There is a worthy question in the air these days. It comes about because the extremists on all sides are going for broke and pushing everyone to the brink. Some have crudely hinted either the GOP or the Democrats are the second coming of Hitler and the Nazis. Is either side right?

I think a more appropriate analogy is we are awash in a sea of Neville Chamberlains, a well intentioned fool from the 1930′s that took a lead role in allowing hate and anger to spiral out of control world-wide through his complacency and retreat:

Chamberlain sought to conciliate [Nazi] Germany, and make it a partner in a stable Europe. He believed Germany could be satisfied by the restoration of some of her colonies and during the Rhineland crisis of March 1936, had stated that “if we were in sight of an all-round settlement the British government ought to consider the question [of restoration of colonies]“.

Sound familiar? Replace “Nazis” with “Islamo Fascists” and we get a disturbing parallel from the depths of modern history and today’s international dynamics. If we only appease, the killing will end!

One of the more famous quotes of human wisdom that reverberates as an undertone among all these wild accusations of Nazi Ghosts is this:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it

I believe we are in danger of repeating a lot of hard lessons from the era of the Nazis (and other like political entities of the time), mainly because few us are operating with forethought and calm. On the domestic front, the President is giddy with his lame duck power, and the congressional GOP does seem to be in role of Neville Chamberlain. But on the international stage it is the President who is the too optimistic and too cavalier about events. Look at Libya, which is spiraling out of control because the fragile post-Qaddafi ‘government’ is not being supported over the long haul. This is evident by the way basic resources were pulled from even Embassy Security, leading to the assassination of our US Ambassador and his dedicated security team. That is the sign of a leader who moved on and did not finish the job he started. It is a sign of not thinking of or respecting the down side of his decisions.

So there are parallels to the time that brought humanity the Nazis, not just as simple and obvious as the crude cross charges  being hurdled by small minds would imply. But they are there – and wise people should consider the lessons of history when dealing with today’s challenges.

For one, an attempt to disarm American citizens is similar to what happened in Germany between World War I and World War II. While it was not started by the Nazis, in the end gun control was aimed right at their political enemies and did pave the way to their brutal reign:

I’ve seen references to, and bumper stickers stating, that Hitler took all the guns away from law abiding Germans in 1936.

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The talk.politics.guns FAQ (http://rkba.org/research/rkba.faq), which is pro-gun,  includes a number of such false quotes in its “Pious Frauds” section and, to its credit, refutes them. The discussion there is based in large part on research done by Clayton Cramer for his book, Firing Back (currently out of print). Cramer is also a gun supporter, making his work in this area highly credible–and creditable.

I point this urban myth out to remind people to be accurate, because one of the tools of people like Hitler was propaganda and mob emotion. He used them to create conditions where good people turned very bad. The false claim about Hitler is sadly a testament to his methods, and should not be repeated now.

“The laws adopted by the Weimar Republic intended to disarm Nazis and Communists were sufficiently discretionary that the Nazis managed to use them against their enemies once they were in power.” In other words, they didn’t need to pass additional laws. The Nazis did pass a weapons law in 1938, but that only added restrictions to the previous law, especially for Jews and other “non-citizens.”

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Gun control helped the Nazis keep weapons out of the hands of their enemies, but as Cramer notes, it wasn’t a major factor in Hitler’s success.

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When the Nazis enacted their own law in 1938, they added restrictions aimed at Jews, such as not allowing Jews to work in any business involving guns. They also prohibited those under eighteen from buying guns, added yet another permit for handguns, and banned silencers and small hollow-point ammunition. Of course, Nazi officials were exempted from all gun permits.

So, gun control over the masses did play a role in dangerous and evil men taking over a powerful European nation and inflicting carnage world wide. Not identical to the claims, but those playing today with gun control in a heavy handed way are very likely to sow the same seeds that brought to the world to violence nearly 100 years ago. The best thing now is to drop the idea of disarming the masses. In this nation, it will not happen.

But gun control alone was not the spark that caused humane society to disappear from Europe for over a decade of bloody violence. It was economic hardship and the ability of the Nazis to make the leaders of their own society (i.e., the successful and rich) the enemies of the citizenry they had helped through their individual drive and creativity that led to their success:

 In 1929, the American Stock Exchange collapsed, and caused an economic depression [Economic depression: The slowing of economic activity, which usually results in high unemployment, a sharp drop in prices and a fall in production]. America called in all its foreign loans, which destroyed Weimar Germany. Unemployment in Germany rose to 6 million.

The government did not know what to do. In July 1930 Chancellor Brüning cut government expenditure, wages and unemployment pay – the worst thing to do during a depression. He could not get the Reichstag to agree to his actions, so President Hindenburg used Article 48 to pass the measures by decree.

