicans that any attempt to reform the tax code in 2013 would be completely resisted, because the idea is &#8220;obsolete.&#8221; Democrats have been so irresponsible, even MSNBC&#8217;s Joe Scarborough noticed. Senate Democrats are &#8220;negligent&#8221; and &#8220;cynical&#8221; because &#8220;they don&#8217;t want the American people to know what their priorities are,&#8221; he <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/01/02/Scarborough-Were-In-Fiscal-Cliff-Mess-Because-Senate-Democrats-Will-Not-Pass-A-Budget">contended.</a></p>
<p>Democrat priorities are painfully obvious. They wish to grow the size and scope of government, and the costs of doing so are irrelevant.</p>
<p>As far as the president is concerned, the Constitution may be irrelevant as well. On New Year&#8217;s day, Obama <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/2013/01/01/obama-there-is-no-more-debt-ceiling/">warned</a> Republicans that he intends to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally. “I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills, they have already racked up through the laws they have passed,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>He continued. “Let me repeat, you can’t not pay bills that we have already incurred,” he said. “If Congress refuses to the United States government the ability to pay these bills on-time, the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic&#8211;far worse than the impact of a fiscal cliff. People will remember back in 2011, the last time this course of action was threatened, our entire recovery was put at risk. We can’t go down that path again.”</p>
<p>U.S. News and World Report editor-in-chief Mort Zuckerman <a href="http://jewishworldreview.com/mort/zuckerman010213.php3">illuminates</a> the president’s preferred path. &#8220;If you constantly live beyond your means by increasing your credit card balance and bank borrowing, eventually your debt rises to a level where all you are doing is paying the interest on your credit cards and loans&#8230;This is what is facing the United States. Unless we make changes, by 2055 interest costs will be the only thing that the United States will be able to pay for with available revenues and resources,&#8221; he writes.</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s assuming we make it that far. Any remaining daylight between now and the ultimate day of reckoning is predicated on the reality that the rest of the world still believes American is not a deadbeat nation. Americans have virtually no clue how fast things can change once investors lose confidence in our ability to get our fiscal act together. In 2012, the interest alone on the <em>current </em>level of debt was almost $360 billion &#8212; financed at record-low interest rates. If rates return to their historic norms, those payments could double in a New York minute. Adding more debt would raise them still higher. In other words, America could be facing a future where more than a <em>trillion dollars</em> is spent &#8212; on absolutely <em>nothing</em> other than interest. Yet somehow any attempt by Republicans to draw a line in the sand amounts to hostage-taking of children by dangerous psychopaths engaged in anachronistic and obsolete endeavors.</p>
<p>That’s the kind of rhetoric to which Republicans will be subjected in the coming two months. If they have an ounce of integrity left, they will come to realize that taking a rhetorical beating may be difficult to endure. But that is far better than acting as willing accomplices in bankrupting the nation.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>&#8216;Negotiating&#8217; With the Left: A Waste of Time</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/tom-blumer/negotiating-with-the-left-a-waste-of-time/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=negotiating-with-the-left-a-waste-of-time</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/tom-blumer/negotiating-with-the-left-a-waste-of-time/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 04:50:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tom Blumer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt ceiling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deficit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negotiation]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[John Boehner learns the hard way. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/tom-blumer/negotiating-with-the-left-a-waste-of-time/16b8f411851a1023240f6a7067008d01/" rel="attachment wp-att-171990"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-171990" title="16b8f411851a1023240f6a7067008d01" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/16b8f411851a1023240f6a7067008d01-450x338.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="203" /></a>Having lived in Greater Cincinnati for most of my life, I&#8217;ve had a chance to observe Congressman John Boehner&#8217;s actions and performance from a perspective most haven&#8217;t.</p>
<p>Most of what I saw until he became House Speaker in January 2011 was good &#8212; usually very good. What has transpired since has not been. Boehner and House Republicans have been unable to put the brakes on the country&#8217;s headlong rush towards insolvency driven by President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the federal regulatory leviathan, and the courts, or on their continued trampling of our fundamental freedoms.</p>
<p>I can already see the excuses: &#8220;Tom, the House of Representatives is only one-half of one of the three branches of government. You can&#8217;t expect Boehner and Republican leaders to withstand the daily assaults from all other quarters.&#8221; Sure, I get that. Add the adversarial, hostile, double standard-driven establishment press to the mix, and one can totally understand the daunting challenges the Speaker has faced.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s one problem with that attempt at justification, and it has nothing to do with ordinary expectations. It instead has everything to do with the heightened expectations Boehner and the Republican Party created in the run-up to the 2010 congressional elections, embodied in both the party&#8217;s <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20017335-503544.html">Pledge to America</a> and Boehner&#8217;s <a href="http://www.bizzyblog.com/2010/10/08/delay-blogging-boehners-friday-speech/">October 2010 speech</a> just a few weeks before Election Day.</p>
<p>By that time, it was clear to almost everyone, thanks to the growing influence of the Tea Party movement, the pathetic economic recovery, and the unprecedentedly awful job market, that Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s reign as Speaker of the House was going to end, and that Boehner, with a solid post-election GOP majority, was a virtual lock to become its next Speaker.</p>
<p>Boehner&#8217;s speech and the party&#8217;s Pledge gave millions of frightened mainstream Americans hope that they could, and would, right the ship of state. Consider just a few things Boehner said in that October speech, and compare them to actual results.</p>
<p><em>&#8220;(This speech is) about the jobs that were promised to the American people by the current administration, and never delivered.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>At the time, total seasonally adjusted private-sector employment as measured by the Establishment Survey at the Bureau of Labor Statistics was eight million below its January 2008 peak. 25 months later, private-sector employment, which should by now have jumped to several million above that 2008 high, is still down by 3.7 million. Even those grim statistics understate the gravity of the employment situation and how little improvement we&#8217;ve seen, especially in comparison to past recoveries. Full-time employment as measured by the BLS&#8217;s Household Survey is still 6.2 million lower than its peak in late 2007, while part-time employment is up by 2.8 million. Since the recession officially ended in June 2009, over 800,000 of the 3.3 million net jobs added have gone to those who toil at temporary help firms.</p>
<p><em>&#8220;The greatest threat to job creation in our country is the flawed idea that we can tax, spend and borrow our way to prosperity.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>In the 24 months Boehner has been Speaker, the government has run a deficit of over $2 trillion, spent over $7 trillion, increased the national debt by over $2.4 trillion, and done almost nothing to contain the explosive growth of entitlements.</p>
<p><em>&#8220;Our plan cuts spending immediately, back to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>If that were currently the case, the government would be spending about $2.9 trillion annually &#8212; still far more than necessary to carry out its constitutionally assigned functions (a topic for another day). Instead, it has spent $3.4 to $3.6 trillion during <a href="http://fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0912.txt">each of</a> the <a href="http://fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0910.txt">past four</a> fiscal years, and is off <a href="http://fms.treas.gov/mts/mts1112.txt">to a record-shattering start</a> in fiscal 2013.</p>
<p><em>&#8220;Your government is out of control. Do you have to accept it? Do you have to take it? Hell no you don’t! That’s what elections are for! In </em>Common Sense<em>, Thomas Paine wrote that &#8216;we have it in our power to begin the world over again.&#8217; In just 25 days, voters will have a chance to do just that.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>Unlike many others, I really believe that John Boehner intended to get what he described as an &#8220;out of control&#8221; government back on track. Nobody who heard that speech could possibly have imagined that he would acquiesce to an August 2011 debt-ceiling deal that put off serious consideration of what we are doing to our children, grandchildren and generations yet to be born until after the 2012 elections, seriously crippling 2012 GOP election campaigns across the land. There was also no reason to believe that Boehner would just over two years later get behind fiscal cliff-preventing legislation which <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/31/Fiscal-cliff-deal-41-1-in-tax-increases-to-spending-cuts-ratio">by some accounts</a> involves $41 in tax increases for ever dollar in spending &#8220;cuts,&#8221; which we know really means &#8220;reductions in projected spending increases.&#8221; A January 2 <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323820104578215400767461788.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h"><em>Wall Street Journal</em> editorial</a> asserts that the legislation involved represents &#8220;the biggest tax increase in 20 years&#8221; coupled with &#8220;spending <em>increases</em>.&#8221;</p>
<p>So what happened? Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Washington Republicans have naively believed, and probably still do despite their repeated humiliations, that there can be honest negotiations with Washington Democrats led by the most radical president in U.S. history. That is not possible.</p>
<p>Boehner&#8217;s only alternative from Day 1 of his speakership, something which I erroneously thought he finally realized in that 2010 speech, was to:</p>
<p>• Insist on constitutional grounds that the House would consider no revenue-raising legislation originating in the Senate. (<a href="http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec7.html">Article 1, Section 7</a>: &#8220;All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.&#8221;)</p>
<p>• Pass comprehensive legislation to accomplish the goals articulated in the Pledge for America.</p>
<p>• Adjourn, and don&#8217;t come back. If the Senate or the President wouldn&#8217;t sign, then the government would shut down, and it would be blindingly obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense who caused it.</p>
<p>The People&#8217;s House has the constitutional power of the purse. John Boehner hasn&#8217;t leveraged it. Until he or the next Speaker does, the left will rule the fiscal roost in Washington, and our nation&#8217;s rapid descent into bankruptcy will be virtually assured.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Bad Inventions</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ann-coulter/bad-inventions/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bad-inventions</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ann-coulter/bad-inventions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 04:35:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Coulter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dishwasher]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hand dryer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inventions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[regulations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[silence]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171953</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A list for all those sick of the fiscal cliff. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ann-coulter/bad-inventions/img_0098/" rel="attachment wp-att-171980"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-171980" title="IMG_0098" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/IMG_0098-450x337.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="202" /></a>I am bored with politics, refuse to pay attention to the news and am watching only True Crime TV shows and Turner Classic Movies these days. With the Democrats controlling the Senate and presidency, nothing good can possibly come out of Washington for at least another two years. So I thought I&#8217;d start the new year with something useful, like a short list of bad inventions.</p>
<p>(1) SILENT DISHWASHERS</p>
<p>Are people installing dishwashers next to their beds? I&#8217;ve checked my &#8220;Top 500 Daily Irritations&#8221; list and dishwasher noise is not on it.</p>
