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Understating the Budget Crisis
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A Time for Choosing
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America’s Slowdown
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The Obama Watch
Obama’s Infrastructure Charade
Demanding Republican funding for projects that will never be “shovel ready.”
Jeffrey R. Liebman, a former Obama administration official, authored a prominent article in the June 22 issue of the Wall Street Journal lambasting Republicans in Congress for blocking President Obama’s plans to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure projects to create jobs for the unemployed. As he writes, “Congress has failed to act on the president’s plan to put construction workers back on the job rebuilding our roads, bridges, and airports.”
This is a charade. The day is long past when spending on public works and infrastructure can pull the economy out of recession in a timely way. By the time such spending is ready to come on line, the recession is likely to be long past.
To see why this is so, one need look no further than to the Keystone XL Project, the proposed 1800-mile pipeline project designed to carry Canadian crude oil to various refining and distribution hubs in the United States. The Obama administration has blocked this ambitious infrastructure project, even though it would promote American energy independence and create an estimated 20,000 new jobs, with additional income and employment for businesses along the pipeline route.
The pipeline is now embroiled in an administrative controversy over whether or not it will cause harm to the environment. The State Department completed a review last year that cleared the pipeline to go forward, but this decision was contested by environmental groups that claimed it would cause environmental damage and would accelerate global warming by encouraging the consumption of more oil. The Obama administration is now reviewing the matter once again, promising to hand down a decision in 2013, conveniently after the presidential election. If the Obama administration was really serious about “infrastructure jobs,” then it would have approved the pipeline last year when the first environmental review was completed.
What is true of the Keystone Pipeline is likely to be true of other ambitious public works projects. Even where there is political agreement that a project should go forward, the extensive review and permitting process now in play means that it can take several years from the time a project is conceived to the time it can actually begin. President Obama is well aware of this, as he discovered to his dismay a few years ago that stimulus funds could not be put to immediate use because there were few “shovel ready” projects on which to spend it. The regulatory burden is one of the main reasons why America’s infrastructure is in disrepair or out of date, why highways are clogged, flights are always behind schedule, and bridges are overdue for renovation or replacement.
For more than forty years Democrats have been at war with themselves, on the one hand demanding funds for public works projects and on the other passing regulations to make it impossible for those projects to go forward. Today activists can draw upon a welter of laws and regulations to block the construction of roads, bridges, dams, and airports, from the Clean Air Act to the Clean Water Act to the Endangered Species Act to the Coral Reef Conservation Act. The National Environmental Policy Act (1970) created a regulatory process under which environmental assessments and environmental impact statements must be prepared and approved for federally funded infrastructure projects. The Keystone Pipeline has been held up because federal authorities and environmental groups dispute the accuracy of the environmental impact statement that cleared the project to go forward. Under the law, they can take their objections to court; if they find a friendly judge, they can hold up a project for years. Often a project can be effectively killed if activists can manage to hold it up long enough. This is what they hope to accomplish with the Keystone pipeline.
Anyone familiar with large public works project can cite many examples of projects that were held up or cancelled due to regulatory roadblocks. Officials in New York State have been working on plans for more than a decade to replace the Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River, and are still nowhere near overcoming the regulatory hurdles that still stand in the way of the project.
Every redesign of the project requires another set of environmental reviews. It may take another decade before work can even begin on a new bridge, even though in the 1950s it took just four years from the time the current bridge was conceived to the time it was opened.
Liberals often point to FDR’s public works programs as a successful model for what might be accomplished today in the construction and repair of roads and bridges. They ignore the fact that they have put in place monumental hurdles to public works projects that FDR never imagined. Until President Obama and his supporters address that reality, their talk about public works and infrastructure projects can be written off as a political charade.
About the Author
James Piereson is president of the William E. Simon Foundation and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He is the author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism (Encounter Books).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (64) | Leave a comment
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Jack in Wi| 6.25.12 @ 7:02AM
This is pretty good commentary on the issue. I was for many years, one of the biggest public works contractors in this state. The unemployment picture in the construction trades is dire and has been for years. With todays technology and equipment you don't need a lot of bodies to get work done.
Housing, commercial, and industrial projects are all overbuilt. You don't get a lot of building done in a depression. For that you need both economic and population growth. I don't see much of that happening for a long time. Japan has been wasting huge sums on endless public construction projects for over 20 years without much improvement in the economy.