Again, we see the parallels but not an identical match. Today, the President and his Party in the Senate want to do away with foundational elements of our society and economy. The want unlimited spending (which means unlimited taxation). They want control over the medical services element of our economy. These endeavors are going to cause broad economic pain and suffering on Main Street America without doing a thing for the economy. Thus we get the ludicrous statement unemployment grows the economy (via unemployment payments), which would mean high unemployment should cause an increase in economic activity.

Which even most morons know is not the case. But in DC we have a special class of moron apparently.

Anyway, the lesson of history must continue, and we also should note that abrupt removal of the safety net from the masses is NOT a good idea. Which leaves us to deal with spending, which will impact those in government and suckling from the US Treasury (present company included). But that is not a broad impact, but an isolated one. One which could be absorbed if done over time.

Anger and bitterness helped the Nazis to gain more support.

Many workers turned to communism, but this frightened wealthy businessmen, so they financed Hitler’s campaigns.

And here we have the conundrum of Wall Street playing the role of enabler to the Democrats and their dangerously dumb ideas. It was the real estate and mortgage businesses that allowed the removal of checks on people’s ability to pay their mortgage, that in turn led to the Great Recession as masses of unprepared home owners defaulted. It has been the Green Energy theorists who have been bankrolled to the tune of many billions of dollars more than ever goes to oil and gas companies, but who have left bankruptcy and the bill from their ignorance on the US Tax Payer. It was the medical insurance companies that caved on Obamacare. And it is other America super companies who to this day are given passes to Obamacare, etc. Exempted from the damage being wrought.

The masses are angry, and the elites are circling the wagons. The elite are willing to play with deadly fire to hold onto their power. And that is the parallel we should be monitoring.

I see a pattern here. We are not at the point, economically, where things have to explode. But two things are not in our favor.

One: those who remember the brutality, carnage and human suffering caused by the mistakes of the 1930′s are very few now. Much of this period in time is romanticized (e.g., Indiana Jones movies), with which comes removal of the painful and disturbing details the lesson requires.

Two: Today we are used to a much higher standard of living. And that removes us from the world of the average citizen of planet Earth. So it seems like a lot is being taken away or threatened. Sadly, this means the fear – which turns to anger, which can be exploited – is out there now.

Side note: I read  a great post over at Watts Up With That comparing the poorest American household with true poverty in the world. It is worth a read. Because those who over react under such conditions as we see today (either from over-hype or wimpy capitulation) do not employ the necessary core values and determination required to get through this. We can (and will) resist the efforts of the Democrats to play around with the foundations of this country and its constitution. But that resistance has many legal paths available before people lose their heads and violence erupts.

We living in interesting and dangerous times. We need a bulwark of sanity in Congress to literally stop all the legislative nonsense that has occurred (i.e., no federal budgets out of the dysfunctional US Senate) and is planned (no debt limit). We need to say ‘no further’, and do so with quiet and firm determination.

The question is – will we rise to the challenge, or will we look for quick, tumultuous and possibly violent solutions? Or worse, will we fold like a cheap lawn chair?

Sometime early morning Monday the Strata-Sphere hit a new milestone – 6 million visits. I wish to thank all those who drop by and comment, especially the die-hards who have hung in there even since I slowed my posting pace. Hopefully we’ll all still be here scratching are heads at those crazy folks in DC when 7 million rolls around!

Ronald Reagan was famous for being the eternal optimist, and infecting a country down on itself with pride, confidence and energy to go out and live life to its fullest. He rightfully saw the American people as something special and wonderful:

A City upon a Hill is a phrase from the parable of Salt and Light in Jesus‘ Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:14, he tells his listeners, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.” It has become popular with American politicians.

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President Ronald Reagan used the image as well, in his 1984 acceptance of the Republican Party nomination^[3] and in his January 11, 1989, farewell speech to the nation:

…I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still…

That was when the GOP message of small, focused government that moves out of the way of the citizenry was established. And it is what was lost from the Ivory towers of the Political Industrial Complex (PIC: that includes politicians of all kinds, their media lapdogs and lobbyist/donor handlers). So lost, the Political Elites of the PIC are now attempting to remove the voices of that shining city from politics in general:

Politico explained that while Washington Democrats have always viewed GOP voters as a problem, Washington Republicans “in many a post-election soul-searching session” have come to agree. More precisely, the article said the party’s Election 2012 failures have “brought forth one principal conclusion from establishment Republicans: They have a primary problem.”

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Scott goes on to say that observers are noticing a growing inclination in beltway GOP power centers to circle the wagons and make it harder for the unwashed masses to mount primary challenges to their media tested selections and proven winners. And I agree with his assessment that this is a fine strategy if your only concern is winning. But at what cost?

Example number one: Virginia.

