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Outstanding statement about what made America great, an dhow are government is destroying that greatness.  This is the full Text of Sen. Rand Paul's Tea Party Response to Obama's State of the Union Address: I speak to you tonight from Washington, D.C. The state of our economy is tenuous but our people remain the greatest example of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known. People say America is exceptional. I agree, but it's not the complexion of our skin or the twists in our DNA that make us unique. America is exceptional because we were founded upon the notion that everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. For the first time in history, men and women were guaranteed a chance to succeed based NOT on who your parents were but on your own initiative and desire to work. We are in danger, though, of forgetting what made us great. The President seems to think the country can continue to borrow $50,000 per second. The President believes that we should just squeeze more money out of those who are working. The path we are on is not sustainable, but few in Congress or in this Administration seem to recognize that their actions are endangering the prosperity of this great nation. Ronald Reagan said, government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem. Tonight, the President told the nation he disagrees. President Obama believes government is the solution: More government, more taxes, more debt. What the President fails to grasp is that the American system that rewards hard work is what made America so prosperous. What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith. In the year we won our independence, Adam Smith described what creates the Wealth of Nations. He described a limited government that largely did not interfere with individuals and their pursuit of happiness. All that we are, all that we wish to be is now threatened by the notion that you can have something for nothing, that you can have your cake and ea

Woo-hoo! The IRS and Congress will be interested in this one too.  Now if someone would kindly send the docs to Wikileaks, the nations of the world can prosecute companies for tax evasion. But this time, would you all, pretty please, prosecute some human beings too and no settlements without at least a couple of years behind bars?

Ok, this goes into the must read category. I don't however agree with the proposed solution. There's no mention that governments must stop spending money they don't have. Stop the borrowing. Cut the spending. Cut payroll, pension and healthcare spending. Privatize. Return Federal assets to the States, and let them handle the leasing and privatization. Flatten the tax code. Eliminate corporate and unearned (investment) income taxes.  When this country came out of WWII, there was great apprehension that the great depression would simply pick up where it left off. These concerns led to a break with the Hoover-Roosevelt big and bigger government - tax and spend approach. Congress moved to cut taxes and level the margins. Depression over.  excerpt:  Today the Federal government is carrying an even bigger debt per GDP than the cost of WWII had left us with! The out of control spending has to stop. For just over half of all Americans today is Tax Day. But for the other half it is just another day on the calendar. That's because they pay no federal income taxes. The old saying goes "you can't get something for nothing." But these "non-payers" receive government services and benefits without chipping in.

Excellent analogy.  My take on the fiscal cliff is that we have an agreement in place, signed off on by Obama, the Democrats and the Republicans.  Let's hold to it.  Hold the line.  And under no circumstances raise the debt limit.  Bring home the troops.  Make the spending cuts in the sequestration agreement.  Replace that idiot Speaker of the House Boehner with Representative Darryl Isa.  Freeze Obama with his own agreement, and then dig our way out of this by stopping the socialist spending spree. "In the movie Usual Suspects, Keyser Soze is confronted with the fact that his wife and children would be an impediment in dealing with his business competitors. In a way the House GOP finds itself in the same position as Keyser Soze. Our home has been invaded. Our family despoiled. And we are facing a never ending series of ever increasing demands from the criminals who have abused us. Sometimes the only way out of a dilemma is by clearing the table and starting again from scratch. At midnight on December 21, 2012 the United States will be faced with what is being called the "fiscal cliff." In short this cliff is composed of several parts. 1. The payroll tax reduction passed in 2010 will end. 2. The temporary tax rates passed under President Bush will lapse. 3. Obamacare's taxes will come due. 4. The Alternative Minimum Tax will expand to many more taxpayers. 5. Extended unemployment benefits will expire. 6. Some $78 billion in federal spending will be sequestered. 7. Medicare "doc fix" will expire. There are several sets of sacred cattle here. The GOP is primarily interested in protecting the tax cuts and Defense spending. The Democrats are primarily interested in preserving the social spending and free stuff for their base. This time around the Democrats, in their never ending paean to class warfare, are insisting that the Bush Tax Rates for the wealthiest Americans be allowed to expire. The GOP should not negotiate on this. This will put the GOP