<p>What possible benefit derives from having a dishwasher that makes absolutely no noise? Was that gentle whooshing sound driving some homeowners bonkers? Is this a product designed by the same people who gave us the electric car, a vehicle so silent that the first sign of its approach is the sound of your pelvis breaking as the car hits you?</p>
<p>Not only are the virtues of a silent dishwasher elusive, but there&#8217;s one big disadvantage: You can&#8217;t tell if it&#8217;s running. A dishwasher doesn&#8217;t have to sound like the Concorde blasting off to provide some indication that the thing is working.</p>
<p>Now, in addition to the usual steps of washing dishes &#8212; loading the dishwasher, inserting the cleaning agent and turning on the machine &#8212; the fancy new quiet dishwashers demand yet another step of the homeowner: You have to hang around and keep putting your ear against the door hoping to hear activity. If you forget to perform this bonus time-waster, every once in a while you&#8217;ll start unloading dishes the next morning and notice that they&#8217;re still dirty.</p>
<p>The whole point of having a dishwasher is to minimize the work involved to get clean dishes. The dishwasher is a product that&#8217;s devolving.</p>
<p>(2) TELEPHONES WITH NO &#8220;OFF&#8221; BUTTON</p>
<p>There are only two crucial functions of a telephone: enabling you to talk to someone who is not in the same room, and to ring or &#8212; this is important &#8212; NOT ring. Without those, you have nothing.</p>
<p>For people with home offices, babies, small apartments or unusual hours, it&#8217;s the &#8220;not ring&#8221; feature that is the telephone&#8217;s most critical function. A phone with no ringer-off button is like a front door without a lock.</p>
<p>But over the past few years, cordless phone manufacturers have decided you should never be able to turn the ringer off. Like liberals, they think, &#8220;I don&#8217;t need an &#8216;off&#8217; button, so I don&#8217;t know why anyone else should, either.&#8221;</p>
<p>On nearly any modern landline phone, the only way to turn off the ringer is to read the manual. So now, something that used to be accomplished with the flick of a button reading &#8220;High-Low-Off&#8221; &#8212; a process so simple you could do it on a phone you had never laid eyes on before, in the dark, on a hotel phone, while sleepwalking &#8212; requires flipping through pages and pages of helpful tips from the manufacturer, such as &#8220;Do not submerge phone in bathtub&#8221; in order to find the seven counterintuitive steps required to turn your ringer off.</p>
<p>(Ironically, when I&#8217;m staying in a hotel and there&#8217;s no &#8220;ringer off&#8221; button on the telephone, I usually end up submerging the entire unit in the bathtub.)</p>
<p>Modern phones have loads of buttons to do things like change the ringer sound to chirping birds or Beethoven&#8217;s Fifth, or to emit beeps in case you&#8217;ve left it under a couch cushion. Those aren&#8217;t among the vital functions of a telephone. Turning off the ringer is.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s why people are abandoning their landlines for cellphones. True, home phones don&#8217;t work in cars or out on the street. But I think the main appeal of cellphones is that they have &#8220;off&#8221; buttons.</p>
<p>(3) AUTOMATIC FAUCETS, PAPER TOWEL DISPENSERS AND HAND DRYERS</p>
<p>Sensor-activated bathroom accoutrements are mostly found in airports. Airports are natural monopolies, meaning consumer satisfaction is not a factor. If you live in St. Louis, you can&#8217;t say, &#8220;I hate Lambert-St. Louis International Airport &#8212; let&#8217;s fly out of the San Francisco airport instead.&#8221;</p>
<p>Consequently, airports always have the most up-to-date technology for annoying the customer.</p>
<p>Were travelers tiring themselves out with the strenuous, back-breaking work of turning a faucet 15 degrees clockwise? Half the time, the sensors are broken, anyway. Free tip: James Bond technology isn&#8217;t all that &#8220;James Bond&#8221; if it doesn&#8217;t work.</p>
<p>If engineers can design a paper towel dispenser that saves consumers the exhausting motion of gently pulling down &#8212; instead, forcing them to wildly wave their hands in front of a non-working sensor like signers for the deaf at a Louis Farrakhan speech &#8212; can&#8217;t these same design mavens figure out how much paper a normal person needs to dry his hands? Does no one notice that people are always walking out of airport bathrooms picking toilet paper off their hands?</p>
<p>The blowing hand dryers often turn on and make that reassuring whooshing noise we miss on our dishwashers. The one thing they have absolutely no capacity to do is dry hands. I gather the idea is that if you stand there long enough your hands will eventually drip dry, long after your flight has pushed back from the gate. (At least no one in an airport has to be anywhere important.)</p>
<p>Some newer hand dryers on the market actually do dry hands in about 10 seconds. You see these hand dryers in restaurants and other commercial establishments that cater to customers. You will never see one in an airport. (What are travelers going to do? Fly out of a different airport?) I suppose we should be happy that instead of a row of toilet stalls, airport restrooms don&#8217;t just give us a long, floor-level trench.</p>
<p>Only liberals believe all novelty is progress. Monopolies such as airports give them free rein to impose their pointless, irritating devices on the rest of us. And the biggest monopoly of all is government. If you think airport hand dryers blow, wait until you read the fine print on the fiscal cliff deal. Which I won&#8217;t. I&#8217;ll be busy watching &#8220;Forensic Files.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Video: Bill Whittle on The Secret For Conservative Success</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/josh-brewster/video-josh-brewsters-one-on-one-with-bill-whittle/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=video-josh-brewsters-one-on-one-with-bill-whittle</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/josh-brewster/video-josh-brewsters-one-on-one-with-bill-whittle/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 04:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Josh Brewster]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bill whittle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York City]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171587</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[PJTV's titan host crystallizes what the GOP must do to get on the road to victory. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/josh-brewster/video-josh-brewsters-one-on-one-with-bill-whittle/victory-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-172026"><img class="wp-image-172026 alignleft" title="victory" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/victory.jpg" alt="" width="256" height="180" /></a>PJTV&#8217;s titan host shares his wisdom on the <em>The Secret For Conservative Success</em> in <strong>Part II</strong> of this video interview. In <strong>Part I</strong>, he sheds light on the fiscal cliff, the skyrocketing national debt, Hillary hiding from testimony on Benghazi, his own life and intellectual journey, and much more. Watch both parts of the two part series below:</p>
<p><strong>Part I:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CyG7jThXxE8" frameborder="0" width="400" height="300"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Part II:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rFmcbrZuS3c" frameborder="0" width="400" height="300"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <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">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Fiscal Cliff Showdown Postponed to March</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/fiscal-cliff-postponed-to-march/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fiscal-cliff-postponed-to-march</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/fiscal-cliff-postponed-to-march/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Jan 2013 04:58:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal disaster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171886</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fiscal-disaster procrastination bill passes without big spending cuts.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/fiscal-cliff-postponed-to-march/house-passes-budget-deal-past-fiscal-cliff-deadline/" rel="attachment wp-att-171890"><img class="wp-image-171890 alignleft" title="House Passes Budget Deal Past Fiscal Cliff Deadline" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/fiscal.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>With a cocky President Obama no doubt grinning from ear-to-ear, federal lawmakers yesterday gave their blessing to legislation that boosts income tax rates and government spending while kicking many of the &#8220;fiscal cliff&#8221; issues down the road for several weeks.</p>
<p>The $1.2 trillion in scheduled spending cuts &#8211;falling largely on the Pentagon&#8211; have now been officially postponed for two months. The next manufactured crisis comes March 1, the day the cuts will take effect unless Congress intervenes again to stop them.</p>
<p>Putting off dire problems for another day is now becoming routine in Washington, D.C., commentator Jim Antle opined on Twitter. &#8220;We have reached the point where temporarily averting self-inflicted disasters at the last second is a political success.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Obama-approved fiscal-disaster procrastination bill received final congressional approval in the House last night with relatively little Republican support after a prolonged fight during a long lame duck session of the outgoing Congress. Obama and Democrats got almost everything they wanted, as many Republicans dropped their long-standing opposition to income tax rate increases. Now Obama comes across to many low-information voters as a kind of champion of the middle class, and Republicans, whom the media would have painted as villains no matter what the fiscal cliff outcome, look like stubborn obstructionists who had to be forced to do the supposedly right thing.</p>
<p>By insisting on tax hikes only for the wealthy, President Obama skillfully played Republicans off against each other, launching what some are now calling a civil war within the Grand Old Party. Republicans were afraid of being blamed by the public for allowing taxes to rise if Bush-era tax rates, which expired Dec. 31, were not extended, so they held their noses and gave Obama largely what he wanted.</p>
<p>Charles Krauthammer called the measure a “complete rout for Democrats.” Many House conservatives &#8220;hate the bill for good reason &#8230; This is a complete surrender on everything.&#8221;</p>
<p>Bill Kristol called the bill a mess that was &#8220;ridiculous in too many ways to count&#8221; but urged House Republicans to vote for it anyway to get the issue behind them. &#8220;The two month delay of the sequester [i.e. spending cuts] will make actual governance even more difficult (how is the Pentagon supposed to plan for the rest of the year?) &#8230; And we will face another cliff when we hit the debt ceiling and the sequester again in two months.&#8221;</p>
<p>The stage is now set for the approaching battle over out-of-control federal spending. The bill passed Congress hours after the U.S. government bumped up against the limit on federal borrowing. In theory the government could default on its debts two months from now if the debt ceiling is not raised further.</p>
<p>The national debt is now about $16.4 trillion, up from $10.6 trillion on Inauguration Day 2009. But that $16.4 trillion figure is misleading. Government accounting tricks keep another $86.8 trillion in unfunded liabilities related to Medicare, Social Security, and federal employees&#8217; future retirement benefits off the books and out of the public eye. The two figures added together produce the unimaginably large sum of $103 trillion. The U.S. government&#8217;s bond rating has been downgraded already and many more downgrades are on the horizon.</p>
<p>It is worth noting that the bill passed last night only because House Democrats supported it.</p>
<p>The measure was approved in a House vote of 257 to 167 after GOP leaders decided not to insist on government spending cuts. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) voted for the package, breaking with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who voted against it.</p>
<p>In total 85 Republicans voted for the bill and 151 voted no. On the Democratic side there were 172 votes in favor and 16 against.</p>
<p>After going against most of the House Republican conference on such a critical matter, Boehner&#8217;s speakership may be in jeopardy. Some conservatives are pressing GOP lawmakers not to reelect Boehner as Speaker when the new 113th Congress convenes on January 3.</p>
<p>American Majority Action spokesman Ron Meyer told Breitbart News late yesterday that enough House Republicans have come together together in an effort to take Boehner&#8217;s gavel away. To be considered elected, a candidate for Speaker must receive a majority of the votes.</p>
<p>“At least 20 House Republican members have gotten together, discussed this and want to unseat Speaker Boehner&#8211;and are willing to do what it takes to do it,” Meyer said. “That’s more than enough to get the job done, but the one problem these guys face is they need a leader to coalesce behind.” Early discussion on a possible Boehner challenger has centered on House Majority Leader Cantor.</p>
<p>Before the House took action late yesterday, at 1:39 a.m. the Senate approved the bill by a vote of 89 to 8. The only Republicans to vote against the measure were Charles Grassley (Iowa), Mike Lee (Utah), Rand Paul (Kentucky), Marco Rubio (Florida), and Richard Shelby (Alabama). (Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Mark Kirk of Illinois didn&#8217;t vote.)</p>