This is not about centrists or RHINOs caving or finding compromise. Never has been, those are names used to divide the masses from collating to take on the PIC and jointly go in a different direction. This is about power, corruption, and the unwillingness to let Main Street lead. We see it all the time. DC has some kind of special mental, moral and religious power no other place on Earth has. Which of course is the first signs of being a power hungry boob.

This is about DC

I have lived my entire life inside the Beltway, and close to the ‘halls of power’. Those halls operate when the people in them understand they are the HUMBLE servants of the people who sent them there. They go off the rails when the halls are filled with self appointed geniuses.

If any American does not realize government is going to ration health care, and decide who is worthy and who is not worthy of such care, check out Nanny Bloomberg’s latest attempt at playing doctor:

Yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city officials unveiled a new initiative to limit supplies of prescription painkillers in the city’s emergency rooms as a way to combat what they described as a growing addiction problem in the region.

Who knew addiction is caused by emergency rooms! As if that is the only place pain killers are prescribed, or the only place addicts can get access.

[Bloomberg said] Number two, supposing it is really true so you didn’t get enough painkillers and you did have to suffer a little bit. The other side of the coin is people are dying and there’s nothing perfect….There’s nothing that you can possibly do where somebody isn’t going to suffer and it’s always the same group [claiming], ‘Everybody is heartless.’ Come on, this is a very big problem.”

Nowhere did Dumberg point to any scientific proof (not theory or statistical models) pain killer addiction begins solely or primarily in emergency rooms. The day the PhD deprived Bloomie proves his claim is the day he gets to play doctor.  Until then he is just another politician in their normal role as arrogant ass.

Update: AllahPundit at Hotair lays into Nanny Bloomie:

Bloomberg’s quote about people possibly having to suffer accepts it as a price of preventing addiction. But I don’t see the point of denying painkillers to ER patients but not patients elsewhere in the hospital. The thinking is, I guess, that impoverished addicts are more likely to try to game the ER for their fix than other wings of the hospital, but I’d bet it’s also true that the average ER patient is more urgently in need of painkillers than patients in those other wings.

Well, we all knew President Obama was bold and inexperienced. Much of his success is due to failures in his opponents to stand tall against his gutter politics (see his senate run, his primary run in 2008 his two presidential elections and the fiscal cliff battle). Now we see the classic PR stunt from this White House of rallying faux support against gun ownership:

President Barack Obama is trying an end run around the NRA — rallying groups as varied as churches, medical organizations, retailers and the Rotary Club to build support for new gun regulations.

It’s an unusual strategy but one the Obama administration has used before: projecting strength on an issue by trying to create the perception that the White House is riding a wave of momentum from the American people. It was the theme of Obama’s two presidential campaigns and was central to his campaign-style road show to tout his fiscal cliff priorities in December.

Participants in Vice President Joe Biden’s meetings have said the White House is seeking to mount an aggressive effort to back the gun control push, which is likely to formally commence next week after Biden delivers his recommendations to the president.

During one session with a dozen religious leaders on Wednesday, Biden made a specific request to those gathered to preach to their congregations about the importance of enacting stronger gun control laws

Weak and indecisive political opponents are one thing, America’s gun enthusiasts and owners is quite another. Gun owners tend to be confident, independent and careful individuals. The hot head with a gun is media PR puppet, one they use to get gun enthusiasts to appear to be for murder and killing. The trick usually works, as in the Trayvon Martin case where the shooter was completely irresponsible and looking for a fight. The 2nd Amendment was never there to cover Rambo Wannabes. These are not that vast majority of gun owners who the White House has engaged in political battle. Might as well go after mother’s and apple pie while they are at it.

The 2nd Amendment is there to protect the citizen soldier, the militia. Gun ownership in the media is limited to hunting, but of course gun owners include ex-military who enjoy the sport of shooting, and I would wager there are probably more guns for personal protection than hunting right now. So between ex-military and self protection, you have an ENORMOUS swath of America. So is Obama’s PR stunt going to work?

Probably not:

The National Rifle Association reports that its membership is rapidly swelling even as Democrats and the Obama administration gear up for a major push to enact new gun-control laws.

The NRA reports it has added more than 100,000 members in the past 18 days. Membership of the pro-Second Amendment organization now stands at 4.2 million.

“Our goal is to get to 5 million before this debate is over,” an NRA source told Politico.

Gun sales are skyrocketing, bullet sales have depleted the stockrooms and now are on back order, and the NRA will easily surpass the 5 million mark in the coming weeks.

I know. I too will be (for the first time) becoming a member of the NRA. I have shot guns for sport when a kid (was able to achieve “sharpshooter” status on the old NRA shooting range categories for a .22 rifle). Later in life I hunted with my family in WV (never got a damn thing), and enjoyed teaching my son (the now Marine Sharpshooter) the fun of shooting a gun. I can safely say many a paper target has bit the dust from my activities.

