Here is a review of Obama’s previous State of the Union promises
2009 … Stimulus (failed to help the economy)
2010 … ObamaCare (he said insurance would come down, it has gone up)
2011 … Green Energy (billions wasted on NO new advances or programs)
2012 … Tax Hikes (strangling the economy in its crib)
2013 … What will he say this year?
-By Warner Todd Huston
One of the world’s premiere environmentalists, credited as a founder of the green movement, is fighting plans to erect wind turbines in his own village.
Professor James Lovelock, 93, is renowned for having created the “Gaia Theory” and becoming one of the World’s earliest and most active modern environmentalists. He is also known for predicting global warming and saying that by the year 2100 warming would kill off four fifths of the world’s population.
Lovelock has, however, has lately come at odds to the movement he helped foster angering the environmental movement by becoming a recent advocate of nuclear power and for opposing wind energy.
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Green Movement Founder Opposes Wind Turbines in His Backyard”
-By Warner Todd Huston
On January 30, professor Noam Chomsky, famed linguistic scholar and long-time anti-American activist, said on Current TV that if President Obama were in office a few decades ago he would have “basically” been considered a “moderate Republican.”
Chomsky made his comments on Cenk Uygur’s Current TV show The Young Turks.
The MIT professor’s main point was that the Democrats have moved rightward toward “moderate” positions while the GOP has moved even further to right to the point of being extremists. This move, Chomsky said, has essentially eliminated “moderate Republicans.”
“The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it’s hardly a traditional political party anymore,” Chomsky said.
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Noam Chomsky: Obama is Like an Old ‘Moderate Republican’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Once again liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has said that our government trillions in debt is not a problem and even intimated that we might we crank up the printing presses and print more fiat money to get us out of our bad economy.
Krugman appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” program on January 30 and scoffed at Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R, WS) claim that our country is on the verge of a debt crisis.
The C-SPAN host played a clip of comments made at last week’s National Review Summit by Rep. Paul Ryan where the former GOP VP candidate warned about economic collapse.
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Paul Krugman: Let’s Just Print More Money”
From Americans For Prosperity-Illinois…
Americans for Prosperity-Illinois
P.S. Please remember to like us on Twitter at @afpillinois to stay up-to-date on the latest activities and developments.
-By Warner Todd Huston
Only a month ago, Vogue editor Anna Wintour was being floated as an ideal candidate to become President Obama’s next ambassador to Britain but now the fashionista is in the news for another reason. A British newspaper has found that her boyfriend, J. Shelby Bryan, owes $1.2 million in back taxes to the IRS.
Despite owing the IRS such a hefty amount–he is also in arrears in Texas–Bryan was a high dollar fundraiser for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. The socialite was also close to President Clinton serving on his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 1996.
Bryan’s past due taxes are nothing new, either. He’s owed the money to the IRS since 2006.
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Vogue Editor Wintour’s Boyfriend Owes $1.2 Million in Taxes”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Actor John Leguizamo refuses to employ any cagey politically correct speak about his love for big government. There’s no dancing around or soft-pedaling with him. For Leguizamo, big government is all good.
In a recent interview with Nicholas Ballasy, the actor asked “What’s wrong with big government?”
“I’ve never had a problem with big government. I’ve felt our country’s always done best during Eisenhower, FDR, when we had we had big government … We’re not in a fascist state, so what’s the problem with big government? It’s not a problem. It makes things better,” the actor said.
Leguizamo also went on to push for more regulation on Wall Street and claimed that there needs to be more government funding “in the arts.”
He also seemed to have no problem paying even more taxes than he now does.
“I think with the taxing the rich now that’s finally happening now which we need to do – I mean, back in the 50’s and 60’s, if you made money you paid like 70 percent in taxes or even higher than that, and that’s when we started booming and creating a middle class,” he said.
