Free Republic

A teacher in Florida summed up the educational situation in her state: “There is an obsession with the worse-off students.” School officials there proclaim: “But what about the people with pathologies? They can’t advance very far. It’s fairer if we bring everybody along together.” Notice there is no obsession with curing the pathologies, or with devising better methods to help disadvantaged kids rise above their disadvantages. No, the answer is to reduce the better students to the level of the worse students. Where does this go? Suppose that half of the people in your city are sick. Do we best...

French President Francois Hollande has vowed to ban homework as part of wide-ranging reforms to the country's education system. Hollande has expressed worries over the fact that privileged children benefit from parental assistance on take-home assignments and that disadvantaged children do not have support at home. "An education program is, by definition, a societal program. Work should be done at school, rather than at home," the New York Daily News quoted Hollande, as saying. According to a report by France 24, Hollande's extensive education reform plans also include increasing financial aid while combating truancy. He also intends to provide incentives...

Obama: 'We Don't Believe Anybody Is Entitled to Success in This Country'

A large majority of likely voters believes all Americans should pay some federal income tax -- even if it is as little as one percent of what they make. Seventy-nine percent say everyone should pay something, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. That includes 85 percent of Republicans, 83 percent of independents and 71 percent of Democrats. According to the IRS, last year approximately 41 percent of tax filers did not pay federal income tax. The Tax Policy Center estimates that will increase to 46 percent this year. Most voters (73 percent) are at least somewhat familiar with...

(The following is the third of three excerpts from The Right Frequency: The Story of the Talk Radio Giants Who Shook Up the Political and Media Establishment, by Fred Lucas; History Publishing Company. The adapted excerpt looks at the Fairness Doctrine.) The Democratic National Committee, with the approval of President Lyndon B. Johnson engaged in an effort that eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Fairness Doctrine. What would have been a major scandal had it been discovered, was revealed years later in former CBS News president Fred Friendly’s book “The Good Guys, the Bad Guys and...

There is a movement underway in Europe to remove the tax exemptions churches have enjoyed for centuries. In Spain and Italy this attempt is being broadly pursued, while in Britain it is being done piecemeal. For example, in Spain and Italy the special tax status of churches and their ministries are being openly targeted by political leaders who want to get their hands into church coffers. Ricardo Rubio, a city councilman in Alcala de Henares, Spain, says he, and those who share his view, “want to make a statement that the costs of the [financial] crisis should be borne equally...

More than 40 years ago the philosopher John Rawls, in his influential political work “A Theory of Justice,” implored the people of the world to shed themselves of their selfish predispositions and to assume, for the sake of argument, that they were ignorant. He imposed this unwelcome constraint not so that his readers — mostly intellectuals, but also students, politicians and policy makers — would find themselves in a position of moribund stupidity but rather so they could get a grip on fairness. Rawls saw clearly that principles of justice like the golden rule or mutual benevolence, are subject to...

Last week, Georgetown law professor Peter Edelman wrote about poverty in America in the New York Times. Edelman spent most of his time outlining what he sees as the causes of poverty in America, but he did offer some basic liberal fare when it came to solutions: We know what we need to do — make the rich pay their fair share of running the country, raise the minimum wage, provide health care and a decent safety net, and the like. But realistically, the immediate challenge is keeping what we have. Representative Paul Ryan and his ideological peers would slash...

If fairness in paying taxes means the amount you pay is based on the amount you make, then the only group in America paying at least a "fair share" is the top 20%—people who make more than $74,000. For everyone else, the tax code is a bargain. You wouldn't know this from President Obama's rhetoric, but our tax system, according to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is incredibly progressive. Consider: The top 1% of income earners pay an average federal tax rate of 28.9%. (See the nearby table.) The average federal tax rate on the top...

The French celebrated Bastille Day last week, 219 years after beheading Marie Antoinette in the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. To this day, she's the poster child for upper-class excess, entitlement and insensitivity — the ultimate “1 percenter.” However, Think Again before believing every demonization you hear. In fact, though a privileged aristocrat, Marie Antoinette was not only a faithful Good Samaritan, she actually never uttered the notorious catchphrase “Let them eat cake.” Never mind — social justice was at stake! French revolutionaries declaring “liberty, equality and fraternity” ushered in an anti-democratic period of unlimited governmental power, civil strife and...