Not one single animal, not one single person hurt. I have been threatened by guns twice. And yet I still believe – overall – gun ownership and proper training are a priceless right. And no, we have not had guns in our house when the kids were growing up for obvious reasons. I am the kind of Main Street American this White House has targeted.

The point here is I am not some demon-mad kid from CT, so don’t go lumping me (or my son the US Marine) in with that bit of human poison.

No gun owner, or gun enthusiast or 2nd Amendment supporter is going to be guilted into feeling they were responsible for the massacre at that school.

Gun owners are no weak-kneed politicians worried about winning elections. While the inside the beltway types may see this as a stroke of genius, what I see is a megalomaniac (or two) throwing out all their political capitol from the recent election win.

Have it gents – its your lame duck term.

Interesting developments this last week on the 2nd Amendment front. Even CNN’s prissy Brit (who obviously hides behind armed guards) is ramping up is flailing ratings by getting into the mix.  Media types are so transparent – all show and ratings.

But, after last month’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, his outrage boiled over. He has kept “Guns in America,” as a primary focus of his nightly broadcast, and asked “How many more kids have to die, before you guys say, ‘We want less guns, not more?’”

Sadly, Morgan like most brain-parked-in-neutral liberals miss the fact guns have saved many more kids from massacre than have killed them. Every year gun deaths are avoided by armed citizens. But of course, if it is not on the news for these blindered people, it does not exist.

Here is a true story of children being saved by an armed citizen:

While reports of Tuesday’s shooting at the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Oregon, dominated the national media, until Friday’s horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, one very important detail has been repeatedly (and intentionally) left out of the MSM’s coverage.

The shooter, Jacob Tyler Roberts, was confronted with an armed citizen, at which time he ran away and shot himself. By the time police arrived on the scene, Roberts was already dead.

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I heard three shots and turned and looked at Casey and said, ‘are you serious?,’” he said.

The friend and baby hit the floor. Meli, who has a concealed carry permit, positioned himself behind a pillar.

“He was working on his rifle,” said Meli. “He kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side.”

The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter.

“As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them,” he said.

Meli took cover inside a nearby store. He never pulled the trigger. He stands by that decision.

“I’m not beating myself up cause I didn’t shoot him,” said Meli. “I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself.”

Two things to note here. First off, the gunman was stopped. Second, the armed citizen did NOT need to fire a shot. Will these incidents always be so cut and dry? No. But armed citizens are the first defense against nuts with guns. Not police who have to be called to the scene after it is over.

The real problem with the recent shooting is a parent who had guns accessible to a clearly mentally disturbed child. Even if it was hunting rifles, this sick kid was going to be a danger to others.

The other problem: while we place armed guards around our money, our planes, our politicians and our media stars, we don’t put them around our kids in schools. How many dead children do we need before schools stop fretting over a 5 year old forming a fake gun out of their fingers and realize we need to protect our children from nutcases and armed terrorists?

So, since logic and the full story is not on the liberals’ side, why the big PR push?

Is the left that reckless and power happy? Possibly for some. They may realize they have a small window to pass the rest of their fantasies, and they also can tell America is still rejecting those fantasies and not willing to give up on the House GOP as a stop gap.

But maybe it is not all clumsy emotion? Maybe it is a well orchestrated poke in the eye to Main Street. If this debate riles up the hot heads into some stupid reaction, then this ‘debate’ will create a fracture between the parties supporting the 2nd Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

As noted, the right to ‘keep and bear arms’ is not for hunting or sport. It is a right designated as ‘necessary to the security of a free State’. And no, ‘State’ does not mean one of the United States. It means the federal  ‘State’ of American government. This means the people have the right to protect our government from tyranny being applied at the controls of State. Our military protects us from outsiders. We protect ourselves from insiders. This is also not law enforcement.

So why the big play now? I think it is to create a reaction. And as long as Main Street keeps a cool head in all this, it is going nowhere.

It is not ridiculous to see the left wishing violence and revolution would break out, so that martial law (and an Imperial Obama) could be instated. Personally, I think a good laugh at the idiocy on display is the best response to make. At the moment, extreme gun control is not something polling very well.

Finally, I understand why some in the media are intimidated by an armed Main Street. They do receive lots of ugly and nasty threats every day. It is why threatening harassment is not a viable political methodology. It is why hot heads and extremists need to be culled from any mainstream, broad political coalition. So why I can sympathize with the paranoia (having been stalked by some creepy lefties myself on this blog), I will not let fear and insecurity drive me to extreme views. And removing Americans’ right to keep and bear arms (responsibly of course) is an extreme view.