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Actor John Leguizamo a Big Fan of Big Government”
While Peter was out of the country, his producer, Tom Elliott, hit up the inauguration to speak with Obama’s most die-hard fans about the big-ticket item the president outlined for his second term: climate change. While everyone likes the idea of “fixing” the climate, how many would support actually paying the legislative cost? Keep in mind, these inaugural attendees traveled from all over the country; if Obama can count on anyone, surely he can count on their support — right?
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-By Warner Todd Huston
All the remaining Illinois Republican congressmen have signed onto the House leadership’s new bill with a provision that if Congress doesn’t pass an official budget, then House members won’t get paid.
The “No Budget, No Pay Act” (H.R. 325) garnered the support of Illinois’ Republicans, but also got a “yea” vote from several Illinois Democrats, as well.
This legislation suspends the debt limit and makes mandatory that the House and Senate adopt a budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2014 by April 15, 2013. But if either body does not adopt a budget, members of that body will have their pay put into an escrow account beginning April 16, 2013 until the body adopts a budget. These funds will be released when a budget is adopted or at the end of the current Congress (in compliance with the 27th Amendment).
GOP “Yeas”
Peter Roskam [R-6], Rep Lipinski, Daniel [R-3], Rodney Dais [R-13], Randy Hultgren [R-14], John Shimkus [R-15], Adam Kinzinger [R-16], Aaron Schock [R-18].
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Illinois Congressmen Sign Onto ‘No Budget, No Pay’ Act”
-By Warner Todd Huston
One way to mark the legacy of a presidency is to tally statistics and at least one stat is not very flattering for this president: Americans on food stamps have grown by 11,133 every day during his first term.
In 2009, when Obama took office, recipients of SNAP, the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program, stood at 31,939,110 but by the end of his first term the latest tally numbered 47,525,329.
That is a growth of 11,133 per day between January of 2009 and October of 2012.
The Congressional Budget office reports that SNAP enrollment increased 70 percent during that period with the food stamp budget growing by $2.7 billion over fiscal year 2011.
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Food Stamps Recipients Increased 11,133 Per Day In Obama’s First Term”
-By Warner Todd Huston
No good deed goes unpunished in New York as the state has abruptly cut off a contract with the independent auditor who found that the city and state had been wasting federal money meant to be spent on Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts.
Thomas Sadowski, the fired consultant, told the Times Union that he was escorted out of the building when he visited the New York Office of Emergency Management shortly after he filed his report on November 17.
The state hired Sadowski for his extensive experience in emergency procurement management with the federal government. The certified public accountant also did similar work for 10 years at the U.S. Department of Interior’s Inspector General’s office. Sadowski also trained the U.S. Forest Service, Alaska Fire Service, National Interagency Fire Center, Colorado Wildfire Academy and other government agencies.
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New York Fires Auditor Who Found Abuse of Federal Hurricane Sandy Funds”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Despite Obama’s promise to cut unnecessary regulations, his administration issued $236.7 billion in new regulations in 2012.
According to a report by the American Action Forum, headed by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the direct costs of the regulations force America’s businesses to waste 87 million man-hours to fill out regulatory paperwork.
Adding Obama’s 2012 regulatory costs to that of the rest of his first term adds up to a total of $518 billion in new costs forced onto an already anemic economic recovery.
This onslaught of new regulations comes even after Obama was celebrated for claiming he was going to be the regulation-cutting president.
Indeed, in 2011, Obama released a plan claiming he would cut regulations and reduce the burden on the business sector. Not long after, Obama operative Cass Sunstein praised Obama claiming that his plan would work “to eliminate unjustified regulatory costs and to reduce burdens.” Sunstein went on to say that Obama had done more to cut regulations than any president in recent history.
Sunstein was given one Pinocchio for his misleading claims and for good reason as Obama’s small cuts have been dwarfed by the increases.
American Action Forum says that the costs of regulations have “added tremendous costs to the economy” and finds that the year 2012 tops every year in the past twelve in “terms of final rule cost.”
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Cost of Obama’s 2012 Regulations: $236 Billion”
-By Warner Todd Huston
We do a lot of carping on blogs and in the media about what our Representatives in Congress do, of course. But once in a while we should praise them when they get together and do something right.
