The American Spectator : No Fault of Their Own

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No Fault of Their Own

By Ross Kaminsky on 12.21.11 @ 6:09AM

It’s official: Democrat compassion and legalized plunder are synonymous.

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The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.

So why do Democrats keep mentioning the lack of fault of beneficiaries of redistributionist largesse? In order to confuse the non-socialist majority of Americans into believing that law and justice are, in the case of these laws, the same. Two years of unemployment benefits is no more just than any other mugging is, regardless of the law.

Furthermore, how does one draw a line between an unemployed person who lost his job “through no fault of his own” or someone who was simply not a very good employee? Do you really want bureaucrats making that decision one day? And what about the employer whose business was shrinking and thus he had to lay off employees? How about paying them for profits that fell “through no fault of their own”? No, there is no end to what might befall good people through no fault of their own, but our nation is built on a guarantee of a right to the pursuit of happiness, not a right to other people’s money.

A perfect example of politicians “moving the line” to buy votes followed by the inevitable result of massive redistribution bureaucracies comes from SCHIP, the federal program that gives matching funds to state health insurance systems that cover uninsured children in moderately low-income households. In New York, the legislature passed a law allowing SCHIP eligibility for children in families up to 400% of the federal poverty level — or about $89,000 for a family of four. It also covers pregnant women, parents, and — wait for it — childless adults. A 2007 Inspector General report of New York’s SCHIP operations estimates that the state made over 300,000 payments to ineligible recipients, totaling over $25 million in cost. Another quarter million payments totaling almost $15 million were made without file documentation that “adequately support[ed] eligibility.” And that was just the federal share of the cost, and just for six months.

The results of these infrastructures designed to implement legalized plunder on a massive scale do not change based on “fault.”

But make no mistake: Overpayments — meaning excessive theft from some citizens to give that money to other citizens — are, for the left, a small price to pay. Indeed, they would see the NY SCHIP outcome as preferable to the opposite, where eligible people were not receiving taxpayer-funded benefits, whether through fault of their own or not.

The more people become dependent on government, even if they are not technically eligible to do so, the more they will vote for politicians who promise to continue giving money for nothing despite Margaret Thatcher’s warning that socialist governments “always run out of other people’s money.”

A perfect example comes from a commenter on the far-left web site DemocraticUnderground.com: “…those who may be unemployed or homeless because of some ‘fault’ of theirs — whether illness, or a mistake, or bad judgement [sic] — why the hell are these people any less worthy of help to survive?”

That’s right: Someone who is unemployed because of bad judgment is just as “worthy of help” — which is to say worthy of some of your money — as anyone else. It’s pure and simple Marxism. And it is exactly what Pelosi and van Hollen are selling us when they want to extend unemployment benefits because some of the recipients are in an unfortunate situation “through no fault of their own.”

This particular Democrat rhetoric is the other side of the coin from their routine claims that high unemployment was caused by “the 1 percent” or “Wall Street” or some other evil limousine-driven elites working hand-in-hand (and this part is actually true) with government to rig the system in their benefit. So, if the misdirection about “fault” isn’t enough to get ordinarily anti-beggar-thy-neighbor Americans to play along with socialism-lite, perhaps a misplaced desire for retribution will be.

Bastiat’s analysis is again remarkably clear and prescient:

Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws! Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.

It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution — some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.

Now, Bastiat never met Nancy Pelosi, so there is a particularly subtle brand of evil that even he did not fully anticipate. Legal plunder is not against the interest of Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party because it is only by funneling as much money as possible through the sticky fingers of government (and unions) that they maintain political power.

Thus it is that Democrats continue to offer “through no fault of their own” as a key reason to transfer money from one American to another. Sadly, while House Republicans are correctly opposing a two-month tax policy as more confusing than beneficial (not that this misguided Keynesian tax cut is economically beneficial anyway), Bastiat-like language is nowhere to be found. It is a rare politician, even a “Tea Party” politician, who will stand up in the well of the House and proclaim the immorality of basing economic policy on mellifluous Marxist language like “fault” and “need.” Our Republic is not safe until such language is no longer vanishingly rare in public.

Fault is the wrong yardstick by which to measure the appropriateness, either economically or morally, of government’s tax and spending policies. Instead, the proper question is this: Putting aside the claimed need for the money or lack of blame for the need, is the government’s action really anything more than legalized plunder?

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About the Author

Ross Kaminsky is a self-employed trader and investor and is a senior fellow of the Heartland Institute. He is the host of The Ross Kaminsky Show on Denver’s NewsRadio 850 KOA at 11 AM on most Sundays. You can reach Ross by e-mail at rossputin(at)rossputin(dot)com.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (199) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

John786| 12.21.11 @ 6:59AM

I agree. Let them starve. An honest conservative. Very refreshing. Now lets get on with more important things- start wars with other peoples money. Oh the ironery of it all.

Ken (Old Texican)| 12.21.11 @ 7:58AM

Hello again Muhammed 786
(uh, you missed-typed your number. It is really 666 ).
I personally am at war with your ilk. Don't mind spending that money.

John786| 12.21.11 @ 8:46AM

Ken (the confused Texan)
I hope you don't get raptured before Christmas. That would be a crying shame. Real shame. Missing out on all those pressies... See I'm always looking after your best interest. Yep, real Christian of me (: even though technically I'm a monotheist). By the way 786 is very important.

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 10:59AM

"even though technically I'm a monotheist) You'r a album by Celetic Frost?

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 8:26AM

John- do you start the ironery after you do the washerery?

War IS bad. Too bad we fought the Civil War - if we hadn't we could all have, or be, slaves! And the first shot was fired by the guys who lost.

Too bad we fought the Kaiser - and Hitler. Otherwise Hitler would have built nuclear weapons, put them on missiles and launched them at us from England in about 1948. We didn't start those wars either. Guys who started both of those lost.

Young, ignorant John which victory do you prefer: the Cold War which we won by building a stronger economy and a stronger military which mostly rusted out, not wore out from over-use or say the hot war we fought against Hitler. Yea we spent a lot of cash in both, but a lot fewer of our fellow citizens died fighting the USSR than the Third Reich.

Oh yeah, and defending the country is one of the few things the federal government is authorized to do by the Constitution.

Oh the ironery, the ironery! Ironic, my foot!

John786| 12.21.11 @ 8:49AM

Dtom,
If you want wars at least have the honesty of paying for them.

The Big E| 12.21.11 @ 9:32AM

If you don't want them under any circumstances, then at least have the honesty to accept no benefit from them yourself.

Let's see, where shall you start?

Well, there was that war we started and won back in the 1770's and 1780's that resulted in you having the right to come on this and other websites and complain about the cost of war.

So if you're "honest" and refuse to accept the benefits of wars you don't want, then you should stop speaking your mind, since it is only through the willingness of others to fight and die for what they believe to be right that you are able to come here and complain about war.

Next, let's see, you referred to yourself as a "monotheist" above. You can only do that as a result of that same war, by the way, otherwise you would have worship (or not) as the Crown sees fit, not as you see fit. So I guess you better be "honest" and not accept that benefit of war either.

I don't know where you live, but the odds are pretty good that if you're in the USA it's on land that was conquered by war. So I suppose since you want to be "honest" and not accept the benefit of any war that you will be forfeiting your home back to the Indians and returning to wherever your ancestors came from. Right?

If you're African American you are not somebody's property today because of a war. Shall we be "honest" and surrender that benefit of war as well? That would either make you a slave or entitle you to be a slave owner. So which are you?

Have you ever had an infection? Antibiotics were developed because of - wait for it - war and the need to treat the wounded so they could recover enough to go fight some more. Would they have been developed otherwise? Maybe, maybe not. But they were developed because of war, so if you're going to be "honest," then I suppose you won't be accepting any antibiotics next time you're sick because, after all, you wouldn't want to accept any benefit from those wars you so adamantly oppose under any circumstances.

Oh, and the internet? Despite what you may believe, Al Gore did not invent it. It was the DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, so I guess we won't be seeing you on this site anymore, because if you're going to be "honest," you be getting on the Internet again.

I could, of course, go on, but there's only 24 hours in a day.

The point is you are a hypocrite, pure and simple. You're happy to exercise all the rights and privileges (and take advantage of all the technology) that exist because someone else was willing to fight and die for what they believed, but you don't want to have to get YOUR hands dirty.

So let me correct that. You're not only a hypocrite, you're a coward as well.

John786| 12.21.11 @ 10:06AM

Small E,
So does that mean you're going to
Pass on the horrendous cost of the wars of choice on to future generations. It's easy going to war when someone else pays for them and somebody elses children are to sent to die. That's why you conservatives are known for your uprightness and honesty.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 10:34AM

Little johnnie;

The bulk of the debt being passed on to future generations is not the cost of wars that we have not had to fight, it is the mainly the cost of providing for government employees (the military is a minority of that) who supposedly are here to serve us - they do so at higher pay, better benefits, less arduous work, and almost no risk of loss of job - the government never lays off, ever!

Look to the numbers ignorant one! Remember ignorant means willfully uninformed, not innocently uninformed!

Now go do your homework and learn the truth, especially before you assail other's honesty!

The Big E| 12.21.11 @ 10:42AM

The horrendous cost of going to war gets passed on to future generations whether you or I or anyone else wants it to or not - as does the horrendous cost of NOT going to war. Just ask the relatives of the six million Jews who died in Hitler's death camps, or those who managed to come out alive because we and others were willing to make the sacrifice of going to war to rid the world of a murdering monster.

Or was Hitler's murder of those people fine with you since they were Jews? And no, that was not a rhetorical question. I expect an answer, and if the answer is no, I expect you to explain how stopping it could have been accomplished other than through war.

That's the difference between you an me. I recognize there are things in this world which are worth fighting for, and dying for. Whether that be something as grandiose as the ideals of freedom (even incompletely realized ideals of freedom) or something as simple as my family.

You however, are incapable of seeing anything of value beyond the end of your own selfish nose.

I believe in Right and Wrong (and no, I don't assume that the US is always in the right). You however, believe only in pleasure and pain, and the immediate gratification of desire. How do I know this? Because, as you have already demonstrated, you want the pleasure and benefits that come from the sacrifice of others, but are not willing to make any sacrifice whatsoever yourself for others.

I believe that whatever we have we must earn, whether it be the freedom to come on this website and speak our minds, or the food we put in our mouths to survive. You, however, want something for nothing. That is the true definition of selfishness. It is the true definition of greed.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 3:42PM

War, defense, is mandated specifically in the Constitution. Where in the Constitution is it required that US taxpayers give to the poor? Please point out the appropriate paragraph.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 10:25AM

John,

I have paid taxes for decades - statistically probably more than you have made.

