Courage

            Yesterday, New Year's Eve, my wife and I went out to dinner with some friends, came home, and went to bed at 10 o'clock. We did not feel like celebrating the new year and we certainly did not feel like celebrating anything about 2012, except perhaps its passing.

            A year ago I looked upon the coming year with trepidation. I saw all kinds of problems on the horizon. Except for the possibility of an all-out war in the Middle East, it turned out I was mostly right. We didn't get an all-out war, but one could hardly describe the slaughter of tens of thousands of  Syrians as a peaceful solution to what ails the Middle East.
            Here at home we ended the year with multiple disasters: the triple scandals of Benghazi,  Super Storm Sandy, the massacre in Newtown, and, fitting neatly among them, the reelection of Barack Obama.
            Campaigning for his first term, Obama promised to fundamentally transform this nation. With both houses of Congress behind him, he quickly gave us Obamacare against the wishes of a majority of Americans, and a massive stimulus that added nearly a trillion dollars to the deficit without reducing unemployment. He followed that up with an unprecedented expansion of the federal government, a war against fossil fuels, and the explosive growth of the nanny state with the  addition of millions of people dependent on government largesse. The transformation was nearly complete. Four more years ought to do it.
            The President's agenda is quite clear: raise taxes, increase spending, punish the rich, destroy the Republican Party, and continue to expand the role and control of the federal government. If nothing happens to stop this inexorable movement toward a European-style Socialist state, we will soon be facing another recession, hyper-inflation, a continuing reduction in the workforce, and, above all, a crushing national debt that future generations cannot possibly repay.
            In my view, the only way to stop this madness lies with the House of Representatives. This inept body still has one powerful weapon at its disposal, if it ever gathers the courage to use it: the power of the purse. Forget the doubly absurd holiday comedies of the Fiscal Cliff and the Sequestration; the real stage on which the decisive battle of this war will be fought is the debt ceiling. If the House refuses to raise it, the federal government will have to reduce spending and balance the budget, something it hasn't done since the House and Clinton worked together to do it in the mid 90's. They even produced a surplus! Obama, Democrats, and their sycophants in the media will scream that it can't be done. Oh, but it can.
            All it takes is courage.

Hillary's Honor

            The Administration would love for the Benghazi triple scandal to go away. The White House did a good job of keeping the truth from the public before the elections, but congressional committees won't let the dog lie. Slowly but surely the truth is coming out as evidence of gross misconduct seeps to the surface.

            One by one, the people responsible for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi are falling like dominos. Only hours after the revelations in the Pickering report, four State Department employees tendered their resignations. But that's only Scandal No. 1, which was the failure to provide adequate security protection in Benghazi.
            Scandal No. 2 was the failure of the White House and the Department of Defense to come to the rescue of the Americans who were under fire. These cowards saw in real time what was happening in Benghazi and did nothing.
            Scandal No. 3 came in the form of brazen and calculated lies about how the murders occurred and who committed them. The first player ousted in this phase was Ambassador Rice who knowingly lied on five TV talk shows. Another was General Petraeus who didn't help his cause by committing adultery. There will be more as the investigations continue.
            All through these proceedings two individuals remain untouched, protected by the veil of secrecy and a skilful political cover-up: President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
            Obama may survive because there are lots of people willing to fall of their swords for him. But let's not forget that he was the one principally responsible for blaming the attacks on spontaneous reactions to an anti-Islamic video, something he knew from Day One wasn't true.
To this day he has not acknowledged his supreme role in the cover-up.
            It is now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's turn in the barrel. She was a prime player in all three scandals. At least she took full responsibility for the security fiasco. But what does full responsibility mean if there are no consequences? In any other civilized country the person who accepts such responsibility likely resigns as a matter of honor. That's what Hillary should have done. Perhaps she doesn't understand the meaning of honor.
            Now the congressional committees want her to testify. She doesn't. If she did, she would have to admit her culpability or lie under oath. Although the person William Safire once called a pathological liar is no stranger to prevarication, it would be better to avoid testifying. The committees, however, are not backing off. She will have to testify. The question is when. Not now, because if she testified now she would be doing it as the Secretary of State and might be forced to resign in disgrace. That wouldn't be good for the leading candidate for President in 2016. If she could put it off until a new Congress is sworn in, maybe the newly formed committees would be willing to forgive and forget.
            So let's fake an illness due to a fainting spell and a concussion. That should work.           

