How Many Jobs??

Okay. I've been convinced that we need the unstimulus package, and we need it right now. There's not a moment to lose. I didn't think that, of course, until I heard Speaker Pelosi inform the nation that we're currently losing jobs at a rate of 500 million a month. That's a lot of jobs, as you can probably surmise, especially since our total population is only about 300 million. In the last month alone we've evidently lost 200 million more jobs than we have people. That means that every worker has lost two jobs, and currently every person in the U.S. is unemployed. Or something like that.

Now I see why people are worried that the Democrat stimulus is much too stingy. That package, according to President Obama, will create only three million jobs. Even if those three million were all created in one month we'd still suffer a net loss of 470 million jobs, according to Speaker Pelosi.

Questions are being raised at Hot Air about whether Ms Pelosi's numbers include people in all 57 states or just some of the states:

Don't think too much about what I'm about to say if you're near a loaded weapon or an open window:

These people are running our economy.

RLC

Flight 1549

For those who haven't had quite enough of the story of the US Airways flight which was downed by a flock of geese and made an emergency landing on the Hudson river here's an interesting summary of that amazing event written by Rick Newman.

Unlike a lot of the coverage I've seen and read about the skill of the pilot who landed the plane, Newman spreads the credit around to the entire crew. The pilot deserves a lot of praise but so do the first officer and the three flight attendents, and Newman tells us why.

RLC

Free Pass

Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer have followed Bill Richardson's example and withdrawn their names as appointees to high positions in the Obama administration because they did not pay their taxes. Timothy Geithner did not pay his taxes eithre but refused to withdraw and was confirmed as Secreatry of the Treasury. As such he will head the IRS and make sure that you pay your taxes. Al Franken did not pay his taxes but may nevertheless be elected (sort of) to the Senate, and Charley Rangel still serves as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the committee that writes tax law, even though he didn't pay his taxes either.

Yes, yes. Republicans can be corrupt, too, but here's the point. If these were Republican congressmen or appointees of a Republican president, would there not be serious questions raised, not only about the appointees, but also about that president's competence or his integrity? When is the media going to start to wonder out loud about the connection between these very flawed nominees and the man who is selecting them? Or do the President and his appointees, as well as the tax evading pols, get a pass because they're all liberal Democrats?

Up till now the media has been critical of the appointments, to be sure, and they've even criticized the vetting process which failed to catch the troublesome behavior, but they've been reluctant to take the final step, a step they would've eagerly taken were the President George Bush.

If the media and others are going to overlook the implications of so many ethically challenged selections, if they're going to ignore the fact that the people who will be crafting and voting on legislation that determines how much we have to pay in taxes have themselves dodged paying their own taxes, then how seriously can we take them when they claim to criticize Republicans on the basis of principles and standards that only seem to apply to Republicans?

RLC

Gaza in Microcosm

People sometimes wonder what is the difference between Hamas and Fatah, the two organizations contending for control of the Palestinian people. As far as I can tell the difference is that Hamas wants to kill Israelis now and Fatah wants to hold off until they have a better chance at actually succeeding. This video, taken at a pro-Palestinian rally in Minnesota last month, illustrates why the Palestinian people suffer so. They're cursed with leaders like the people you see here:

May God help the Palestinian people. Their leaders sure won't.

RLC

Another Milestone in Iraq

Of course the situation could deteriorate in the future, but as of now Iraq looks like it's on its way to becoming a stable, vigorous, and prosperous democracy. To almost no media fanfare the Iraqi people went to the polls Saturday to participate in an election that many congressional Democrats predicted would never happen and some did their best to insure wouldn't happen.

The same people who insisted a year or so ago that the war was lost and that we should abandon Iraq forthwith, people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, are stonily silent now that the war appears to be just about won.

The surge has worked and the Iraqi people, at least for now, are living in relative peace. For that almost miraculous state of affairs much credit must go to President George Bush and General David Petraeus (whom the sophomoric lefties at Move On.org fatuously labeled General Betray Us because he was Bush's point man in bringing peace to the people of Iraq).

