Free Republic

Keeping Obama honest By IkeonicObama said the following as he closed his inaugural address:"America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of...

Turning Keynesian economics on its head By IkeonicFor decades, John Maynard Keynes' policies have been used with arguable success to moderate the effects of the bust part of the bust/boom cycle. It's a very simple concept. When individuals and business stop spending and afraid to invest, the government is the only party left that can spend money to create jobs and get the economy moving again.Time Magazine famously declared in December 1965, "We Are All Keynesians Now". In lauding the accomplishment of applying Keynesian policies, Time said:In Washington the men who formulate the nation's economic policies have used Keynesian principles...

Every Wednesday in Washington, conservatives gather in the conference room of Grover Norquist's pressure group, Americans for Tax Reform, to hash out arguments and promote their projects. The off-the-record meetings are notorious among liberals: proof of the shudder-inducing organizational powers of the right. In late September, a White House economist arrived at Norquist's salon to sell a proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street firms whose investments in worthless mortgage-backed securities had sparked an international financial crisis. In a tense meeting, the president's emissary was turned into a piñata. Pro-market activists and economists with decades of experience battered him with...

BY now you've probably heard: The GOP is becoming too regional, too white, too old to compete nationally. Democrats look like the cast of "Rent," while Republicans look like diehard fans of "Matlock" and "Murder, She Wrote." Fine. The GOP needs to win over more Hispanics, young people, suburban women. That sounds plausible. But what does "win over" mean? To listen to many pundits, it means Republicans must become Democrats. The GOP has become too socially conservative, and if it wants to win the support of mainstream voters, it will need to become more socially liberal. If only the party...

On tax policy, Alaska governor Sarah Palin has a rather uninspiring, albeit brief, record. The following is some information gleaned from State Tax Notes. Palin supported and signed into law a $1.5 billion tax increase on oil companies in the form of higher severance taxes. One rule of thumb is that higher taxes cause less investment. Sure enough, State Tax Notes reported (January 7): “After ACES was passed, ConocoPhillips, Alaska's most active oil exploration company and one of the top three producers, announced it was canceling plans to build a diesel fuel refinery at the Kuparuk oil field. ConocoPhillips blamed...

RFFM.org Commentary Most of us who fall within the category of baby boomers can explain why small government and low taxation served our nation very well. At least we should be able to. A little more than a quarter century ago, the norm included one parent who brought home an income which supported an entire family. Of course, government programs, including the GI Bill, made it possible for millions of families to join the middle class after World War II. But, all the same, jobs in manufacturing were sufficient to bring reality to the well-turned phrase, "a rising tide lifts...

This is addressed to conservatives - if, in the last few months, you have used the phrase "because he is the only one who can win against Hillary" (some "victory"...), or some variation, don't bother reading this, it will not do you any good. You and your ilk, by helping engineer a putrid path of least resistance for the lumbering political bureaucracy to follow, are responsible for the leftward drift of the American conservatism movement, and will be as long as it is aligned with the Republican party. Go advertise the latest poll. Forward: (tone) There is a whiff of...

The following remarks were made on the Senate floor today. Mr. President, in the past week, the Senate has voted to reduce the overall cost of H.R. 4939, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery, 2006, now totaling nearly $110 billion by a mere $15 million. I’m delighted that President Bush has pledged to veto this bill because Congress has, once again, been unable to resist the temptation to load up a must-pass bill with pork. Mr. President, I offered several amendments to eliminate non-emergency items in this bill. I appreciate the...

Over the past two weeks, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has outlined short- and long-term spending increases that have some wondering if he has turned his back on his roots as a fiscal conservative. Schwarzenegger campaigned on budget responsibility at a time when the state was facing a multibillion dollar budget deficit. But with the state's economy improving, the governor has proposed spending $1.7 billion more on education next fiscal year than is constitutionally required and has plans to borrow $68 billion through general obligation bonds over the next 10 years. "There is no question this is a U-turn from the fiscal...

In the latest Cato Tax and Budget Bulletin, Stephen Slivinski uses revised data released during the summer by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to make side-by-side comparisons of the spending habits of each president during the last 40 years. While the data show that all presidents presided over net increases in spending, George W. Bush is shown to be one of the biggest spenders of them all, even outpacing Lyndon B. Johnson in terms of discretionary spending. An excerpt from the report: "The increase in discretionary spending - that is, all nonentitlement programs - in Bush's first term was 48.5...

Thoughts on fiscal conservatism, eminent domain abuse in gilroy, California. enjoy.. Some Republicans are starting to get it! It may be just election year politics (or the lead up to it) but some Republicans in Congress are calling for cuts in spending to pay offset the cost of Katrina and Rita reconstruction. I'll ask the question . . .