<p>Rubio said he couldn&#8217;t vote for the bill because he &#8220;wanted to be part of solving the long-term problems this country faces. Time and again, we’re given choices here that don’t involve that.”</p>
<p>“The real fiscal cliff is still there,” he said. “We’ll be back here again. In March, we’ll have a showdown like this all over again.”</p>
<p>Many Tea Party-backed Republicans opposed the legislation because it raises taxes without reducing government spending. According to an <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://taxfoundation.org/blog/details-fiscal-cliff-tax-deal">analysis</a></span> by Joseph Henchman of the Tax Foundation, the bill raises taxes by $620 billion tax increase while cutting expenditures by a paltry $15 billion. That&#8217;s a ratio of $41 in tax increases for every $1 in savings.</p>
<p>While the legislation preserves the lower-income tax brackets from the Bush era permanently, it raises tax rates for joint filers earning $450,000 or more, phases out exemptions for high earners and limits the personal exemptions and itemized deductions they can claim. It also raises payroll taxes for all and discourages investment by raising the capital gains tax and dividends tax for high earners.</p>
<p>On the positive side, the legislation <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://wtim.es/132FqQ1">approved</a></span> by Congress repeals the CLASS Act, a huge unfunded mandate promoted by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) that was part of Obamacare. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act would have created a new national long-term care insurance system.</p>
<p>Quite apart from the fiscal cliff, yesterday Americans were hit with $1 trillion in new taxes to be fully phased in through 2022 to support the president&#8217;s unpopular health care reforms.</p>
<p>Among the new job-killing Obamacare-related levies effective January 1 were: an excise tax on gross sales by medical device makers; a  surtax on investment income for households earning at least $250,000; and an increase in the Medicare payroll tax for married couples earning more than $250,000.</p>
<p>Many more tax increases are likely headed our way in President Obama&#8217;s second term in office.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <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">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Hollywood Tax Credits, Rum Subsidies, Indian Coal and Scooters: The Senate Fiscal Cliff Bill&#8217;s 4 Worst Ripoffs</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/hollywood-tax-credits-rum-subsidies-indian-coal-and-scooters-the-4-worst-ripoffs-in-the-senate-fiscal-cliff-bill/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hollywood-tax-credits-rum-subsidies-indian-coal-and-scooters-the-4-worst-ripoffs-in-the-senate-fiscal-cliff-bill</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/hollywood-tax-credits-rum-subsidies-indian-coal-and-scooters-the-4-worst-ripoffs-in-the-senate-fiscal-cliff-bill/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:20:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171825</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Celebrities flocked to Obama and the industry poured millions into his campaign. Payday comes in the form of an extension of the Special Expensing Rules which allow Hollywood productions to deduct 15 to 20 million dollars.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/hollywood-tax-credits-rum-subsidies-indian-coal-and-scooters-the-4-worst-ripoffs-in-the-senate-fiscal-cliff-bill/pickpocket12112006/" rel="attachment wp-att-171826"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-171826" title="pickpocket12112006" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/pickpocket12112006.jpg" alt="" width="325" height="325" /></a></p>
<p>While the American people are being hit with new ObamaCare taxes, and the ObamaDeficit is climbing through the roof and will pass 20 trillion dollars before long, there&#8217;s always plenty of sweetheart deals and pork to be found.</p>
<p>1. Hollywood.</p>
<p>Celebrities flocked to Obama and the industry poured millions into his campaign. Payday comes in the form of an extension of the Special Expensing Rules which allow Hollywood productions<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/01/01/hollywood-loophole-fiscal-cliff"> to deduct 15 to 20 million dollars</a>.  That&#8217;s pretty generous considering that companies that manufacture medical devices are being hit with a tax. But who really needs pacemakers anyway when you&#8217;ve got Hollywood?</p>
<p>For all the lefty mockery about &#8220;wealth creators&#8221;, there are some wealth creators that are close to the Democratic Party&#8217;s rotten black heart. The same ones who do tedious ads calling on the Democrats to outlaw guns, plastic bags and civil rights. Celebrities.</p>
<p>Glenn Reynolds has argued that instead of cutting taxes on Hollywood, <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/sunday-reflection-repeal-the-hollywood-tax-cuts/article/2503964#.UHBA1a7CaSo">Washington should be raising taxes,</a> and not just by legalizing and taxing cocaine.</p>
<blockquote><p>The first such proposal would be to restore the 20% excise tax on motion picture theater gross revenues that existed between the end of World War II and its repeal in the mid-1950s&#8230;  The movie excise tax was imposed in response to the high deficits after World War Two. Deficits are high again, and there&#8217;s already historical precedent.</p></blockquote>
<p>But instead of raising taxes on Hollywood, the Senate fiscal cliff extends the deductions.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>2. Puerto Rican Rum</p>
<p>When rum from anywhere but Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands arrives in the United States, the excise taxes go to Uncle Sam, but <a href="http://www.caribjournal.com/2012/11/14/op-ed-rum-subsidies-in-puerto-rico-and-the-us-virgin-islands/">98 percent of the excise taxes</a> for rum from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands go right back to those territories, which reinvest the money in rum production.</p>
<p>The United States is using rum excise taxes to subsidize rum production in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, which is not only a WTO violation, it&#8217;s half a billion dollars in tax revenues being thrown out the window so that more rum can be made, so that more rum can be taxed, etc&#8230;</p>
<p>Maybe there&#8217;s an argument for giving up 500 million dollars for rum distillers, but when we&#8217;re taxing companies that produce lifesaving technologies, then maybe we should be taxing the rum too?</p>
<p>Oh and it&#8217;s wasted money too.</p>
<blockquote><p>Estimates suggest that, in some cases, the value of the operating subsidies alone exceeds the actual production cost per litre of rum.</p></blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>3. Scooters</p>
<blockquote><p>Sec 403. Extension of credit for 2- or 3-wheeled plug-in electric vehicles</p>
<p>There shall be allowed as a credit against the tax imposed by this chapter for the taxable year an amount equal to the sum of the applicable amount with respect to each such qualified 2- or 3-wheeled plug-in electric vehicle placed in service by the taxpayer during the taxable year</p></blockquote>
<p>Thanks goodness all those poor people in Hollywood who own three Segways will be able to get a tax credit while wobbling around the sidewalk drunk on Puerto Rican rum</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>4. Tax credits for Indian Coal</p>
<p>Back in 2008, Obama vowed to destroy the coal industry. Thus far he has been doing an excellent job of <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/28/obamas-abandoned-power-plants/">shutting down coal plants </a>and putting coal miners out of work with <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/04/report-up-to-17000-jobs-lost-from-coal-plant-shutdowns/">over 17,000 jobs lost</a>.</p>
<p>But there&#8217;s coal, which is dirty, filthy and polluting, and there&#8217;s Indian coal which is the heart and soul of an ancient people and is in a special category<a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/45"> as indigenous coal</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>(9) Indian coal<br />
(A) In general<br />
The term “Indian coal” means coal which is produced from coal reserves which, on June 14, 2005—<br />
(i) were owned by an Indian tribe, or<br />
(ii) were held in trust by the United States for the benefit of an Indian tribe or its members.</p></blockquote>
<p>Anyway <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/breaking-full-text-of-the-157-page-bill-to-avert-the-fiscal-cliff-2013-1">the gloriously indigenous</a> Indian coal tax credit has been extended for another year. Because that Italian guy who played an Indian standing by a highway doesn&#8217;t cry when the coal is held in trust by the United States government. Let the sound of 17,000 unemployed coal miners who don&#8217;t happen to be Indians be heard throughout the land.</p>
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		<title>House May Be Holding Firm on Spending Cuts</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/house-holding-firm-on-spending-cuts/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=house-holding-firm-on-spending-cuts</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/house-holding-firm-on-spending-cuts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Jan 2013 16:55:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171817</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This battle is a good thing and it may end up doing for the Republican Party in 2014 what the ObamaCare debate did in 2010 by giving the Republican Party renewed energy and fight after a loss. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/house-holding-firm-on-spending-cuts/rorkes_drift_hospital/" rel="attachment wp-att-171818"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-171818" title="Rorkes_Drift_Hospital" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Rorkes_Drift_Hospital-450x306.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="306" /></a></p>
<p>Three years ago, when Pelosi held the Senate, Democrats were sneering at the Senate as the &#8220;House of Lords&#8221;. Now the House of Lords has delivered a bill chock full of spending and short on spending cuts, and the House of Commoners appears to be holding the line.</p>
<p>Eric Cantor has made his opposition clear and Boehner appears to be backing away. The general consensus is that without some actual spending cuts, this won&#8217;t be going forward. And that means the House of Lords, overseen by Count Reid, who can&#8217;t count, will have to add some actual spending cuts.</p>
<p>Obama is<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/01/fresh-from-fiscal-cliff-standoff-obama-demands-another-tax-increase-for-2013/"> already blathering about</a> more tax increases, because when you&#8217;re spending like an insane Roman Emperor, then you&#8217;re going to need a lot of tax hikes to at least make it look to your supporters like you&#8217;re not completely insane. None of these tax hikes have even come close to reducing the deficit, instead we&#8217;re looking at a 20+ trillion dollar deficit before too long.</p>
<p>This battle is a good thing and it may end up doing for the Republican Party in 2014 what the ObamaCare debate did in 2010 by giving the Republican Party renewed energy and fight after a loss. And Obama&#8217;s obnoxious behavior may be backfiring by leading to the backlash ahead of schedule.</p>
<p>In 2008, Obama made a brief show of pretending to work with Republicans. In 2012, he&#8217;s going out of his way to do an end zone dance. And that may prove to be his undoing by giving Republicans the energy and the drive to start pushing back.</p>
<p>If Obama had really wanted a deal, he could have gotten better terms by actually working with Republicans, instead of hurling abuse. But it&#8217;s clear that this is what he wanted. And Republicans are worried that a breakdown will hurt them badly. But a sellout will hurt them worse.</p>
<p>The lesson of the 2012 election was that alienating your base is a losing proposition. Turnout counts for more than the center. It&#8217;s a lesson that more Congressional Republicans appear to have absorbed than Senate Republicans.</p>
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		<title>Far from the Fiscal Cliff Finish Line</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/far-from-the-fiscal-cliff-finish-line/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=far-from-the-fiscal-cliff-finish-line</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/far-from-the-fiscal-cliff-finish-line/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:54:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vote]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171771</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A House vote looms. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/far-from-the-fiscal-cliff-finish-line/obamafiscalcliffa/" rel="attachment wp-att-171774"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-171774" title="Obama+Fiscal+CliffA" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Obama+Fiscal+CliffA-450x319.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="191" /></a>It looks as if the fiscal cliff will be averted &#8212; maybe. Early New Year&#8217;s morning, the Senate <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/01/senate-leaders-aim-for-vote-on-fiscal-crisis-deal-as-congress-misses-deadline/">passed a bill</a>, in a bipartisan vote of 89-9, eliminating the tax hikes on most Americans while raising them on the rich. Automatic spending cuts that would have kicked in as the result of the sequestration have been postponed for two months. The deal was cobbled together by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). It now goes to the House where its chances of passage remain unclear. “Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members&#8211;and the American people&#8211;have been able to review the legislation,” <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/fiscal-cliff/biden-mcconnell-continue-cliff-talks-as-clock-winds-down/2012/12/31/66c044e2-534d-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html">said</a> Boehner and other GOP leaders in a written statement.</p>