Pecos Pete| 6.25.12 @ 7:28AM
Environmentalists are a major cause of economic and societal problems in the USA. A single example: the current wildfires in Colorado, Arizona, California, New Mexico and Utah. Can't log, can't thin ... let it burn. Makes no sense. Hundreds of square miles of wasted forest land because environmentalists are convinced that logging and thinning will damage forests.
JD| 6.25.12 @ 2:55PM
Exactly. They file lawsuits they know they won't win just to hold loggers off indefinitely while they endlessly appeal. The red tape accomplishes the same objective as winning does, for them. And now non-native mountain pine beetle infestations are killing forests, and we can't fight them either because of the environmentalists.
Butch| 6.25.12 @ 5:46PM
It doesn't make sense from an environmental viewpoint, but it does make sense if you accept that the main purpose of environmental laws and regulations is to obstruct capitalistic enterprise and limit private property rights.
"Environmentalism" became the perfect vehicle for leftists after the fall of the Soviet Union and the discreditation of its policies and practices. It's just cover for small-c communists.
Von Mises Jr| 6.25.12 @ 7:42AM
This is nonsense. "The Democrats are (not) at war with themselves." The Democrats are at war with capitalism.
The prohibitive laws and regulations were not devised to save the environment, but to facilitate socialism. Why can we fund $2B to Brazil to drill in 15,000 feet of water, when we shut down our own rigs in 5,000 feet of water? It is because Brazil is a dictatorial regime where the money ends up in government's hands instead of in the coffers of Exxon, Conoco, Chevron and its shareholders.
Socialist cannot control the people when capitalism flourishes. So they create rules to prohibit capitalist endeavors and claim that the government must "step in" and manage the industry.
It is the new Mercantilism mixed with the effects of the Industrial Revolution. In the early twentieth century it was called "fascism." Today we call it "crony capitalism."
It is all devised so that government controls businesses and they get to divide up the spoils as Obama did with GM, Chrysler, Solyndra, Sun Trust, Ener1, etc......
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 9:03AM
You really are in fantasyland in that Ivory Tower of yours. Socialism is not the opposite, nor the absence of Capitalism.
Von Mises Jr| 6.25.12 @ 9:49AM
References please? I can cite multiple books from multiple economic geniuses such as Von Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Sowell, and Walter E. Williams with book titles and page references.
But you make stupid, ignorant statements that are false with no references.
What books have you read regarding the subject, troll? Paul Krugman's illiterate NYT columns? Ever wonder why they are on the verge of bankruptcy, fool?
Normally I would not take the time to answer an illiterate such as you, but they are opposites. Socialism is central planning, and capitalism is economic freedom of choice. Read Von Mises "Human Action" (881 pages) and "Socialism" (592 pages) and then we can talk.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 12:54PM
Von Mises and Hayek's theories are just that - and relegated to the dustbin of history (except in your exalted mind).
Capitalism coexists with Socialism and even with Communism. If anything, Communism is the opposite of Capitalism. There you have it. Your answer, that you couldn't come up with after all your so-called book learning...
There is no pure economic theory at work anywhere in the world, so the economic theories are a useful thought-provoking device, but not practical in implementation.
Point me to one economy in the world, EVER, that has followed Hayek or Von Mises theories. Just one.
Book reading does not make you an implementation expert, now does it, "Simma Cum Laude"? (your words, not mine)
JD| 6.25.12 @ 2:58PM
Purp is actually right, except when it comes to application to policy. Capitalism is a force that exists regardless of efforts to suppress it. It's like gravity. Even the most communist countries had capitalism. They called it the black market.
However, socialist policies ARE efforts to suppress capitalism, not work with it. This suppression has cost, and that cost is not justified. It's like expending the energy necessary to resist gravity and fly at a time when the air is full of bullets and the ground is safe. It's a waste in two ways.
Von Mises Jr| 6.25.12 @ 3:08PM
If you read "Socialism" by Von Mises, troll, you would know that communism is a form of socialism. "Trotsky's Heresy" (page 561) talks about "Russian Bolshevists, the Italian Fascist and the German Nazis" and the succession of Stalin over Trotsky after the death of Lenin. I am sure you read that but it escaped your fertile mind.
By the way genius, what have you read other than Superman comics.
Doctor Right| 6.25.12 @ 3:24PM
"Von Mises and Hayek's theories are just that - and relegated to the dustbin of history."
BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!!!
Yeah...on what planet, exactly would that be??? And by whom?