TOKYO - Japan's government debt, already the highest in the industrialized world, rose 1.7 percent to a record high of 795.8 trillion yen ($7.1 trillion) at the end of June, according to a report released by the Finance Ministry. ADVERTISEMENT The latest figure marked an increase of 14.3 trillion yen from the end of March , the ministry said Thursday. The amount is equivalent to about 6.24 million yen ($55,900) for every Japanese. Japan has relied on government bond issues to make up for falling tax revenues, turning into one of the world's most indebted countries. Japan's public debt burden...

he time has now come for fiscal conservatives to publicly admit the truth: the Republican complicity in the great spending spree of the early 21st century has placed our agenda on life-support. By failing to cut spending while implementing tax cuts and fighting a war, we now find ourselves in a predicament. The beast has not been starved, the deficit has once again become a political issue, and the chances of acceptable Social Security reform, overhaul of the tax code, and the permanence of the previous tax cuts are all in jeopardy. This dismal situation harkens back to events in...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A drive by President Bush and top congressional Republicans to make modest Medicaid cuts is hitting a buzz saw in the person of a moderate GOP senator from Oregon. The Senate seemed likely to vote Thursday on an effort led by Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., to eliminate all $14 billion in five-year savings the chamber's budget proposes in the health care program for the poor and elderly. That would be a 1 percent reduction from the $1.12 trillion Medicaid is projected to spend over that period. The vote was expected to be close, with Smith and co-sponsor...

(PRWEB) December 22, 2004 -- Why support a Sanford ticket? Under President George W. Bush, aided by a Republican Congress, we've seen the size of government expand -- dramatically. Discretionary spending has soared; education has become federalized under the No Child Left Behind Act; and the American welfare state has received it's biggest booster shot since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson, in the form of the Medicare prescription drug coverage entitlement. This is all despite the fact that Bush campaigned on a platform of smaller government and lower taxes. While he followed through with lowering taxes, the skyrocketing size...

The Mark-Sanford-for-president buzz won’t die. It keeps rearing its head in the strangest places. Now there’s an extensive “Draft Mark Sanford for President — 2008” Web site. Sanford’s people insist they have nothing to do with it. The owner is Sean Wisnieski, a 19-year-old political science student at Frederick Community College in Frederick, Md. In a disclaimer, he says the site does not “necessarily reflect or represent” the governor. Sanford says he’s “amused,” “curious” and “flattered” — but a run for the White House is the furthest thing from his mind. Often, politicians get carried away by the “bright lights”...

Union leaders are the biggest critics of Social Security reform involving personal retirement accounts (PRAs), often claiming that a system of PRAs will result in massive benefit cuts. Such claims are nonsense. To demonstrate this, Public Interest Institute recently released a study I conducted examining how union households in Iowa would fare under a system of PRAs. Under a system of PRAs, workers would have the option of diverting a portion of their payroll tax into their own PRA, much like a private 401(k). The funds in these accounts would be invested in portfolios including equities and bonds which offer...

CALIFORNIANS FOR SCHWARZENEGGER RADIO:60 "TAX" JON COUPAL: THIS IS JON COUPAL, PRESIDENT OF THE HOWARD JARVIS TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO WE SENT THE POLITICIANS A MESSAGE WITH PROPOSITION 13. THIS YEAR WE CAN SEND ANOTHER MESSAGE BY RECALLING GRAY DAVIS AND REPLACING HIM WITH ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, A STRONG FISCAL CONSERVATIVE. HE WILL REPEAL THE CAR TAX AND STAND AGAINST MORE TAXES. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I STRONGLY SUPPORT PROPOSITION 13 AND WILL FIGHT ANY PROPOSAL WHICH SEEKS TO CHANGE IT. I AM IN PRINCIPLE AGAINST TAXING, BECAUSE I FEEL THAT THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA HAVE BEEN PUNISHED ENOUGH. FROM THE TIME...

WASHINGTON, July 14, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On Tuesday, July 15, or Wednesday, July 16, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on an important pro-life amendment. Pro-life groups and citizens are being encouraged to contact their U.S. House members to urge them to support the Smith-Oberstar-Hyde Amendment to the State Department authorization bill (H.R. 1950). A close vote is expected. At issue is an important pro-life law, the Kemp-Kasten Anti-Coercion Law. The Kemp-Kasten law, which has been in effect for 18 years, prohibits U.S. funding of any organization that "supports or participates in the management of a program...

"Be happy! Don’t worry! We have a true conservative in the White House!" At least that is the message that I keep hearing from many who have duct taped a "conservative" label on themselves these days. The proof, they contend, is in the $674 billion dollar "tax cut/economic stimulus" plan the president is proposing. For that, they think he should immediately be stamped with the "Good Conservative Seal of Approval" for exhibiting sound conservative credentials. But should we really have no concerns? Now don’t get me wrong, I think the tax cuts are great. But in this case, they don’t...

There may be a few grizzled Republicans from the Gingrich revolution who still carry next to their hearts a laminated pocket copy of the Contract With America. This was the blueprint for the 1994 revolution that swept the party into control of the House. High on the agenda was a call for term limits on politicians. But no Republican was seen waving the contract in the air in protest last week when the new Congress convened with a gavel-quick rules change quietly eliminating the four-term limit on the House speakership. The Republican speaker, Dennis Hastert, was one of the original...