The Iraqi election spotlights some historic achievements - a major defeat of al Qaeda, the liberation of 25 million people from tyranny, the success of Bush's philosophy of promoting freedom and democracy, the capability of America to accomplish what no other nation on earth could have succeeded in doing, and the intellectual and moral discrediting of the left which opposed Bush every step of the way - all of which goes to explain, perhaps, why the major news media outlets have had so little to say about it.

RLC

Rogue's Gallery

Bill sends along a link to an article in the Guardian which profiles the twenty-five people most responsible for our current economic woes. At the head of their list is former chairman of the Fed Alan Greenspan.

It's an interesting list, and I'm sure everyone on it deserves to be to one extent or another. My only reservation is that it reflects too much the Guardian's left-wing, anti-free market bias. There are a lot more Democrats who should have made the list, but didn't. Barney Frank and Maxine Waters, for example, should have been given due recognition for their valiant efforts to obstruct closer oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So, too, should the former CEOs of these two lending organizations, Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson. Moreover, groups like ACORN have a legitimate gripe about being denied due recognition on the Guardian's list. These community activists often pressured banks under threat of lawsuits to make loans to "ninjas" (No Income, No Job Applicants). They deserve at least an honorable mention.

Moreover, if the Democrats are successful in saddling our children and grandchildren with another trillion dollars of debt from the current $900 billion unstimulus package we'll be able to add Barack Obama and the entire Democratic Congressional delegation to the list as well.

It's a big tent and everybody who deserves it should be given credit for their efforts.

RLC

Super Bowl Commercial

Okay. So it's become de rigueur to render an opinion on the Super Bowl commercials. For what it's worth here's my favorite:

Everyone of these E-Trade baby spots makes me laugh when I see them. The game itself was pretty good, too.

RLC

Bush and Obama: War Criminals

I'm sure the LA Times has this story wrong. I can't believe that after all the huffing and puffing throughout the campaign about the need for HopeandChange in the way we treat terrorist detainees, after all the assurances that an Obama administration would follow a different, more law-abiding, more human-rights-sensitive course than did the Bush administration, after all the caterwauling by the left over the abuses of detainees' dignity by the CIA, after all the fretting and fuming about torture of said detainees, that the Obama administration is, well, here's the LA Times' headline:

OBAMA PRESERVES RENDITIONS AS COUNTER-TERRORISM TOOL

Rendition, for those who are just tuning in, is the practice of sending captured terrorists back to their country of origin rather than holding them in prison ourselves. The practice began, it is often forgotten, under the Clinton administration as a way of inveigling certain intelligence from terrorists who resisted giving it up when questioned by American agents who were able to do little more to elicit information from recalcitrant killers than look at them sternly. Sending them back to countries like Egypt and Pakistan where the Geneva conventions on torture are printed on their bathroom tissue guaranteed that the information would be forthcoming in short order.

Many thought this was a dastardly move by the Bush forces to circumvent the law against torture. They raised a great hew and cry and insisted that this policy would not stand under a Democrat administration, and certainly not under the aegis of an apostle of Human Rights such as Barack Obama. They want to bring Bush to trial even now for this "war crime."

Well, not only is President Obama continuing the practice, according to the article he's actually going to expand it. In fact, he's left himself little choice. Since he has ordered the closing of Guantanamo our options with prisoners taken in the War on Terrorism are either release, rendition, secret military tribunals, or execution. Guantanamo gave us a fifth option, but the left insisted we close it down, for reasons which to me were never very clear and I doubt were clear to anyone else either.

Well, they're getting their wish so now we're left with rendition or secret trials (or execution, if you're a hard-liner), but the left opposes both.

Anyway, perhaps the most amusing line in the Times article was this one:

The decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human rights groups. Leaders of such organizations attribute that to a sense that nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.