And who benefits most from a strong, fear-inspiring military complex? Mostly, if you people are to be believed, the supposed underclass that normally fights and dies in those wars which we have avoided?

I give now my profound apologies to all the brave, strong, intelligent citizens who have chosen to serve in the defense of our nation - but I am trying to show light to the blind so that he might appreciate what you have done and what he has been given, unasked, unacknowledged, and unappreciated by him.

Purple Lips| 12.21.11 @ 3:12PM

And who says we didn't pay for them? The combined costs of the Iraq/Afghan conflict is about $1.5 trillion spread over 10 years. The cost of Dept of Education over the same period was about $1 trillion. The cost of the Dept of Transportation over the same period was about $2 trillion; SS and Medicare combined spent over $10 trillion. How about the Dept of AG? Oh, about $3 trillion. How about the combined spend of the CIA, FBI, DIA and Homeland Security? Oh, that would be $2 trillion. How about the Dept of HHS and Medicaid. That would be $ 5 trillion. Should I go on? From a purely price perspective, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were a steal compared to free false teeth for terrorists in GITMO or free hot lunches for school hooligans. And how many freeways, bridges, libraries and community centers were built on the federal dime? Take a guess.

markenoff| 12.21.11 @ 11:21PM

Obama's failed stimulus will cost us over a trillion with interest.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 1:46PM

The Constitution serves "We the People", not the other way around - get it straight.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 12.21.11 @ 7:02AM

Actually, it's impossible to lose a job "through no fault of your own."

Either you are poorly trained (Lack of motivation) or you picked a loser to work for (Bad choice) or you chose a bad field of employment.

In any event, you are never unemployed through no fault of your own.

Will| 12.21.11 @ 9:43AM

So a Pittsburgh man, aged 55, who goes into the steel industry straight from school back in the early seventies, works hard in the industry all his life and is then made redundant when his job goes to Taiwan is to blame.

buckeyeman| 12.21.11 @ 10:03AM

Yes, indeed, if he supported the union that extorted salaries and benefits from the steel company that made it impossible to continue in operation.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 1:48PM

If that was true, then they would pay the same wage overseas, minus what the union premium contributed. But they don't. It's a right-wing myth that unions make factories move overseas. The righties count on the fact that you won't look at this more in depth.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 3:21PM

Your point, as usual, makes NO sense. Companies never pay more than they have to. They've gone overseas because unions, minimum wage laws, taxes and strangulating regulations have impelled them to do so. Eliminate capital gains, lower tax rates, lower the minimum wage, make all states right-to-work, and pare down regulations, and business would come back. Don't and they won't. End of story.

It's the same thing at the state level. If businesses can't make a profit due to crippling taxes, regulations, etc., they will move to a more business friendly state. It is liberals that continue to whine about those evil businesses. Yeah, biting the hand that feeds you is really going to make them keep feeding you. Yeah. Right. That makes sense only in liberal Fantasyland, where life should be fair and everybody deserves money they didn't earn.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:12PM

So you are advocating a race to the bottom of the living standard? You want our workers to make no more than those cheap labor havens overseas? Really? If we followed your logic, for only by making low wages to equal those overseas would the jobs stay here - that's just common sense, is it not? It's a right-wing myth that making the changes you suggest will bring jobs back or keep them here. If low wages is what the corporate pigs are after, you cannot change that. What you can change is the breakup of the corporation and corporate power that is killing this country. Multi-national corps don't care if they make money here or in China - they don't have to care, so unless you advocate creating the United States of China, you will never compete with them based on wage rates. If it's not China, it's India or Thailand, who knows.
However, by removing protections for our citizens and our environment as well as our businesses, you want to remake your country in the mold of the low wage societies like China? You will never get a wage level equal to the Chinese, Indian or Vietnamese - unions are not the problem, but unions are what the corporate world wants you to think is the problem. The industry I work in, computer technology, is not unionized, yet our jobs are going overseas too. The wages are simply lower there, and, as I said a global company doesn't care if you're in India or New York, they still make money.
Can you absorb all this or is your mind closed to common sense?

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 9:12PM

It's not a matter of what I "advocate." It's a matter of the way companies behave. It is not MY responsibility to pay for you to have a certain standard of living. You want that, move to Cuba. I'm saying, if you would take your liberal blinders off long enough to think LOGICALLY, is that a combination of factors have led to the departure of jobs. I listed them. You AGREED with some of them in your post, even though you probably don't realize it (wage controls, that companies DON'T CARE). And I AGREE with you that we will never get to a wage like the Chinese, etc. The reason WHY that is so is the difference betwwen us. As for the accusation about remaking our country, that's YOU, Purp, and all of your ilk. You want to transform American, just like your Dear Leader said. And you expect the taxpayer to pay for things our Constitution DOES NOT mandate. You are the one who wants to remake us, not me. Like I said, why don't you move to Cuba? Honestly, you'd be happier there. Government controls everything.

And you just can't resist reaching into that liberal cliche grab bag yet again, can you. It's like Tourette's with you. Believe it or not, people aren't automatically stupid simply because they disagree with you.

Redstateboy| 12.21.11 @ 4:16PM

I watched... with my own two eyes, a once mighty industrial city shrink to just another jerk-water, bankrupt, slave-party run, welfarite dungeon - Buffalo... now let's ask you a pointed question Liber-ul (and we know asking a Liber-ul a pointed and specific question is akin to displaying a Crucifix to Dracula) out of the 20+ industrial plants that are gone - All of them Union - what are the chances they ALL closed due to incompetent Mmgt. or foreign competion eh?? Could it be...... Liber-ul.. Is it remotely possible that several of these companies are gone solely due to Union Greeeeeeeed...????!!?

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 8:37PM

No, it's not.

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 11:03AM

And your point is what? That's not fair? I must have missed the memo that went out that the world was fair. So far you and my teenage boys are the only ones I know still referring to it.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 11:15AM

Drunken;

Do not despair, even Mark Twain marveled at the sudden illumination of the "Life's not fair" light in young twenty-somethings' heads when they suddenly had to pay their own way.

If you've been raising them right, they'll come to you one day and tell you they are amazed at how much YOU learned between their eighteenth and twenty third birthdays (or whenever they launch into independence that they pay for.) It'll come, just look for it!

Good luck to you, sir!

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 11:34AM

Thanks. Can't wait to see their response to the "Crying towels" I bought them for Christmas. My camera is charged for that "Lightbulb" moment. :)

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 11:37AM

Thanks for the belly laugh!

Merry Christmas to you and all the little "Drunken Sailors!"

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 12:07PM

Merry Christmas to you and yours as well.

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 11:12AM

Will,

And so the software developer, aged, 55, who goes into industry just after college in the late seventies, works hard, and then is forced to compete with inexpensive Indian programmers is to blame?

No, you go where the work is. You find the niche. You might even change careers. If that 55 year-old steel industry workers is so limited in his ability to work that he cannot find something to do, heaven help him.

Change is stressful. It's reality. There is nothing fair about it. He's not a child, although it appears he wishes to be treated as one.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 1:55PM

If, as a country, we want all our workers to be productive, we make sure they have a good education or good technical skills education to have a good job. That way they add to economic activity and provide a living for their families. When unexpected changes cause them to lose jobs or whole industries, we, as a country need to re-educate them to become productive once again to earn a living and add to economic activity.
Now, who is going to help, in the name of this country, educate or re-educate our workers? It IS the government, federal, state and local that must provide the framework, and if need be, assistance to educate themselves the first time or for re-training. If we don't teach them to fish, how will they ever fish for themselves?
Unemployment insurance is just that - insurance. If you take someone off of unemployment while they still don't have a job, that's akin to an insurance company throwing you off insurance once you get sick so they can avoid paying the bills. What good is insurance if you will be thrown off of it when you need it most?

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 2:34PM

Purp,

It's paid for by FUI and SUI. Jack the rates 400% and see how much future employment you get. Of course, it's paid for now by all the free stimulus money.

As to your point about state responsibility for education. Let be say that a state educating it's citizenry is a fatal conflict of interest. Off to the re-education camp for you.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:16PM

So what do you want to do with our children's education? And, what of the worker who's job or worse, industry moves overseas? If not re-education or re-training, what solution do you have? Criticizing is easy, solving the problem is not. What say you?

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 4:33PM

Purp,

I've educated my children outside of government schools. Houston government schools are tantamount to child abuse. Would you like me to educate your children? I'll bring 'em up right. It'll cost you like it cost me.

Solving the problem begins with a root and branch removal of public schools in favor of vouchers. I'll support a public funding of education, but not a government monopoly. (You can read me in the forum on this topic for years)

Speaking of criticism, and other than landing this responsibility on the government, and by extension me, what would YOU do? If you say, leave the education of my children to the government, you deserve what the government gives you.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 8:45PM

And, what of those of us who can't do what you have done? To h* with our kids?
As a product of the public school system, with multiple degrees, including a PhD, I can tell you that I was given a fine education by the public schools I attended. My parents are blue collar high school grads that did not understand nor could help with my college education, but I have done very well.
Are there troubles with the education, sure, but the infrastructure of our schools is falling apart - how could we do that to our kids? How can kids learn when the ceiling might fall on their head? What does that tell them of how we see them as a priority. Over the last 30 years, the share of funding for education has not kept up with the need. That coincides with the concentration of wealth at the top, the lowering of taxes, but especially on the wealthy, while funding for the military increased.
Don't try and pin that on teachers or the teacher's unions. The root of 85% of all problems anywhere lie with the Management that cannot manage their charters, schools or in businesses.

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 10:55PM

Purp,

More platitudes, blah, blah, blah! I told you what I would, do. Now, tell me what YOU would do.

I don't give a hoot in hell about your multiple degrees, credentials, successes or crackpot theories. Just answer the question. Can you do that?

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 2:42PM

"If, as a country, we want all our workers to be productive, we make sure they have a good education or good technical skills education to have a good job"

Ummm, no it is up to the people to make sure they get a good education or technical skills to make sure they are productive. They have the lions share of responsibility if they want to be successful, not the goverment.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:19PM

So you take the easy way out - typical right-wing ignorance of the problem.
Umm, no one said they don't have the lion's share of the responsibility. But, for the children, surely you don't advocate it's their problem, do you? As for the worker who loses a job or industry moves overseas, you don't think they deserve any help at all? You'd rather them be on the public dole or worse, homeless beggar? THAT's the America you want, is it?

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 4:33PM

No that's the america you want.

"But, for the children, surely you don't advocate it's their problem, do you"
Nope, it's their parents problem.