Update: Presidential wannabe Biden claims the President will act. Of course, if he over reaches he will initiate a wrath of court challenges (since the President cannot unilaterally touch the Constitution). And that may be a good thing. An over reach resulting in thousands of court cases in every state, by citizens, corporations and the states themselves, would consume all the political capitol the President has from the election, and expose a side of Democrats that could make 2010 look like a walk in the park compared to 2014! Everyone on the pro-2nd Amendment side needs to take a deep breathe and grab the opportunity this kind of misstep could provide.

The GOP has hit rock bottom. In DC – where its so-called ‘leaders’ are knighted -  the GOP has gone native and become a slight variant on the spend-mad democrats. The reality of the 2011 debt ceiling and 2013 fiscal cliff fiascoes have made that crystal clear. Even though Speaker Boehner is mouthing the right platitudes – again.

The American Dream is in peril so long as its namesake is weighed down by this anchor of debt.  Break its hold, and we begin to set our economy free.  Jobs will come home.  Confidence will come back.

We do this not just to boost GDP or reduce unemployment, but to secure for our children a future of freedom and opportunity.  Nothing is more important.

As the saying goes: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me“.

Well, in the words of the great Who: “We won’t get fooled again!”

Boehner and McConnell should have had their priorities straight at the end of the last Congress, not starting with this one. Not sure why anyone should believe a word of this anymore.

It is becoming more and more obvious that the DC crowd is short sighted and incompetent.

If someone had woken you from a dead sleep 20 years ago and asked what the Republican Party stood for, you would’ve had no trouble answering: Fiscal restraint, a strong national defense and lower taxes. Those were the three pillars of the GOP.

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For reasons that aren’t entirely clear but are probably related to panic and a basic lack of principle, the Speaker of the House and other Republicans in Congress signed on to Democratic calls for “balance” between tax hikes and spending cuts — this despite the overwhelming evidence that spending is the real problem.

So, even before the negotiation began, they abandoned decades of principle on taxes. The result: Two months later, we have a deal, but no balance. It’s all tax hikes.

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Many contended Republicans had no choice. The effects of the fiscal cliff were so severe, they said, that a deal — any deal — was imperative. Republicans would be blamed if negotiations fell through.

Recognize this argument? It’s common on Wall Street, where nothing matters but the next fiscal quarter. It pretty much sums up why America is in such steep decline.

Congress can’t plan for the long term and the GOP congress–critters have no spine to sacrifice for the future of our kids. They stole our kids future earnings to get some whacked ‘deal’ and good press. Plain and simple.

And was the deal good for Main Street? No! Unless you like stealing from your kids’ futures.

Who was it good for? The usual political power brokers:

There’s plenty to lament about the capital and income tax hikes, but the bill’s seedier underside is the $40 billion or so in tax payoffs to every crony capitalist and special pleader with a lobbyist worth his million-dollar salary. Congress and the White House want everyone to ignore this corporate-welfare blowout, so allow us to shine a light on the merriment.

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Thus Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow was able to retain an accelerated tax write-off for owners of Nascar tracks (cost: $78 million) to benefit the paupers who control the Michigan International Speedway. New Mexico’s Jeff Bingaman saved a tax credit for companies operating in American Samoa ($62 million), including a StarKist factory.

Distillers are able to drink to a $222 million rum tax rebate. Perhaps this will help to finance more of those fabulous Bacardi TV ads with all those beautiful rich people. Businesses located on Indian reservations will receive $222 million in accelerated depreciation. And there are breaks for railroads, “New York Liberty Zone” bonds and so much more.

But a special award goes to Chris Dodd, the former Senator who now roams Gucci Gulch lobbying for Hollywood’s movie studios. The Senate summary of his tax victory is worth quoting in full: “The bill extends for two years, through 2013, the provision that allows film and television producers to expense the first $15 million of production costs incurred in the United States ($20 million if the costs are incurred in economically depressed areas in the United States).”

See – nothing for small businesses but a tax hike. But if you are a large business with money to spend on lobbyists….

It is time for the GOP ‘leaders’ to put up, or be shown the door:

But after 85 House Republicans joined Boehner in raising taxes without spending reductions during the end game of Monday night’s fiscal-cliff negotiations, Tea Party leaders and conservative activists from around the country are dusting off their tri-corner hats and “Don’t Tread On Me” signs, and now say that their members are as energized as they have ever been since the first Tax Day protests in 2009. And the Republican Party, they add, had better beware.

“We now have 85 members of the House who have shunned their noses at us,” said Dustin Stockton, a Texas- and Nevada-based operative and the chief strategist of The Tea Party.net. “Our job now is to recruit and inspire and motivate people to run against those Republicans who did it.”

I wish we in VA could join in the house cleaning, but the GOP here won’t let anyone vote in primaries to select their leaders anymore. Just more GOP-brand socialism at work for the elite class.