Funny how what's evil when Bush did it becomes a necessary "tool" when Obama does it. It's nice to know that human rights organizations and advocates are politically and ideologically neutral.

RLC

Bring Back the Untouchables

Evidently, anyone hoping for a high position in the Obama administration would do well to have on his or her r�sum� the fact that one is a tax cheat. The Democratic motto seems to be that paying taxes is for chumps. When you're an RIP (Really Important Person) you need not be bothered with the duties that burden mere citizens.

First it turned out that Timothy Geithner, Obama's selection for Secretary of the Treasury, did not pay his own taxes until he was about to be nominated to be our nation's chief tax collector. Now we read that the President's choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, also "overlooked" a measly $83,000 of consulting income in 2007. When was the last time you forgot about making $83,000?

Isn't this the sort of thing they sent Al Capone to jail for? Where's Elliot Ness when you need him? Does not the Obama team vet these people, or is it that they just don't care?

RLC

Serenity Under Fire

J.R. Dunn at The American Thinker writes an excellent reprise of the awful treatment George Bush's opponents sought to inflict upon him:

It can be stated without fear of serious argument that no previous president has been treated as brutally, viciously, and unfairly as George W. Bush.

Bush 43 endured a deliberate and planned assault on everything he stood for, everything he was involved in, everything he tried to accomplish. Those who worked with him suffered nearly as much (and some even more -- at least one, Scooter Libby, was convicted on utterly specious charges in what amounts to a show trial).

His detractors were willing to risk the country's safety, its economic health, and the very balance of the democratic system of government in order to get at him. They were out to bring him down at all costs, or at the very least destroy his personal and presidential reputation. At this they have been half successful, at a high price for the country and its government.

Although everyone insists on doing so, it is impossible to judge Bush, his achievements, or his failings, without taking these attacks into account. Before any serious analysis of the Bush presidency can be made, some attempt to encompass the campaign against him must be carried out. I hope no one is holding his breath.

Dunn goes on to discuss the reasons for this treatment, and comes to some interesting conclusions. He argues that a large part of it is ideological. The three most vilified presidents in recent history have been Republicans and, although Dunn doesn't say this, throughout the last two centuries, starting with the communists, indeed with Marx himself, people who gravitated to the far left have often been people who are personally vicious. It seems that a predilection for left-wing politics goes hand in hand, like linked genes, with a predilection for personal invective.

I've known people on the right to be uncivil, to be sure, but it seems to be almost a prerequisite for membership in the secular left. Check your local letters to the editor columns in the paper. The most unkind, churlish writers are almost always people whose politics are both secular and off on the left end of the political spectrum. Conservative writers may be angry, but the ones who are just mean are usually lefties.

For some reason that perhaps a psychologist could explain these folks often delight in the personal misfortunes of their political enemies and not infrequently hope that harm will befall those they oppose. Read Dunn's column. If you're new to the political battleground it'll be an eye-opener.

RLC

Redemption in the Movies

Christianity Today lists their ten most "redemptive" movies of 2008 plus a lot of honorable mentions. Winning top honors is Wall-E. How many of their ten have you seen?

RLC

Prevent Gonorrhea, Stimulate the Economy

Maybe this clip doesn't give Speaker Pelosi's full answer to the question of how $335 million in the unstimulus bill for STD prevention will actually stimulate the economy. At least I hope it doesn't because if it does then this country is in very deep trouble with such as Ms Pelosi at the helm:

I can't help but wonder what she said next. Perhaps it was that with fewer STD victims laid up there'd be more people out in the malls spending money to jumpstart the economy. Now, I take a backseat to no one when it comes to finding awful consequences of the sexual revolution, but it never occurred to me that one might be that it has resulted in a contraction of the marketplace.

There's just so much to learn from our political leaders. It's going to be a very edifying and exciting four years.

