Showing posts with label 19 trillion debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 19 trillion debt. Show all posts

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Ryan's hot air smoke screen

“Others merely talk about limiting government, cutting taxes and reforming entitlements, but Mr. Ryan spends most of his waking hours trying to accomplish all three; to him it’s the goal and not the process that’s all-important.” - The Washington Times' David Keene

If that's the goal, let's review the facts. Paul Ryan has been U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district since 1999. Therefore, his 17 year tenure encompasses the tail end of Bill Clinton's presidency, and all of George W. Bush's and Barack Obama's. Using the basic measurements of government size by spending and personnel—both of which indicate expansion—when has this “leader” ever honored his limited government pledge? Now as House Speaker—the highest-ranking Republican—has this policy-driven wonk finally curtailed government? How about a desperately needed tax cut for the economically squeezed middle class? More to the point, as Congress controls the purse strings, has Mr. Ryan held the line against further deficit spending?

What did Mr. Ryan do in the big chair? Using lofty rhetoric, his “clean slate” speech made nice with Democrats—and he rubber stamped two trillion more to the nation's Chinese credit card.

Recall the debt has almost doubled from GWB's accumulated 10.6 to Mr. Obama's added 9 trillion—and counting. In this, Mr. Ryan's former facial hair was apropos as he's definitely hiding something. What's that? He's the Democrats' beard. Where it matters—one's actions—he's not fundamentally different from big government progressives.

History demonstrates a cowed, do-nothing Republican establishment whose value of conservative principles is hot air. That's not my assessment, that's Dave Brat's (R-VA). He writes: “Conservatives are supposed to stand for fiscal discipline, balanced budgets and reducing government waste. Yet House leadership is currently whipping votes for a bad budget deal that was negotiated behind closed doors by party leaders and that blows through the budget caps.” He works there, so he should know. Better than me and certainly better than Mr. Keene.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

W-a-l-m-a-r-t does not spell welfare

Apparently the liberal MSM and politicians confuse the name Walmart with the concept of welfare. The first is a publicly-traded retailer with stockholders that expect the company to remain profitable. The second is a government-sponsored entitlement program for the needy. The two are examples of entirely different economic animals: the first provides purpose, the semblance of independence and potential upward mobility, the second guarantees Socialistic stagnation and the status quo.

In 2013, the D.C. minimum hourly wage was $8.25. At the time, the city council tried to shakedown the world's largest company (in 2014, by revenue as well as the biggest private employer) with the "Large Retailer Accountability Act." The bill targeted only non-union retailers with stores in the district larger than 75,000 feet and with corporate sales of $1 billion plus. When Walmart balked and almost bolted, the bill was rejected by then-Mayor Vincent Gray. It would have required them (and a limited number of other companies unique for their size such as Target, Home Depot and Macy's) to pay employees a 50 percent premium over the city’s minimum wage or $12.50.

Although mandated wage hikes sound good in theory, in the real world of economics that politicians wholly disregard, they are job-killers. These district-running Democrats grouse about low-wage jobs and a “living wage” in order to perpetually keep their voter bases stirred up ensuring their own re-elections. This is their draconian justification to use the heavy hands of government to throw destructive monkey wrenches (these arbitrary, Orwellian regulations) that, in practice, promote more unemployment under the guise of promising its opposite. In this, they completely ignore the history that such positions were designed as “starter” jobs: to give the young their first employment experiences. They were never intended to be the stuff of careers—or the economic basis upon which to raise a family.

Independent of the above situation, Walmart did initiate paying its hourly employees more, a $9.00 per hour wage in April of 2015.  (Reported Wednesday: a scheduled, second round of pay increases to $10.00 will begin next month.)  Perhaps a questionable business decision given the fact that employee wage increases have directly led to diminished profits; by October the stock had dropped 10%. This logically has caused an economic contraction, compelling Walmart to downsize worldwide including 154 stores in the U.S.among them two in D.C. This actuality has current D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser “blood mad” because of the five stores promised—on a handshake—only three were built apparently in the better areas of town. The two slated for poorer regions have been abandoned.

Politician Bowser can stew and take it personally, but it is only business. Unlike government which never has a bottom line—and seems not to care one whit for economic consequences (read: 19 trillion in U.S. deficit spending and counting)—such is not the case for any business or any rational person managing a household budget. Yet, liberals' knee-jerk reaction is always the same: the politics of victimization. In this case, demonize the “evil” capitalist entity, publicly proclaim it a “racist” enterprise which “scammed” D.C.'s poor out of an economic oasis in a dilapidated urban sprawl. A circumstance the MSM neglects to mention, caused by Democrats' anti-capitalist policies and gross mismanagement of many of America's prominent cities.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
http://www.americanthinker.com/author/david_l_hunter/
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Monday, June 8, 2015

Feeding at Democrat’s poverty plantation

Controlling a citizen’s belly is an insidious mechanism by which to subtly coerce—and consistently predict—that person’s vote.  That’s why Democrats use it (and why Mitt Romney failed in his 2012 White House bid despite correctly enumerating the objective facts related to Mr. Obama’s multitude of well-known domestic and international failures).  For the 6 plus years of the Obama presidency, his job-killing, anti-Capitalist—tax, spend, redistribute; repeat—fiscal policies have keep key voting demographics—people of color, the poor, the young and the generally alienated (the Occupy movement)—on the Democrat’s economic plantation.  Specifically, under Obama, 93 million willing and able Americans cannot find full time work.  Similarly, 18.2 million more people are currently on food stamps since January 2008.  Moreover, per 2013 official poverty statistics, 45.3 million people are consistently living at or below the poverty line or 14.5 percent (compared to 36.5 million people or 19 percent in 1964 which began Democrat President Johnson’s Great Society and costly—and largely failed—welfare programs and “War on Poverty.”)  That’s 1 trillion (1,000 billion and counting) spent resulting in 46.2 million in poverty per 2011 figures: as a percentage of the populations, 18.8 and 14.7 respectively, the rate of overall improvement of 4.1 percent isn’t exactly huge progress given the enormous expenditure.