I am sure the wizards of Congress have their noses up in the air, wondering how anyone could do better than they did now that the so-called fiscal cliff is behind us. But of course, the reason the ‘deal’ is so offensive to Main Street and the GOP base (which is now on the hunt for new leaders and a new party) is because of what the priority was between two stark choices. As someone at the Weekly Standard observed recently, the obsession with low taxes while spending spirals out of control is truly insane:

The future is also, in the progressive American mind, a more prosperous and untroubled place—especially if we can just get ourselves through today’s pressing exigencies. This manner of thinking tended to dissolve the distinction between investing for the future and borrowing from the future.

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Nevertheless, tax cutting and “no new taxes” became increasingly embedded in Republican electoral strategy. As they did, they took leave of supply-side economics just as completely as demand stimulus had taken leave of its Keynesian origins. Indeed, tax reductions for the masses (but not for the wealthy and corporations) became a matter of bipartisan consensus and competition.

This ‘consensus’ between the two political extremes for high spending and low taxes is the path to disaster. It has created the situation where we are now stealing from our children and their future earnings, instead of paying our own way. Below is the real cliff we are already over and about to crash on – the national debt cliff (which is now worse than pictured due to the ‘deal’ in DC). [click to enlarge]

When President Bush left office we were just under $10 billion in debt. Obama has been able to raise that by 60% in a singe term, with the national debt now above $16 billion. Every year the Democrats and GOP add around $1.3 trillion to this mountain of economic pain.

Those who crow about keeping taxes low are insulting our intelligence and our honor. I don’t want to steal from my kids’ futures! I have not worked my entire life to leave them over two lifetime’s of debt to pay off, on top of everything else they need to pay for (house, car, food, clothing, schools, etc). So when the GOP comes out crowing about all the taxes they saved it makes me want to throw up! Because they did not save a damn dime in taxes.

They stole all of it from my kids, and their kids. Right now, to pay off all the ‘borrowing’ from future generations without their permission (which is called ‘stealing’ in my book) would be bloody painful.

At $16 trillion and with a population of 300 million to spread the pain across, each man, woman and child owes around $53,333. For a family of 4 that is $213,333. But the problem is, not everyone is going to pay off this debt. I would wager, since half of this nation doesn’t even pay federal taxes, only half will be burdened with this debt problem. So double the amount the upper half now has to shoulder: $106,666 per individual and 426,666 per family of four!

That is impossible. But it is worse than that, because these yahoos in DC did not cut a dime in spending, nor will they. So we have years of more debt to accumulate. If the chart is right, by 2020 we will owe not $16 trillion, but $23 trillion. At our current rate of annual deficits, that is a low estimate, but let’s run the numbers again with 300 million people paying it off and 150 million paying it off:

• 300 million paying off $23 trillion = $76,666 per individual, $306,666 per family of four
• 150 million paying off $23 trillion = $153,333 per individual, $613,333 per family of four

This is of course impossible, which is why we are now stealing from 2-4 future generations, not just our kids.

And this is why Tea Party, Libertarian voters – those same voters who swept the GOP into office in 2010 just to have them fold like a cheap lawn chair on the debt and deficits – are so fed up with the GOP. The GOP act as if keeping taxes lower is what we want! We only want lower taxes IF SPENDING IS CUT! Otherwise we are stealing from our kids futures – and we DON’T want that.

So while the morons crow they kept taxes down, we know what they really did. They stole more money from our kids, their kids, their kids and probably their kids too. We are the epitome of deadbeats. And they insult us by crowing how they saved us paying taxes… Like we are really that stupid to buy that line?

Update: Ed Morrissey notes the $16 Trillion dollar elephant in the room:

The staggering national debt — up about 60 percent from the $10 trillion Obama inherited when he took office in January 2009 — is the single biggest blemish on Obama’s record, even if the rapid descent into red began under President George W. Bush. …

But why did we not make this a priority instead of the myth of lower taxes? Can’t these people see these issues (taxes, spending, debt/stealing) are tightly coupled together?

Update: One major quibble with Ed Morrissey:

They can now argue that the country needs to stop borrowing from China in order to pay for its current obligations and creating debt that will extend to four generations into the future.

If the GOP argues this, forget about it. No one cares about borrowing from China. What they need to explain is how we stole from our kids, who will need to work off all this spending from this deadbeat generation. Who they pay is not as important as the size of the debt now owed….

Last night the nation was left without a political party to protect its long term financial interests. Faced with a chance to stop the generational theft by DC and its greedy, incompetent, robotic need to waste money, the GOP caved.  Don’t blame Speaker Boehner alone, but blame every ‘conservative’ who prostituted their core beliefs to avoid political fallout by forcing voters to pay for their decisions and foot the bill – now.