RLC

Why the Goose Might Get Cooked

If the people of this nation ever decide to kill the goose (capitalism) that has laid the golden eggs (American prosperity) it will be largely the result of two quite different influences. The first is the righteous anger provoked in people by the sheer greed and opulence flaunted by the modern captains of industry. Maureen Dowd gives voice to this execrable insensitivity in a recent New York Times column:

Despite losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees the corporate Marie Antoinettes at Citigroup went through with plans to purchase a new $50 million corporate jet.

Real people are losing real jobs at Caterpillar, Home Depot and Sprint Nextel; these and other companies announced on Monday that they would cut more than 75,000 jobs in the U.S. and around the world, as consumer confidence and home prices swan-dived.

The former chief executive of Merrill Lynch, John Thain, handed out over $4 billion in bonuses as the failing firm was bought by Bank of America.

"If you don't pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise," Thain reasoned, "and they'll go elsewhere." So, these guys are rewarded by Thain with billions of dollars of investor's money for losing $15 billion in three months for their clients.

Meanwhile, Thain himself spent $1 million to renovate his office. Big-ticket items included curtains for $28,000, a pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a "Roman Shade" for $11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for $2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $37,000, a "custom coffee table" for $16,000, an antique commode "on legs" for $35,000, and a $1,400 "parchment waste can."

Socializing financial institutions and industries would be a terrible move, but the anger that causes people to no longer resist it is certainly understandable. The goose has brought it upon himself.

The other factor that will lead us to kill the goose is the fact that so many people in this country are the recipients of government largesse, and so few, relatively, provide it. When a large percentage of the population in a democracy really have nothing to lose by socializing the economy and much to gain they will eagerly favor more government largesse. What do they care if the people who have the wealth are squeezed if it means more benefits for themselves? Neither capitalism nor democracy will survive a large lower class comprised of poor, uneducated, unmotivated people living at the expense of those above them on the socio-economic ladder. The lower classes will always vote for those who'll provide more benefits and those who seek their votes will be only too willing to oblige them.

The GOP is looking for a Moses to lead them back to the political Promised Land. What they need is someone who has a plan for teaching the poor that they have a stake in capitalism and freedom and someone who can shame the corporate "Masters of the Universe," to use Tom Wolfe's phrase in Bonfire of the Vanities, into setting an example of frugality and modesty for the rest of the society which has bestowed such good fortune upon them.

RLC

Rush's Plan

Rush Limbaugh has a serious, and very interesting, plan to restart the American economy, and to underscore his seriousness he presents it in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. It's not only a genuine bipartisan compromise it's also a great empirical test of two conflicting philosophies on how best to deal with recessions. I suspect that it's going to attract a lot of attention from both the right and center left. A lot of honest people, not just among Republicans but also in the Democrat party, are dismayed by what they see as a welfare/pork barrel bill masquerading as an economic stimulus measure.

Here's the heart of Limbaugh's proposal:

Fifty-three percent of American voters voted for Barack Obama; 46% voted for John McCain, and 1% voted for wackos. Give that 1% to President Obama. Let's say the vote was 54% to 46%. As a way to bring the country together and at the same time determine the most effective way to deal with recessions, under the Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan of 2009: 54% of the $900 billion -- $486 billion -- will be spent on infrastructure and pork as defined by Mr. Obama and the Democrats; 46% -- $414 billion -- will be directed toward tax cuts, as determined by me.

Then we compare. We see which stimulus actually works. This is bipartisanship! It would satisfy the American people's wishes, as polls currently note; and it would also serve as a measurable test as to which approach best stimulates job growth.

I say, cut the U.S. corporate tax rate -- at 35%, among the highest of all industrialized nations -- in half. Suspend the capital gains tax for a year to incentivize new investment, after which it would be reimposed at 10%. Then get out of the way! Once Wall Street starts ticking up 500 points a day, the rest of the private sector will follow. There's no reason to tell the American people their future is bleak. There's no reason, as the administration is doing, to depress their hopes. There's no reason to insist that recovery can't happen quickly, because it can.