Today we offer a bit of positive reinforcement for our GOP delegation in D.C. for voting against the Sandy Relief package.
No, we aren’t crowing that they’ve voted to deprive victims of Hurricane Sandy of much needed relief funds. No, what we are praising them for is for refusing to vote for a bill that is stuffed with nothing but wasteful, pork spending.
Unfortunately, the bill wasn’t just for Sandy relief. It was also stuffed with billions for FBI agent salaries, road projects in states unaffected by Sandy, cash for upgrades to the money-losing Amtrak rail lines, and other wasteful spending.
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Illinois Republicans Voting Against Pork-Filled, Wasteful Spending”
-By Warner Todd Huston
President Obama has signed a law that will give himself and all presidents Secret Service protection for life, reversing a law passed during the Clinton administration that gave former presidents a security detail for only 10 years after leaving office.
Armed guards. For life. Meanwhile he is trying to take away guns from the rest of us
The new law signed on Wednesday also gives former first ladies lifetime security details (unless they divorce their former presidential spouse) and all presidential children a security detail until they are 16-years-old.
The now nullified law passed in the 1994 was originally presented as a way to save millions of dollars to the federal treasury. It was postulated that former presidents would have enough money of their own to hire private security services, as Nixon did when he decided to forego his government-supplied Secret Service details in his post presidential years. The 1994 law was to take effect for all presidents elected after 1997, so of the surviving presidents only George W. Bush and Barack Obama would have been affected.
The new law sailed through both houses of Congress and had massive bi-partisan support.
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Obama Signs Law Giving Himself Armed Guards for Life”
Politico Celebrates Obama’s ‘Bipartisan Spirit’ With Hagel Nomination
-By Warner Todd Huston
Upon President Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, Politico celebrated the move as proof of Obama’s “bipartisan spirit.”
Politico notes that Hagel has detractors on both sides of the aisle, but it appears the Washington political newser feels that makes him a great choice.
But inside the White House, the choice makes sense. It appeals to Obama’s bipartisan spirit — and the optics aren’t bad, either — to have any Republican as Defense secretary when Obama is seeking to end the war in Afghanistan and dramatically reduce the Pentagon’s budget.
Obama’s mythic sense of “bipartisanship” is deftly laid low by Peggy Noonan who wrote last week that Obama just loves to taunt.
Politico buries at the bottom of its long piece any listing of just why Hagel is opposed by some left and right.
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Politico Celebrates Obama’s ‘Bipartisan Spirit’ With Hagel Nomination”
-By Warner Todd Huston
It seems as though some New Yorkers on the dole are giving the taxpayers the pole with a new report detailing how welfare recipients are using their state debit cards at strip clubs, X-rated video shops, and liquor stores.
Records of 200 million Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) transactions from January 2011 to July 2012 reveal that the cards were used to withdraw cash at such establishments as “Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn; the Blue Door Video porn shop in the East Village; The Anchor, a sleek SoHo lounge; the Patriot Saloon in TriBeCa; and Drinks Galore, a liquor distributor in The Bronx.”
As with most states, New York’s food stamp program prevents use of the assistance at liquor stores and cannot be used to purchase liquor, tobacco, and lottery tickets. But there are no such restrictions on the debit cards which can be used at any ATM.
The state legislature has a few bills in the works to correct this oversight, but currently there are no restrictions on where the cash assistance can be spent.
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New York: Welfare $$ Used at Strip Clubs, Liquor Stores”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Obama’s Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, recently gave a quixotic assessment of how many jobs were “saved” by Obama’s work in the White House. In fact, she felt it was the constant extension of unemployment benefits that somehow “saved” millions of jobs.
On a January 4 segment on CNBC, Solis maintained that the benefits “generate” spending in “the community.”
“…what I think about is, those 2 million people that would have lost their unemployment insurance. Because think about it, all that money that goes out in terms of what’s being spent by that unemployment check helps to generate two additional dollars back in the community. Everyone continues to keep their jobs. I can’t give you an exact figure, but I’ll tell you just by the movement that the President made, we’ve saved millions and millions of jobs,” Solis claimed.