Despite all factual evidence to the contrary, Obama’s big government, progressive economic policies have repeatedly double-downed on historical failures most tellingly with his own failed 840 billion stimulus: money funneled to pro-Democrat unions that, for example, took over GM; bankrupt companies like Solyndra run by political cronies or wasted on seemingly imaginary, “non-shovel-ready” jobs.  Examples all of Democrat’s Orwellian policies that articulate a noble intention, but achieve its “real world” opposite.  At these all too frequent moments, Democrats shrug their shoulders, make a clever quip (“Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive”) and quickly change the subject from continuing deficit spending and an ever-mounting 19 trillion dollar debt.

50 years on, Johnson’s ironically named Great Society policies (like Obama’s  Affordable Care Act—which is anything but—and has pulled the financial guts out of America’s healthcare system) have destroyed the basis of the nation—the family unit—especially in minority communities. This package of initially well-intentioned government programs designed as a temporary stop-gap measure has instead subsidized and raised whole generations of illegitimate children in broken or single-parent homes with little or no male influence.  In point of fact, a father in the home virtually disqualifies a woman from collecting her government assistance.  In this way, a federal program designed to “help” actually poisons society’s lifeblood—the heterosexual, two parent household—by encouraging men to abandon their children.  Since the onset of these Democratic policies in the mid-1960s, illegitimacy nationwide stood at 7.7 percent; for Afro-Americans 25%.  Today, for comparison, out-of-wedlock births for blacks are over 72 percent; Hispanics over 50 percent and whites (from 3 percent in 1960) to 36 percent at present.  From such unstructured homes comes a similarly chaotic culture.

In the same vein—for better or worse—there is no longer a social stigma related to teenage pregnancy or illegitimate births.  More importantly, there are no dire economic consequences for the unwise decision to have a child without the advantages of a stable and prosperous home.  This path tends to lead to poverty and similarly poor life choices reflective of the mother’s example.  In a very real way, these inherent life limitations cause the school system to become a pipeline to criminality and jail.  For instance, 72 percent of adolescent murders indicate they grew up in fatherless homes.  This clear sociological trend, out of Democratic political correctness, is ignored by policymakers who favor superficial non-fixes like dumping more money into already failing public school systems.  Unfortunately, no amount of money can impart a healthy value system, responsible decision-making or a work ethic.  That duty, for good reason, should always be the purview of mature parents rather than ill-suited nanny state institutions.

On a related issue, despite feminists’ unrealistic super-woman pretenses, an unstable or nonexistent relationship with a father or father-figure deeply wounds a boy’s psyche.  When women rule the roost in the absence of a man, boys find destructive male role models in gangs of their lawless, also fatherless peers.  This dynamic further explains 2013 FBI crime statistics which indicate that black-on-black murder accounts for 90% of deaths in the Afro-American community.  Therefore, Democratic leaders, like Mr. Obama, race-bait and foster chaos when promoting the wrongheaded delusion that white people in general—and white police in specific—act “stupidly” and are the guilty party.  So, wrongly demonized law enforcement personnel who have a difficult job under typical circumstances, have the added threat of becoming the target for generalized rage.  Under this political microscope—coupled with greater risk to life and limb—is it not understandable that they would be reticent and thereby less effective?  Consequently, violent protests like those in Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD become more and more likely.  Indeed, economically depressed, violence-ridden, Democrat-controlled urban cities like Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit are now societal powder kegs: one interracial incident away from the abyss.  The thin blue line is fraying.

Abetted by the water-carrying mainstream media, these societal truths have been successfully diminished, twisted or obscured by the propaganda of divisive Democratic politics: mostly blaming the “haves,” whitey or “the other guy” (historically “rich” Republicans—and the most recent fiction—“racist” cops.)

The nefarious political end game: Obama’s perpetual campaign of lies, lip-service to real cultural problems and vague, pretty-word speechifying supported by little action (or the wrong action). Its underlying purpose: to keep the rest of us stirred up and distracted by trivialities, enabling them—an incompetent Democrat elitist in-crowd (beholden only to the Party and their allies)—to stay in power.  This is achieved by keeping the country in a constant state of distress; by constant fear-mongering and intentionally dividing the country along its societal fault lines of class, race, gender and sexual orientation.

Despite their liberal friends in mass media and their strangely rosy accounts of the state of the union (and politically correct spin which stems the flow of independent thought and dissention), Democrats are fundamentally vote-panderers: not truly advocating for the “common man,” only for themselves.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
http://www.americanthinker.com/author/david_l_hunter/
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