<p>The agreement was reportedly put together at around 9PM New Year&#8217;s Eve, when two of the major sticking points were finally overcome. Republicans <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/01/senate-leaders-aim-for-vote-on-fiscal-crisis-deal-as-congress-misses-deadline/">surrendered</a> ground on the across-the-board spending cuts, delaying for two months the $109 billion in spending reductions aimed primarily at the Pentagon, as well as some domestic agencies. The White House gave ground on the estate tax, with the top rate pegged at 40 percent while exempting the first $5 million for individual estates, and $10 million for family estates. Thus estate taxes go up, but the exemption levels are increased.</p>
<p>With regard to taxes, the Bush tax cuts remain in place for individual Americans making less than $400,000 and couples making $450,000. Caps have been imposed on itemized deductions and personal exemptions will be phased out for individuals making $250,000 and couples earning $300,000. Taxes on both capital gains and dividend income would rise from 15 to 20 percent on income over $400,000 for individuals, and $450,000 for families.</p>
<p>The dreaded alternative minimum tax, originally enacted to ensure that wealthy Americans could not completely avoid owing taxes by way of loopholes, was one of the more sensible agreements emerging from the deal. It was finally indexed for inflation, exempting 30 million middle- and upper-middle-class Americans from owing an average of $3000 in additional taxes. In a victory for the president, the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, and as much as a $2,500 tax credit for college tuition have been granted five year extensions. Several business tax credits, including accelerated depreciation for investments in business equipment and property, credits for research and development costs, and those for renewable energy sources have been extended for one year at a <a href="http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/01/16280618-in-last-minute-vote-senate-approves-fiscal-deal?lite">cost</a> of $64 billion.</p>
<p>On the more dubious side, unemployment benefits will be <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/31/unemployment-insurance-extended_n_2389634.html">extended</a> for another year without any commensurate offset, meaning another $30 billion will be added to the deficit. Democrats point to figures released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which estimated keeping the benefits would <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/unemployment-benefits-cbo_n_2207219.html">raise</a> GDP by two-tenths of a percentage point in the fourth quarter of 2013. This has been touted as the equivalent of 300,000 jobs. Less touted is the cost of $100,000 for each of them.</p>
<p>The agreement also includes yet another suspension of the so-called &#8220;doc fix,&#8221; <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/one_year_doc_fix_included_in_fiscal_cliff_package-220436-1.html">blocking</a> a 27 percent reduction in Medicare payments to physicians for another year. The $25 billion cost of this suspension will ostensibly be offset by other, as yet unspecified, reductions in medical expenses. And finally, the deal reinstates the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax that had been cut to 4.2 percent two years ago.</p>
<p>Both Senate Republicans and the president gave the agreement a tentative thumbs up. “The president wanted tax increases, but thanks to this imperfect agreement, 99 percent of my constituents won’t be hit by those hikes,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. &#8220;There’s more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I’m willing to do it,&#8221; said President Obama in a statement. &#8220;But tonight’s agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans.&#8221;</p>
<p>Yet the deal is far from the finish line. Although the House is <a href="http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/01/16280618-in-last-minute-vote-senate-approves-fiscal-deal?lite">scheduled</a> to meet today at noon, Breitbart News is <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/31/GROUP-Boehner-doesn-t-have-support-of-at-least-50-percent-of-House-GOP-members-on-McConnell-Biden-fiscal-cliff-deal">reporting</a> that a conservative group, American Majority Action, claims that House Speaker John Boehner lacks the necessary support to get the deal through the Republican-controlled chamber. AMA spokesman Ron Meyer sent an email to reporters Monday, saying he’s “heard directly from senior GOP conservative members in the House that Speaker Boehner does not have a majority of support from the GOP caucus&#8211;not even close.”</p>
<p>Boehner himself has refused to endorse the deal, yet he has promised to offer a vote on it, or a GOP alternative, perhaps as early as 1PM. Undoubtedly, House Democrats will vote for it. House conservatives? &#8220;It&#8217;s three strikes in my book and I&#8217;ll be voting no on this bill,&#8221; Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) told CNN Tuesday morning. Huelskamp expressed his dismay regarding the effect the legislation will have on small businesses, as well as the one sticking point that undoubtedly resonates with his fellow conservatives: all the serious spending cuts have been deferred.</p>
<p>Yet even House conservatives may conclude the best course of action is to pass this bill, placating a majority of Americans for the moment, and get down to serious negotiations on spending cuts when the next major hurdle, namely the debt ceiling, is addressed. If truth be told, this agreement is nothing more than a dress rehearsal for those negotiations&#8211;during which the House, whence all spending bills originate, will have considerably more leverage than it has now. “The big battle is yet to come and it’s over the debt ceiling,” Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) <a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/01/01/Will-House-Approve-Senate-Tax-Hike-on-Super-Rich.aspx#page1">said</a> in a Monday floor speech. “That’s the one where we have to find a way to make a deal. And the president is not going to make a deal by poking us in the eye.”</p>
<p>The rancor expressed by Isakson was illuminated by <em>Washington Post</em> columnist Charles Krauthammer, who <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/31/krauthammer-obama-showed-incredible-arrogance-in-astonishing-press-conference-video/">referred</a> to President Obama&#8217;s &#8220;incredible arrogance&#8221; during a pre-deal press conference on Monday. “I found it astonishing….He spikes the football on the Republicans. He rubs in the fact that they were resisting a raise in rates and he made them do it. And of course, as always, he places himself hovering benignly at an Olympian level above the fray, where the children are playing in the sandbox, and he is asking that everybody be reasonable, as if he just arrived in Washington on a tourist visa,” Krauthammer said Monday night on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report.”</p>
<p>In other words, even if the House spares Americans from the consequences of the fiscal cliff today, the nation is a long, long way from the finish line&#8211;with plenty of eye-poking from both sides expected along the way.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Grab Your Parachute</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/grab-your-parachute/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=grab-your-parachute</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/grab-your-parachute/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2012 04:58:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171663</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[No deal yet on fiscal cliff.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/grab-your-parachute/oc-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-171665"><img class=" wp-image-171665 alignleft" title="oc" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/oc.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="222" /></a>Thanks largely to President Obama&#8217;s intransigence, America is poised to fall over the potentially treacherous &#8220;fiscal cliff&#8221; tomorrow. Top policymakers in Washington appear no closer to reaching a deal than before they left town for the Christmas break.</p>
<p>The outgoing 112th Congress is meeting in a high-stakes lame duck session to decide whether Bush-era tax rates should be extended and if $1.2 trillion in scheduled spending cuts &#8211;falling largely on the Pentagon&#8211; will be avoided. If current tax rates are not renewed, the already fragile economy will suffer.</p>
<p>President Obama&#8217;s critics say he wants America to go over the cliff so he can blame the consequences on Republicans &#8212; and he&#8217;s given those critics plenty of ammunition.</p>
<p>Instead of trying to deal with the problem, President Obama has been busy framing Republicans as the villains, arguing that they are being unreasonable because they want to cut spending and maintain current tax rates.</p>
<p>With bags under his eyes an exhausted-looking Obama disingenuously claimed on NBC&#8217;s &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; that his offers to Republicans &#8220;have been so fair that a lot of Democrats get mad at me.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama has been acting genuinely amazed that Republican negotiators have failed so far to be suckered by his worthless proposal to cut government spending in exchange for tax rate increases. The president said Republicans have &#8220;had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers.&#8221;</p>
<p>Of course anyone who has followed Congress in recent decades knows that when political dealmakers couple tax rate increases with less-than-specific promises to cut spending at some indefinite point in the future, those spending cuts never actually happen.</p>
<p>Commentator Charles Krauthammer said yesterday that Obama could have done much more to resolve the current situation. “The president has never gone to the nation and made a serious speech about debt,” he said.</p>
<p>“He ignored it the first two years. He appoints a commission that he studiously ignores for the next two years. That’s why we’re at the cliff now. He’s not serious about the debt — none of his proposals. You raise the taxes on the rich, it’s eight cents on the dollar on the deficit. It reduces it a trivial amount of money and he’s never put any political capital in entitlement reform or tax reform. Oh, we’ll talk about it here and there — never invested any capital in it.”</p>
<p>The national debt now stands at $16.39 trillion, up from $10.6 trillion on Inauguration Day 2009. But that $16.39 trillion figure is misleading. Government accounting tricks keep another $86.8 trillion in unfunded liabilities related to Medicare, Social Security, and federal employees&#8217; future retirement benefits off the books and out of the public eye. Add the two figures together and you arrive at the more accurate, unimaginably large sum of $103.1 trillion.</p>
<p>As intense negotiations took place Sunday on Capitol Hill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) moved from cautious optimism to hopelessness in a matter of hours. On his Twitter account the senator said bluntly, “I think we’re going over the cliff.”</p>
<p>Earlier in the day Graham said on &#8220;Fox News Sunday&#8221; that he was optimistic some kind of deal could be reached at the eleventh hour. &#8220;I think people don&#8217;t want to go over the cliff, if we can avoid it,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Whatever we accomplish, [it's a] political victory for the president, hats off to the president,&#8221; Graham said grudgingly on TV. &#8220;He stood his ground. He&#8217;s going to get tax rate increases, maybe not at [$250,000 in annual income] but on upper income Americans.&#8221;</p>
<p>But in parts of official Washington hope springs eternal.</p>
<p>Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) introduced legislation Sunday that he said would &#8220;soften the landing&#8221; if the country goes over the figurative cliff.</p>
<p>His new bill, the Cliff Alleviation at the Last Minute Act (CALM Act), would gradually phase in tax rate hikes and allow the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to recommend changes to the spending cuts scheduled to take effect.</p>
<p>Even if the Democratic-controlled Senate signs off on a last-minute deal with the president, it is far from clear whether the GOP-controlled House would go along with it &#8212; even if it bore the imprimatur of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).</p>
<p>Many Republican House members, especially those associated with the Tea Party, don&#8217;t trust Boehner to do what they consider to be the right thing. Earlier this month he tried to push through a measure that would have raised taxes on those earning more than $1 million a year. Conservatives rebelled, reasoning that Republicans shouldn&#8217;t go along with President Obama&#8217;s class warfare-driven &#8220;soak the rich&#8221; policies. Groups like American Majority Action are pressing GOP lawmakers not to reelect Boehner as Speaker when the new Congress convenes on January 3. It is not yet clear if that movement will gain traction.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether the fiscal cliff is averted, tomorrow Americans will be hit with $1 trillion in new taxes to support the perennially unpopular Obamacare. The taxes will be fully phased in from 2013 through 2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.</p>