"As for the worker who loses a job or industry moves overseas, you don't think they deserve any help at all?"
They get it, unemployment and in many cases re-training.

"You'd rather them be on the public dole or worse, homeless beggar? "
Once again, that is what the Democrats want. Why, because it increases the number of voters dependent on them and increases their chances of staying in power. See Detroit, Chicago, or any long term run Democrat city and see how their war on poverty is fairing. I say poverty is winning.

Liberal troll

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 8:51PM

If that were true, it would be a heck of a lot easier in this day and age of concentration of wealth at the top to push the bottom off the cliff and into the hands of the Democrats, now wouldn't it? You don't know what you're talking about - 1/2 the country is living under or near the poverty level for a family of 4. Yet, 1/2 the country doesn't vote Democratic, now does it?
And, no older workers don't get the re-training or especially the re-education they need to change jobs. You don't care to help them become productive - just "you're on your own dumba*" Nice Christian heart you have. Moreover, it's dumb from an economic perspective, not helping people get back on their feet to have a good job. 1/3 to 1/2 of our deficit today is due to the fewer number of people working and paying taxes into the treasury... you far right-wing nutcase.

Cpl.Punishment| 12.22.11 @ 5:00PM

One of the biggest problems with our schools is the "inclusion" BS. We are causing entire generations of children to suffer so that the one that is probably not going to cancer feels like he is the same as the rest.

I spoke recently with a cab driver in the Bahamas and this came up. He has a son with learning issues and he couldn't believe the US would do what we are doing. In the Bahamas the extent of inclusion is home room, lunch and recess. The rest of the time is spent in classes that are gear toward teaching those with learning issues.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 3:09PM

It is not the job of the taxpayers to re-educate anyone. It is the job of the individual to re-educate himself. That's what community colleges and on-line education is meant for. And if someone is smart enough to be re-educated, he doen't need me to help him do it. Good God, do you want the government to cut our meat for us, too?

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:21PM

Wrong. In other industrialized countries, even college is free to the students, just like our elementary and secondary school systems are.
To be competitive, we need to keep up and give our students, young and old, a leg up to help them advance.
The "pull your self up by your bootstrap" mentality is so passe and quaint, but it's way lame in today's fast moving world. Get on board or the world will pass you by.

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 4:34PM

"In other industrialized countries, even college is free to the students, just like our elementary and secondary school systems are.
"
Wrong again, its paid for with their higher tax rates, just like our elementary and secondary schools.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 8:54PM

Then raise taxes and provide college education or advanced technical skills to our young and others that need it so it is free to elevate our population to enable them to be competitive with the countries that already provide it. Simple. And education dollars repay themselves many times over ... no better investment for a country. Maybe a few less aircraft carriers or farmer subsidies could pay for it, if you don't want to.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 9:16PM

Wr are not "other countries" and I don't give a damn what other countries do. We are spending more on education than ever before, and it has done NOTHING to raise the quality of that education. The problem lies in the lack of priority American parents put on education vs. other countries. And that's something that can't be bought or legislated, despite the wishful rainbow thinking of liberals.

Cpl.Punishment| 12.22.11 @ 5:06PM

That depends, in the last 5 years 80% of UMASS Lowell (a school with a great engineering and physics program) graduates were degrees in music or art. 9% engineering. In MA at a state school Social work related degrees are free. I think if we are going to subsidize college degrees they should be for something more useful then welfare caseworker or history of hip hop.

markenoff| 12.21.11 @ 11:27PM

The feds funded a plethora of job training and job re-training programsl. Doesn't seem to be doing much good.

PolishKnight| 12.22.11 @ 11:07AM

I find it ironic that Bill Gates and other software moguls who made their fortunes selling a piece of junk that companies buy because it's a "standard" protect, and expand, their copyrights viciously. If someone in India burned a lousy copy of Windows7, their lawyers would be on them in a hot minute.

But then, the same guy happily breaks immigration law by bringing in H1B's (who probably don't really qualify since the program was for jobs that local tech workers didn't want) with made up academic credentials and demands the locals train him. Amazing.

With this "every man for himself" logic, why should anyone's son volunteer for the army or marines and go to war on the cheap to defend this nation? All anti-american invaders need to do is just attend a 4 week long programming school and they'll be welcomed with open arms.

markenoff| 12.21.11 @ 11:24PM

If he spent his spare time sitting on his a** watching TV instead of looking for ways to improve his marketability, yes. The US steel industry did not collapse over night. And, while he was making that good jack, how much was he saving? High school to 55, that's 38 years to build a nest egg.

markenoff| 12.21.11 @ 11:25PM

I mean 37 years.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 9:45AM

Bill O'

Lots of people have lost jobs through no fault of their own. Sometime in the early 1900's the entire horse carriage industry collapsed as the automobile supplanted that old technology. Telephone operators? My favorite, was it the piano players' fault that talking movies, 'talkies' obsoleted them in 1928?

Technology is the greatest destroyer AND creator of jobs in any economy. Are there more ditch digging jobs now or 100 years ago? Would you want to hand dig those Interstate underpasses, or would you rather run a big yellow Caterpillar machine and dig like a hundred, tired dirty men could never?

No job is guaranteed, not by anybody. Plan on your job going away and you'll never be caught short. Only dolts and members of trade unions think they are irreplaceable.

Remember receptionists? Secretaries? File clerks? Stenographers? Gas pump jockeys? Grocery store checkout girls?

In 1900 90% of the country's work force was growing food, now it's less than 2%.

Nancy Pelosi might as well legislate hurricanes and tornadoes out of existence as trying to solve problems that occur through "No one's own fault!"

Actually this mirrors the global warming crackpots worrying about something that will happen in 100 years - there can never be an accounting of the decisions made - all of the decision makers will be dead by then.

That parallels the lesson the communists learned in the 1980's and 1990's: don't try to save something that can see that you are actually hurting it and ask you to stop helping . Sort of like the Polish proletariat did in Gdansk. Trees, snail darters, salmon can't say "you're killing us!"

They have a simple approach - since the actual results of our policies are the exact opposite of what we say they are, we must obfuscate the results, somehow.

For us, clarity is the only remedy! And their worst enemy! And our best weapon!

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 1:59PM

For anyone who has been hit by a hurricane or tornado, if only someone could legislate them away. Giving someone needy a helping hand is doing nothing less than what Jesus would expect you to do. If it is done through the government, so be it.

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 2:43PM

I must have a different version of the bible than you. Mine had Jesus instructing us to be kind to our fellow man. Not be kind to our goverment so they can shoulder the responsibility to be kind to our fellow man.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:26PM

Yes, that is true, but you must have missed Matthew 22:22 where Jesus when confronted with whether the Jews should pay the Roman's TAXES, he says, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's".
Using those taxes to help the citizens of Rome (or the U.S.) is simply extending Jesus' will that we treat our fellow man kindly, help the poor and generally "do unto others..." by proxy through Caesar (=the government).

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 4:35PM

But you want to render unto Caesar what is God's and let Ceasar extend jesus will. No where in the bible does it say to do that. Charity begins at home, not at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 8:55PM

But, aren't we a Christian Nation? Don't you think we should start acting like it?

TomB| 12.21.11 @ 6:29PM

Rome did not use the proceeds of taxes to help the citizens of Rome - they used them to maintain the army so they could conquer more taxpayers. The model worked until they got to Scotland, at which point Hadrian built a wall. In Rome largesse was doled out by individuals to individuals.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 8:57PM

Surely they didn't in the way we do help our citizens, but, yes, they did. The Emperors spent exorbitant amounts of money on the "games" that could extend for months - where the people were given food and drink free. They build the Colliseums, the roads, the baths and on and on to provide for the people, as they saw their duty in those days. To say they did not spend money on providing for the people is just not correct.

JiveBomber| 12.22.11 @ 3:11AM

The purpose of Rome's largesse was to keep it's people docile and tame. And liberals still consider that "progressive".

PolishKnight| 12.22.11 @ 9:29AM

In that particular case, the questioner was asking whether it's ok to skip out on taxes rather than pay the church and Jesus wouldn't let him off the hook. This is like someone saying that maybe they shouldn't have to pay their gas bill if the electricity bill is due. It wasn't really about a policy of the welfare state so much as personal responsibility.

As others point out, Rome had conquered Palestine at the time and the "taxes" where the fees they paid to their conquerors. The government wasn't their "friend" (which is a joke consider how Pontious Pilated treated the Jews and Jesus.)

Indeed, the left's plan for most of the money is to act like Caesar: Blow it on their croney buddies. Are you a minority, woman, or government croney? Then forget about them caring about you!

Cpl.Punishment| 12.22.11 @ 5:09PM

Rome did not provide welfare

Indy| 12.21.11 @ 3:02PM

My family as well as other relatives living in a different part of the country have been hit by major hurricanes. We took care of each other, property insurance paid for damage to our house and vehicles, we covered our out of pocket expenses and with sweat equity we cleaned up and rebuilt. Along the way, we had wonderful neighbors who helped us (we helped others too), a friend arranged for some volunteers from his church to help us with storm cleanup, we have never forgotten that help and anytime there is a storm, tornado, we help others. Jesus did not teach us to care for each other through the government. It is up to us to help our neighbors in need. Recent examples are the citizens of Joplin and others throughout the country who stepped up to assist those in need after many natural disasters, floods, fires, tornadoes , hurricanes. Businesses stepped in to hire those who lost jobs, perhaps not all have found jobs in places like Joplin but churches and non profits stepped in to help and Americans from across the country made donations.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:30PM

Never said Jesus expected the government to help anyone. But since OUR government is "We the People", uniquely exceptional and blessed with a government of the people, by the people and FOR the people, are not the people subjected to the same plea Jesus proscribes since they ARE the government ?
And, yes, it is wonderful that friends, family and neighbors come together in time of need - but it is also important that corporations and governments with the enormous resources respond to help as well to get people get back on their feet to be able to work, pay taxes, etc. Doesn't that make sense?

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 9:22PM

No. It does not make sense. It is not the responsibility of corporations and government to "do good." Doing good cannot be legislated. Do you truly not see that? If you don't: define "doing good" for me. What does it MEAN? If it can't be defined, it can't be legislated.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 3:26PM

So, now, in addition to paying for: medical care for all, never-ending unemployment benefits, welfare for the poor, feeding and housing all the homeless, endowments for the arts, research for the sciences, education and re-education for all, a skeletal military, subsidies for every farmer trying to save the family farm, and the enormous bureaucracy required to run all of this, you want me to pay for all the damages of natural catastrophes too?

