Twinkees and Such

            It's all about spending. SPENDING.

            Why can't the administration and its media cohorts get this? The problem with our crippling national debt is not insufficient revenue. It's that we are spending too much. For every dollar the federal government takes in, it spends $23. This is insane. No family managing a budget would ever do such a thing. So what should we do about it?
            Everybody except irresponsible legislators like Senator Dick Durbin agrees that entitlements must be reduced. But how?
            First, we have to come to an understanding that cradle-to-grave security is not what our Founders had in mind when they drafted our Constitution and defined the role of the federal government. This idea started with Woodrow Wilson, blossomed under FDR, and found full fruition with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Since then, we have just been piling on the benefits. Forget the Founding Fathers.
            OK. A rich nation like ours should take care of its less fortunate. But a safety net is meant to catch the falling. It's not meant to prevent falling. A welfare family collecting $60,000 a year in benefits is not about to hit bottom; a 300-pound woman who uses Food Stamps to fill her shopping basket with Twinkees, potato chips and Mountain Dew is not likely to be on the verge of starvation; the retired Long Island railroad worker who cashes his disability check on the way to the bowling alley is probably not experiencing debilitating pain; and a man who voted for Obama because "He will take care of me" is surely not a go-getter who values self-reliance over dependency.
            Legislators created this mess of fraud and abuse, and it's up to legislators to clean it up. But so far the only consistent message coming from the Left is to tax the rich. Heaven forbid Senator Durbin should ever offend the slaves on his Illinois plantation. Even proposals like Paul Ryan's fall far short of what it will take to stop the madness.
            The only weapon Conservatives have is in the House of Representatives...if our lawmakers  would only be willing to use it. It is the power of the purse. Why does President Obama want the authority to raise the debt ceiling without going through Congress? Because he knows that Congress can stop his spending by refusing to raise that limit. Senator Lindsay Graham has already said that he will not vote to increase the debt limit unless the President puts forth a serious and comprehensive plan to reduce entitlements. I hope his colleagues in the House get the message and take the pledge.
            Republicans have nothing to lose. They are already being blamed for everything, so why not use the only weapon in their arsenal that has a shot at forcing real reform, even if it means bringing the federal government to a standstill. They lost the election. They're wounded and bleeding. But they are not dead.

Morsi and Obama

            President Obama must be rubbing his hands in glee watching Republicans fight among themselves over Speaker Boehner's proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff. The sore point is Boehner's offer to raise $800 billion in taxes over the next ten years. It's only half of what Obama wants, but far more than most conservatives are willing to give.

            What sticks in conservatives' craw is that Boehner's offer was in response to the President's plan delivered through Treasury Secretary Geithner. This plan was an absolute insult to Republicans. In fact, it mirrored the budget the President submitted to Congress earlier this year and was voted down unanimously by the Democratically controlled Senate. What gall!
            Now that he has won re-election, President Obama thinks he has a mandate to do whatever the hell he wants. He even demands that he be given the authority to bypass Congress in raising the debt ceiling. He is clearly announcing his intention to spend as much money as he wants, taxpayers be damned.
            Meanwhile, Obama's plans to cut spending are laughable. He refuses to offer any concrete proposals to reduce entitlements, which is a must if we are ever to get our debt crisis under control.
            I'm struck by the parallels between Egypt's President Morsi and President Obama. Both were elected democratically; both see their election as a clear path to absolute power. Morsi announced that he is no longer subject to the Egyptian Judiciary; Obama is bypassing Congress with executive orders that are constitutionally questionable and now wants a free spending hand.
            Morsi was chased out of town by a mob of 100,000 people who voted for democracy, not tyranny; Obama has no idea what Americans are capable of when they find themselves plunged over a fiscal cliff and into Taxmageddon and a deep recession. You think the Tea Party was aroused? Even the dunces who voted for him will wake up when they realize what this president's Socialist policies are doing to the future of their children and grandchildren.

Social Mobility

Some years ago, on a business trip to Mexico City, I was hosted by one of Mexico's most prominent publishers. I have fond memories of a meal we shared with his family at a restaurant that would put the proliferating Mexican eateries in our area to shame. What I remember most, though, is the conversation we had on societal mobility.

In brief, my host marveled at the upward mobility of the American worker. How is it possible, he wanted to know, for Americans to change jobs so often or to move up the ladder to management and executive positions? By contrast, he explained that in his country such mobility is practically impossible. His sons, for instance, were sure to follow him in the publishing business; there was absolutely no question about their future careers. The same applied at all levels of business and industry, as career changes and promotion from within were extremely rare. Because there is little opportunity for advancement, the poor remain poor, the middle class remains small and stagnant, and the wealthy maintain a privileged and closed society.