<p>The five major Obamacare-related levies taking effect on January 1 are: a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales by medical device manufacturers;a new cap of $2,500 on currently uncapped pre-tax Flexible Spending Accounts; a new 3.8 percentage point surtax on investment income for those households making at least $250,000 (or $200,000 for unmarried individuals); the raising of the threshold for medical itemized deductions from those expenses exceeding 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income to 10 percent of AGI; and an increase in the Medicare payroll tax from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent for all wages and profits above $200,000 ($250,000 for married couples).</p>
<p>Meanwhile, if the nation tumbles over the proverbial cliff at midnight, markets will be disrupted. Workers who hadn&#8217;t been paying attention to the fiscal cliff debate will get a rude shock when a greater portion of their paychecks is suddenly withheld. Public pressure could force lawmakers to make some kind of a deal, perhaps retroactively extending current tax rates from January 1.</p>
<p>Lawmakers could also vote to maintain the status quo and kick the can down the road for another few months or more.</p>
<p>Or they could do nothing &#8212; which would be fine by President Obama.</p>
<p>With the assistance of the mainstream media, Obama reckons he will continue winning the public relations war against his Republican opposition indefinitely.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <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">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>The Freedom Cliff</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-klein/the-freedom-cliff/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-freedom-cliff</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-klein/the-freedom-cliff/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2012 04:39:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[due process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[First Amendment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Freedom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Second Amendment]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171539</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new year brings a new term of tyranny under Obama. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-klein/the-freedom-cliff/fiscalcliff/" rel="attachment wp-att-171541"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-171541" title="fiscalcliff" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/fiscalcliff.jpg" alt="" width="249" height="190" /></a>With all attention focused on the so-called fiscal cliff, President Obama is moving America ever closer towards tumbling over the freedom cliff. As a writer for Salon Magazine put it, &#8220;liberals let Obama get away with unconstitutional actions.&#8221; Here are just a few examples.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom of Speech</strong> &#8211; With the producer of the video &#8220;Innocence of Muslims&#8221; locked away in jail for a year on pretextual charges of probation violations, the Obama administration continues to keep the president&#8217;s promise to the Muslim world to &#8220;fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.&#8221; The First Amendment be damned.</p>
<p>The Obama administration&#8217;s trampling of the video producer&#8217;s First Amendment right of free expression is part of a larger pattern. In 2011, Obama&#8217;s State Department worked behind the scenes with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to pass United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, a tweaked version of the anti-blasphemy UN resolutions that the OIC has been pushing for years.  Terms like &#8220;denigration,&#8221; &#8220;derogatory stereotyping,&#8221; &#8220;advocacy of religious hatred,&#8221; and &#8220;discrimination&#8221; replaced &#8220;defamation of religions&#8221; in the resolution signed off by the U.S, but the end result is the same.  It criminalizes speech which incites a violent response from those whose religious beliefs and icons have, in their eyes, been denigrated.</p>
<p>Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout American Muslim and the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, noted the duplicity behind the change of wording that brought the Obama administration over to the OIC&#8217;s side:</p>
<blockquote><p>Anyone who believes that Resolution 16’18 is some kind of a breakthrough is sadly being duped by the most obvious Islamist double discourse. The shift from &#8220;defamation&#8221; to &#8220;incitement&#8221; does nothing at all to change the basic paradigm where Islamist nations remain in the offense, continuing to put Western, free nations on the defense.</p></blockquote>
<p>By the way, Dr. Jasser himself has been accused of Islamophobia by the Obama administration&#8217;s close allies at the Center For American Progress.</p>
<p>Expect the Obama Justice Department to go after individuals whose &#8220;hate&#8221; speech the prosecutors claim is discriminatorily targeted at Muslims&#8217; religious sensibilities to the point that it incites their violent response.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom of Religion &#8211; </strong>Back in 2008, Barack Obama mocked those whom he said &#8220;cling&#8221; to religion (he also included guns in his rant). As president, Obama has elevated the right to free contraceptives over freedom of religion, even though only the latter is protected by the Constitution.</p>
<p>While indulging Muslims&#8217; feelings,<strong> </strong>the Obama administration is forcing Catholic charities, hospitals, and colleges as well as private employers to violate their core religious beliefs or face massive fines. The Obamacare mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services requires employers, on pain of substantial financial penalties, to provide and pay for an employee health plan that includes no co-pay coverage for contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization. It is a direct affront to the fundamental right to religious liberty of conscientiously objecting employers.</p>
<p><strong>Right To Keep and Bear Arms &#8211; </strong>Freed from having to worry about re-election, President Obama is preparing for a major fight to cut back on the Second Amendment&#8217;s protection of individuals&#8217; right to keep and bear arms. During an appearance on &#8220;Meet The Press&#8221; this past Sunday, Obama said that he would put his “full weight” behind passing new restrictions on firearms in 2013. “Something fundamental in America has to change,” the president said.</p>
<p>If Obama does not get his way in Congress for more gun control laws to his liking, expect the Obama administration to use an upcoming United Nations conference on the adoption of a global arms trade treaty as a back door means to enact further regulation of small arms and ammunition.</p>
<p><strong>Due Process &#8211; </strong>Obama made a big issue during his first presidential campaign about President George W. Bush&#8217;s alleged unconstitutional use of torture. It turns out that Obama had another idea in mind &#8211; his own personal kill lists of American citizens. This goes beyond the president&#8217;s exercise of his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief to target specific individuals engaged in armed combat with the United States, whom it is not feasible to capture, even if they are American citizens. For example, we need not lose any sleep over Obama&#8217;s decision to take out Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who went to Yemen, joined with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and used his base in Yemen to plan and help organize terrorist attacks against American civilians. However, Obama trampled on the Fifth Amendment&#8217;s protection of individuals against being deprived of life without due process of law when he arrogated to himself unlimited, unaccountable power to draw up secret kill lists of American citizens for summary execution.</p>
<p><strong>Separation of Powers &#8211; </strong>Under the guise of executive orders, President Obama has put into effect his own version of legislation that he could not get passed through Congress. Call it executive legislating, something the Founding Fathers sought to prevent through separation of powers and checks and balances.</p>
<p>When Obama was unable to push through the Dream Act, for example, he decided to simply issue his own directive to give what amounts to amnesty to young illegal immigrants who meet certain qualifications.</p>
<p>We have a president who does not like the Constitution which he is sworn to behold.  In his words, the Constitution is a &#8220;document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture.&#8221; It reflects, according to Obama, &#8220;the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.&#8221;</p>
<p>Five days before his election in 2008, Obama proclaimed that &#8220;we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.&#8221; On Sunday, he said that &#8220;Something fundamental in America has to change.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama appears poised to whittle away as much as possible the Constitution that he considers fundamentally flawed and replace it with his own notion of a fundamentally transformed America. He is approaching the edge of the freedom cliff. Unless we are vigilant, we will find in the deep chasm at the bottom of the cliff the freedoms we have long taken for granted.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Debt Ceiling Disaster Ahead</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/debt-ceiling-disaster-ahead/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=debt-ceiling-disaster-ahead</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/debt-ceiling-disaster-ahead/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Dec 2012 04:35:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt ceiling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tim Geithner]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171267</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The fiscal cliff showdown is eclipsing the much more dangerous problem the country faces. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/debt-ceiling-disaster-ahead/geithner-obama-gi-top/" rel="attachment wp-att-171270"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-171270" title="geithner-obama.gi.top" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/geithner-obama.gi_.top_-450x312.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="187" /></a>It is almost impossible to believe, but the hysteria surrounding the so-called &#8220;fiscal cliff&#8221; is being overshadowed by an even more pressing problem. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2012/12/27/obama-geithner-debt-ceiling-fiscal-cliff/1793511/">alerted</a> Congress that the nation will once again hit the debt ceiling on Monday, but that his department can take &#8220;extraordinary measures&#8221; to keep paying the bills for another few months. For those keeping track, the debt ceiling was <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/16/federal-government-hits-14t-debt-limit/?page=all">raised</a> from $14.294 trillion in August 2011, to its current level of $16.394 trillion. Thus in the span of only sixteen months, an utterly irresponsible Obama administration has added a whopping $2.1 trillion to the national debt.</p>
<p>As bad as that is, the administration&#8217;s &#8220;solution&#8221; for out-of-control spending is even worse. As part of his fiscal cliff negotiations, the president and his minions have <a href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/120612-636088-obama-seeks-power-to-raise-debt-ceiling.htm?p=full">proposed</a> doing away with Congress altogether when it comes to raising the debt ceiling, and giving the president unilateral power to raise it. &#8220;If the Congress in any way suggests they are going to tie negotiations to the debt ceiling and take us to the brink of default once again as part of a budget negotiation. &#8230; I will not play that game because we&#8217;ve got to break that habit before it starts,&#8221; Obama told CEOs at the Business Roundtable held earlier in December.</p>
<p>Perhaps a better habit to break would be the one where our narcissistic president tries to kick the constitutionally-mandated separation of powers to the curb whenever it impedes his transformative agenda. Or maybe he could wean himself off the urge to keep blowing through trillions of dollars in deficit spending in order to underwrite exponentially expanding government.</p>
<p>Yet if there were only one habit this president could break, rank hypocrisy would go to the top of the list. &#8220;The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies&#8230;Leadership means that &#8216;the buck stops here.&#8217; Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit,&#8221; <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2006-03-16/pdf/CREC-2006-03-16-pt1-PgS2236.pdf">said</a> then-Senator Obama in 2006.</p>
<p>Presidential candidate Obama <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2011/08/24/flashback-obama-says-adding-4-trillion-national-debt-unpatriotic">doubled down</a> on that assertion in 2008. “The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents &#8212; number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back &#8212; $30,000 for every man, woman and child,” Obama said on July 3, 2008, at a campaign event in Fargo, N.D. “That&#8217;s irresponsible. It&#8217;s unpatriotic,” he added.</p>
<p>Five years later, $9 trillion of debt has mushroomed to over $16 trillion and as far as this president is currently concerned, patriotism and responsibility no longer matter.</p>
