Thanks for the ping, Kaslin. :-)
Posted on 04/11/2011 4:17:53 PM PDT by Kaslin
Since everybody else seems to be coming up with plans on how to cope with the skyrocketing national debt, let me try my hand at it too.
The liberals' easy solution is just to increase taxes on "the rich." But, if you do the math, there aren't enough of "the rich" to cover the huge and record-breaking deficit.
Trying to reduce the deficit by cutting spending runs into an old familiar counterattack. There will be all kinds of claims by politicians and sad stories in the media about how these cuts will cause the poor to go hungry, the sick to be left to die, etc.
My plan would start by cutting off all government transfer payments to billionaires. Many, if not most, people are probably unaware that the government is handing out the taxpayers' money to billionaires. But agricultural subsidies go to a number of billionaires. Very little goes to the ordinary farmer.
Big corporations also get big bucks from the government, not only in agricultural subsidies but also in the name of "green" policies, in the name of "alternative energy" policies, and in the name of whatever else will rationalize shoveling the taxpayers' money out the door to whomever the administration designates, for its own political reasons.
The usual political counterattacks against spending cuts will not work against this new kind of spending-cut approach.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Ping
Thanks for the ping, Kaslin. :-)
My pleasure :)
The Dr hit a Home Run by the end of the 3rd sentence.
He’s bound to be in the Hall of Fame!
I have a great deal of respect for brilliant and incisive Dr. Sowell but it was Admiral Nimitz who was the architect of the island hopping campaign.
MacArthur, also know as “Dugout Doug”, was more interested in a southern route to make up for his complete hash of the Philippine’s during the “surprise” attack by the Japanese that was predicted by Billy Mitchell a decade previously.
I am sure that 10’s of thousands of young American lives would have been spared, including my uncles, if FDR had listened to Nimitiz exclusively instead of trying to follow both the army and the navy plans.
Perhaps FDR was more interested in expanding the USA’s imperial reach than ending the war with Japan months earlier.
The island hopping plan predated WWII by about 30 years.
The question is: what’s the difference between “rich” and “wealthy”? According to the Democrats anyone earning over $75,000 per year is rich. That means a fireman making $45,000 a year married to a teacher making $40,000 qualifies them as being “rich”.
I understand that in some jurisdictions a fireman or peace officer can be getting $75,000.00 by themselves, no wife’s earning needed.
I understand that in some jurisdictions a fireman or peace officer can be getting $75,000.00 by themselves, no wife’s earning needed.
My theory is a bit different. I think FDR didn't know what the smack he was doing with foreign policy (Typical for a Dem), so he split the difference between his two key advisers.
Well this was a couple of years ago on Rush.
Starting pay for a firefighter in Carrollton, Texas: $50,216. Minimum age: 18. Education requirement: 45 hrs college & 2.0 GPA.
It shouldn't be hard to work up to $75k from that starting point.
“I think FDR didn’t know what the smack he was doing with foreign policy (Typical for a Dem), so he split the difference between his two key advisers.”
As scary as that seems I believe your analysis is correct. It was good that FDR was a Billy Mitchell advocate or we would have ended up with a 35,000,000 man army and a bunch of battleships and probably still be fighting WW11.
thanks jaz...its too bad our ‘reps’ wont take a bit of advice from the good Dr, but will instead play cya and continue to allow the 50 yr old commie talkin points to control the agenda...
Good article by Thomas Sowell. Thanks for posting. Cut, continually cut and constantly cut. Then, cut any one of the 536 collectivists that aren’t cutting continually and constantly.
“MacArthur, also know as “Dugout Doug”, was more interested in a southern route to make up for his complete hash of the Philippine’s during the “surprise” attack by the Japanese that was predicted by Billy Mitchell a decade previously.”
A man as great as McArthur makes enemies, often among the truthless and mediocre. Harold LeClair Ickes was largely responsible for launching most of those canards.
People who actually knew, who had seen McArthur in combat, knew that his reputation for limitless personal courage was well deserved.
Your other accusations are equally groundless.
Thanks for the ping jaz. Sound advice from Dr. Sowell. Hope those on our side of the aisle are reading IBD today.
well, my father was there and he disagreed.
You are absolutely correct. MacArthur would have never landed on Peleliu, I believe.
MacArthur was seen as “difficult” by many, arrogant, conceited, etc., but on his good days MacArthur was every bit as wise and brilliant as he saw himself to be.
Look at the Inchon Landing. For some reason (a recent book makes good evidence that Stalin was doing power games with Mao) the North Korean Army was not defending Inchon, Seoul’s port, adequately. MacArthur made a practice of studying reconnaissance reports in exhaustive detail (and remembering every, I mean EVERY, detail) and saw the North Korean vulnerability from agent and Special Forces reports, aerial photographs, truck traffic on the roads, radio intercepts, etc. and was able to persuade the top American brass that, for whatever reason, the North Koreans were unprepared for an amphibious landing at Inchon. The top American Brass, highly experienced, proven men, were intensely skeptical (as was correct, of course - you want to lose the First Marine Division?) but what observers say was MacArthur’s most brilliant performance convinced them he was correct.
Inchon came off as MacArthur envisioned. This later forced the Chinese into the war (which was Stalin’s goal) but this is a later part of the story.
I have read much on the Pacific War and Korea in the early days, before Truman relieved MacArthur for trying to win the war, and am convinced that what I say is true. Simply put, MacArthur was brilliant. He was too willing to risk his own skin, maybe. Personal and moral courage personified.
Eisenhower did not like MacArthur, to put it mildly.
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