"There's nothing wrong with asking the wealthy to pay a little more in taxes." -Barack Hussein ObamaI feel like I'm constantly beating readers over the head with the simple logic that, due to America's national percentage-based and graduated income tax, the country's wealthy already pay "a little more" than most people do in taxes --- why must President Obama insist on making me do that to you? It really would be much more productive if the President would just come out and say, why yes, I would like to take an even larger chunk out of the wealthy's success in...

President Barack Obama, his re-election fortunes heavily dependent on women, pushed Congress on Monday to "step up and do its job" by passing a bill designed to erase the wage gap between male and female workers doing the same job. With Senate Republicans expected to block the Paycheck Fairness Act when it comes up for a vote on Tuesday, Obama urged supporters of the measure to make an 11th-hour push on behalf of the legislation. "At a time when we're in a make-or-break moment for the middle class, Congress has to step up and do its job," the president said...

Repetitious Rhetoric vs. Genuine PoliciesBy: Larry Walker, Jr.According to Barack Obama, “the President’s job is to make sure everyone has a fair shot." But as I explained in Part I, the United States Constitution declares that a President’s real job is, “to the best of his/her Ability, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Whether or not Mr. Obama has abided by the true standard will soon be revealed, with the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare. However, when judged according to his self-contrived measure, based upon his job performance to-date, Mr. Obama’s policies actually ensure that...

Team Obama calculates that its road to victory is paved with the votes of women, so the American people are now subject to a coordinated effort to cast GOP opposition to expanding government power as an assault on the weaker sex. But few women view public policy as a battle between the sexes. Women whose husbands, brothers and sons are struggling to find jobs find no comfort in women's comparatively low unemployment rate. Next up in the Democratic campaign is the Paycheck Fairness Act, supposedly necessary to achieve "equal pay" for women. Never mind that it's already illegal to pay...

"Apparently, many students don't like the idea of redistribution - but, only when it applies to their grades. Redistribution of their GPAs (grade point averages) to poorer students, they say, is unfair. But, those with lower grades don’t seem to mind benefiting from the hard work of their “greedy” high-achieving classmates."

In recent days, if he hasn't been pitching "fairness" and adoption of higher taxes with his so-called Buffet Rule, President Obama has been pandering to women voters.  On April 6, he paraded a group of ladies in front of cameras at a blatant campaign event – funded by taxpayers and hosted at the White House - thinly disguised as an economic forum.   The White House said the purpose was to "highlight ways the administration has helped create ECONOMIC SECURITY for women."  (emphasis added) But, so far as we know, the President failed to explain to the visiting ladies why women...

Vice President Joe Biden, bless his heart, tried hard to explain the White House's position on “fairness” during a stop in Exeter on Thursday. He blew so much hot air, the U.S.S. Constitution could have set sail. “We're not supposed to have a system with one set of rules for the wealthy and one set of rules for everyone else,” he said. Yet the Buffet Rule Biden was in town to promote creates a separate tax for millionaires that no one else has to pay. It is the definition of creating one set of rules for the wealthy and another...

In the ongoing presidential campaign, we may expect a handful of broad themes to receive the overwhelmingly greater fraction of the Democrat propagandists' efforts: "Republican war on women" "The 1%" "Fairness" The "fairness" canard is, of course, aimed at cowing the GOP's Congressional caucus, its candidates, and the electorate into bowing to higher taxation. In this connection, the Democrats' dominant meme has been that "millionaires and billionaires" are somehow evading paying their "fair share" of federal taxes, and that this contributes to the immense Obamunist deficit. Let's see if I can make this as striking as it always was at...

Never on Sunday, apparently. So this year your income tax is due next Tuesday, April 17. Even if you pay none. And in fact, 41 percent of those filing last year, 2010, didn’t pay a dime in tax. But the government sent a good number of them checks for $105 billion...

We agree with President Barack Obama. If any millionaires or billionaires don’t feel they are paying enough in federal taxes, they should pay more. We don’t wish to see really rich people wallowing in guilt. Warren Buffett and friends, get out your checkbooks. Nothing’s stopping you. In what had all the trappings of a reelection stunt, the president this week lined up four “patriotic” millionaires and four of their less-wealthy assistants, who we are told pay a higher tax rate than do their rich bosses. These millionaires are “patriotic,” we were told, because they feel they should pay more in...