TrueBlue| 12.21.11 @ 4:23PM

Sadly many of the farms receiving subsidy money aren't people trying to save the family farm. Most of those people lost the family farm a long time ago because they were driven out by rich people with connections getting government subsidies to allow them to undercut the competition, driving them out of business. Subsidies are based entirely on who you know (and how many favors they owe you or will get out of the deal), not the actual need involved.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 9:23PM

Then let's GET RID OF THEM. And all other forms of welfare.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:32PM

You do know that you already do pay for quite a bit after a natural catastrophe, don't you? FEMA, Homeland Security and a myriad of State agencies are there to help, along with Red Cross and other charities.
Keep in mind all this paying is going to people to have jobs, so it's not like you just through the money in the toilet. Those people buy things that you might even make and circulate the money back to you! That's how our economy works.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 9:17PM

Yet your comment implies that what we are paying now isn't enough. Hence my post. Duh.

markenoff| 12.21.11 @ 11:28PM

Taking money from one group to give it to another does not make you compassionate.

PolishKnight| 12.22.11 @ 11:11AM

I love reading a free marketeer go on about how it's up to the masses to get more educated and learn more skills because they don't need ditch diggers or crop pickers anymore and then, oftentimes, that same person turns around and says we need to provide amnesty for illegals because need crop pickers and ditch diggers but the free market, legal worker doesn't want to do it for 4 dollars an hour...

If we don't need low skilled labor, why are the Republican so in love with illiterate illegals who will vote Democrat the second they get amnesty?

DaveD| 12.21.11 @ 12:51PM

Bill, I don't think I can agree with you. Especially about "...you picked a loser to work for ..." Easily seen with hind sight, not so easy to see as you are going forward. Sometimes, even if you can see the hand writing on the wall, the choice is not an easy one. Let me give you a couple examples:

1.) You worked 9 years for a Fortune 100 company which is beginning to totter. If you stay another year, you have a fully vested pension. If you leave now you avoid unemployment problems with the looming bankruptcy but you kiss the pension away. What do you do? Is this some how your fault?

2.) You work for a closely held technology company - $10 million annual revenue. First six years everything goes along smoothly, and because you are good at your job, you earn a six figure salary. Then, the owner goes nutso and quits making payroll on a regular basis. You discover that you are over paid for the current employment market, your skill set is growing obsolete, and you are looking at re-training and a 40% pay cut. Your salary, while intermittent, still remains more than that. Do you stay or do you bite the bullet? How is this your fault?

(Both true stories, BTW, the latter is in the process of working its way through the court system.)

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 12.21.11 @ 6:02PM

Under your line of reasoning you are never responsible for life's choices.

markenoff| 12.21.11 @ 11:34PM

When your making money you save money for these kinds of situations. If you make six figures for six years and live below your means you should be able to accumulate a substantial emergency fund and a nest egg. I have never made six figures annually but at 45 I have almost no debt (mortgage on a rental property and a 0% auto loan; credit cards paid off every month), 50 ozs of gold, over 30k in ready cash and a nice 401k. It's all about delayed gratification, not trying to keep up with the Jones' and understanding that money + time = magic. And I've worked some less than appealing jobs like sorting aluminum hubcaps for recycling, delivering telephone books and telemarketing.

Ret. Marine| 12.21.11 @ 7:07AM

No, in fact, it is legalized plunder, and this too has made all of us painfully aware to the point of buying the votes, through the pain of others suffering, it called working for a living while robbing them of the fruits of their labor. The real question should be, since when did the government get into the business of seperating the moral vrs. the law issue? When it comes to the demonrat party, along with the help of the RINO's, there seems to no bounds gone untouched with others peoples money up and until they run out of it. This begs the question, why then do they steal, through their policies, laws, unlawful laws of taxation without representation, others hard earned money through their own labor, and if memory serves correctly the SCOTUS has already set presidence that ones hard earned labor, or their money does not belong to the theives, i.e. politicans to give away for the votes they buy in the process. I am thinking we are about to reap the rewards of thier decisions to curry favor to stay in power from theivery, soon, we will see just who has the foritude to stand on their feet vrs. who is going to starve because of their insistence upon others hard labors. I have got to believe, no one deserve this treatement especially from known liars and those who over the past eighty years, abused the public's trust. But, that just me. I am thinking we are about to witness another French revolution type scenerio very soon. Personally I can't think of a better way to resolve the issue, we know we don't count, and as the golden rules says, those with the gold make the rules. it might turn into those with the most lead, will be less likely to turn up dead, "through no fault of their own".

Timothy L. Pennell| 12.21.11 @ 7:46AM

"When the people realize they can VOTE THEMSELVES MONEY, then it's over." Thomas Jefferson. (I think)

Ken (Old Texican)| 12.21.11 @ 8:02AM

REtired Marine,
warning taken. Stock up on your favorite bar-B-que sauce to make your wheat and beans more palatable.
www.americaalonesaidno.com (a future history)

WRTolkas| 12.21.11 @ 9:23AM

Future history heck: this stuff is going on now.

I've read the book three times now, and I see disturbing parallels with the story, obama the unready's administration, and iran.

I lost my job a dozen years ago. I moved and found a new job. I guess they don't teach that concept anymore.

Ret. Marine| 12.22.11 @ 7:28AM

About three years ahead of that already Ken. I'm taking the fifth from here on, thank you very much.

VonMisesJr| 12.21.11 @ 8:51AM

Ret. Marine,
Thank you for your service.
I agree with you, but wish to make a historical clarification. The SCOTUS may return property to the rightful owner, but the French Revolution did not turn out that way. The Nobles initially collaborated with the Enlightenment Philosophers to usurp the bourgeoisie wealth after the Industrial Revolution(Burke's "Reflections"). It backfired and the Nobles and Monarchy were toppled.
But when Napoleon was tapped for dictator to end ten years of anarchy and two "Reigns of Terror," he made the grand bargain with the bourgeoisie not to return the land to the former Nobles or the Church (Le Bon "The Psychology of Revolution").
So I contend that Pelosi and Van Holland know this, whether they read these books, or Alinsky and Ayers informed them, and they expect that they will be successful in the transfer of wealth from those with property to those without. And they wish to be the new Napoleon and his regime.

Ret. Marine| 12.22.11 @ 7:39AM

My reference to the French Revolution was only mentioned as to remind the others not interested or concerned how things can go terribly in the wrong direction, I am already aware of the lesson you have commented upon, the question is, do those who are about to starve because of their support for the usurper-n-thief understand what I was getting at? But, thanks anyway for the clairification to words I left out. Merry Christmas and lets have a happy new Year, even if it pisses them off. Semper Fi, remember your oath.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 2:01PM

"... we know we don't count, and as the golden rules says, those with the gold make the rules. it might turn into those with the most lead, will be less likely to turn up dead, "through no fault of their own". - agreed, the 1% are in trouble and we should occupy K Street, where the gold is.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 3:30PM

And the government is SO much better at making rules than those evil rich.

Riiiiiiight.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:34PM

The government we have today the best that money can buy. If you want to know what's wrong with any institution, follow the money. And, in the case of government it will lead you to K street in many cases. We need the government to get off the money teat and respond to the people again.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 9:19PM

From you, this is laughable. You want us to get off the money teat, Liberal? Then stop advocating every spending scheme for every perceived injustice out there.

TrueBlue| 12.21.11 @ 4:27PM

Politicians are PART OF THE ONE PERCENT. Why are people so trusting that they will do the right thing in regards to the rest of the country? It's all smoke and mirrors. We the people need to impose more rules on the politicians, reduce their paychecks, remove their ability to trade on the stock market while in office, and make it clear that they are there to serve US, not the other way around.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:35PM

Agreed. And the Constitution serves the people, not the other way around.

VonMisesJr| 12.21.11 @ 5:08PM

Purp,
You are actually making perfect sense. So I don't understand why you would be for redistribution of wealth when you admit that the government is corrupt and using their power to enrich themselves. The Constitution is for the people. It is a contract with the government to limit their power to enumerated and limited areas. And deciding winners, losers and taking care of people is not one of them.
If you keep talking like this, I may have to sue for peace.
VMJr.

George S| 12.21.11 @ 7:41AM

On the other hand, compassionate conservatism gave us Medicare Prescription Drug Program and No Child Left Behind. All votes have their price, I guess.

jothepro| 12.21.11 @ 9:01AM

Hey George, Do you really think that conservativism gave us these programs?

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 9:49AM

Compassionate Conservatism was neither!

That was Karl Rove and George Bush's triangulation for the all-important mindless middle, the independents.

Those two are another couple of hopeless statists - they have theirs and now none for you...

Timothy L. Pennell| 12.21.11 @ 7:44AM

Lenin. Mussolini. Hitler. Mao. Castro. Min. Mugabe. Chavez. Obama.

The only difference is the Number of the DEAD.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 8:10AM

And at least one doesn't think too highly of another; to wit:

Hugo Chávez blasted President Barack Obama as a “clown” and an “embarrassment” who has turned the United States into a “disaster” after Obama criticized Venezuela’s ties with Iran and Cuba, according to a report Tuesday.

In today's Politico, H/T Matt Drudge.

Even his friends laugh at him, does it really matter who we nominate, as long as he or she will undo all that Obama's done, every last speck of it?

Timothy L. Pennell| 12.21.11 @ 9:17AM

I wouldn't give too much weight to Baldy's statements. He took over Venezuela. Who hasn't? Guys like him, taking over Banana Exporting places like Venezuela, are a dime a dozen. The Mayans could set their watches by it.

Obama is no Clown. That's just the Citgo Clown, projecting. Obama is DIABOLICAL. Like SATAN, himself, he remains in the Shadows. Lurking. Planning. He has Minions to do his dirty work. Unaccountable Czars, REGULATING our every move. Our very Existence. See what he has accomplished, in just 3 Years. The Middle East would not be where in the situation that it now finds itself, without the Emergence of Hamas' DELIVERER.

So, Chavez is LAUGHING at Satan's Pawn, is he?

You would think that Satan would PUNISH Chavez. Oh, wait. Didn't he just come down with CANCER?

I guess that's just a COINCIDENCE.

Will| 12.21.11 @ 9:45AM

And I guess you're just crazy

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 10:01AM

TLP,

I think you give the 'Bamster way too much credit. He really is not all that bright. Think of the number of times the TOTUS has abandoned him and an open microphone has beaten him senseless. He had to let Reid and Pelosi run the agenda through Congress while he hid out at the golf course. If he were at all intelligent, he could have made all that a slam dunk. He hasn't written a thing worry of publication, demi-autobiographies and fictional birth certificates not withstanding, otherwise we would have been showered with it. No, he's no genius. He's a puppet. And now the puppet master has to get this sorry, stupid thing re-elected. We'll see who is dumber, Obama or the American electorate.