Sandy's Victims Finally Saved by Obama

            By now everyone has seen videos of angry people on Staten Island, Long Island, and the Jersey Shore screaming at the cameras and pleading for help that wasn't coming. These were the victims of Sandy who saw their homes washed away, people who had nowhere to live, people who were surviving literally with the clothes on their backs. They needed help desperately.

            We can also recall the picture of President Obama with his arm around Governor Christie's shoulder. He was taking the lead on disaster relief by directing FEMA to provide whatever these people needed. We all love a president who takes charge, don't we? Except that this president's promises were empty and disingenuous. He was promising what he knew he couldn't deliver because FEMA was broke. Very little help came.
            The governors of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut have estimated it would take $82 billion to repair the damage caused by Sandy. So once more President Obama took the lead and sent a $60 billion bill to Congress.  Let's not ask why the bill was for only three quarters of the amount asked for. And let' s not quibble about timing: it's only been seven weeks since Sandy struck. Remember Katrina? It took only days to come up with $60 billion for that storm's victims.
            But something must have happened to the bill on the way to the Hill, because by the time it got there it contained only $12 billion for Sandy's victims. The rest was a bag of goodies. You might call it fulfillment of the President's campaign wish list. Or another stimulus bill in disguise.
            Let's see.  How about another $9.7 billion for the National Flood Insurance Program, or $3.2 billion for erosion control, or $17 billion for the Community Development Fund, or $15 billion for HUD block grants. Poor people need a place to live, after all. And let's not forget the hungry: how about we give $3 billion to food banks.
            Wait. Federal buildings in Washington need fixing up. We need only $3 billion for that. And let's plant some trees ($24 million), get some new cars ($9), and Amtrak could use another $32 million. And let's put aside $150 million for fishery disasters in faraway places like Samoa.
            Oh, yes. Almost forgot. Let's give the Secretary of Health and Human Services $200 million for her to use at her discretion.
            What about the $12 billion for Sandy's victims? Well, the CBO estimates that about two-thirds of that money might not get spent until fiscal year 2015. What? Don't those poor people need the money now?
            Meanwhile, President Obama is looking for hundreds of billions more from his favorite piñatas, the rich. The money has to come from somewhere. Cut spending? Now wait just a minute. You don't really mean that.

Risky Behavior: Who Pays

            Is risky behavior to be rewarded with the assurance that its financial consequences will be borne by society?

            A motorcyclist named Jason riding without a helmet crashes and fractures his skull. His injuries require a series of operations by the finest brain surgeon in the land at a cost of half a million dollars. He doesn't have medical insurance. Who pays?
            Louisa becomes morbidly obese by the age of 25, develops diabetes which requires the amputation of both legs, and dies of kidney failure at age 35 after many months on dialysis. Her medical care tops $400,000. She comes from a needy family and has been on Medicaid since she was a child. Who pays?
            Tommy takes up smoking at age thirteen, hard drugs at eighteen. He goes into male prostitution to support his habit and becomes HIV positive. He passes it on to a dozen partners. He ends up with AIDS and requires lengthy hospitalization until he dies of cancer. He has no insurance. Who pays? And who pays for all the others he infected?
            There are millions of stories like these. People like Jason, Louisa, and Tommy populate our emergency rooms, critical care units, and operating rooms in every hospital in the country. Hospitals don't question the risky behavior of their patients; it's not their job to preach sermons on individual responsibility. And they will get paid either through Medicaid, Medicare, or private insurance. No-pays and shortfalls will be passed on in the form of higher treatment costs. No matter how, society ends up footing the bill. And let's not even get started on higher malpractice insurance and unnecessary procedures to ward off tort lawyers who make a living trolling for victims.
            The point is that it all starts with individuals who do not take responsibility for the consequences of their own choices. And it's a system that is perpetuated by the belief that there will always be someone else to pick up the tab.
            Is it any wonder that we are becoming a nation of takers?

           

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.