The White House no longer has a commander in chief in charge, but a professional victim. Last week, it was the Arab Spring, those damn Europeans, Mother Nature, etc. Now it is all about those evil tea partiers. For three years, Barack Obama has blamed George W. Bush for all his ills. Yes, it is true, Barack Obama inherited an economy sliding backward. But it is also true Barack Obama inherited a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush. Obama's policies have exacerbated a bad economy and caused us to lose our credit rating. But still, expect a full court press to blame the GOP and Tea Party. So I have some quick advice for the GOP. Back when S&P said it was considering a down grade, it set out two criteria to avoid losing the downgrade: (1) at least $4 trillion in cuts and (2) bipartisan support. Only the tea party movement came up with such a plan - Cut, Cap, and Balance. It received bipartisan support in the House, came within five votes of a majority in the Senate, and not only cut $4 trillion, but put caps on future government spending and balanced the federal budget. No other plan, including the public grand bargain and Barack Obama's own super-double-top-secret plan that no one has ever seen did that. Were I in Republican Leadership in Washington, I would haul my butt back to D.C. right now and start fighting again for Cut, Cap, and Balance. 66% of Americans support the plan. It is the only plan that would have avoided a credit decline. Go back and pick up the fight on the front lines for freedom. And if they just can't, they they better point out to the new Super Committee that it was, in fact, possible to cut $4 trillion without enacting job killing tax increases and encourage them to send back as its package Cut, Cap, and Balance.

The Tea Party passed two plans to restore USA crdibility and good standing: The Ryan Balanced Budget and the Cut, Cap & Balance plan. Both plans passed the House with bipartisan support. Both plans were acceptable to the credit rating agencies, including Standard & Poor. Both plans were blocked by the Democrats in the Senate, and, threatened with a veto from Obama. The people with no plan blocked the only plans that would have saved the USA credit rating. Rush made the point this morning that if Obama and the Democrats cared about this country, they would be insisting that both the Tea Party plans, the Ryan Balanced Budget and the Cut, Cap & Balance plans be put forward in the Senate immediately for a vote, with the full backing of Obama. Rush pointed out that if Obama and the Democrats didn't do this, or didn't come forward with a proposal of their own that actually qualified and met the credit ratings agencies $4 Trill - stop the reckless spending criteria debt concerns, then our worst fears would be confirmed. Our worst fears being that Obama and the Democrats are worse than mere incompetent socialist ideologues. That they are in fact out to destroy the goose that laid the golden egg: Constitutional Capitalism, American exceptionalism, and our God given right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that under-girds the extraordinary story of American prosperity. So Obama has a choice today. He either complies with the demands that the USA Government get it's finances in order by supporting the credit ratings approved Tea Party plans. Or, explain why his vision of a downgraded, prosperity bereft and indentured debt bound America is the way forward. Time to start demanding resignations. The fish rots from the head.

S&P wants the US to generate enough savings from its debt deal to stabilize the national debt so that it will no longer continue to grow faster than the economy. Its concerns were divided into two categories. First, the Americans are growing old and the consequent increases in entitlement costs cannot be sustained alone by the current tax collections for programs like Social Security. So, the government needs to create a framework to address the costs of an aging American population. This could require an increase in the age limit at which Social Security and Medicare Benefits could be accessed and to exclude those people who have savings or jobs from both of these programs.   The other crucial area of concerns highlighted by S&P is that budget cuts alone are not enough to reduce deficits. So taxes have to be increased to add revenue to the Treasury. While increasing revenue and cutting spending will help in reducing the deficit and help in balancing the budget. A cap on spending would act as sort of a stopgap preventing lawmakers from letting party politics put a blockade in the way on necessary steps towards the economic recovery of the US.   Analysts believe that the US needs to compromise on its defence budget also, which still supports large deployments of armed forces and material overseas. The US has commitments to NATO in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the federal government believes that it needs to support strategic initiatives in place like Japan. The government has to take strong steps in its policy towards these obligations to put the country's economy back on track.   The US owes maximum of its debt to China. So the Congress needs to put pressure on the Chinese government to alter the value of its currency to make the trade between the two countries fair. Furthermore, cheap goods exported by China have caused a loss of manufacturing jobs in the US, so the latter should place tariffs on more Chinese goods as a way to raise money and prevent dumping of pro