The question comes down to this, is America a country that understands "Screw me twice, my fault!" or was Mencken correct saying 'nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.'

We shall see. Me? I'm praying.

Hey, mebbe Obama should point how dumb he is to prove his citizenship?!?

numbatdog| 12.21.11 @ 8:01AM

"It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
What are the consequences of such a perversion?"

Sadly we are about to experience the consequences for ourselves. There is ample evidence the government is deeply corrupt. Funneling hard earned taxpayer funds to cronies and unions is the tip of the iceberg. Initiating a criminal scheme like fast and furious and then denying all responsibility is another symptom. Growing the IRS to squeeze the population harder and new indefinite detention laws of Americans at the whim of officials. The House and Senate have become an elite members only club where both parties profit by insider trading on the very laws they are writing. Destroying the future by spending wildly on vote buying and accumulating an impossible to pay debt. Deeply corrupt and the people know it.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 8:16AM

Bastiat was a Frenchman, writing in 1850, just sixty short years after France endured the "Terror" where they tested the guillotine to see if you could wear it out-on anybody who had either influence or money. Do not doubt that revolutions are REcurring phenomena.

Or we could all man up and tell Obama and his OWS ilk that we really like the rich - not to eat, but because someday we can be them, if we work hard and smart.

Indy| 12.21.11 @ 8:27AM

"The Law" by Bastiat should be required reading for all high school students. If you haven't read it, you will be amazed at how it seems like it was written for today.

VonMisesJr| 12.21.11 @ 9:04AM

Hi Indy,
The Bastiat Collection is available at www.mises.org for $14. It would make a great Christmas gift. I got my nephews "Economics in One Lesson" for $12 as a stocking stuffer.

The Basitiat Collection also includes "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen." It begins with the "Boken Window" fallacy that is key for anyone who wishes to disect the tripe our government feeds us daily.

I am not involved with the organization, but simply took liberty to commandeer the pen name.
VMJr.

Indy| 12.21.11 @ 10:24AM

Thanks for the tip, I will definitely get that, I've been building a library of books. The Concise Guide toEconomics is also good but my preference is Thomas Sowell's "Basic Economics" We should all pay attention to local schools and what is on their recommended reading list, there is no reason why we cannot make recommendations and challenge anything that is questionable such as Rules for Radicals. There needs to be balance in reading lists, not one particualar ideology

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 10:38AM

Indy,

I required both my children to read "Basic Economics" before entering college as a condition of my writing the first check. It was intended as a prophylactic against university indoctrination. The small bonus I received was that my son "aced" his econ mid-term on the basis of having read it.

Indy| 12.21.11 @ 12:59PM

Bravo!

VonMisesJr| 12.21.11 @ 2:00PM

I have been a Sowell fan for years. I have about two-dozen in my library of his 40 or so books. He is great since he not only deals with economics as a subject, but affirmative action around the world, a series of books on Enlightenment intellectuals versus conservativism/benighted that believe man is flawed and not perfectable, and a few consolidating his articles. Every time he publishes a book, I rush to get it and stop what I am reading to devour his words of wisdom.

Merry Christmas to you and our fellow economics enthusiast.

Indy| 12.21.11 @ 2:46PM

Thank you and Merry Christmas to you as well. I'm glad to find encon friends, we must continue to self educate. I am looking forward to some days off and will use some of that time to tackle my reading list.

For those with middle school, high school and college students a great intro to econ can be found at the link below, the Fight of the Centrury is excellent. My kids are not avid readers especially on a topic they find dry but the video kicked off a discussion on economics http://econstories.tv/ go to videos. What I like about these videos is the presentation of Keynes and Hayek, I see it as a useful tool for teachers to present both points of view and allow students to learn critical thinking skills as they evaluate each theory.
I see they now have an online store which has some fun T-shirts

Another excellent site is http://www.fee.org/ where you can hear podcasts and find inexpensive books. Their articles at the freeman online are informative. Happy reading!

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 10:03AM

At least we could start with legislators who vote against reading the Constitution at the start of the last session of Congress.

Riff Raff| 12.21.11 @ 10:54AM

O'Bozo don't hate no rich folk. He ARE one! And he got that ways the best way, through GOVERNMENT!

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 11:17AM

RR,
Not the "best" way, the "surest" way.

Confusion to our enemies!

Indy| 12.21.11 @ 8:24AM

Two stories about unemployment
1> I remember sitting on the bleachers at a youth baseball game in 2010 and behind me were two moms talking about a job opportunity that one decided not to take because she wanted to continue getting her unemployment checks while holding out for something better as well as allowing her more time at home. I don't know how isolated this view is but it was disappointing to hear. Many of my former co-workers who were laid off would have jumped at the chance to have a job. It may not have been the perfect job but it would be a starting point to move on to better opportunities down the road, hard work leads to better opportunities.
2> Back in the '80's I had a family member who was laid off and struggled to find work, when the unemployment checks were about to run out, he ended up taking a very dangerous job because there was nothing else and he had to provide for his family. His first day on the job, a man was killed in an industrial accident, it was a horrible day but my loved one got up the next day and went back to work, he did so day after day until he could find a way to move to a different region of the country to land a safe job.

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 11:09AM

Unfortunately your first story is all too common. I personally know of 3 people that think the same way as the lady behind you at the ball game. The thought of getting a job, any job, being better than accepting a handout seem to be long behind us.

Darin| 12.21.11 @ 8:42AM

Using the phrase "through no fault of their own" implies that life is fair. Best way to respond is this:

No one said it was their fault. It happened, and they need to deal with it. Life is not and never has been fair. Most people understands this and deal with it. The moocher doesn't understand, doesn't care, and only wants to blame someone for their situation while insisting others give them something. The moocher needs to grow up and take responsibility for their life.

Jimmy| 12.21.11 @ 12:01PM

Here's my response. My money was taken from me by the government to give to someone else. Now who is going to give ME money that I lost through no fault of my own?

Redstateboy| 12.21.11 @ 9:06AM

last night... on CNN (Communist News Network) or perhaps it was MSNBC - there was some popular Liber-ul witch - who's name'd be familiar if I thought it was worth wasting my memory on blubbering and once again it occured to me... Liber-uls are so stupid. What part of "broke" do Liber-uls not understand? Margaret Thatcher said it best.. Socialism is a great idea until you've run out of other peoples money. We've run out of other people's money.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:36PM

Who's talking about Socialism? Only the right-wing keeps talking about it. Liberal does not equal Socialist. No more than conservative equals Fascist.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 9:25PM

Of course not, because ultimately, fascist and socialist are the SAME THING: totalitarian government. And that sort of regime only comes when the people are beholden to the government.

Franco| 12.21.11 @ 9:11AM

"I agree that starvation is the best solution, and that the Destitute ought to be encouraged to devour each Other, which would provide them not only of a means of Nourishment, but an incentive to Labour."

Are there no prisons? No union workhouses?

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 10:07AM

Franco! Should we start by eating the rich! I believe that's your side's idea.

Over here we want everyone to have an opportunity to work so they can buy themselves a juicy steak, not a political snake!

They have run out of other people's money, already! Get it? Probably not. Franco, don't you understand that or are you not very bright?

Steve| 12.21.11 @ 10:08AM

Franco:
Since you don't elaborate, I can't be sure of your point in the above quote from A Christmas Carol.
But Scrooge here his refusing to give freely of his own money and instead insists that the poor should be supported by the government institutions.
I think most conservatives would agree with me that it should be the opposite: we should give freely to charitable organizations we believe in, and deny the waste that is cause by government intervention.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 10:15AM

Steve,

Franco is a typical socialist - he wants yours for himself, but gets very upset if someone else wants his.

That is the other reason socialism fails every time: socialists understand only the "me"side, as in 'You give me.' They completely miss the fact that eventually the only rational thing a "you" can do is become a 'me.' Then the only thing to do is "eat the rich." After all, that's where the money is! Til it's gone...

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:37PM

Good luck, when you lose a job.

Ground Control| 12.21.11 @ 9:38AM

The Founders understood this principle as well, even before Bastiat. This is why they wrote and ratified a Constitution that prohibits Federal plunder by Law (the Supreme Law of the Land, the Constitution). Unemployment insurance, welfare checks, food stamps, school lunches, even public education, are all flatly illegal programs run by by what is essentially a criminal government. Congress may pass "Laws" that "legalize" plunder, but such "Laws" are themselves flatly illegal (unconstitutional), and their proponents and sponsors are defacto criminals and plunderers, not the altruistic benefactors they fancy themselves to be. Bastiat had it right when he said that such politicians work for their own benefit, not the benefit of their "clientele."

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:40PM

"Unemployment insurance, welfare checks, food stamps, school lunches, even public education, are all flatly illegal programs " Actually, they are not. Congress has the authority, by the Constitution, to make all laws that enable it to carry out it's enumerated and implied powers, including the bill of rights and other Amendments to the Constitution. Anyone interested in original intent ought to know that. A strong central government is what the Founders gave us, after they saw what happened when the weak central authority worked (or didn't work) under the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the Constitution.

Ground Control| 12.21.11 @ 6:11PM

"Implied Powers"? Really? Perhaps you should read the 10th Amendment. "The Powers not delegated to the United States by this constitution nor prohibited by to the States are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People."

Original intent means the constitution means what is written in it and understood by the authors and ratifiers as to what it meant. I stand by my comment. These programs are flatly illegal for the US government to run, as there is absolutely no delegated power to run these programs in the Constitution. They are perfectly legal for States to run, but not the Feds. Despite what you have been told, the Constitution is NOT carte blanche for the US Government.

Just because you say something does not make it so. You really do not know what you are talking about.

Ground Control| 12.21.11 @ 7:13PM

By the way, "strong central government" does not imply "unlimited powers." The powers of the United States government are defined by the Constitution and thus limited to what is defined. Any additional powers assumed by the Feds are a usurpation.

Anthony| 12.21.11 @ 9:41AM

Due to Obozo's and the D's economic policies, if they do not extend unemployment benefits indefinately, there will be riots in the streets.
All this is a ruse to cover up Obozo's and the Ds failure to creat jobs and boost the private sector.
I say let the riots begin, then maybe Americans will finally wake the hell up.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 10:08AM

Never been in a riot, have you?

Riff Raff| 12.21.11 @ 10:51AM

I, for one, don't "do" riots. I just sit at home and wait. Rioting on my property would not be recommended.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 11:19AM

RR,

I'm wichoo! Just there's better ways to get change than let lots of people suffer a lot of needless collateral damage...