In this new era of responsibility, let's use both Keynesians and supply-siders to responsibly determine which theory best stimulates our economy -- and if elements of both work, so much the better. The American people are made up of Republicans, Democrats, independents and moderates, but our economy doesn't know the difference. This is about jobs now.

I'd prefer we cut the pork and transfer payments out of the bill altogether, but that's not going to happen with the Democrats in control of everything. So, why not give Rush's plan a go and settle the question for the next three generations of whether it's better to inflate the currency and throw money around like we're frantically bailing water out of a sinking boat or to cut tax rates and let businesses and private citizens kickstart the economy by creating more wealth.

RLC

Winter Irruption

This winter has seen a major irruption of several boreal species of birds into the northeastern United States. One such species that's being seen at backyard bird feeders everywhere this winter is the pine siskin:

The yellow on the wing is distinctive and helps to distinguish the siskin from a lot of other brown birds with streaked breasts. The siskin feeds primarily on nyjer seed.

Another more unusual bird that has been seen almost everywhere there are stands of spruce trees with healthy cone crops is the White-winged crossbill. The mandibles of this unusual bird are crossed rather than parallel. This allows it to peel away the hard bracts of conifer cones to extract the seeds that lie at their base. A crossbill will eat up to 3000 seeds a day, which requires an awful lot of work.

I was lucky enough to see about a half-dozen of these lovely creatures yesterday morning in some spruces along the Susquehanna river in York County, Pennsylvania.

RLC

Wars Without End

Our question for today, class, is a little complex so listen carefully: With which of the following conflicts are you most acquainted: The war in the Congo? The war in Sudan? The conflict in Somalia? The war in Sri Lanka? You're not really familiar with any of these, you say?

How about the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Ah, yes. Now that we've heard a lot about over the years, haven't we? My church denominational office regularly passes resolutions condemning Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. The media feature it daily and prominently. It's the defining struggle of our times. The most egregious slaughters, one might think, have been spawned by this conflict.

But actually, no. According to an article at Strategy Page the truth is otherwise and the numbers are shocking. Consider these gruesome statistics:

Throughout the last decade over five million people have died in the Congo from the effects of war in the eastern part of that country.

Sudan has produced over 300,000 dead, millions of refugees, and a thriving slave trade.

Somalia has suffered 16,000 dead in the last two years and more than twice that in the last twenty years. The media, however, seem fascinated only with the pirates in the north who kill hardly anyone, except some of the thousands of the refugees they try to smuggle into Yemen when they aren't trying to kidnap passing merchant ships and fishing boats.

Perhaps the distinction of hosting the most ignored war in the world goes to the island nation of Sri Lanka where civil strife has killed over 80,000 in the last 25 years (and about 10,000 in the last year alone). India suffers over 2,000 dead a year from terrorists (mostly tribal and communist). Neighboring Pakistan has suffered 14,000 dead from Islamic terrorism in the past six years, and Afghanistan has lost that number in the last three years.

Let those numbers sink in for a moment. Now reflect upon this: In the last decade there have been about 7000 deaths in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. This is about one one thousandth the toll in the Congo alone. Yet it is this conflict which captures almost the entirety of media attention. In fact, President Obama has named a peace envoy, George Mitchell, to the Middle East, but no such envoy is packing his bags for Africa.

Given the horrific casualty toll in the rest of the world, and the relatively minor toll in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, why is it that the West - its churches, its media, its universities, and its governments are all so fixated on what's happening in Israel? Why does the West so assiduously ferret out every Israeli injustice, real and imagined, that can be trumpeted from the front pages of our newspapers and evening newscasts? Where are the demonstrations in our city streets and university campuses demanding a cessation to the wars and tyrannies besetting the longsuffering African and Sri Lankan people? Why does the West get so exercised about Israel, but can scarcely be bothered with horrific news from the Congo or Zimbabwe? Why do Palestinian Arabs matter more to people in the West than do black Sudanese and Congolese? Why do we hold Israelis to a far higher standard of behavior than we expect of black Africans, Arabs, and Muslims?