There are parallels in social stagnation all over the world, not just in Mexico. The shining exception is the United States, the land of opportunity. No other country (except Canada to some degree) enjoys the freedom for an individual to develop, to create, to innovate, to succeed. Most of the workers in low-paying jobs today will advance to better-paying jobs tomorrow. If they don't, it's not because of the lack of opportunity. Unfortunately, this seems to be changing.

The shocking increase in families on Welfare, Disability, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Unemployment is more than just the result of a poor economy. To me, we're seeing the permanent effects of a nanny state that is creating a new form of slavery, the slavery of government dependency. As I described in a previous letter, there is a growing class of people in this country who are content to let the government take care of them rather than seeking to advance through their own personal initiative. They have abandoned ambition in favor of dependency. If this isn't a new form of slavery, then what is it?

I submit that we are indeed seeing a fundamental change in America, one sought and championed by the likes of Barack Obama. It is the abandonment of a purer liberalism that empathized with the poor, decried oppression and injustice, and championed equality, in favor of a corrupt liberalism whose fraudulent compassion  values the poor only for their votes.

           

A Royal Funk

            It is the day after the rout, and I have been in an all-day funk. I simply cannot believe that my fellow Americans re-elected the worst president of my lifetime.

            Obamacare, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, sustained unemployment, massive deficits, falling wages, depressed housing, high taxes, failed energy policy, failed economic policiy, failed Middle East policy, failure everywhere. What does it take to recognize incompetence? Yet, there they were: the adoring crowds, tears of joy steaming down their faces.
            White males, married women, seniors, Evangelicals, plus most of the people in the country's red-colored geography voted Republican. But they were no match for the massive one-sided turnout in the blue states of the Northeast, the Rust Belt, and the West Coast. We have seen it before: there are two Americas. Except for a handful of battleground states, both red and blue states went to huge majorities.
            How do we explain a solid Republican majority in the House and a preponderance of Republicans in governors' mansions, facing an impregnable Democratic majority in the Senate and a plurality of blue voters for the presidency? Is the nation doomed  by unbreachable divisions?
            Will it ever change? What are chances the two extremes will come together to solve the huge problems we face? On the one hand we have a president who has divided the country by demonizing the rich to justify his redistributive policies and create a permanent dependent class of reliable voters. On the other hand, we have a Republican Establishment that cannot shake the image that it spurns the pleas of immigrants, unmarried women, and the poor, while  favoring millionaires and fat cats on Wall Street. This is not a formula for comity.
            The last four years have not been good. But they will look great compared to what is coming. We are faced with Taxmageddon, Sequestration, rising taxes, increased spending, more business-killing regulations, a $20 trillion debt, and an unrelenting march to a European-style socialism. Yet, the media, with few exceptions, will continue to mute its criticism. It will not find fault with the Senate nor the White House. Instead, with Bush fading in the distance, it will blame the intransigence of the House and the greed of special interests as we sink into a longer and deeper recession.
            Until yesterday I was an optimist. Today?

A Tale of Two Scandals

            We are witnessing two enormous scandals that should be having a direct bearing on the outcome of this election but are not.

            The first scandal is the Benghazi cover-up. The facts are in. Our Libyan ambassador was denied the adequate protection that he asked for repeatedly before the anniversary of 9/11. Then, when the attack on our consulate came and our personnel on the ground pleaded for help, it was denied three times. Consequently, our ambassador and three other brave Americans died.
            The decision to deny additional security forces before 9/11 was made by the State Department.  Secretary Clinton has accepted responsibility. But the denial of assistance during the attack had to have been made by the President. He and his security advisors knew in real time what was happening on the ground; they also had the military forces ready to intervene. But the President said no. Yet, when asked directly whether he had made that call, he refused to answer.
            As Senator McCain has said, this was either a case of incompetence or a cover-up for political purposes. I think it was both. Worse, it was a gross dereliction of duty by the President of the United States whose first obligation is the protection of American citizens. Muslim terrorists murdered four Americans in Benghazi, but blood in on the hands of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, and our military and intelligence people as well. This is a scandal of unparalleled dimensions.
            The second scandal is the refusal of mainstream media to cover this story. Fox News sits virtually alone in doggedly pursuing the facts and exposing the culpability of the White House. Unsurprisingly, all attempts by Fox News to interview  key players in this affair have been denied. As an example close to home, The Virginian-Pilot, southeastern Virginia's major newspaper, has not printed a single word on this scandal since Fox News broke the story. Nothing. Not one word.
            There is no denying that major newspaper and television outlets are in the tank for Barack Obama. This is not surprising, since some 85% of their so-called journalists admit to favoring liberal candidates. But is there no limit to liberal bias? What ever happened to journalism's integrity, its fairness, its search for the truth? When media's principles are corrupted for political gain, whom can we turn to for honest reporting?
            Who is more culpable? The one with blood on his hands? Or the one who witnesses the crime and says nothing?