Debt having failed as a method of money creation leads us back to the printing press method. But on whom are those helicopters to drop their new money? And how to we ensure that the banksters are not among them?

In sum, Mr. Obama is proposing to use the tax code to substantially redistribute income -- raising tax rates on a minority of taxpayers to finance tax credits and direct income supplements to millions of others. How much revenue his higher rates would raise depends on how much less those high-earners would work, or how much they would change their practices to shelter their income from those higher rates. By contrast, Mr. McCain is proposing some kind of tax reduction for most Americans who pay taxes. He says he would finance those cuts by reducing the rate of growth in federal spending.

Sweden's Finance Minister Anders Borg is proving that Krugman and all those Keynesian big time stimulous spenders are wrong.  Reagan supply-side economics works every time it's tried.  And Sweden is proving it every day.  Instead of borrowing to stimulate, Borg flattened and cut taxes while gutting unsustainable government welfare spending.  Put the productive resources in the hands of those who are productive, and magic happens.  Capitalism has a home in Sweden, of all places. excerpt: "When Europe's finance ministers meet for a group photo, it's easy to spot the rebel - Anders Borg (pictured above) has a ponytail and earring. What actually marks him out, though, is how he responded to the crash. While most countries in Europe borrowed massively, Borg did not. Since becoming Sweden's finance minister, his mission has been to pare back government. His 'stimulus' was a permanent tax cut. To critics, this was fiscal lunacy. Borg, on the other hand, thought lunacy meant repeating the economics of the 1970s and expecting a different result. Three years on, it's pretty clear who was right. "Look at Spain, Portugal or the UK, whose governments were arguing for large temporary stimulus," he says. "Well, we can see that very little of the stimulus went to the economy. But they are stuck with the debt." Tax-cutting Sweden, by contrast, had the fastest growth in Europe last year, when it also celebrated the abolition of its deficit. The recovery started just in time for the 2010 Swedish election, in which the Conservatives were re-elected for the first time in history.

Peggy Noonan writes about Paul Ryan's "The American Idea" speech he recently gave at the heritage Foundation.  It's a beautifully written summary that goes right to the heart of the matter:  the ruling elites have been enriching themselves, feeding at the public trough of corporate welfare and crony capitalism.  Washington DC is corrupt and rotten to the core, and the hand maiden of Banksters, Global Corporatist, Big Unions, and Big Bearucracy.   One things for sure.  Congressman Paul Ryan is a brilliant thinker aho believes in the great promise he calls "The American Idea".   Funny how, as the presidential primary race rolls on, my hopeful attention is being drawn towards four men:  Herman Cain, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and Marco Rubio.   Herman unfortunately is soft on Banksters, totally unaware and oblivious to the need to take back the currency, and end the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel.  I also have some difficulties with the "revenue neutral" aspects of his 999 plan.  We need less government, not more.  The private sector needs to keep more money, not less.   Too bad because everything else about Herman excites me.  Especially his authentic, from the heart love of America, American exceptionalism and opportunity, and the founders truly unique "American Idea". Ron Paul has an awesome "American Recovery" plan.  Awesome.  But his remarks on terrorism and foreign policy stray far from his usual reliance on the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.   He's right about the connection between global corporatism and the never ending militarism they push.  But he's dead ass wrong about our enemies and their intentions.  And that's scary.  If RP had stuck to the Constitution and 10th Amendment, i would fully support him.   If it's not an enumerated power, it belongs to the States and individual citizens.  End of story.   Marco Rubio is awesome in the same way Herman is.  He connects with a special authenticity that screams the principles and val