Just asking.

RLC

John Galt

A friend passes along what I take to be a fictional memo from an employer to his employees which reads as if it were written by John Galt. Galt, you may recall, was a mysterious character in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged who, worn out by a government that made it impossible for men to achieve their dreams, led a revolt of the nation's producers who collectively chose to just stop working rather than be exploited any longer by a parasitic government:

To my Valued Employees:

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that pits employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last year's Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy symbols of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don't see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. I usually stayed home on weekends while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars, lived in expensive homes, and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I, too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends seemed to have.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office you are done, and you have a weekend all to yourself. I, unfortunately, do not have that freedom. I eat and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year-old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that labor - the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made.

Now the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has its benefits, but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business and employing you is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit, and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes, federal taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, payroll taxes, workers compensation taxes, unemployment taxes, taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then I have to pay more taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations, and all the accounting that goes with them, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the U.S. Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded for only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree, which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here's what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated that I didn't need to pay taxes, instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? You defibrillate his heart. Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth.

So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I will fire you. I will fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it won't be my problem anymore.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

So, if you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steam-rolled the constitution, and changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about....

Your boss

A nation that punishes its producers and transfers their wealth to subsidize those who, for whatever reason, do not produce is a nation which will eventually and inevitably look a lot like Bulgaria in the 1950s. Somebody ought to forward this "memo" to President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

RLC

Four Fears

Fred Barnes writes in The Weekly Standard that there are four fears people have about President Obama which, though they might not be justified, are not unreasonable:

Barack Obama is the apostle of hope. But he also arouses the flipside of hope--fear. And while the fear he stirs may turn out to be unfounded, it's not irrational. People don't know who Obama really is or where his ideological center of gravity rests, to the extent it rests anywhere. He was a liberal in the Senate and the campaign, a centrist in the transition, and who knows what he'll be as president. He's elusive.

I count four separate fears. Whether he's a crypto-Marxist is not one of them. Neither is the absurd fear that he's secretly a Muslim, even a closet jihadist. Nor is the groundless claim Obama was actually born outside the United States and isn't really an American citizen. Forget all those. They're nonstarters.

Barnes goes on to discuss the fear that Obama doesn't know what he's talking about, is too much of a pushover, will be too much like Jimmy Carter on foreign policy, and lacks the resolve necessary to make unpopular decisions. Read the article to understand Barnes' reasoning for each of these. It's pretty good.

RLC

What's Hate Got to Do With It?

Mary Eberstadt, the author of that wonderful collection of epistles from a newly-minted atheist to her much admired superiors titled The Loser Letters, addresses herself to the question how someone like her, someone who's quite averse to our modern infatuation with gayness, might respond to charges that she must be a homophobic hater.

She suggests deflecting such allegations by emulating, of all people, vegetarians. Eberstadt offers this hypothetical response to someone who has accused her of being a hater simply because she finds homosexual conduct to be not just distasteful but morally wrong:

A borrowing of the vegetarian's vocabulary might go something like this. "No, of course I don't hate sex/fun/gay people/love - any more than a vegetarian, say, hates people who eat beef/chicken/pork. In fact, let's explore that analogy a little more, because then maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from. And just as vegetarians don't hate meat-eaters, I don't hate people who do things I don't, or things that I think are wrong. But that doesn't mean that the matter ends there or that I'm saying that these things are a matter of taste only. Like the vegetarian, I think there are serious reasons for my aversion to what other people do. These reasons are moral. They also have to do with health. In general, I think it would be a better world if people didn't do these things, again as the vegetarian thinks. But please understand that hatred has nothing to do with it. Reason and information and a desire not to do harm - these things do."

This response, as correct and honest as it is clever, is offered in a larger essay in the current First Things which itself is very much worth reading. Unfortunately, this issue is available only by subscription until April.