The mindless belief voters (or America) could not survive or thrive under the Clinton tax rates is the epitome of ‘clueless’. What needs to end is the stealing our children’s futures because we won’t pay our own bills today. Instead of saving future families and generations $700 billion this year alone (and therefore ~$7 trillion over tens years) Congress just saddled us with more deficit spending to the tune of $4 trillion over ten years.

That is a net loss of $11 trillion to future generations. Assuming 300 million citizens over that ten years, that is a $36,666 dollars loss for every man, women and child – one devastatingly short sighted, panic-rushed night! For a family of 4 that is a $146,666 swing in your financial future. Below is pictured the cliff we decided to ride into oblivion last night, instead of the ‘fiscal cliff of ‘responsibility. The path the liberal media and liberal pols cried “Wolf!” over.

It got so bad even Fox News could not help but fear the reckoning on the path to sanity and responsibility!

So we now have two parties who are incapable of fiscal responsibility and respect to future generations. We have the mad spenders (the Democrats) and their pathetic enablers (the GOP):

What is an enabler? This is someone who tends to be someone who’s actions make it easier for addicts and those who are mentally ill to continue doing the things [sic] self-destructive behaviors they do.

What we don’t have is someone standing up for future generations, those who will force the spending addicts to pay their way. The only way forward now is to push out the enablers and bring in some adult supervision. Goodbye GOP – you have proved that is not you.

Update: Hotair rightfully calls this a ‘crap sandwich’

This nation cannot afford to continue the madness of runaway deficit spending. If you want to see a real fiscal cliff, one that will take this entire nation down for future generations to come, look at THIS cliff – the National Debt cliff:

This the real fiscal cliff. Not the Clinton-era tax rates we paid without much worry not  long ago, and now back again with the ending of the Bush tax cuts. Not the sequestration cuts which barely dent the annual deficit levels. The real cliff is the one we have been on for over a decade now, which was we accelerated with Obama, Reid and Pelosi. We are on this cliff now and need to turn things around before we smack into the bottom.

We need the GOP House (and its Tea Party contingent) to stop the madness.

Sources tell Fox News Boehner & Cantor are against Senate

Stop stealing from our kids and their kids. Stop it now. We tried for three decades to “Starve The Beast” into fiscal sanity, but the big-government beast will gorge itself (and this nation) into oblivion if we don’t take a stand now – today!

I was working at the White House and OMB in those years [during the Reagan Administration], and was party to many a late-night argument over two divergent strategies. “Starve the Beast” held that the public would tolerate only so much deficit spending—so cutting taxes would at some point restrain spending as well. “Serve the Check” held that the only way to limit spending was to charge its full price at retail: Set taxes at an average of 20 percent of individual incomes and we would discover whether the public really wanted federal spending of 20 percent of national income.

It is time to “Serve The Check”:

Until now, the growth of government under President Obama has not hit the pocketbooks of most Americans. During Obama’s first term, federal spending grew to more than 24 percent of GDP — the highest it has been since 1946. Yet almost no one in the country (except smokers and those who frequent indoor tanning salons) saw their taxes rise. Quite the opposite: 160 million Americans saw their payroll taxes reduced from 6.2 to 4.2 percent.

How can we expect people to care about the growth of government if it doesn’t cost them anything?

…

Ideally, we would stop the spending binge and live within our means. But if the nation is not up to that, then we should all pitch in and pay for it — all of us.

…

Extending the tax cuts also shielded Americans from the costs of Obama’s spending spree. Shopping on a credit card is fun until the bill comes due. But if the bill never arrives, what incentive do people have to stop the spending?

Here’s what will change if we actually let the Fiscal Cliff come to fruition – $700 Billion less stolen from our kids’ futures this year ALONE. It is time we stopped being a nation of deadbeats, freeloading on the future earnings of the next generations because we won’t pay our own bills.

Update: I pray the GOP House retains a semblance of sanity and a strong backbone right now:

A carefully-crafted Senate compromise to avert the fiscal cliff could be in jeopardy, as House Republicans seem nearly certain to tweak the legislation and send it back to the Senate because it doesn’t contain sufficient spending cuts.

…

In a real sign of trouble, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, No. 2 in House leadership, came out in opposition to the package.

Amending the legislation — which also extends a number of expiring tax and spending provisions — would throw a big monkey wrench into the deal struck by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). After an 89-8 Senate vote early Tuesday morning to approve it, President Barack Obama was already trumpeting the deal as a victory.

If Obama is cheering and the Senate passed it, it must be horrible for average American families. And it is:

An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday estimated the accord would add $4 trillion to the deficit over a decade.

For the sake of our children, kill this deal and let the Clinton-era tax rates come back. Force these idiots to pay for their nonsensical policies.

Update: As I suspected the Senate ‘deal’ is a complete scam, another DC con to kick the problem down the road and keep steeling money  from future generations.