This is, of course, a perfect example of the classic “broken windows fallacy.”
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Obama’s Labor Sec: Jobs Are ‘Saved’ By Unemployment Payments”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Michigan officials reported that “human error” was the cause of 85,000 recipients of state food assistance finding no money deposited to their state-issued debit cards on Friday.
Michigan’s Department of Technology, Management & Budget spent all day Friday attempting to correct the “error” and get the state aid credited to the Bridge Card debit cards but could not say for sure when all 85,000 recipients would have access to their allotments.
By late morning, some 40,000 cards had been credited and officials hoped to fill all cards by day’s end, Friday.
“It’s 85,000 card holders and their family members. The average card holder services about four to five folks in their family, roughly about $500 on average, about $540 gets put on to that card each month for them,” spokesman Kurt Weiss told WWJ Newsradio 950
The problem occurred for about one-tenth of the 1.8 million Michiganders on the State’s Bridge Cards.
“Grocers and retailers across the state who are servicing these customers are put in a bad situation because they are, you know, having to turn folks away and that’s certainly not the position we want to put those retailers in and we certainly issued our apologies to those folks as well,” Weiss told WWJ News.
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85,000 Mich. Food Assistance Card Holders Left Without Funds”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Proving that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews sees a race card in every issue, on Monday the cable show host equated observing fiscal common sense with being a southern segregationist and racist.
During a year-in-review show on Monday, Dec.31, Matthews chimed in with Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman in a discussion of why Mitt Romney lost his bid to take the White House last November wherein Fineman said one of Romney’s problems was that Romney was “Grover Norquist-ing himself” by hewing too closely to a fiscally conservative message on taxes and the budget.
That is where Matthews equated fiscal conservatism to racism.
MSNBC’s Matthews Says Fiscal Conservatism Like Being a Southern ‘Segregationist’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
NBC’s David Gregory hosted the President on Sunday’s Meet the Press but compared to his last notable interview, when he verbally attacked his guest at every turn, Gregory was virtually asleep this weekend. Unfortunately, Gregory’s mostly timid questions and Obama’s rambling answers gave us nothing new.
The only real pointed question that Gregory asked Obama was over Susan Rice. But even there he asked the question in the meekest manner possible.
Gregory asked, “Do you feel like you let your friend Susan Rice hang out there to dry a little bit?”
The equivocation of “A little bit” was far more consideration than the badgering Gregory offered Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association last week.
But all of Obama’s answers were mere talking points. Take his line about what he thinks Republicans priority is.
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David Gregory Fawns Over Obama’s ‘Lincoln Moment’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Imagine you are working for a company that is going bankrupt, but everyone you work with and your bosses are getting pay raises. Seem absurd? Not if you work for the failing federal government because President Obama has happily decreed that Vice President Biden, members of Congress and most federal workers are getting raises for 2013.
As the U.S. government is losing its luster on the bond market and as the fiscal cliff looms, President Obama issued an executive order to give everyone raises.
Obama has generously bestowed a $6,379 per year raise on Sheriff Joe, he’s given members of the House a $900 increase, and he’s doled out a .5 percent pay increase to federal workers. (See a full listing of pay raises for Congressional offices at The Weekly Standard)
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What Fiscal Cliff? VP Biden, Gov’t Workers Getting Raises”
-By Warner Todd Huston
On ABC’s, This Week With George Stephanopoulos for December 23, ABC political analyst Matthew Dowd uttered one of those phrases that always sounds nice, but is ultimately meaningless. Unfortunately, it is a phrase one hears all the time uttered by those low information-types in our political discussions.
During the panel discussion on the fiscal cliff, Dowd unleashed the rote claim that all good things for the nation are “right down the middle,” essentially claiming that compromise for the sake of compromise is the only real solution to anything in Washington.
