Free Republic

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s efforts to sell liberty to a mostly minority audience at Howard University collided with the enticements of the entitlement mentality. His vision of “getting the government off your back” failed to resonate with students who expect the government to provide for them. “You say you’re working to get the government to leave us alone,” said one student during the question and answer phase of Paul’s talk. “I don’t want to be left alone. I want the government to take care of me. In your ideal world I’d be on my own. I’d have to work for...

The tributes to Margaret Thatcher in this country upon her passing were nice. But what America really needs is its own Margaret Thatcher. In Republican circles there’s great nostalgia for Ronald Reagan. Thatcher is seen as sort of Reagan’s sidekick, an ally in promoting democratic capitalism and taking a firm stance against Soviet expansionism. Not to diminish Reagan, who transformed American politics in ways that reverberate today, Thatcher actually had the tougher task. Reagan had to restore the health of the American economy, which was plagued by high inflation and sluggish growth. But he had some fiscal headroom within which...

President Barack Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to compromise with Republicans and revive prospects for a long-term deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say. In a significant shift in fiscal strategy, Obama on Wednesday will send a budget plan to Capitol Hill that departs from the usual presidential wish list that Republicans typically declare dead on arrival. Instead it will embody the final compromise offer that he made to Speaker John Boehner late last year, before Boehner abandoned negotiations...

Were California's state government a business, it would be a candidate for insolvency with a negative net worth of $127.2 billion, according to an annual financial report issued by State Auditor Elaine Howle and the Bureau of State Audits. The report, which covers the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, says that the state's negative status -- all of its assets minus all of its liabilities -- increased that year, largely because it spent more than it received in revenue. During the 2011-12 fiscal year, the state's general fund spent $1.7 billion more than it received in revenues and wound...

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-friends/index.html#http://video.foxnews.com/v/2268918971001/immigration-reform-is-guest-worker-program-a-good-idea/?playlist_id=86912

<p>The proposition that entitlement curbs are the key to maintaining national solvency is widely accepted, though not by many congressional Democrats. President Obama, however, has endorsed it on various occasions. And he could make it happen.</p> <p>If he wants. I remain skeptical that he does. But national solvency is important enough to test this proposition at least once more. The obstacle is Obama’s current position that entitlement cuts must be “balanced” with new revenue from closing loopholes.</p>

<p>WOONSOCKET, R.I. – The economy of Woonsocket was about to stir to life. Delivery trucks were moving down river roads, and stores were extending their hours. The bus company was warning riders to anticipate “heavy traffic.” A community bank, soon to experience a surge in deposits, was rolling a message across its electronic marquee on the night of Feb. 28: “Happy shopping! Enjoy the 1st.”</p>

How out of control is government spending? I have three children who pay taxes, so the 5 of us each owe $1.087 million for the insane entitlements promised by the Federal government. And then there is the debt on top of that: another $147,500 per taxpayer. Of course, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Harry Reid (D-NV) and President Obama (D-IL) refuse to cut back on anything, except defense. Let’s start with government spending. As a percentage of GDP, government expenditures have been rising starting for decades, but started to slow after the Republicans reclaimed The House in 2011....

The Great Society Is Dead Politics / US PoliticsMarch 15, 2013 - 02:07 PM GMT By: Michael T Bucci The complicity by both US political parties in a collaborative zeal to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is now "on the table" for all to view after each group unveiled their budget plans during the week of March 11. As a senior citizen, once an executive making three figures per hour and now living below the poverty line, constricted by multiple sclerosis in a US state run by a Tea Party Express Governor, Mr. "X" says he feels like someone...

I Was a Danged Fool! For twenty-two or so years before my retirement I had chronic back pain -- sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. When the pain was enough to take my breath away, I’d swallow a few ibuprofens, acetaminophens, or whatever over-the-counter pain relief I had on hand and carefully hobble off to work. Once or twice I self-prescribed bed rest for a day. But generally, if I could make it to the breakfast table, I could make it to work, figuring that the pain would subside as the day wore on. It NEVER ONCE occurred to me...

Liberal Democrats challenged President Obama on Tuesday over his willingness to cut Social Security benefits. At a meeting that lasted just less than 90 minutes, Obama was peppered by questions from Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), among others, who challenged Obama on adopting “chained CPI” — a less generous formula for adjusting benefits under Social Security and other programs for inflation. Obama has said he is open to chained CPI as part of a “grand bargain” that would include spending cuts as well as new revenue. And he didn’t back down from that support during a closed-door...

