Killing Illinois
The Illinois Policy Institute released this paper today.
If you are from Illinois, this is quite alarming.
Even if you are not from Illinois, this is a real wake-up call. The anti-growth, big government policies persued for decades in Illinois that have led to this decline are what President Obama is pursuing for the rest of the nation. Think about that come November.
Your $250,000 Car
This $250,000 car isn't an Italian import.
It is a plug in from Detroit that's been catching fire. Not in terms of sales, though...only about 6,000 have sold. It has literally been catching on fire.
The Chevy Volt, a plug in hybrid,would merely be chalked up as another "green" and Detroit automaker failure if it weren't for the fact that taxpayers have footed $250,000 per car in subsidies as the folks at the Mackinac Center recently discovered.
Proponents of subsidies like this claim that "everybody is doing it" and that it creates jobs. But who decides which projects get subsidies? Those with political clout, not necessarily those with the best projects at the best price, tend to win out. This has been a halmark of the Obama administration. Decisions on investment in emerging technology are best left to the market where decisions are made most efficiently and, in sharp contrast to the use of taxpayer subsidized "investments," made willfully.
Politically directed investment is dangerous, as demonstrated by the Volt and the Solyndra fiasco. It is also morally wrong. Much like the Cash for Clunkers failure, the Volt subsidy is essentially a wealth transfer from the lower end of the income spectrum to the higher end.
Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize new kinds of electric cars any more than they should be asked to bankroll electric yachts or helicopters.
What’s in a name?
Last night I went on WGN-CLTV's Politics Tonight to discuss ObamaCare.
Host Paul Lisnek brought up an interesting question: isn’t calling the recent federal health care bill “ObamaCare” partisan or, as Jon Stewart once asked me, offensive?
I don't believe it is partisan at all.
For one, ObamaCare is simply what most people call this law. Most people don’t know it by “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” Calling it that or some version of that, like “the Affordable Health Care Act” as Jim did isn’t a balanced clarification, it is premeditated rebranding. Most citizens and most pundits call it ObamaCare. Calling it by its technical name is confusing for viewers, plain and simple.
Case in point from the other side of the aisle: when you think of the tax cuts that first came from the last guy in the White House, what do you hear pundits calling it – on both sides of the aisle? The Bush tax cuts. Nobody calls them by their official legislative name. I should say names, as they were codified in two separate bills during Bush’s tenure: the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. That’s a mouthful.
Second, the technical name is ridiculous. Like many bills and laws – Republican or Democrat – this law’s name doesn’t accurately reflect what it does. Why talk about bills or laws on the terms Beltway wordsmiths set? ObamaCare doesn’t protect patients or make health care more affordable. It does just the opposite.
Perhaps most importantly, if this bill is so great and this president is so proud of how great it is, why wouldn’t the president, his supporters, and supporters of this bill want to call it ObamaCare?
For the full set of videos, click here. Click here for: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4
Debt Tea
Efforts to tie spending reductions to a debt ceiling increase aren’t merely ideological demands made by reckless ideologues.
Voters, particularly those who voted in this freshman class of Republicans, realize that their shot at achieving the American dream is threatened when the government continues to expand in size and scope, draining resources from their more efficient, equitable allocation in the private sector. What’s more, wasteful government spending crowds out both private and public programs that serve as the social safety net for the poor and disadvantaged.
Taxpayers Deserve Better
Last night I went on Fox Chicago to debate the debt ceiling issue.
My last comments that were cut from the segment were:
1) Obama isn't sticking to his guns - we don't know what they are as he simply assigns blame and doesn't have a plan of his own.
2) Democrat or Republican, if you're a lawmaker and serious about getting this country back on a fiscally responsible path, taxpayers deserve a guarantee of serious structural spending reform in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.
Our nation - like Illinois - doesn't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem that got us to this very high ceiling in the first place.
If your teenager taps out the credit card limit at $20,000, you don’t just call up American Express and ask for a raise in the limit without engaging in serious conversation where you assess past spending habits (what’s necessary, what was excessive, what’s possible in the future within a certain budget) and secure a guarantee of change in behavior for more responsible prioritization and spending in the future.
That isn’t partisanship, which is all too common in Washington and state capitals across the country. It is common sense and it is in short supply in this debate.
How the Political Class Thinks
My latest piece at BigGovernment.com:
In his Daily Show appearance last night, President Obama made a very revealing—and presumably inadvertent—statement about those in Congress who have supported his radical agenda.
In the context of many congressional seats being up for grabs in what pundits and prognosticators are predicting to be a GOP wave election, Obama stated that many of his allies in Congress voted for politically tough bills because they believed “it was the right thing to so” despite being in conservative-leaning districts.
On the surface, what the President says sounds so noble. These politicians are doing what they think is right. They’re standing up despite outside pressure! Except they aren’t standing up for the right people: their constituents. “Doing what they think is right” is warm and fuzzy code for “what Nancy Pelosi / President Obama tells them is right.”
Get On Board!
Here in Illinois, we are engaging tea party activists and concerned citizens across the state to turn what has become known as the land of Blago and Obama back on the path to prosperity.
If you're an Illinois resident or in the area this fall, get on board!
To learn more check out IllinoisTurnaround.com
Frum’s Folly
My thoughts on David Frum's Monday morning quarterbacking with regard to the health care debate:
There has been much hullabaloo regarding David Frum's recent statements that the passage of health care non-reform represents is largely a result of short-sighted GOP stubbornness. The failure to stop ObamaCare is hardly the GOP's Waterloo as Frum asserts. It is, however, a major setback for the American people who overwhelmingly oppose this legislation and will have to live with the consequences.
For the full piece, visit the American Thinker.
Strange brew: The Coffee Party
My latest piece at The Daily Caller:
In a tacit admission of the Tea Party’s success, backers of the wildly unpopular big-government, liberty-crushing policies of the Obama administration are brewing up their own movement—the Coffee Party. It all allegedly started with a random musing in a post by Annabel Park on Facebook in which she called for an alternative to the Tea Party movement.
Read more here.
A New American Tea Party
O’Hara at The Daily Caller
- How to lose jobs and alienate taxpayers
- Squashing dissent with slander and libel
- Strange brew: The Coffee Party
- A civic reawakening: The Tea Party movement
- SOTU wishes: A lot less talk, a lot more action
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Patronizing and Wrong
President Obama's reelection campaign recently released "The Life of Julia," a slide show demonstrating how President Obama has made virtually every aspect of every woman's life better. At each point in "Julia's" life, viewers are also reminded that Mitt Romney would destroy all this good work and thus the lives of millions of women.
This is not hyperbole on my part - watch the slide show.
This is an unbelievably disturbing combination of gross policy distortions and patronizing of women fueled by a philosophy of total government dependency and what can only be described as clinical narcissism.
Check out these great perspectives from NRO's Kevin Williamson and Human Events' David Harasanyi.
Update: For an alternative vision of public policy proposals that would empower Julia, check out the Heritage Foundation great post here.