The way out ultimately has to be right down the middle, right down the middle where there’s a series of compromises. Every good leadership is about both conservative ideas and progressive ideas we have to move forward we have to move forward in the future and also have to conserve the ideas and thoughts that actually are helpful to the country. Leadership is about both of those ideas.
This is a rote claim that isn’t necessarily a truism. For instance, Congress spent the first 70 years of our existence as a nation trying to go “right down the middle” on slavery. Neither one side nor the other made headway on the issue. It eventually led to civil war and the deaths of some 650,000 Americans! That “right down the middle” effort wasn’t so great for the country, was it Mr. Dowd?
The point is that being “right down the middle” is no panacea. There is a great quote about this sort of thinking. Jules Henri Poincaré once wrote, “To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.” This bogus claim that the only thing that works is “right down the middle,” dispenses with having to think about what either the left or the right is saying and instead to just assume mere compromise is always the right answer.
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ABC’s Matthew Dowd: All Solutions are ‘Right Down the Middle’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is warning Congress that the U.S. is on the cusp of hitting the debt ceiling yet again, maybe as soon as Monday.
Geithner said that the Treasury Dept. will be taking some “extraordinary measures” to prevent borrowing from exceeding the previous debt ceiling limit, measures such as a temporary halt of the reinvestment of federal workers’ retirement account contributions.
This, along with other measures might save the government $200 billion as the debt limit approaches to just under $95 billion below the $16.394 trillion debt ceiling limit.
A major problem with these “extraordinary measures” is that no one knows what effects the fiscal cliff may have on them. The biggest unknown is what effect new tax rules will have on the situation.
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U.S. Already Hitting Debt Ceiling on Monday?”
-By Chuck Busch
The “fiscal cliff” negotiations, although they are hugely consequential, are an over-dramatization of a self-imposed crisis narrowly focused on federal revenue policies. The country wouldn’t have to endure these theatrics in the middle of the holiday season during a lame duck session of congress, if our national leaders had made the hard decisions months ago to curb government spending which is the real crisis. The resumption of the Clinton era tax rate increases was known in well in advance and now, as the protections are about to expire, at least one party is doing what it can to preserve the Bush tax rate cuts.
To heighten the political theater, the whole episode is being portrayed as a cataclysmic event as though an immediate precipitous national financial collapse will occur on New Years Day if there is no resolution of the spending and tax issues. Certainly the country will continue its path of decline, but this occurrence will simply be one more step, not off a “cliff”, but down a very slippery slope to the rocky shore of a runaway inflation, massive unemployment, massive federal debt, and national insecurity where the economy will be continually pounded by fierce waves of unfunded spending, a devalued currency, a popular entitlement mentality, and an expansion of government control.
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Fiscal Cliff Fallacies”
-By Warner Todd Huston
One story that no one seems to be talking much about is the violent attack on an African American small businessman’s hot dog vending stand perpetrated by criminal union thugs during Monday’s right-to-work fracas in Lansing, Michigan.
Clint Tarver set up his stand near the Americans for Prosperity tent that union goons later tore down and, at least initially, Mr. Tarver reported that things were “going real well,” until the union toughs got into their woefully common criminal behavior.
Tarver was not just selling his hotdogs to the AFP folks but to anyone that wanted a snack. But it wasn’t long before the union members began to taunt him, even calling him a “n*gger,” calling him an “Uncle Tom,” and accusing him of being “on the wrong side.”
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Unions Attack/Destroy African American Hot Dog Vendor’s Equipment”
-By Warner Todd Huston
As unions again run amuck, this time in Michigan, the Old Media establishment has steadfastly refused to report on the union’s violence, not to mention the “violent rhetoric” coming from their advocates. But this is in stark contrast to the Summer of 2011 when the Old Media was hot to condemn the supposed “violent rhetoric” of Republicans such as Sarah Palin, Andrew Breitbart, and talk radio hosts.
In Michigan this week unions have once again shown why the term “union thug” is no misnomer by beating up people and engaging in property destruction, intimidation, and violence all in order to turn back Michigan’s right-to-work legislation passing through the state’s duly elected legislature.