The debate over reform of Social Security and Medicare is taking place in a vacuum, without adequate consideration of fundamental facts. These facts include the following: Two-thirds of Americans who are over the age of 65 depend on an average annual Social Security benefit of $15,168.36 for at least half of their income. (snip) So why don’t we talk about raising or eliminating the cap – a measure that has strong popular, though not elite, support? When asked by the National Academy of Social Insurance whether Social Security taxes for better-off Americans should be increased, 71 percent of Republicans and...

President Barack Obama, unable to persuade Republicans to accept higher taxes, is attempting to cobble together what he calls a "common-sense caucus" among lawmakers to help resolve U.S. budget woes and push his legislative agenda. On Monday and in recent days, Obama has made individual phone calls to a number of senators in a search for common ground on $85 billion in budget cuts that went into effect last week, as well as his top priorities like deficit reduction, gun control and an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. Gene Sperling, the White House senior economic official, said on the...

During the month of February—as President Barack Obama was warning Americans they would see dramatic effects in their lives if “sequestration” of some planned federal spending kicked in—the federal government’s debt climbed by $253.5 billion. That one-month increase in the debt was nearly six times as much as the $44 billion in spending cuts the Congressional Budget Office estimates will take place in all of fiscal 2013 as a result of sequestration. …

“Sequester.” It’s a word that used to come up rarely. And it nearly always referred to a jury being locked away to deliberate a verdict. Now it’s all over the news, a stand-in for the automatic spending cuts that hit the federal budget on March 1. And the only jury is an American public that has grown all too accustomed to seeing politicians dodge the tough choices necessary to finally bring spending under control. “There will be no easy off ramps on this one,” said one senior statesman as he defended sequestration in November 2011. “We need to keep the...

Many argue the coalition that elected and re-elected Barack Obama represents a long-term shift in the electorate that will determine elections and public policies for generations. Some of commentators think conservatives have lost their relevance, and the Republicans are about to go the way of the Whigs. It's an interesting theory, but of course it's wrong. Politics, like much in life, tends to move like a pendulum, shifting back and forth around equilibrium. While the liberal Democratic coalition is ascendant now, a few decades ago people were speaking about the decline of the Democrats. More recently, leftists took to calling...

America’s food stamp epidemic is well-documented. At the government level, the focus is obviously on creating programs that help feed humans — but what about pets? What happens to those animals with owners who simply can’t afford to pay for expensive cuisine? Alas, there’s a solution. A new program called Pet Food Stamps has launched, an initiative aimed at using private donations to help those who cannot afford nutrients for their furry friends. The organization assists low-income Americans who are already struggling and potentially relying upon government assistance to put food on their tables. Naturally, many would argue that those...

Sequestration is the series of blunt, across the board cuts that go into effect March 1 and will shrink the size of the federal government over the next ten years. Several states will lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, the price of groceries could jump following USDA inspector furloughs, and the Congressional Budget Office reported that the austerity measures could initiate a recession. What's more, sequestration accomplishes a pathetic amount over ten years, all things considered. It was designed to cut spending on things that constitute core government functions — money for infrastructure, schools and national defense. Social Security, Medicaid...

Why do once-successful societies ossify and decline? Hundreds of reasons have been adduced for the fall of Rome and the end of the Old Regime in 18th-century France. Reasons run from inflation and excessive spending to resource depletion and enemy invasion, as historians attempt to understand the sudden collapse of the Mycenaeans, the Aztecs and, apparently, the modern Greeks. In literature from Catullus to Edward Gibbon, wealth and leisure -- and who gets the most of both -- more often than poverty and exhaustion implode civilization. One recurring theme seems consistent in Athenian literature on the eve of the city's...

After a year that can only be described as “stupid,” the Chevy Volt is gearing up to make 2013 even stupider still. I know, I know. You find it hard to believe that a mostly-owned subsidiary of the United States government and the Obama administration- like GM is- could get any stupider than say Fannie Mae, or Federal Reserve Bank. Yes, that’s tough competition, but in the “idiocy” category GM seems to be the ruling champion.   Not only have they lost substantial amounts of taxpayer dollars, they have managed to do it while generating record profits even though they still...