RLC

The Unstimulus

The Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, analyzes the Obama stimulus plan which Congress is voting on today and finds much not to like. In the first place, they tell us, the plan would be incredibly costly to taxpayers.

For instance, after Congress appropriates the 2009 omnibus bill, they will have spent over $1.4 trillion in less than one month. It'll be the largest spending orgy in the history of the country. If the cost of it were spread equally over every family in the U.S. each family would owe $10,520. What's worse, though, is that although the bill is touted as an "economic stimulus" bill, much of it has nothing to do with stimulating the economy and a lot to do with lining the pockets of those who supported the Democrats in the last election.

In addition to the earlier automobile bailout, which was essentially a gift to the UAW, over $142 billion dollars is slated for education, nearly double the total outlays for the Department of Education in 2007, making good on promises made by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and candidate Obama to the NEA. Anyone who thinks that this windfall will actually result in kids learning more math and literature in school is deluding himself. Another $4.19 billion is provided for "neighborhood stabilization activities" which is code for organizations like ACORN which has been charged with widespread voter registration fraud in the last election, but which was instrumental in getting Democrats elected. The Democrats also tried to get several million dollars for birth control into the measure, which would have been a boon to Planned Parenthood, but Nancy Pelosi, apparently non-plussed by questions about exactly what it was she was trying to stimulate, decided to drop it.

In addition to these Blagojevich-like quid pro quos to Democratic constituencies there are a number of other provisions which may cause you to arch an eyebrow:

States that have squandered their own taxpayers' money and now find themselves unable to meet their medicaid obligations to their own citizens will receive from the rest of us an $87 billion dollar check to meet the shortfall. Taxpayers in Pennsylvania will be happy to know that they're paying the medicaid costs for people living in New York. The "stimulus" also gives the Department of Energy $35 billion dollars to work on such dubious projects as "green" alternative energy sources like windmills. The DOE's current annual budget is just under $24 billion. Billions more will be handed out as refundable tax credits to everyone who falls under a specified income level. This will include millions of people who never paid income taxes in the first place, which means it's not a tax refund at all, but a welfare payment, and its purpose is to buy the loyalty of a large number of voters to the Democratic party.

In addition, there are these items crucial, we are to believe, to the health of the national economy: Digital TV coupons ($650 million), government cars ($600 million), the National Endowment for the Arts ($50 million), repairs to National Mall ($200 million). This includes $21 million for sod so that on your next visit to the mall you can loll about in the grass and feel all tingly about how wisely your tax dollars are being spent by your beneficent congressional overlords.

But isn't all this spending going to create jobs, I hear you ask. Not according to House Tax Committee staff. Despite the promise by President Obama and Speaker Pelosi that three to four million new jobs will be created, the Committee has not been able to find even a single job that will be guaranteed to be created. Indeed, most of the money won't even be spent this year, so it's hard to see how this bill is a job generator.

If President Obama and the Democrats were really serious about creating jobs and getting the economy going - instead of just paying off the people who got them elected - they would simply lower as many taxes, both business and personal, as they could. This would immediately stimulate the economy by getting businesses investing and hiring and consumers spending. Unfortunately, the economic stimulus package is all about politics and power and not so much about jobs and prosperity.

Whatever happened to all that hope and change we were promised a couple of months ago?

President Obama has also promised us a transparent administration and Speaker of the House Pelosi has promised us the most ethical Congress ever. If they're serious about their rhetoric they could start to make good on their promises by declining to call this measure "economic stimulus" and calling it instead what it is: Political Payback. It's hard to see the difference between what the Democrats from Barack Obama on down are doing with this "stimulus" bill and what Rod Blagojevich got himself impeached for in Illinois.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial on the spending bill in which they calculate that only 12 cents of every dollar can be reasonably expected to go to stimulus and job creation. Much of it is just welfare payments to the poor.

RLC