<p>House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Obama have <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323984704578203842315515834.html">reportedly</a> held talks on the subject. Shortly before negotiations between the two men collapsed, Boehner expressed a willingness to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for significant cuts in entitlement programs. Ironically, the last time the debt ceiling debacle played itself out in August 2011, Congress was unable to strike a deal, and the Budget Control Act of 2011 that emerged from the standoff is precisely what the current wrangling over the fiscal cliff is all about. Adding to that irony is the fact that one of the main the sticking points of those negotiations was the <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/2012/12/27/hello-debt-ceiling-my-old-friend/">inability</a> to reduce the <em>ten-year</em> deficit by $1.2 trillion, a number less than the consecutive <em>one-year</em> deficits of $1.3 trillion this administration rang up in 2010 and 2011. Adding to the insanity is the reality that one of the critical aspects of the current negotiations is finding a way to undo the “sequestration” that represents the only genuine spending cuts to come out of that impasse.</p>
<p>Thus, despite all the drama that occurred in 2011, including ratings agency Standard &amp; Poor stripping the nation&#8217;s AAA bond rating because of fears the political class had no credible solution for reducing the debt, we are right back where we started, with one exception: the nation is $2.1 trillion deeper in debt than the last time.</p>
<p>Yet in order to run deficits, someone must be willing to lend the nation money. Most Americans assume the biggest &#8220;someone&#8221; is China or Japan. Most Americans are dead wrong. In 2009, foreign purchases of U.S. debt <a href="http://www.moneynews.com/Headline/fed-debt-Treasury/2012/03/28/id/434106">amounted</a> to 6 percent of GDP. The current percentage has fallen by over eighty percent to 0.9 percent of GDP. So who&#8217;s picking up the slack? The Federal Reserve, which is buying a mind-blowing <em>61 percent</em> of government debt issued by the Treasury Department. &#8220;The Fed is in effect subsidizing U.S. government spending and borrowing via expansion of its balance sheet and massive purchases of Treasury bonds. This keeps Treasury interest rates abnormally low, camouflaging the true size of the budget deficit,&#8221; wrote Lawrence Goodman, former Treasury official and current president of the Center for Financial Stability, last March.</p>
<p>The critical factor here is one that is rarely mentioned: the Fed is buying such large amounts of America&#8217;s debt because <em>no one else wants it. </em>Yet in the process of doing so, it becomes necessary to print money to make those purchases. Even the most economically illiterate politician knows that when you create more of something, each individual unit of that something is worth less. Thus Ben Bernanke, with the blessings of this president and his spendthrift Democratic Party, is debasing the currency in order to maintain the fiction that trillion-dollar-plus annual deficits and $16 trillion-plus of national debt &#8212; that the president wants unilateral power to raise as high as he can &#8212; don&#8217;t really matter.</p>
<p>But they <em>do</em> matter. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) American taxpayers will <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/05/news/economy/national-debt-interest/index.htm">pony up</a> $5 trillion in <em>interest payments</em> on the debt over the next decade. Yet Obama, in all his class-warfare glory, has convinced substantial numbers of uninformed Americans that taxing the &#8220;rich&#8221; would solve our problems. Not even close. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the <a href="http://taxfoundation.org/blog/tax-increase-high-earners-not-solution?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TaxPolicyBlog+%28Tax+Foundation+-+Tax+Foundation%27s+%22Tax+Policy+Blog%22%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader">proposed</a> tax increase would raise only $68 billion, by shifting the top tax bracket from the Bush era rate of 35 percent, up to 39.6 percent. Based on a projected budget of $3.6 trillion for 2013, that would run the government for less than a week. And that&#8217;s a &#8220;projected&#8221; budget, because the Democratically controlled Senate has ignored its legal obligation to enact a budget, for the last three years and counting.</p>
<p>With regard to the fiscal cliff, part of the fear the president is attempting to instill in Americans is that, barring a deal, taxes on everyone will be raised. Geithner, much as he did the last time, is engaging in a similar kind of fear-mongering concerning the debt ceiling, contending he&#8217;s got approximately a two-month window to keep the nation solvent. Yet he further hedges his bet to goose the fiscal cliff negotiations. “Under normal circumstances, that amount of headroom would last approximately two months. However, given the significant uncertainty that now exists with regard to unresolved tax and spending policies for 2013, it is not possible to predict the effective duration of these measures,” he contended.</p>
<p>As an article in the <em>New York Post</em> <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/jumping_out_of_their_kins_SpNwWIBDvSotYbcF7bQZ3O">points out</a>, people of all income levels are &#8220;shocked&#8221; by how much more they will pay in taxes without a fiscal cliff deal. What&#8217;s even more shocking is how oblivious they are to the reality that raising the debt ceiling <em>guarantees</em> the middle class will be the next target for tax increases, no matter what happens with regard to the fiscal cliff. That would be the same middle class currently infatuated with big government spending, even as a majority of them remain completely reluctant to pay for it.</p>
<p>Unpleasant as it may be, the debt ceiling is the last vestige of negotiating power fiscally responsible government officials have to contain the spendaholic madness that is leading us to disaster. If Republicans fail to use it to extract genuine spending cuts from this administration, America&#8217;s descent into Third World-ism is a done deal. No entity, be it an individual, or greatest nation on earth, can continue to spend more than it takes in. Kicking the proverbial can down the road from August 2011 until today solved absolutely nothing. The same kind of negotiations that raised the debt ceiling from $14 trillion to $16 trillion are now aimed at raising it to…$17 or $18 trillion? Will another column written sixteen months from today be discussing a debt ceiling of&#8230;$20 trillion? Only if it remains possible to print and borrow enough money to sustain the fantasy indefinitely. It doesn&#8217;t.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Going Over the Cliff</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/going-over-the-cliff/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=going-over-the-cliff</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/going-over-the-cliff/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Dec 2012 04:55:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hikes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=170987</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As time runs out, options disappear.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/going-over-the-cliff/obama-fiscal-cliff/" rel="attachment wp-att-170991"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-170991" title="obama-fiscal-cliff" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/obama-fiscal-cliff.jpg" alt="" width="275" height="206" /></a>Unless a political miracle happens, America is going over the so-called fiscal cliff next week, possibly plunging the nation into a fresh economic recession.</p>
<p>With the abrupt withdrawal from consideration last week of House Speaker John Boehner&#8217;s &#8220;Plan B&#8221; alternative fiscal plan, there is no reason to believe a political deal preserving current income tax rates and averting significant spending cuts will be reached before January 1.</p>
<p>There simply isn&#8217;t enough time left before current tax rates expire and the political will to act appears to be absent among the major players.</p>
<p>The Republican-controlled House, Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Obama apparently aren&#8217;t even talking about ways to avert the metaphorical cliff at the moment. President Obama has humored Republicans&#8217; demands to reform the nation&#8217;s out-of-control entitlement programs but has made no concrete proposals about how to do it. The funds that would be generated by Obama&#8217;s proposal to soak high earners would not even be used to pay down the national debt.</p>
<p>The national debt now stands at $16.35 trillion, up from $10.6 trillion on Inauguration Day 2009. But that $16.35 trillion figure is misleading. Government accounting tricks keep another $86.8 trillion in unfunded liabilities related to Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees&#8217; future retirement benefits off the books and out of the public eye. Add the two figures together and you arrive at the more accurate, unimaginably large sum of $103.1 trillion.</p>
<p>In Washington, D.C., Congress has left town for the Christmas holidays. The Senate is scheduled to meet Thursday but no House session is scheduled. House members have been told they could be recalled to Washington on 48 hours notice. President Obama is off in Hawaii for Christmas vacation.</p>
<p>Lawmakers are busy pointing fingers at each other. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Reuters it was now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid&#8217;s (D-Nev.) move. &#8220;We don&#8217;t yet know what Senator Reid will bring to the floor. He is not negotiating with us and the president is out of town,&#8221; the aide said. &#8220;So I just don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re going to do over there.&#8221;</p>
<p>On Twitter, Reid warned, &#8220;There will be very serious consequences for millions of families if Congress fails to act&#8221; regarding the fiscal cliff.</p>
<p>A few days ago Speaker Boehner pulled a vote on his measure that would have raised taxes on those earning more than $1 million a year after it became clear that members of the House GOP conference were not on board with the plan. Many conservative Republican lawmakers opposed the proposal because they believe Republicans shouldn&#8217;t go along with President Obama&#8217;s class warfare-driven &#8220;soak the rich&#8221; policies. They reason that if taxes are to go up, Republican fingerprints should not be all over the increase because it would damage the Republicans&#8217; brand and infuriate the party&#8217;s political base.</p>
<p>The fiscal cliff refers to huge across-the-board individual income tax increases and $1.2 trillion in scheduled spending cuts that fall heavily on the Pentagon that take effect at the end of this year.</p>
<p>Despite the current stalemate in the nation&#8217;s capital, it&#8217;s still possible that both sides will be able to hammer out some kind of compromise early in the new year. &#8220;We may go off the cliff on January 1, but we would correct that very quickly thereafter,&#8221; Congressman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) told a TV network.</p>
<p>When higher tax rates and budget cuts kick in on January 1, markets will be disrupted. Workers who hadn&#8217;t been paying attention to the fiscal cliff debate will get a rude shock when a greater portion of their paychecks is suddenly withheld. Public pressure could force lawmakers to make some kind of a deal, perhaps retroactively extending current tax rates from December 31.</p>
<p>Lawmakers could also vote to maintain the status quo and kick the can down the road for another few months or more.</p>
<p>If taxes are allowed to rise January 1 but then Congress votes after the fact to cut them, the tax tables the IRS uses to calculate withholding taxes could be changed, temporarily inconveniencing workers and employers.</p>
<p>But it&#8217;s not so clear if defense spending cuts could be as easily reversed. If the Department of Defense (DoD) isn&#8217;t authorized to spend the funds that are scheduled to be cut in a few days, it has to take immediate steps to reduce spending, canceling programs and laying off employees.</p>
<p>Relaunching suspended programs and rehiring laid off DoD employees would almost certainly generate major headaches at the Pentagon.</p>
<p>And who knows what harm it could cause to the nation&#8217;s defenses.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Fiscal Cliff Will Increase Spending by %55</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/obamas-fiscal-cliff-will-increase-spending-by-%55/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-fiscal-cliff-will-increase-spending-by-%2555</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Dec 2012 16:58:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Budget Deficits]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=170931</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Back under George W. Bush we had a mere 239 billion dollar deficit. These days a 239 billion dollar deficit is as fanciful as a trip to the moon. By 2016, the last year of Obama, unless he decides to go full FDR and go for a third term, we'll be spending over 4 trillion a year.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/obamas-fiscal-cliff-will-increase-spending-by-%55/obamamoney/" rel="attachment wp-att-170932"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-170932" title="ObamaMoney" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ObamaMoney-389x350.jpg" alt="" width="389" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Good news everybody. We&#8217;ve been running a trillion dollar deficit every year that Obama Inc. has been running the country into the ground. And those deficits <a href="http://weaselzippers.us/2012/12/24/spending-by-federal-government-to-increase-55-under-obamas-fiscal-cliff-plan/">are about to get even bigger</a>.</p>