So Hayek is "relegated to the dustbin," but you and the rest of your leftwing, lib-tard friends still cling to Keynes???
You're a complete fool.
JD| 6.25.12 @ 3:49PM
I would feel better about this conversation if HE were the only one ignoring ideas he doesn't like instead of defeating them. Unfortunately, he seems to have exhausted the patience of his rivals, since they're doing it too.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 6:41PM
Keynesian economics has worked and does work, fool. It has pulled us out of all recessions, including Reagan's, and the Bush Twins.
philippic| 6.25.12 @ 9:48PM
geez...who can resist a well reasoned, heavily documented argument like this! thank you professor Purp.
TLP| 6.25.12 @ 8:04AM
What's Fool me 3 times?
Anybody know?
I know that 1 time is Shame on you, and 2 times is Shame on me. But what is 3 times and do they really think that we're that Stupid?
The President is not a Marxist!
The President is not a Socialist!
If you even needed any more proof, the Keystone deal was the last straw. He's not in over his head. He's not an Empty Suit. He's not getting horrible advice. No. He is a Dyed in the Wooler, Communist Manifestor, and he DOES NOT WANT any Jobs unless they are to UNION THUGS that he can send in to the Streets.
There was no other reason to Kill the XL. No other reason to put a Drilling Moratorium in place after his own Commission recommended against it and a Federal Judge ruled TWICE against it. (The Muslim is in Contempt of a Federal Judge, as we speak) No other reason to Shut Down Coal Mines and Coal Fired Power Plants or Block BOEING for so long, from building Jets in South Carolina.
He's slaughtering Livestock on Family Farms. Denying WATER to Farmers out West. Denying Miners from taking the Ore from the ground. Fighting against Commercial Fishing. Regulating everybody else, out of the Country, on the next boat, even as he grants Work Visas to Illegal Aliens.
He dreams of becoming CHINA, but he's obviously o.k. with just being Venezuela.
This guy is a walking Fairy Tale.
He's the Naked Emperor and The Boy who cried "Shovel Ready Jobs" all rolled in to one, proclaiming that he's "The Man who wasn't there" every time it hits the fan.
MissouriDave| 6.25.12 @ 8:52AM
The union as Civil rights may have over stepped certain limits esp the "uaw" but if there are no unions to stand up for the common man, a bowl of rice is negotiable and a fish head if you are lucky. Unions elevate wages and also lend a certain competancy in production. Thanks Emmit
TLP| 6.25.12 @ 10:53AM
All Unions "elevate" is the Costs of thing they make. The Price of things they make. The costs to the rest of us, in paying for all their bennies. and, the number of Industries setting sail for Greener Pastures.
The Bible tells us that "For everything, there is a Season".
There used to be Dinosaurs, in what we now know as, New York City.
There used to be an Ocean, where the Sahara is.
There once was a Buggy Whip Company in the Dow Jones.
There once was a Country that was a MONOPOLY, right after a devastating World War.
Unions once were a benefit to Mankind.
I know you Get It.
I also know that you will never admit it.
Pity.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 6.25.12 @ 9:56PM
TLP;
Your demonstrate your versatility with your more subtle side. Well said.
Louis Jenkins| 6.25.12 @ 8:41AM
"Congress has failed to act on the president's plan to put construction workers back on the job rebuilding our roads, bridges, and airports."
Have you noticed that the shovel ready jobs all depend on ready available energy? Which comes first Obama? The chicken or the egg?
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 1:02PM
I don't know, but we're swimming in oil and natural gas, so much that we are exporting both. Have you noticed gas prices have tanked recently and continue to drop .... Good Job Mr. President ! He made the gas prices drop. He forced the price down. He's amazing, that magic Obama.
Obama 2012!
JD| 6.25.12 @ 2:59PM
Indeed, magic is the only way one could attribute such things to Obama.
Doctor Right| 6.25.12 @ 3:29PM
He "forced" the gas prices down???
Oh, really?? And HOW did he do that? What amazing feat-of-strength and special power did he use?
So he's responsible for it going down...but NOT up??
Drunken Sailor| 6.25.12 @ 4:42PM
Dr. Don't even try to explain to him our Europes problems have resulted in lower prices. It will give him a headache.
Drunken Sailor| 6.25.12 @ 4:43PM
Dang,
Don't even try to explain to him HOW Europe's problems.
Got to lay of the Mt. Dew
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 6:45PM
Another brainiac who was all to ready to blame the President when you could make points against him, but now "oh it's Europe", when it would be to his credit.