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 11:20AM

Amen Riff Raff. I only fire one warning shot, heed it at your own risk.

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 11:39AM

After all, it is Christmas!

HeeHaw!

Confusion to our enemies!

Anthony| 12.21.11 @ 1:37PM

DTOM, The answer is no, however, I am a fast learner and a good shot.
America does not seem to comprehend that we are about to go over the cliff, so tell me how riots are any worse?

Michael A. Gabel| 12.21.11 @ 9:43AM

It is truly amazing what the left will do to destroy the concept of personal responsibility.

"Through no fault of their own" is the left's attempt to make people "feel good" about the fact that their skills and training may no longer be in demand. It's a shameless political pander to those who prefer victimhood rather than personal responsibility and self-reliance.

Let's see if any conservatives who have a loud microphone will echo my thoughts?

Nancy in NC| 12.21.11 @ 10:17AM

It is unfair that many employers have to compete against a government that makes it more profitable to sit on one's arse than get a job. Recently read an article in the WSJ about an employer that was unable to hire in his restaurant as those qualified preferred unemployment insurance.

Isn't it ironic that when unemployment insurance lasted for six months, people found jobs in six months. In Sweden where it lasts for 4 years, people take 4 years to find a job. Face it folks, there are a large number of people that prefer the easier, softer way. Not everyone has learned that "stealing" is immoral.

Pete| 12.21.11 @ 10:09AM

Goes hand in hand with D housing policy. Limits the mobility necessary to move to find a new job.

Dagny Taggert| 12.21.11 @ 10:20AM

Excellent article Ross, and thank you for "the Law" again. "Through no fault of their own" goes hand-in-hand with the mentality of the "everyone-gets-a-trophy" generation. The movement to reward everybody just for showing up was intended to promote self-esteem. The unintended consequence is that fewer and fewer of our young people understand the basic tenents of self-esteem: any individual's hard work creates confidence and results--and thus self-esteem. It comes from within. If you haven't experienced that, then of course you feel the world owes you a living, and when times get tough, of course it wasn't your fault.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:43PM

Ross is an idiot. Of course, the world doesn't owe you a living - but you pay for unemployment insurance, insurance get that?, so you can be insured against being unemployed. It's not a freebie as he makes it sound. It's like saying Social Security Insurance is an entitlement when you've paid for it all your life. It's your insurance for a reasonable retirement free from starvation.

Nancy in NC| 12.21.11 @ 10:22AM

I recently had a young woman come into my business. She had moved here from Ohio. Her main complaint about the area: she had to go to so many places to receive her "benefits".
We need to change the language coopted by the left to actually say what it is. They are not "benefits"...they are welfare and freebies. People are on the dole. And why do they get credit card appearing documents instead of the unwieldy paper food stamps anymore? I really don't care about their self esteem. After six months of receiving "benefits" the credit cards need to be replaced with talking cards that proclaim they are taking from someone else. Probably wouldn't work...many of these people have no shame and just wouldn't care.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:46PM

Unemployment is not on the public dole. Welfare, yes, unemployment no. Say it three times until you get it.
if you have kids in school and I do not - you are stealing from me, aren't you? You want to throw your kids out of school because you didn't pay for the entire thing yourself?
It's called society, civilization and the costs thereof....

Ground Control| 12.21.11 @ 7:17PM

Dude! Receiving assistance from public funds IS being on the public dole! Get it? As for schools, schools are a legitimate function of the STATES, not the US government, and the people of each State vote on funding schools. Just as the people of each State can vote on unemployment insurance at the STATE level. And just because the people of a State approve of the dole, does not make it "not the dole." It is the Federal government that has no authority over these matters.

Ross Kaminsky | 12.21.11 @ 10:27AM

Don't you just love the left's straw man that the alternative to a massive welfare state is starvation?

Did we have people starving in the streets prior to the New Deal? No, not even during the great depression.

Americans, the most charitable people on earth, took care of each other through charities, churches, and other voluntary associations.

During the Dust Bowl, some states sent grain to the hardest-hit states.

The main reason that leftists think people will starve if there is no welfare state is that leftists are essentially uncharitable.

A semi-famous study of giving which came out in 2004 showed all 25 of the most charitable states (by percentage of income donated to charity) were "red states" that voted for Bush while 17 of the 20 least charitable were blue states.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/tax....._inde.html

There are other explanations besides stinginess, including that blue states tend to be highly taxed including, at the federal level, effectively subsidizing some poorer red states and thus leaving blue state residents feeling like they're already doing enough.

Nevertheless, I am convinced that liberals believe that government, not charity, should be doing many things that charities have historically done.

This will, of course, work out about as well as everything else government does, especially those things outside the constitution.

When you hear an idiot liberal say that conservatives or libertarians want people to starve, don't let them get away with it. Economics is all about incentives. Liberals simply don't understand many or most or all of the various incentives that fit into this discussion.

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 10:40AM

Ross Kaminsky,

It's interesting that Krugman wrote (with his wife) in one of his texts that extending unemployment benefits extended unemployment. It seems he must have forgotten that part.

DRed| 12.21.11 @ 11:13AM

No, I don't think so. Unemployment benefits (especially generous unemployment benefits) are a disincentive to job seeking, but that doesn't matter if there are no jobs to seek. Say we go the Kaminsky route right now and just end unemployment benefits. Which jobs are the unemployed going to take?

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 11:21AM

How about any job they can get VS the job they want?

DRed| 12.21.11 @ 11:35AM

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.htm

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Comparing the number of available jobs with the number of unemployed people (a number that my conservative friends keep reminding me is way too low) you see there are more than 4 unemployed people for every available job. Now, let's assume that all those jobs can be filled by totally unskilled workers-you've still got roughly 10 million unemployed people. Which jobs should they take?

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 11:51AM

DRed,

Again, these are posted job openings by companies seeking to hire. They are in short supply and will not return until the economy improves. What's a better way for the economy to improve? Do we pay for idle labor or incentivize it to find work? Krugman argued the latter in his text.

DRed| 12.21.11 @ 12:00PM

"They are in short supply and will not return until the economy improves. "

Yes, exactly. So which jobs are you going to incentivize the unemployed to find? The ones that don't exist. How does that help?

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 12:20PM

DRed,

Come build a fence for me. Learn a new skill. Not every job has a time clock and an HR department.

I've walked the walk and re-targeted myself over the last ten years to counter competition from overseas. It's not easy. It's apparently easier to rent-seek and extend unemployment benefits. I've personal knowledge of an erstwhile co-worker who saw a year of unemployment as a paid vacation (this was two years ago). We are still paying for him.

I repeat myself when I say the jobs are those the unemployed will find for themselves.

PolishKnight| 12.21.11 @ 1:41PM

The only people who now live in the "compete and work and die" model now are working men in private industry. The rest... are all subsidized including but not limited to: Unwed mothers (who can go on welfare), divorced women (child-support or alimony), unionized government workers, wealthy corporate executives who get corporate welfare, wealthy who inherit their "jobs" (cashing interest checks), non white male diversity hires, etc.

The only problem with that, gentlemen, is that the only ones left voting for the Republicans are NOT in the above groups and McCain when asked about reforming divorce law pushing fathers out of the home, etc. responded he couldn't care because he was on the way to a LaRaza meeting. Ok, that's a bit exaggerated but not by much.

We now live in a socialist state gentlemen and the Republican elites let it get to that point. Don't expect me to cry a river if the dirty OWS hippies come for them and their families...

DRed| 12.21.11 @ 3:45PM

You still haven't explained how people are going to take jobs that don't exist.

Nick| 12.21.11 @ 12:24PM

DRed,

If someone can't find a job, how about creating a job and work for themselves? It's called entrepreneurship.

No one is entitled to a job, or, owed a job in this country. Only socialists think that they are.

DRed| 12.21.11 @ 2:53PM

Sure, that sounds great. I don't think anyone is owed a job. But. . .it's easier said than done, no? Especially if one has no job and no money. And there's widespread unemployment and thus lower aggregate demand in the economy.

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 3:51PM

Well, maybe the concepts of family values, charity donation, community volunteerism and working one's ass off without whining about how unfair life is should make a comeback, no? And maybe the concepts of fairness (whatever that is) and social justice (whatever that is) and what I'm "owed" (whatever that is) should be removed from the purview of government and returned to the responsibility of the individuals, no?

DRed| 12.21.11 @ 4:56PM

It's hard to work one's ass off with no job, no?

qrstuv| 12.22.11 @ 12:16AM

Make a job! Sell something people want! Have you no imagination?

Nick| 12.21.11 @ 7:19PM

DRed,

"But. . .it's easier said than done, no?"

Actually, no. You do what you have to do. You downsize. You take a job a McDonald's. And another at Burger King, if you have to. Or, you cut lawns and shovel snow. Or, you wash windows. Or, sell junk door to door. Or, you work out of your garage, like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak did.

You know what you don't do? You don't give people money, for doing nothing, FOR 99 WEEKS, that's for sure.

According to the liberal mindset, it is better to go trillions of dollars into debt (over four trillion, under President Downgrade, so far) and make future generations pay for it, rather than make these people earn for themselves, or do without, correct?

DTOM| 12.21.11 @ 11:35AM

The jobs created by the sudden increase in demand for goods caused by the government's reduced plunder of private citizens, that's what jobs. This is how it has always worked and it always will.

Also you have created a strawman stating Mr. Kaminsky's position as immediate cessation of all unemployment benefits. That's a liberal tactic, making up positions, shoving them in your opponent's mouth, then assailing him for them. That is not civilized behavior.

I believe the politically successful approach would be to end federal extensions of unemployment insurances operated by the states. States have a Constitutional right to create these programs, the federal government does not.

Even Paul Krugman, if you got him drunk enough to forget who pays him, would have to admit that shortening the payment period would shorten unemployment.

Another question must be asked: if the Democrats know, as they surely must, or else they are irretrievably stupid, why do they extend the benefit if they know it extends average unemployment? The only viable, sensible answer is simple - they are pandering, pandering for votes with your tax money - unless of course you don't work.

And as been recalled so many times, Socialism works until you run out of other people's money. H/T to the Iron Lady, Mrs. Thatcher. In this extending unemployment benefits works until you run out of people stupid enough to keep working to support those who won't.

Unemployment insurance? What the hell's wrong with putting some money aside for a rainy day? That's what adults do.