Lies and Deceit

            Hypocrisy, duplicity, deceit, fraud, spin, lies. I cannot pick out a single word that fully describes the Obama administration's behavior over the Benghazi incident. I would only add the word chutzpah after listening to President Obama take offense at any suggestion that his administration was playing politics.

            Here's how I see it. The President was so busy campaigning that he never took an interest in the signs of a surging Al-Qaida in Libya. He may have been told of security issues at the embassy and the consulate, but he wasn't listening. When his neglect blew up in his face on 9/11, his first instinct was to insulate himself from political fallout. Let the cover-up begin.
            It is now clear that the President, by his own admission in the second debate, knew that  the killings in Benghazi were the result of a planned  terrorist attack. Yet, he permitted, and may personally have directed, Ambassador Rice and Jay Carney to lie about it. For weeks he himself failed to acknowledge the truth by suggesting on The View and David Letterman as well as to the United Nations that anger over a video was the cause of spontaneous uprisings all over the world as well as the murders in Benghazi. This was deceit on an international scale.
            Why would the President promote such falsehoods? Let's look at the circumstances. The President for months had been bragging that Osama was dead and Al-Qaida  was on the run. Spiking the football so often on bin-Laden is much more likely to have enraged Muslims than a video that nobody had seen or known about until our embassy in Cairo apologized for it. Blaming the video was a deceitful ploy to distract us from the fact that Al-Qaida was resurgent all over the world and especially in Libya. This truth, if admitted by Obama, would have been damaging to his re-election. Hence, the full-blown campaign of spin and lies by Obama's team.
            Blame the intelligence community for incomplete reporting; blame the State Department for refusing to increase security; blame Romney for politicizing the issue; blame the video; blame freedom of speech. But note that in the second debate the President did not identify the terrorists as Muslim extremists. And note that he no longer mentions in his stump speeches that Al-Qaida is on the run. Why? Because he would have to admit that his policies on the Middle East have been an abject failure. He would have to admit that Al-Qaida is stronger than ever, that his Arab Spring has been a capitulation to the Muslim Brotherhood, that any hopes for democracy in the area are fading in the face of an inexorably ascendant Sharia rule.
            In short, our president, a man who has publicly professed his Islamic faith, cannot bring himself to believe that real power in the Muslim world is gradually being ceded to extremists who want to kill us. Thus, he cannot take responsibility for what happened in Benghazi. And he lacks the moral fiber to tell the truth to an enlightened electorate ready to pull the voting booth lever on his failed presidency.

Shamful

            Benghazi has dominated the news over the last few weeks and is likely to continue to grab headlines until the elections. It is clear that the administration has not been honest with the American people and is hoping that the whole story will not get out before voters go to the polls.

            While Obama's campaign was quick to accuse Romney of politicizing the issue, it has been shameless in spinning, obfuscating, and flat-out lying to protect the President. But it is the president himself who has been the worst offender.
            On the day after the 9/11 attack on our consulate in Benghazi, an attack that took the lives of four Americans, including our Ambassador,  top members of the intelligence community came together at the White House to present a brief on the previous day's tragedy. President Obama did not even bother to attend. Instead, he boarded Air Force One to fly to Las Vegas for a fund-raiser.
            This, to me, is the most egregious dereliction of duty by a president in my lifetime. It is the first duty of a president to protect the country and its citizens. Obama has piously asserted that United States ambassadors are his people: as he has said, he appoints them, he knows them, he knows their families. Yet, Ambassador Stevens's body wasn't even cold when Obama disdained to question his intelligence experts about what happened. His priority was to win the election, and nothing could get in the way of a fund-raiser.
            President Obama has spent the last six months flying all over the country to make campaign speeches and collect money for his election coffers. He has made over 200 of these trips, more than any other president in history. All the while, he has missed almost all of his intelligence briefings and been mostly absent from the White House. How can he claim to have been working for the American people when his all-consuming priority has clearly been his re-election?
            Some things can be forgiven. President Obama's shameful choice on 9/12 is not one of them.