Of course "it is the economy stupid". NOW you see it, what a trog.
Drunken Sailor| 6.26.12 @ 9:46AM
Hey dipshit, Yes it was the economy that drove up the gas prices. OUR ECONOMY! The dollar was down against the Euro. Now the Euro is down as well as demand in Europe, Prices drop. It's that whole supply and demand thing you libs fail to grasp.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 6:44PM
I dunno - but I thought you said he was responsible for high gas prices - hmmmm? You righties were so up in arms about that 3 months ago - what happened. If you're gonna blame the guy for high prices, then you must think he gets credit for low gas prices, right?
See how stupid your all arguments sound when you actually have to face it instead of repeating Rupert Murdoch's talking points?
philippic| 6.25.12 @ 9:51PM
yup....sinking aggregate demand tracing to the Prez's inept economic policies have nothing to do with sinking oil prices! Professor Purp strikes again!
MissouriDave| 6.25.12 @ 8:46AM
My thanks for eye opening truth; That OBAMA is a snake is a given, and a hoe 'cross the neck seems better than our prayers. America needs to wake up to the fact that our blessing come when we had strong families who went to church, for JESUS blesses HIS own. Thanks Emmit!
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 9:08AM
So the solution is to eliminate Clean Water, Clean Air and the like to get the economy going? I don't think so.
A safer place to live is worth the extra time spent making sure we stay safe. It is the price we pay for 330 million people living in this country.
You all forgot the Cuyahoga River green with toxic waste and sewage and the Smog alerts of the 1970's until the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts had their effect.
Jesus would agree that taking care of all the people supersedes lining the pockets of the few.
JD| 6.25.12 @ 3:01PM
You present a false choice. The most significant "safety" is that which you liberals oppose when you oppose defense.
By and large, your proposals achieve negligible "safety" benefits and do so at extraordinary costs. The wildfires and rolling blackouts here in Colorado attest to both.
Who made you the arbiter of what tradeoffs are worthwhile?
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 3:40PM
Wildfires? What have they to do with man? That's nature's way of clearing brush, haven't you heard?
As for rolling blackouts, since we have more oil and gas than we need right now, so much we are exporting it and Obama has forced the price of gas down considerably with his magic - why are you having ANY blackouts?
Who made you the arbiter of tradeoffs? Mine are as valid as yours.
JD| 6.25.12 @ 3:52PM
You're evading. The wildfires are directly linked to man, as man introduces non-native species and then prevents other men from countering its effects. In fact, your people think that heat and drought are also caused by man, exacerbating his responsibility.
RE: Blackouts, you're conflating automobile fuel and the electrical grid. There is surprisingly little overlap. The electrical grid is at growing risk because overwhelming subsidies for unreliable energy sources (wind) force producers of reliable sources (coal) out of business, so that the latter can no longer pick up the slack when the former cut out.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 6:49PM
First, most wildfires are started by careless men - you don't know sarcasm when you see it, Sunshine.
Second - What kind of twisted logic is that? If you have coal-fired plants in environmentally conscious Colorado, I'd be surprised, but they can switch to natural gas and voila - blackouts gone. Natural gas is cheaper, cleaner and more easily transported than coal. Oil is the basis for a lot of electrical generation as well, or haven't you heard that on Fixed News either?
philippic| 6.25.12 @ 9:54PM
no he's not. he's being dense...offering a simple binary option when the action is always at the margin. cost/benefit...tradeoffs....something foreign to Lib-think. just ask the millions out of work precisely because of policies, regulations, "goodness" that Purp favors.
the real irony? it is folks like Purp who are the real "haters"....the real purveyors of misery....
Doctor Right| 6.25.12 @ 3:32PM
Jesus would NOT agree that it's OK to dupe people with environmental alarmism to confiscate more and more of their hard-earned wealth and give it to other people who don't deserve it.
People who fall for alarmist scams like "global climate change" are utter morons.
And if you want to spend more and more of your tax dollars to support fake "green" energy initiatives, go ahead...but leave the rest of us out of it.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 3:43PM
Sure he would. Money was not something he considered of any importance whatsoever.
You sound like a true "buggy whip" enthusiast when the combustion engine came on the scene. And you're a doctor? I don't believe it.
JD| 6.25.12 @ 4:05PM
If Jesus didn't value money, then why do you invoke Jesus while demanding our money?