Economic comparison that describes the prosperity differences between a Republican led congress and a Democratic controlled congress. Excerpt: If you want to give Bill Clinton credit for economic results during his terms, you have to link those results to his policies.  If you want to give him credit for those policies, you must admit that they were virtually all in line with Republican rhetoric and antithetical to modern liberalism. But here's what you can't do and remain intellectually honest:  praise Clinton and damn Bush, and then encourage Obama to do the exact opposite of what Clinton did and to add multiple trillions of dollars to Bush's spending and deficit levels. Conservatives like me have always encouraged tax rate cuts, spending cuts, free trade and eliminating government programs like welfare and the byzantine farm program.  Reagan did what he could (with a Democrat-controlled House the entire time), and the economy grew 3.5% annually over his eight years.  Clinton did these things as well (with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress his last six years), and the economy grew 3.8% annually over his eight years. This is not hard: cut taxes, cut spending, cut programs.  Oh, and elect Republicans to the Senate.  At least that's what the facts say.

Excellent summary of Herman Cain.  Background and brief explanation of Herman's "first 90 days in the White House" plan.  Good stuff.... excerpt:  Herman Cain - or the Hermanator, as he calls himself in his new book - is so confident he'll be elected president on November 6, 2012, he's already sketched out his first 90 days in office. Among the things he says he'll do in the early days of a Cain administration: "Treat our economic system as I would a corporation on the verge of bankruptcy: Step one, make a 10 percent across-the-board cut" in all government departments. Step two, he says, would include "vertical deep dives" in which every department would be asked to justify its cost and directly answer the question, "Is it still in the best interests of the country?" Election 2012 Complete Coverage According to a new CBS News poll, Cain, 65, is now tied with Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, atop the field of Republican presidential candidates. Among GOP primary voters, support for Cain now stands at 17 percent support, compared with 5 percent two weeks ago. (Rick Perry has fallen 11 percentage points in just two weeks.) Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan has attracted voters: He'd replace the current tax code with a nine-percent flat income tax, a nine-percent corporate tax, and a nine-percent national sales tax.

Mike Whitney always tells it like it is.

WOW!  Renown Ayn Rand expert, Harry Binswanger, discusses the 2012 election big media accusation that Romney is "short on specifics".  (Not that Obama ever provided anything close to a specific explanation, but there it is.)  In his discussion, Harry describes exactly how to present "principles" that then can be easily connected to "specifics".   Incredible read. excerpt: "Here's a sample of what an ideal candidate would say, first in terms of principles: "The only proper function of government is to protect individual rights, and the only way rights can be violated is by the initiation of physical force. Under my administration, we will return to the original American system in which the government uses its physical force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use in violation of individual rights. The fundamental right is the right to life, and its corollaries include the right to private property, without which no other rights are possible." He could then go on to name policy goals that represent mid-level abstractions: "Entitlement programs are the initiation of force; they seize the property of some to provide unearned benefits to others. This is immoral; it is a legalized equivalent of theft. Thus, I will drastically cut entitlement spending-whether "discretionary" or not. Another area of initiated government force is regulation. Regulation by its nature is preventive law, interfering with the lives of the innocent in order to (supposedly) prevent the guilty from acting. This is force initiated against the innocent, so I will drastically cut the number and scope of regulations over the same 4 years." Now the real fun comes when, having established this context, he gets to specifics: "My first budget will cut funds for all departments, except Defense, to 15% below what they received the previous year. This is an across-the-board cut, not something to become the subject of infighting among departments. Then in my next budget I will cut 15%