<p>Back under George W. Bush we had a mere 239 billion dollar deficit. These days a 239 billion dollar deficit is as fanciful as a trip to the moon. By 2016, the last year of Obama, unless he decides to go full FDR and go for a third term, we&#8217;ll be spending over 4 trillion a year. And we&#8217;ll be making up that money by printing it and borrowing it from countries whose economies are even more disastrous than ours are. Can you say global depression?</p>
<blockquote><p>Spending will increase 55 percent over the next decade, if President Barack Obama’s budget plan goes into effect. The finding comes from the Republican-side of the Senate Budget Committee, which notes that Obama’s “Proposal Would Spend $880 Billion Over Already Projected Increases.”</p>
<p>After subtracting the president’s savings from his spending increases, over the next 10 years the President’s proposal actually spends $880 billion more – $44.368 trillion versus $43.488 trillion – than currently projected spending levels.  In the next two years alone, the President’s plan would spend $255 billion over current projected spending levels ($156 billion higher in FY13 and $99 billion higher in FY14). Overall, spending would increase 55% under the President’s plan, from $3.6 trillion in FY13 to $ 5.6 trillion in FY22.”</p></blockquote>
<p>But we can afford it because money is magic. If you really want it, it will just appear out of thin air. Money is this mysterious thing. There isn&#8217;t enough of it to provide armed guards in schools, but there is enough of it to make sure every teacher has a masters&#8217; degree because you can&#8217;t teach second graders to count without a masters in education. We don&#8217;t have enough money for embassy security, but we do have enough money for embassy art. We can&#8217;t afford to employ marines or cover military health care, but we can pay for all the LGBT and Green energy measures that the Pentagon has now been told are more important than winning wars.</p>
<p>Money is magic. Like Obama.</p>
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		<title>Fiscal Cliff: Democrats Fiddle While Nation Burns</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/fiscal-cliff-democrats-fiddle-while-nation-burns/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fiscal-cliff-democrats-fiddle-while-nation-burns</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/fiscal-cliff-democrats-fiddle-while-nation-burns/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2012 04:58:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deficit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trillion]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=170427</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Even if a deal is reached, the entitlement fix is already in. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/fiscal-cliff-democrats-fiddle-while-nation-burns/gty-158566916-4_3_r560/" rel="attachment wp-att-170480"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-170480" title="gty-158566916-4_3_r560" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/gty-158566916-4_3_r560-450x338.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="203" /></a>As the days dwindle down to a precious few, the political posturing with respect to the fiscal cliff has kicked into high gear. Thursday revealed the latest machinations, with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/eric-cantor-we-have-the-votes-for-plan-b-85365.html">insisting</a> the president had &#8220;done nothing&#8221; in return for his concession on allowing tax rates to rise on wealthy Americans, even as he scheduled, and then <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/20/republicans-plan-showdown-votes-on-fiscal-crisis-over-dem-opposition/">cancelled</a>, a vote on a pair of bills known as &#8220;Plan B.&#8221; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/274009-reid-rules-out-senate-vote-on-boehners-plan-b">warned</a> that Plan B would not even be brought up for a vote in the Senate, even as he <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/dec/20/congress-goes-home-christmas/">sent</a> his colleagues home for Christmas. And White House Press Secretary Jay Carney <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/20/republicans-plan-showdown-votes-on-fiscal-crisis-over-dem-opposition/?test=latestnews">reiterated</a> the president&#8217;s insistence that Plan B would be the latest Republican effort vetoed, if it actually got to Obama&#8217;s desk. While such theatrics may be politically necessary, they are nothing more than a short-term diversion obscuring America&#8217;s real problem: an unsustainable level of spending, driving the nation inexorably towards bankruptcy. The president has no answers, doesn&#8217;t care about finding them, and is only winding down the clock until the bomb explodes and he can pick up the pieces.</p>
<p>Despite good-faith Republican efforts, the nature of the negotiations remains mired in largely meaningless &#8212; but politically useful&#8211; measures, namely, the incessant wrangling over raising taxes on the &#8220;rich.&#8221;  Keeping the national conversation focused on this topic accrues to the president&#8217;s interest, not only because it allows him to posture as a crusader against the alleged depredations of the wealthy, but because it distracts from his reckless stewardship over fiscal matters during his first term &#8212; in particular, when the Democrats had absolute control over the House, Senate and presidency and refused even to pass a budget, but continued to spend, spend, spend. By drawing out negotiations over a singular issue and appealing to the worst of the voting public&#8217;s worst instincts &#8212; class hatred &#8212; the Democrats needn&#8217;t worry about explaining how their tax hike talisman will magically address the massive federal deficit. As Senator Rand Paul <a href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/121812-637557-fiscal-cliff-tax-debate-skirts-real-issue-too-much-spending.htm">recently noted</a>, if the president&#8217;s proposal to tax the top two percent of earners were realized, it would fund current government spending for all of eight days.</p>
<p>For perspective&#8217;s sake, Americans should note the U.S. Treasury <a href="http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/stan-collender/2642/2012-deficit-was-smallest-last-four-years-good-or-bad">reported</a> in October that the deficit for fiscal 2012 was $1.09 trillion. In both 2010 and 2011, it was just <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/cbo-fy-2011-deficit-hit-1298t-fy-2010-deficit-1294t">under</a> $1.3 trillion, and in 2009, it was $1.42 trillion. As a result, the national debt has increased more than $5 trillion in just four years under Obama, compared to $4.9 trillion during eight years of the Bush administration. Prior to Obama, America had never run up an annual deficit even approaching one trillion dollars. We have now surpassed that mark four years in a row. Some Americans consider such an irresponsible debt increase &#8220;unpatriotic.&#8221; One of them used to be Obama himself, who in 2008, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/03/republicans-resurface-obama-of-four-years-ago-raising-the-debt-is-unpatriotic-video/">said</a> that &#8220;driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars to $9 trillion is irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.” We have now amassed over $16 trillion of national debt&#8211;and counting.</p>
<p>Patriotism and irresponsibility aside, the president has said many times he <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/why_obamas_balanced_approach_doesnt_work.html">wants</a> a &#8220;balanced approach&#8221; towards bringing the nation&#8217;s fiscal problems under control. Yet once again perspective becomes the necessary ingredient to understand the difference between <em>political</em> balance, which is what the current impasse regarding the fiscal cliff is all about, and the <em>fiscal </em>balance<em> </em>critically necessary for the long-term health of the nation.</p>
<p>From 1998-2012, revenue collected by the federal government increased from $1.7 trillion to $2.4 trillion, representing a slight increase over the rate of inflation, at around 2.9 percent a year. Federal spending, on the other hand, rose almost twice as fast at 5.7 percent, from $1.6 trillion to $3.5 trillion over the same period, even exceeding the increase in the population. If spending had been limited simply to increases in inflation and population growth, the federal government would have spent $2.6 trillion in FY2012, and our $1.09 trillion deficit would have been a very manageable $157 billion.</p>
<p>The Cato Institute&#8217;s Dan Mitchell reveals what a majority of Americans, if election results are any indication, don&#8217;t want to hear. &#8220;If you are on a path where government spending grows faster than the private sector of the economy, which is your tax base, then in theory there is no level of taxation that will be enough to stabilize the system,&#8221; he states.</p>
<p>In other words, spending is the problem. Yet here too, a paradox exists. Because the federal government has grown so big, a sudden and overly large cut in spending would create a temporary economic headwind. Thus, there would have to be something to counterbalance that headwind; for starters, lowering tax burdens. What they have tried in Europe is cutting government spending and raising taxes, due to the obstinate belief that the EU is in the midst of a debt crisis, as opposed to a spending crisis. Yet raising taxes causes further stagnation, because it discourages the one element that is critically necessary to reinvigorate any economy, namely growth. As Greece so clearly <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/world/europe/greece-austerity/index.html">demonstrates</a>, this approach has produced five years of depression, and an unemployment rate that has more than <a href="http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_&amp;met_y=unemployment_rate&amp;idim=country:el&amp;fdim_y=seasonality:sa&amp;dl=en&amp;hl=en&amp;q=greece,%20unemployment%20rate">doubled</a> over the last two years to over 25 percent.</p>
<p>Across the pond, Democrats are not as ready as the socialist Europeans to come to terms with the need to cut spending, save for signing on to massive cuts to defense. Thus, we are reduced to politics that amount to nothing more than nibbling around the edges. Obama wants taxes raised on people making $400K per year, and Boehner insists on a $1 million threshold. The president has insisted he&#8217;s open to spending cuts, but even the <em>New York Times</em> is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/politics/debt-reckoning.html?ref=politics&amp;wpisrc=nl_wonk#e1063328a">forced</a> to admit that the &#8220;one element missing from the debate&#8221; are the details surrounding those spending cuts.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/17/politics/fiscal-cliff/index.html">According</a> to CNN, &#8220;Obama&#8217;s latest offer includes $1.2 trillion in revenue increases on individual income and $1.22 trillion in spending reductions, though Boehner&#8217;s office says the math adds up differently.&#8221; Even if one assumes the math is correct, and that raising taxes will not affect economic growth even one iota, a total of $2.42 trillion in deficit &#8220;mitigation&#8221; over ten years amounts to $242 billion per annum. Even if one believes a more optimistic report by Fox News, citing a &#8220;senior administration official&#8221; who believes &#8220;both parties are still extremely close on a massive $4 trillion debt deal,&#8221; such &#8220;massiveness&#8221; amounts to $400 billion dollars per year over ten years&#8211;or <em>less than half </em>the deficit we ran in 2012 <em>alone.</em></p>
<p>If no deal is reached, Americans will see an average tax increase of $2000 next year. Perhaps they ought to. Nothing makes the politicians in Washington, D.C. shirk the nation&#8217;s fiscal responsibilities more than the knowledge that the public&#8217;s appetite for entitlements has increased exponentially&#8211;along with their appetite to have &#8220;someone else&#8221; pay for them. A $2000 bite would not completely eliminate the &#8220;free lunch&#8221; mentality that apparently now infects a majority of the electorate, but it might be a good start.</p>
<p>But it would only be a start, and as revealed above, it would amount to a pyrrhic victory at most. The federal government has a monumental spending problem. It is so massive that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) <a href="http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/2012/06/06/CBO-Debt-to-reach-200-percent-of-economy-by-2037">reveals</a> if lawmakers do nothing about entitlement spending, public debt would reach 109 percent of GDP by 2026, and nearly <em>200 percent of GDP </em>by 2037.</p>
<p>And make no mistake: at the heart of the spending problem is an entitlement problem. As Dr. Merrill Matthews and actuary Mark E. Litow <a href="http://www.ipi.org/ipi_issues/detail/unsustainable-entitlement-spending-pushing-us-toward-cliff">point</a> out in a publication titled &#8220;The Coming Entitlements Cliff,&#8221; current spending on entitlements amounts to $2.2 trillion, which is only $200 billion shy of the aforementioned $2.4 trillion in <em>total</em> revenue collected by the government in 2012. Furthermore, they reveal that an astonishing 108 million Americans live in households where at least one person participates in a means-tested program. Furthermore, even that number is increasing.</p>