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 6:51PM
Because of the very reason that money was no value to him. He would have gladly given all the money away to provide for the poor, indigent and suffering. Or do you doubt what Jesus would do with money?
Butch| 6.25.12 @ 5:54PM
When I get to be King of the U.S. "clean air and clean water" will be declared hate speech and the speaker will be stripped of all property and banished to Liberia.
Anthony| 6.25.12 @ 10:52AM
This is classic leftism in all of its glorious insanity and inane contradictory thinking.
FDR's alphabet soup projects were nothing more than stop gap measures designed to keep the population from outright revolt. There is no doubt that some good came from these massive projects, albeit in reality, they were built by defacto slave labor, pure and simple.
And of course, there were no massive litney of enviornmental regulations to stop FDR's projects, and FDR would never have allowed his agencies to get in his way. Americans needed to be distracted!!!
Today it's foodstamps, expanded unemployment benefits, and expanded public sector union jobs to keep the natives quiet.
The left's mindless obsession with a behemoth government at the expense of the private sector, is just one front of the political war we are fighting.
But if we don't get our private sector back into robust action, America is destined for 3rd world status, thanks to the American left.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 12:57PM
So what happened under Bush, who gave all he could to the "job creators" ... Where are the jobs? It's a false conclusion, that's why.
JD| 6.25.12 @ 3:02PM
You greatly exaggerate what Bush did AND ignore the results, which were a marked growth in tax revenue and other job data IN SPITE OF all the action in the opposite direction that years of liberal policies were causing. The economic harm that peaked in 2008 was already happening before Bush took office.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 3:45PM
Yep, Jimmy Carter caused it all, right?
JD| 6.25.12 @ 3:52PM
Do you know how to argue without straw men?
Doctor Right| 6.25.12 @ 3:33PM
There were a LOT of jobs under Bush.
Unemployment was consistently at around 5%, which is considered "full employment," as I already taught you last week.
Under Obama, it's been 8% for 3 years.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 3:48PM
Bush left office with a net loss of jobs - so much for his "full employment" bubble economy. It was a house of cards and it imploded. It's his fault and we all know it. He said "I came in with a recession and I'm leaving with a recession. Oh well" ... but he left us with the Depression II.
JD| 6.25.12 @ 4:04PM
Your cause and effect needs work. The trends that are ravaging our economy take years, if not decades, to manifest. It was already too late when Bush took over.
That doesn't mean today's leaders can't make things worse, though.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 6:53PM
Exactly why Bush will be remembered as the worst President in modern history - he made everything far, far worse for America in every way imaginable. That is not the case for the wonderful black man, Barack Hussein Obama, Obama 2o12. We are far better off than we were 4 years ago. Just ask America. Not right wing, racist America that is - America.
philippic| 6.25.12 @ 9:58PM
yes...the tail end of his Presidency did suffer the indignities of 30 years of Democratic corruption otherwise known as the sub-prime crisis - well documented in Reckless Endangerment....speaking of well researched, documented facts....
Bill84728| 6.25.12 @ 12:33PM
How will the Keystone pipeline contribute to global warming as an environmental issue to be taken into account in the EPA passing on its ecological soundness, if global warming remains an uncertain matter itself? Isn't the EPA putting the cart before the horse?
-Oh shut up Bill; they're trying to do the right thing.
-Oh, it's OK then.
Who Knows?| 6.25.12 @ 12:39PM
What is the black-hole elephant in the American “room”?
LAWYERS!
Statistics were proof of this decades ago. There are more lawyers per capita in the USA, by a large margin, than any other country. And, around 50% of ALL lawyers in the world are here.
These facts are supportive of Mark Steyn’s contention that America is in unstoppable decline.
When way more lawyers matriculate than scientists and engineers, well---instead of the smartest and most ambitious newbies creating wealth, we have them fighting each other for a piece of the pie.
How do you “kill the lawyers”, LEGALLY, when they ARE the legal system?
Just as Islam is in the complete control of its brainwashed Imans, this country is stuck under the thumb of lawyers.
The hoary image of a “wagon” of improving productivity comes to mind. The true heroes, entrepreneurs who are pulling their best, admittedly in self interest, not only have a wagon full of dead weight passengers, but more and more lawyers, who are essentially either “throwing anchors” out to drag the wagon in slowness, or actively applying brakes to the wheels of progress.
It’s somewhat of a miracle that a BUSINESSMAN, Romney, even has a chance of becoming president, instead of THAT lawyer, Obama!