Good argument explaining the relationship between tax rates and tax receipts. excerpt: Economics and a degree of common sense also tells us that we will always be more cautious in spending our money than a third party will be. Milton Friedman used this brief explanation to drive home the point. There are four ways to spend money. You can spend your money on yourself, and when you do both the cost of the product and the quality matters. You can spend your money on someone else, in this case cost matters but quality is not as important. Other people can spend other people's money on themselves, in this case cost doesn't matter, as it is not your money, but quality does as you are buying the product or service for yourself. Finally, the most inefficient method to spend money of the four is other people, spending other people's money, on other people. Cost doesn't matter because it is not your money and quality doesn't matter because it is not your product or service either. In the final case, I just described to you government spending. And, to be clear, government spending is taxation, while deficit spending is future taxation plus interest. It cannot be any other way. Arguing that accumulating debt on your personal credit card is not going to require you to take money from your account in the future to pay the debt is foolish, therefore, why would you think that the national credit card would obey a different set of economic rules? Finally, we are frequently rhetorically assaulted by the "fair share" moralists on the left. ....................... This is an argument where they are correct on principle and completely devoid of substance regarding evidence...........

This article has two parts.  The first is Bernanke's waarnign to Congress that the Federal debt is out of control and they need to raise taxes AND cut spending.  The second part however is far more interesting.  Author Greg Hunter describes the Bloomberg Media court quest to force the Fed to reveal which banks received $2 trillion in bailout money and why.  Bernanke of course is fighting in the courts to keep this secret.   excerpts:  Earlier this week, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke told Congress to basically raise taxes and cut the federal budget.  The inference was, if Congress doesn't get its financial house in order, it will be their fault if the economy tanks.  Here is how Bernanke actually said it, ". . . Maintaining the confidence of the public and the financial markets requires policy makers more decisively to put the budget on a sustainable fiscal balance."   Bernanke also said the federal debt ". . .is already expected to be greater than 70%" of Gross Domestic Product, ". . . at the end of 2012."  And if that is not bad enough, Bernanke said that by 2020, ". . .federal debt would balloon to more than 100% of GDP," provided  taxes are not raised and budgets are not cut.  The Fed was sued by financial news network Bloomberg two years ago.  Bloomberg wants the Fed to reveal which banks received $2 trillion in bailout money and why.  Bloomberg won the case and the Fed appealed.  Bloomberg, also, won the appeal in March 2010!  The precedent setting case would force the Fed to reveal the details of secret bank bailouts-including $500 billion given to foreign financial firms!!    In a Bloomberg story earlier this week, lawyers representing the Federal Reserve (which is made up in part by big U.S. banks) said, "U.S. commercial banks will take their fight against disclosure of Federal Reserve (documents) in 2008 to the Supreme Court if necessary . . ."  Lawyers representing the Fed say they are worried that if details of tril

We believe that this is a fiscally irresponsible position that would place America on the Road to Ruin. At the same time, we believe that the current debate over raising the debt limit provides a historic opportunity to focus public attention, and then public policy, on a path to a balanced budget and paying down our debt. We believe the Republican Study Committee's "Cut, Cap, Balance" plan for substantial spending cuts in FY 2012, a statutory spending cap, and the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution is the minimum necessary precondition to raising the debt limit. The ultimate goal is to get us back to a point where increases in the debt limit are no longer necessary. If you agree, take the Cut, Cap, Balance Pledge! There are versions for elected officials, federal candidates and ordinary citizens. THE PLEDGE :: I pledge to urge my Senators and Member of the House of Representatives to oppose any debt limit increase unless all three of the following conditions have been met: Cut - Substantial cuts in spending that will reduce the deficit next year and thereafter. Cap - Enforceable spending caps that will put federal spending on a path to a balanced budget. Balance - Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- but only if it includes both a spending limitation and a super-majority for raising taxes, in addition to balancing revenues and expenses.

Cut to the chase explanation of Austrian economics:  Banksters and their IMF collection arm want to roll over the sovereign debt of EU nations (PIIGS), subsidized by tax paying citizens.  The Banksters want the Sovereign debt of a few nations "nationalized" so that the loses are shared by the entire EU - and taken off the Bankster books. The Austrian economics handbook says that these Sovereign debters should go into default immediately, and declare bankruptcy.  The Banksters should take the hit for making the bad loans in the first place.  No bailouts. 75% of German tax payers support the Austrian plan!