During the day on Monday union goons attacked a tent set up by members of Michigan’s chapter of Americans for Prosperity. The tent was staffed with women and men, Michiganders who came out to support the Republican’s effort to pass worker’s rights legislation that would make The Wolverine State the 24th right-to-work state.
Also in attendance was occasional Fox News guest and comedian Steven Crowder. The young Crowder was actually physically attacked, punched at least four times, by one union criminal. Crowder’s crime? He dared to ask unionistas the simple question: “what is it about right-to-work that you oppose so much?”
The union thugs then swarmed AFP’s tent and tore it down with the women, and a few children, still inside.
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Media Ignores Union Violence: Flashback to Palin’s 2008 ‘Target’ Outrage”
-By Warner Todd Huston
William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard, seems to have decided that retreat is the way forward for the Republican Party. In a new editorial that approaches a meltdown, the Fox commentator and consummate Washington insider essentially advised the GOP to just throw in the towel on these fiscal cliff talks and more or less accept Obama’s terms.
In the piece, a dour Kristol detailed all the shock and depression that Republican insiders feel after losing an election they’d all thought was in the bag for team Romney and then went on to complain that the GOP’s legislative scene isn’t any better than its failed electoral scheme.
Even the fact that the Republicans still control the House is cold comfort for Kristol.
Worst of all, Kristol grouses, the GOP has no “proposal for averting the fiscal cliff.”
So, what to do, what to do? Maybe just “acquiesce” to Obama and be done with it?
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Weekly Standard’s Kristol Throws Up Hands, GOP Should ‘Acquiesce’ to Obama”
-By Warner Todd Huston
TIME has one of those lists that we always start to see as the year comes to a close. This one is the top ten best and worst places in the world to live. Sadly, there isn’t a single place in the U.S.A. on that list.
The worst place to live on this list is, unsurprisingly, the disaster-prone (both man-made and natural-made) country of Haiti. Neither Yemen nor Iraq fare much better than Haiti. The rest of the top ten worst list is filled out with African nations — again, unsurprisingly.
But it’s the best-places list that disappoints the red, white and blue as not one of the best places in the world in which to live are in the good ol’ U. S. of A.
The “Best Quality of Living” list is:
What is the deal? Why does this list diss the United States? In fact, the USA doesn’t even appear in the top 25 best places.
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TIME’s Best Places to Live Does Not Include Any in the USA”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Will wonders never cease? American Enterprise Institute columnist James Pethokoukis saw something he never thought he’d see. After 30 years, The New York Times admitted that Reaganomics worked!
Pethokoukis was astounded by a Times article chronicling the steadily falling tax burden Americans have experienced since the 1980s.
The AEI money writer notes that the heart of The Times’ article is that in 2010 Americans “paid far less in total taxes — federal, state and local — than they would have paid 30 years ago.”
Pethokoukis points out that some tax hike advocates think this means that America’s tax burden is too low and time has come for a hike. But Pethokoukis disagrees.
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Celebration: The NYTimes Finally Admitted Reaganomics Worked”
-By Warner Todd Huston
In a myopic report on the GOP’s half of the Fiscal Cliff debate, The Hill claimed there was no opposition to Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s sudden caving in to President Obama’s demand that tax hikes accompany any solutions to the budget mess.
The Hill reported on December 4 that the GOP was “moving reluctantly toward a debt deal that would increase revenues” and that Speaker Boehner had offered some $800 billion in new taxes in his most recent fiscal cliff proposal.
How could Boehner achieve this flip flopping away from the Party’s until-now stated principles? The Hill says it’s because there aren’t any Republicans opposing the tax hikes.
The lack of immediate backlash within the conference is a key early sign for Boehner, who has made intraparty unity a priority as he seeks the strongest possible hand in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff” with President Obama.
Of course, there could be a reason for this that The Hill doesn’t mention. Boehner is purging all conservatives from his power structure.
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The Hill: No GOP Opposition to Speaker Boehner’s Turnabout on Tax Hikes”