“Obesity” grows, physically AND psychically.
Fat HEADS and BODIES abound!
JD| 6.25.12 @ 3:04PM
Liberal policy IS, definitionally, complexity. Conservatives recognize complexity as the greatest obstacle to rational markets and the greatest threat to society. Liberals don't see it as a threat at all; to them, all problems are caused by the greed and evil of... non-liberals.
The growth of the legal sector is a by-product of liberal expansion of federal complexity. They are a symptom, not a cause. We can't "first kill all the lawyers." We need to kill the policies that enable lawyers.
Tom Kyba| 6.25.12 @ 12:49PM
Thanks for the penetrating intellectual observation, Burp. Complain about the brakes being put on the pipeline and that means you are against clean air, water etc. Must be tough twisting yourself into knots trying to defend Narcissus. Most adults would look themselves in the mirror after a while, but then in your case all you see in the mirror is the picture of Brad Pitt you have taped there.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 1:00PM
While I would be happy to see Brad Pitt looking back in the mirror, alas I do not. The pipeline brakes were applied partially at the behest of the Governor of Nebraska, an R. And applying the brakes does not mean stopping the pipeline. So a delay is not the end of the world. Stop the insanity over this and let them get the proper assessment done.
philippic| 6.25.12 @ 10:00PM
spoke like someone who is completely clueless on the relationship between time and money.
Albertus Magnus| 6.25.12 @ 3:49PM
President Bozo blocks Keystone pipeline becauise it is private industry that will pay for it. Bozo therefore can not buy votes with approving Keystone. But direct government spending on "infrastructure" does buy votes, just as it did under Roosevelt, who targeted federal spending in areas where he needed votes the most, and then spent the money in virtual slow-motion, dragging the spending out for as long as possible while maximizing the propaganda effects. The purpose of Roosevelt's spending spree in the "New Deal" was vote buying and nothing else. That the recession turned into a depression and dragged out for 8 years demonstrates this conclusively. Even Roosevelt's own people (the ones who would actually speak candidly) admitted to the New Deal's abject failure. And now we have a clown president doing the same thing and having a similar effect.
JD| 6.25.12 @ 3:53PM
Obama is Roosevelt's heir, in very many ways. The problem is, the Democrats' narrative of Roosevelt is a great deal nicer than Roosevelt's actual impacts.
Albertus Magnus| 6.25.12 @ 5:02PM
Agreed. On both points.
Purp| 6.25.12 @ 6:55PM
Tell that to any Depression Era American. You will be quite surprised. In your right wing revisionist history, why, he is he Devil incarnate. But your kind hated him then and still do - but not America.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 6.25.12 @ 10:00PM
Depression Era America extended beyond a decade until World War II because of FDR, but don't take my word for it, consult former Treasury Secretary Morgenthau.
philippic| 6.25.12 @ 10:02PM
riiiight...read Liberal Fascism for some insights into FD and Wilsonian "democracy". one can easily understand why this might appeal to some such as you.
"your kind"? why Purp...how...errrrr...un-PC of you. must be past your nedtime. tut tut. off to bed little one.
Albertus Magnus| 6.25.12 @ 10:34PM
I shouldn't respond to this drivel, but I will.
"But your kind hated him then and still do - but not America."
In the first place, you don't know my "kind." So shut up and don't ascribe to me your prejudicial behavior.
In the second place, you don't know who I "hate" or even IF I "hate" anyone. So, shut up and don't project your "hate" nonsense on to me.
Third, "but not America" is an "ad populum" fallacy and is used in the absence of a logical argument. You really are quite ill-informed and ignorant. I don't "revise" history, I study history. You spew propaganda told you by others and you are quite obviously incapable of thinking about what you are told. I am frankly sick or your insults and ad hominem attacks. I will not respond to you any more. Have a nice day.
megapotamus | 6.26.12 @ 10:07AM
I guess this is on every page but I'm seeing it on this one. Anyone else click the "Mom, Dad... I'm a Democrat" video on the Clips of the Day? It is quite a stupid ad for, I imagine a House race somewhere but Google does not immediately dislodge the details, meaning they are obscure indeed. But it's a good 40 second recitation of the fantasies sold to a captive audience of children, including today's bit of rent-seeking in the boy's adoration of his 3.4% student loan. But it is presented straight as a youtube video. Pretty high comedy, Spectators, but I wonder if you know what is peddled in your links.