To hell with the twenty-six year old children. Lincoln did ask how many legs a dog would have if you called his tail a leg. Answer: Four. If you are twenty-six years old, YOU are not a child. You are an adult. If you depend on others for your support you are an immature, dependent adult. And a probable failure.

DRed| 12.21.11 @ 11:43AM

"The jobs created by the sudden increase in demand for goods caused by the government's reduced plunder of private citizens, that's what jobs."

What do you think happens to money paid to the unemployed? Do you think they save it? No-it gets spent. So I'm not sure how you think the cessation of unemployment benefits is going to create demand.

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 12:22PM

DRed,

You take a dollar out of my pocket and spend it. How did that help?

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 12:31PM

So your saying that the studies that show extended (not short term) unemployments benifits have a negative effect?
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2938349

Hell, if the NYT has a article that agrees.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes......ding-jobs/

idalily| 12.21.11 @ 3:54PM

So, DRed, let me get this straight, You take money out of my spending pool via taxes and give it to someone else's spending pool? So, what did you accomplish? NOTHING. Well, except to make me poorer and make the recipient more dependent on receiving what he hasn't earned and less incentivized to go earn it himself. Congratulations. Well done.

DRed| 12.21.11 @ 5:01PM

The problem, as I keep repeating, is that you can't reduce a person's incentive to get a non-existent job.

Nick| 12.21.11 @ 7:27PM

DRed,

What you keep repeating....is wrong.

Ever heard the wise words, "Necessity is the mother of invention"?
Unemployment should be inventing jobs, through new businesses.

Unfortunately, liberals have, on top of keeping unemployment payments too good to stop receiving them, made it so complicated to start a business, most people don't even bother.

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 8:12PM

DRed,

The only person for whom all jobs are nonexistent is the person who is completely worthless.

qrstuv| 12.22.11 @ 12:18AM

Unless the person is a moron, he/she can sell something.

idalily| 12.22.11 @ 3:27PM

DRed, it is not MY responsibility as a taxpayer to do anything to reduce or increase your incentive to get a job. If a job doesn't exist in your skill set, put on the big boy pants and get a new skill set. I'm not your mommy.

John Navratil| 12.21.11 @ 11:45AM

DRed,

I take it you disagree with the Nobel Laureate then?

They will take the ones they make. You act as if the binary choice is to sitting on one's butt as a "doo da" or getting a job you are willing to take. It appears that sitting on one's butt is preferable to actually finding something to do. I've got 120 feet of fence to build but I'm not willing to pay the fence company $25/ft for it. That's just the opportunity at my house.

Jack London| 12.21.11 @ 1:45PM

John, I think you should build a wall instead and top it with razor wire. You'll need it to keep the unemployed out.

PolishKnight| 12.21.11 @ 1:48PM

If these jobs paid decently then certainly many would take them. However, thanks to McCain and the compassionate conservatives, illegals will undercut those wages.

And this begs the question: Why do so many Republicans love illegal labor? Because they want to pay artificially low wages (someone whose illegal does work cheaper just as it's cheaper to buy a stolen car than a legitimate one) and the welfare state beyond unemployment rewards those who don't work. I went in that above but one of the key aspects of the welfare state are family on welfare, namely unwed mothers, that the Republicans have yet to address. When poor families can literally breed themselves in a job, that's the end of the normal work-or-starve model.

That said, I don't think unemployment destroys as many jobs as you might think. I personally spent some of my savings and reduced my expenses rather than get a job at Starbucks when I couldn't find a job in my regular field. Working at starbucks actually would have REDUCED my ability to find new work. In addition, employers frown upon people with lots of DIFFERENT work in their resume such as short term jobs rather than a few jobs even if separated by a larger gap.

Jimmy| 12.21.11 @ 12:16PM

Duh. The ones that appear in the daily paper under "Employment". Yes, Virginia, there are job listings.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:50PM

There is no such thing as generous unemployment - you'd be lucky to pay your rent, gas money to look for job, and food bill on unemployment.

PolishKnight| 12.21.11 @ 1:35PM

There's a fundamental flaw in the leftist claim that blue states are "subsidizing" red states: Red states tend to get a lot of fed money in the form of military contracts, educational largesse, etc. So only looking at the relative "tax rate" is misleading. It's like saying that Goldman Sachs is "subsidizing" the local gym because GS pays more in federal taxes (the local gym didn't get a billion dollar bailout!)

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:48PM

Idiotic drivel. Jesus doesn't want you to let anyone starve either. And since our government is We the People, unique in this world, should we not respond uniquely and as a people help the hungry, poor, sick? Anyone who thinks otherwise ought to do some praying for their soul.

Ground Control| 12.21.11 @ 10:48AM

Thank you Mr. Kaminsky. Well put. The Constitution forbids the Feds from operating a Welfare State because the Founders knew the inherent corruption of such programs (e.g. Rome's Panem et Circenses) and the inherent corruptibility of centralized government. It would be correct to say that local charities are truly charitible, that is people give of themselves and their own to help others. What the Feds do is another animal altogether.

bill| 12.21.11 @ 11:03AM

Chris Van Hollen is a big fat LIAR. UNFORTUNATELY, he is my congressman in liberal MD. But he will be defeated in 2012.

cicero| 12.21.11 @ 11:58AM

Once we got used to the idea that the court system was the final determinant of the meaning of the Constitution, we began our great slide. The court system, of which I am a part, as I am an attorney, has done more damage to our society than any other single entity. It has allowed the legislative branch to enact its plunderous laws, while decreeing any attempts to stop it illegal. It has visited upn us pornography in the name of free speech; abortion in the name of human rights; and too many other societal evils in the name of privacy.
We now have the most wonderful country in the world being driven over the cliff on the claimed basis of compassion. How wonderful it is to donate other peoples wealth to your favorite charitly. All too often, the liberals' favorite charity ends up in their own coffers. As Harry Truman once said,"You show me a politician who comes out of office with more money than he went into office with, and I'll show you a thief". We are being governed by a den of thieves.
At least the great Ceasar plundered the Gauls in order to gain power in Rome. Had he merely plundered the hoi peloi, he may not have been nearly as successful.

Bob K.| 12.21.11 @ 12:15PM

Just as a matter of political reality on your question of "how does one draw a line between an unemployed person who lost his job 'through no fault of his own' or someone who was not a very good employee? Do you really want bureaucrats making that decision one day?"

Bureaucrats are already making these decisions and have been doing so for decades. Here in PA they are called referees and they hear the appeals of those denied Unemployment Compensation. These jobs are part time in nature and are reserved for Lawyers who are politically connected to state legislators who have considerable seniority and power. To a very large extent the only appellants who do not win these hearings are former enployees who were fired for egregiously bad behavior like gross insubordination or for almost complete unreliability. Except for cases like these, most employers will not waste their valuable time attending these hearings because they know they will lose.

Ross Kaminsky | 12.21.11 @ 2:17PM

Bob,

Good point. I should remove "one day" from that sentence.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 1:44PM

Why won't the Speaker of the House let the vote on the Senate Compromise Bill for the Payroll Tax Cut Extension come to a vote? What is he afraid of? Could it be that he just can't stand the idea that 160million 99% ers will get a tax cut, while his 1% buddies won't? Let's not discuss the red herring that it's too hard to implement. I work with computers and that's baloney. 2 weeks max they can make any minor change such as this. So "Why, Speaker Boner, Why are you holding up a Merry Christmas for most Americans, Democrat, Independent AND Republican?

PolishKnight| 12.21.11 @ 1:56PM

It's hardly a "compromise" if one of the houses is holding it up, isn't it?

The Dems had no problems holding up bills when it suited them. In the meantime, the Obamaconomy is rolling along...

VonMisesJr| 12.21.11 @ 2:04PM

Hey look who is up, PolishKnight.

Perp slept in today. He is usually up about 11:30 for his breakfast of government cheese. Don't let him bother you, he is just a troll living under the bridge.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:54PM

Can't answer can you ? there is no reason other than playing politics with the American people as hostage again ... ahhh, but the people are waking up and the House Republicants will be swept away. Every week they will be reminded of the loss in pay because of John Bonehead in the House and Eric Cankersore, his puppetmaster.

PolishKnight| 12.22.11 @ 9:39AM

Purp, that sounds so melodramatic. What hostages are there? Over a $1000 TEMPORARY tax credit?

In the meantime, I saw that various food products are playing the ol' Jimmy Carter stagflation game and selling us half empty boxes for the same price to hide inflation. Anyone else notice that? A 5 lb bag of sugar used to cost $2.40. Now for the same Obamadollars, you get only 4lbs. That's 20% inflation! Wow! Thanks Obama!

Obama actually messed up this one including politically and I'll tell you how: This "temporary" tax credit that has to be "extended" year after year will haunt them for years to come (like Obamacare). EVERY year, the Republicans get this opportunity to hold them hostage. What Democrat wants to let a "middle class" tax cut expire? Hmmm?

Purp, the left plays nothing but politics. The "American people" are government union goons, unwed crack welfare mothers, and non-whites and the rest are not "people" in the left's eyes. So don't preach about how caring Obama is. Ironically, his election releases decades of White Guilt so now even many whites have the wool pulled out of their eyes.

His popularity ratings, even when he's doing a bad job, indicates that his base is a bunch of cronies who don't care about performance. When GW was doing a bad job, his ratings plummeted down to the high teens. That's because conservatives are not a bunch of hypocritical scumbags and actually have moral standards. The left loves to cry a river about how oppressed they are and how nobody cares but them while they go around stabbing others in the back chuckling they can get away with it. So don't expect me to respond to your tears of hostage taking. When Obama gets votes by stabbing the middle class in the back, the left giggles over it.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:51PM

But, but, but - 83% of the Republican Senators supported the compromise that John Boner asked for - and now he can't deliver? Why is that?

Drunken Sailor| 12.21.11 @ 2:51PM

Here is my questin back to your Purp. Everytime Republicans talk about tax cuts, you liberals scream about decreased revenue and how to pay for the tax cut. Please lay out in detail how decreasing the revenue that funds Social Security will NOT hurt its long term stability and just how is Obama going to pay for this cut?

On the one hand Dems don't want anyone touching Social Security on the other hand the want to cut the money going into it. Only in todays bizzare world.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 4:58PM

The Republicants rejected Obama's proposals to pay for it - so they settled on fees on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which will affect the housing industry (great choice Republicants). Obama proposed a 2% surtax on the 1%, but no Republicant could ever go for that - because the 1% fuels their campaigns.
This is, after all, a temporary measure, but lifting the cap on FICA tax would pay for all of it and then some. Why don't they agree to that? Why should the 1% that also can receive Social Security in old age pay the same 6.75% on all their income like you and I do?