<p>Thus, one may be forgiven for not getting caught up in the largely manufactured drama surrounding the so-called fiscal cliff. It is tantamount to haggling over whether bailing out a sinking Titanic using a thimble or a bucket is the better course of action. Sen. Rand Paul has the proper perspective. &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of talk right now about an impending fiscal cliff,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;But we already went over a cliff economically in this country a long time ago.&#8221; If Americans wish to raise themselves out of the abyss, they must accept economic reality, no matter how unpleasant. The late Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, reveals the gut-wrenching alternative. &#8220;If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,&#8221; he warned.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>The Hopeless Fiscal Cliff Negotiations</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tom-blumer/the-hopeless-fiscal-cliff-negotiations/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-hopeless-fiscal-cliff-negotiations</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2012 04:53:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tom Blumer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deficit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negotiations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=170178</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With the clock winding down, the math still doesn't add up. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/tom-blumer/the-hopeless-fiscal-cliff-negotiations/barack-obama-john-boehner/" rel="attachment wp-att-170247"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-170247" title="Barack Obama, John Boehner" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/la-pn-fiscal-cliff-standstill-deadline-primer-001-450x307.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="184" /></a>The otherworldly nature of the current discussions and proposals in Washington over addressing the &#8220;fiscal cliff&#8221; can be seen in a brief look at where the country stands financially.</p>
<p>Through the first two months of the 2013 fiscal year, which will end on September 30, 2013, the federal government has already run up <a href="http://fms.treas.gov/mts/mts1112.txt">a $292 billion deficit</a>. Our overlords of Washington are clearly on track to run up a fifth consecutive full-year shortfall of over $1 trillion. Before fiscal 2008, the highest annual deficit ever recorded was $455 billion.</p>
<p>Federal outlays during October and November of $638 billion were 16 percent higher than during the same two months in 2011 and a breathtaking 52 percent greater than October and November of 2007. Collections in this lukewarm recovery, if you can even call it that, were up by less than 10 percent.</p>
<p>As of Monday, December 17, the national debt was $16.35 trillion, up by over $5.7 trillion in the 35 months since Barack Obama took office. The portion of the national debt known as &#8220;debt held by the public,&#8221; which is really debt held by any entity which is not part of the U.S. government but includes foreign countries and other foreign holders, made up $5.25 trillion of that amount.</p>
<p>A significant portion of that $5.25 billion is held by Ben Bernanke&#8217;s Federal Reserve, which many don&#8217;t realize really isn&#8217;t a part of the government. Instead, <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&amp;q=cache:hW-ZPKaSpXIJ:https://www2.bc.edu/peter-ireland/ec261/chapter14.pdf+&amp;hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;pid=bl&amp;srcid=ADGEESjf0gHExz9c6zjF0tgiLANciuJHc0muiA-ornrr7hnzx6baILH3hQyngFUeXHoIg3UQPN4TKDfmtksGHHIFEHEoKdMF6v6ga39wo0k6pFdHRfdA_U6OkIJVxmTOHZRq49zxGsRC&amp;sig=AHIEtbSPUJ67bermYuf3_Jn0e5wr7i6DwA">the Fed is </a>a collection of 12 district banks, each of which is &#8220;a legally separate corporation that is owned by the commercial banks in its district.&#8221; Because they produce no goods or services, the district banks, and the Fed itself, have no inherent ability to repay the Treasury and other securities they have bought from our beyond-profligate government.</p>
<p>Within this dangerous framework, House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama are obsessing over whether taxes should be raised on those with annual incomes of over $1,000,000 &#8212; or $400,000 or $250,000, or whatever. Besides the obvious danger that any tax increase on our most productive citizens will slow down an already sluggish, low-growth, under-employing economy, the amounts raised will be a pittance, garnering less than 10 percent of the amount needed to close projected fiscal gaps (I would say &#8220;budget gaps,&#8221; but the government hasn&#8217;t passed a budget <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2012/12/16/politico-discussing-obamas-2014-budget-proposal-fails-note-no-real-budge">in nearly four years</a>).</p>
<p>Where are the spending cuts? Or, more properly framed, where are the reductions in projected future spending? A <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/fiscal-cliff-plan-b-obama_n_2330457.html">Wednesday morning Associated Press dispatch</a> on the President&#8217;s plans to veto Boehner&#8217;s so-called &#8220;Plan B&#8221; framework reported that the President would veto such a plan if it ever reached his desk &#8212; something that in the real world probably wouldn&#8217;t happen because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wouldn&#8217;t let any House bill Obama opposes get that far &#8212; because &#8220;the deficit reduction that would result from the `Plan B&#8217; approach is minimal and offers no spending cuts.&#8221;</p>
<p>You read that right. The people who have brought us trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see are positioning themselves <em>to the right</em> of the hopelessly timid Republican House.</p>
<p>Is Obama&#8217;s claim correct? Well, Erick Erickson at RedState <a href="http://www.redstate.com/2012/12/19/bull/">writes</a>: &#8220;The most significant thing John Boehner’s plan does is absolutely nothing on spending.&#8221; A Wednesday morning <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323723104578187091789698654.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop"><em>Wall Street Journal</em> editorial</a> identifies what can only be described as nibbling around the edges of the problem by changing how increases in entitlement spending and taxes are indexed, and tells us that it&#8217;s all about continuing with business as usual: &#8220;Tax and spending increases now, in return for the promise of spending cuts and tax and entitlement reform later.&#8221;</p>
<p>We&#8217;re long past the time where business as usual will work. The federal government&#8217;s financial condition today is the functional equivalent of a family taking home $27,000 per year, spending $38,000, and carrying over $160,000 in nonmortgage debt. The major difference between the family and our government is that while the family involved would almost certainly be paying 10 percent or more interest on its outstanding debts, Uncle Sam is getting away with paying less than 2 percent. Oh, and Uncle Sam can keep on borrowing, while the family&#8217;s lenders would surely have ended any access to additional credit.</p>
<p>Even if the example family just described were paying only 2% interest on its debts, its finances would still be considered almost beyond repair without major changes. Boehner&#8217;s Plan B is the equivalent of the family telling its lenders, who wish to force them into bankruptcy, that it will &#8220;solve&#8221; their problem by immediately having one of its members get a one day per month job paying $100 and by cancelling their premium cable channels and lawn service &#8212; starting a year from now. Maybe. If they feel like it.</p>
<p>Such a proposal would send lenders straight to bankruptcy court, as it would be obvious that this family isn&#8217;t at all serious about taking meaningful action. Boehner&#8217;s Plan B isn&#8217;t any better, and promises to send the credit rating agencies scrambling to see who can lower the federal government&#8217;s credit rating first.</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong, what Obama and his party want &#8212; don&#8217;t touch Social Security, don&#8217;t touch Medicare, and don&#8217;t touch any other entitlements &#8212; isn&#8217;t serious either. But the fact that he can credibly claim that his &#8220;solutions&#8221; do more that Boehner&#8217;s Plan B shows how badly the Speaker has failed.</p>
<p>No wonder genuine conservatives <a href="http://www.beaufortobserver.net/Articles-NEWS-and-COMMENTARY-c-2012-12-10-264194.112112-Boehner-under-attack-from-conservative-Republicans.html">are in open revolt</a>. They should be.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Our Government-Created Financial Crisis</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/our-government-created-financial-crisis/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=our-government-created-financial-crisis</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/our-government-created-financial-crisis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2012 04:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debt]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[loans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=169528</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the only solution to our long-term problems is less government. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/our-government-created-financial-crisis/ap050211032714/" rel="attachment wp-att-169530"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-169530" title="AP050211032714" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/AP050211032714-450x338.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="203" /></a>Suppose you saw a building on fire. Would you seek counsel from the arsonist who set it ablaze for advice on how to put it out? You say, &#8220;Williams, you&#8217;d have to be a lunatic to do that!&#8221; But that&#8217;s precisely what we&#8217;ve done: turned to the people who created our fiscal crisis to fix it. I have never read a better account of our doing just that than in John A. Allison&#8217;s new book, &#8220;The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure.&#8221;</p>
<p>Allison is the former CEO of Branch Banking and Trust, the nation&#8217;s 10th largest bank. He assembles evidence that shows that our financial crisis, followed by the Great Recession, was caused by Congress, the Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and was helped along by the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama White Houses.</p>
<p>The Federal Reserve, under the chairmanship of Alan Greenspan, created the massive housing bubble by over-expanding the money supply. President Bush and members of Congress, through the Community Reinvestment Act, intimidated banks and other financial institutions into making home loans to people ineligible for loans under traditional lending criteria. They became subprime lenders. Lending institutions made these loans, now often demeaned as predator loans, because they knew they&#8217;d be sold to government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Freddie and Fannie.</p>
<p>The GSEs had no problem taking this risky path, because they knew that Congress would force taxpayers to bail them out. Current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is following in the footsteps of his predecessor by massively expanding the money supply by purchasing Treasury debt. He is creating prime conditions for a calamity by the end of this decade.</p>
<p>Then there were the crony capitalists, among whom are Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Countrywide, Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors and Chrysler. These and many other companies, through the thousands of Washington lobbyists they hire, are able to get Congress to shortcut market forces. Free market capitalism is unforgiving.</p>
<p>In order to earn a profit and stay in business, producers must please customers and wisely use resources to do so. If they fail to do this, they face losses or go bankrupt.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s this market discipline of profits and losses that many businesses seek to avoid. That&#8217;s why they descend upon Washington calling for government bailouts, subsidies and special privileges. Many businessmen wish not to be held strictly accountable to consumers and stockholders, who hold little sympathy for economic blunders and will give them the ax on a moment&#8217;s notice. With a campaign contribution here and a gift there, they get Congress and the White House to act against the best interests of consumers and investors. Allison suggests that if our country had a separation of &#8220;business and state&#8221; as it does a separation of &#8220;church and state,&#8221; crony capitalism or crony socialism could not exist.</p>
<p>Allison says that crony capitalism should not be our only concern. The foundation for economic collapse 20 to 25 years from now has already been set. Social Security and Medicare deficits, unfunded state and local pension liabilities, government operating deficits, baby boomer retirement and a failed K-12 education system have eaten out our substance.</p>
<p>What I take away from Allison&#8217;s highly readable book is that our biggest problem lies in the Federal Reserve&#8217;s ability to manipulate our monetary system to accommodate big government and use inflation to rob Americans. That&#8217;s why politicians and government leaders everywhere hate a monetary system based on gold. They can manipulate the quantity of paper money, but they can&#8217;t manipulate the quantity of gold.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s a tidbit of information about John Allison, now president of the Washington-based Cato Institute, that speaks to this man&#8217;s morality as BB&amp;T&#8217;s CEO, which can&#8217;t be praised highly enough. His company refused to lend money to developers who acquired land by having the government take it from private owners, euphemistically called eminent domain. That&#8217;s putting his money where his mouth is, not sacrificing principle for the sake of earnings.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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