VonMisesJr| 12.21.11 @ 5:43PM

Purp,
You have allot of information but it does not seem to be fluid towards a logical conclusion. I will explain this again and you can research it yourself in a book written by liberals from the NYT called "Reckless Endangerment."

Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall that separated commerical from investment banking in the mid-1990's. He also put the Community Reinvestment Act on steroids that redlined banks for not lending to people who could not otherwise qualify. Fannie and Freddie worked with mortgage lenders to get people with low credit scores 700 for one transaction. They got the loans approved and then bought them from the mortgage lender taking them off the hook and freeing them up in their ratios to make more bad loans. Then the SEC oversaw the creation of collateralized mortgage/debt obligations or CMO/CDO's that packaged the loans and sold them to investors that Moodys, S&P and D&B rated at AAA. Then they bought credit default swaps from AIG and other insurance companies at premiums well below the risk. When they blew up, Paulson and the Wall Street "fat cats" ran to the government (who had caused the problem) for a bailout. So the government, mostly Democrats like Clinton, Dodd, Frank, Schumer, Obama and Waters caused the crises and compounded the problem since the SEC either did not do their job, or they were in on creating a fiscal collapse.

It was the biggest transfer of wealth in history from the middle class who had their real estate values plummet and the market seize, their 401K's tanked, jobs were lost while the insiders like Kerry, Pelosi, Moran and even Boehner made insider trading investments buying Goldman and Citi just before they were getting bailed out by TARP or by shorting the market when they knew the DOW would tank.

So these are the people you seem to wish to entrust with taxpayer money to help the poor through redistibutive policies. But they caused the problem on purpose, or at a minimum through gross incompetence and then used it to enrich themselves. Read the book my friend. Or read Gasparino's books "Sellout" or "Bought and Paid for." I have read them both.

You seem like an intelligent enough guy if you master the correct facts. But intelligence is not just IQ. That is intellect. Intelligence is the ability to process and solve complex problems as explained by Dr. Sowell in "Intellectuals and Society."

I and many of the people you argue with every day do not support or admire Bush, McConnell or Boehner. But both party establishments want to create fighting between conservative v. liberal, rich v. poor to create a diversion while they steal more money. In the end, if they succeed, you and I will both be serfs, and if you have kids, they are screwed. market capitalism does work, and if you still believe that statism is the answer after my explanation and checking the reference books, then you do not want to understand. Then you are what Lenin calle a "Useful Idiot." But I do not want to think that of you, nor do I wish to be obnoxious short-circuiting your debates. But they must be based in fact and reality. Open your mind and learn. While I have a couple extremely brilliant people in my family, I have to read the great thinkers to learn. Von Mises and Hayek fled Nazi Germany for their lives. The people who think will save us have not committed genecide as Hitler did, but they have the same policies. Look it up and you will find fascist and communist all shared planned economies, univerasal health care, environmentalism, propaganda and redistribution of wealth in common. This is what we cannot have if our children and their cousins will be free and prosperpous.

Merry Christmas and I hope we can have a civilized and intelligent exchange when you get your facts more in line. BTW, you pay 6.2% and your employer pays 6.2% as part of your burden of employment and that is what is currently funding Social Security. I have an MBA in accounting and my family is overpopulated with CPA types. So the 2%, or $2,000 of up to 100K maximum will cause SS to crash sooner, and it will not create jobs.

Purp| 12.21.11 @ 8:36PM

While I might agree with you on a lot of things, leaving any Republican out of your list of "baddies" is not realistic, perhaps disingenous. With the House in Republican hands from 1994 to 2006, they had to be complicit in all you mention above. No one in the House that was a Democrat could do much of anything from 1994 to 2006. So, Waters and Frank had little to do with it. Look how much power Pelosi has now in the minority in the House. And Clinton signed what a Republican House sent him, Glass-Steagall with Senate approval of course. So, he wasn't alone in that deal. Phil Gramm pushed for it as well. And Robert Rubin surely helped push it within Clinton's circle. As I recall, the whole repeal of Glass-Steagall was ostensibly sold to us as the way to help our banks compete with the very large international banks in Japan and Germany primarily.
The problem with the theory of market capitalism is that this country has never followed the Adam Smith model other than in the very, very beginning of our Republic possibly. Even Adam Smith warned us against the concentration of overwhelming power that could be wielded by the enormous business entity (= corporation). That, along with the fact that the Hamiltonian proposal for a strong central government won over the Jeffersonian small government, agrarian society, makes the yearning for another time in America a moot point, since it rarely if ever existed.
Yes, 6.2% is normally the FICA tax for individuals under $106,800 income, except 2010, where it was 4.2%.
Merry Christmas to you and we'll have further discussions, if we can keep the ad hominem attacks to a minimum, eg., "Useful Idiots", that would be most helpful. I would admonish you to open your mind to the success of Keynesian Economics which has had successful implementations in the past and will in the future also.

VonMisesJr| 12.22.11 @ 8:03AM

I conceded that I am not defending the GOP establishment. Bush gave us Prescription Part D, "No Child Left Behind," McCain-Feingold, COIN strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq and exploding budgets.
"Useful Idiots" was used by a communist to describe people such as Hillary that bought the propaganda and the Enlightenment theories hoping be the next "Supermen."
You are correct on the FICA taxes. But taking 16% out of the funding for a program that is insolvent by 2037, or 2023 or who knows what is next, perhaps 201(?) is disingenuous as a tax plan.

So you are an intelligent person, but you must answer some questions honestly, if only to yourself, if you are to be credible:
1) Even Hegel accepted logic as a discipline like math and science where nothing is provable, but theories are advanced and must be proven false to be invalid. So the proof that Keynesian economics fails as a theory is that it is also called "demand-side" economics. The basic theorum says that too much demand causes inflation, and too little demand causes low GDP growth and high unemployment. So we had stagflation under Carter with a 21% misery index of high inflation and high unemployment. How could you have too much demand and too little demand at the same time? BTW, it is happening again!
2) Central Planning has never worked. I can cite the Nazi and other fascist regimes in Europe, the USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth that failed. The only one that is doing better now is China that implemented property rtights and lowered taxes. You must have clear examples you can cite of socialism's great economic achievements? If not, why not?

You can persist in avoiding logic and observable outcomes, but then Le Bon is right in that socialism is a religion. You could not accept the obvious since it would be antithetical.

Merry Christmas and I will keep it civil if you keep it honest in your positions. And you tend to throw bombs about Bush and his regime that gave us the Patriot Act and appears to be an Agenda21 elitist, neither of which I defend. So I am as critical of the Republican establishment as the liberal Democrats. I think the socialist strategy is dreadful, but at least they are honest in what they want. Boehner and McConnell, not so much.

Prester John| 12.21.11 @ 2:08PM

Truly compassionate words from the Democrats about those who are experiencing tough times "through no fault of their own".

But what about those who are unemployed or otherwise poverty stricken through what any rational person would see as being due to their own fault?

For example, should all the unmarried women who have had, and continue to have, numerous children by numerous men, and who refuse to get up before 10 AM to come to the doctor's office my wife works in (my wife drags her ass out of bed at 6 to get to work) continue to be provided with Medicaid, free cell phones, food stamps, and other welfare benefits paid for by those, like my wife, who work hard and pay taxes?

How about providing a little relief at those who are actually paying the bills in this country?

PolishKnight| 12.22.11 @ 11:19AM

Hello John,

One of the ironies of the feminist movement was that it sold a bill of goods to middle class women that they'd get to double the incomes in their households. Their husband would still earn a high income and she'd get to take away a man's job and get that income too. So double the pleasure, double the fun!

The problem with that double-up paradigm was that wages were deflated as more labor entered the workplace (one caveat) AND the supply of well-to-do men dried up and many lower class women didn't just not marry and have babies, they went on the welfare state that was paid for by... those same double-up "traditional but modern" women above!

So lessee: wages deflated AND higher taxes AND higher crime. Good going!

David| 12.21.11 @ 4:08PM

Absolutely, I am flippin fed up with producing and being taxed so that those who pay ZERO fed income taxes can get the Earned Income Tax Credit and other benefits. And that includes my two daughters who have 2 children each and one has a 3rd on the way by another individual that the one who fathered the first two. And all born and paid for with people's money who actually pay taxes.

Jeff Perren| 12.21.11 @ 4:16PM

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo (now Haiti) to Baltimore and Philadelphia, Madison wrote disapprovingly, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents” (James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179 [1794]).

As of 2006, at least two-thirds of a $2.5 trillion federal budget is spent on the “objects of benevolence.” It's much larger now, of course.

That includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, aid to higher education, farm and business subsidies, welfare....

ALL Federal welfare, in any form, is immoral, impractical, and unconstitutional. Today, it is reaching proportions that are not only nearly sinking the Republic economically, but morally as well.

End it all. Reform the Federal government to its Constitutional role only, or simply abolish it.

shipley130| 12.21.11 @ 5:47PM

So, if their firing is thru the fault of themselves, does that mean they don't get food stamps, either?

TomB| 12.21.11 @ 6:33PM

I don't know whose fault it is that a person lost a job, but unless that person is me, then how is my responsibility to do something about it? Answer: if I personally decide to make it my responsibility or if the government decides to make it my responsibility. If the latter becomes the norm, then I have become a serf.

POST American| 12.21.11 @ 10:05PM

Democrat = Repuiblican = CFR

--------------------------The jig's up.

Oldefarte| 12.21.11 @ 11:22PM

Why doesn't these Democrats just simply LET HER RIP, and throw in all of the taxpayers' chips? Why not just mandate that if little worthless/stupid twits hit the sexual highways and produce illegitimate children by the truckloads, they will be paid say $50000 per bastard child? Why should not the government pay everyone to stay at home watching Oprah re-runs say $200000/year? Why should everyone be entitled to [THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN] a free house, free health insurance, free education, free public transportation, free Europeon vacations semi-annually, free summer homes on Long Island, etc? [what you mean that some of those freebees are currently in existence, SHAZAM?] The only problem is WHO THE YOUKNOWWHAT IS GOING TO LAY FOR THESE GOVERNMENTAL WELFARE BENEFITS IF NO ONE IS WORKING/PRODUCING? Let's all just have an EASY RIDER existence and Captain America down the highway of life, shall we M-A-N????????

Caroline| 12.22.11 @ 5:02PM

I assume you wrote this before the House Republicans capitulated again?

Marc Jeric| 12.22.11 @ 6:46PM

One good thing to come out shortly from this extention of unemployment benefits is that the official unemployment rate will jump. You see, those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits are not counted as unemployed; and now they will be counted again.

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