The “fiscal cliff” deal that was designed to save money actually includes $330.3 billion in new spending over the next decade, according to the official estimate the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday afternoon.

CBO said the bill contains about $25.1 billion in new cuts, but those are swamped by the new spending on extended unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and other new refundable tax credits that President Obama fought for.

Of those cuts, only $2 billion are scheduled to take effect in 2013.

$2 billion? Is that all! Sen Mitch McConnell is no fiscal conservative. Another clear picture of the mess we are in [note that the current deficit is now around $1.3 trillion, and those measly $2 billion in 2013 cuts is too small to show on this chart]:

Tags: Fiscal Cliff

Here we go again.

Congressional Republicans are about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Vice President Biden and Sen. Mitch McConnell were locked in urgent talks late Sunday over the “fiscal cliff” after Democrats offered several significant concessions on taxes, including a proposal to raise rates only on earnings over $450,000 a year.

With a New Year’s Eve deadline hours away, Democrats abandoned their earlier demand to raise tax rates on household income over $250,000 a year, as President Obama vowed during the recent presidential campaign.

They also relented on the politically sensitive issue of the estate tax, according to a detailed account of the Democratic offer obtained by The Washington Post, promising to stage a vote in the Senate that would guarantee that taxes on inherited estates remain at their current low levels, a key GOP demand.

This “good news” is actually truly horrible for our children and their financial futures. It’s not good at all.

As I noted over the weekend, the best medicine right now for an electorate addicted to ‘big-government for free’ is a healthy dose of fiscal responsibility. Here is a quote from an excellent piece that captures the madness of a GOP compromise:

Ideally, we would stop the spending binge and live within our means. But if the nation is not up to that, then we should all pitch in and pay for it — all of us.

Without the Clinton tax rates keyed to go into effect tomorrow, our children will be hit with an additional half-a-trillion dollars in new debt – next year ALONE! By bringing back the Clinton tax rates in total, the government will have to borrow $600 Billion less this year to feed the bureaucratic beast. And if we miss this opportunity to bring back the Clinton tax rates, there never will be a time where pols have the will power needed to force the voters to pay for the government they continue to suckle [talk about a failure to launch].

A deal that ‘protects’ middle and lower class voters from the generational theft is going to condemn this nation to decades of deficits and generations of lost hope. If the GOP ‘leaders’ wimp out again, I for one will be all for relegating them to the dustbin of history.

Since GOP is doing will be doing  the same to our children’s futures, seems only fair to return the favor. [click image to see source of graph and other disturbing projections]

Update: Ed Morrissey notes we may be saved by those pesky Tea Party types after all.

Without legislative language, the likelihood of stopping the leap seems pretty low. Even if Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell reach a deal this morning, they’d have to schedule a vote by this afternoon — and hope it gets a floor vote with no debate by unanimous consent. What’s the likelihood that Rand Paul will allow that?  Remote.

More here on how the Tea Party members of Congress are the only sanity left to protect the voters from all this Nirvana nonsense. Nirvana being – of course – that mythical time in the near future when DC will live within its means because those financial wizards in Congress (note: they don’t work on Main Street or Wall Street) were able to finally deliver a growing economy. Either that or Santa Claus will finally come and fix things - end update

Tags: Clinton Tax Rates, Fiscal Cliff

Jazz Shaw at Hotair posted this concise representation of the “US Budget for Dummies“:

* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:

* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts so far: $385.00 [fixed the math]

I would like to  now append this with the effects of going over the fiscal cliff, using $109B for the spending cuts and $600B for the Clinton Tax rates coming back:

* Annual family income: $27,700
* Money the family spent: $37,110
* New debt on the credit card: $9,400
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts so far: $385.00

I like to think of this as the Fiscal Cliff for Dummies (GOP congressional dummies primarily). Note, I did not put the sequestration mandatory cuts on the last line, but instead I folded it into the spending line (since they are mandatory spending cuts).

What Jazz Shaw highlights with these numbers is how little DC is really trying to fix their theft of our kids’future incomes. DC has racked up that outstanding balance of $14.27 Trillion, and in their only response to  voter pressure is a measly $38.5 billion, simply illustrates the incompetence of both parties. They are just not serious, they simply kick the problem down the road as our children are rapidly being bankrupted. To see these numbers aligned with the average American Family income, see this comment.

At least the ‘fiscal cliff‘ makes a dent in this criminal madness. At least the fiscal cliff requires today’s free loaders (er,.. voters) to pay for their consumption of federal largesse. Unless the GOP can do better than the cliff regarding the bottom line, I would force the country to take its medicine.

Tags: Clinton Tax Rates, Fiscal Cliff

Finally, someone has articulated the sanity behind embracing the so-called fiscal cliff:

Don’t get me wrong: It would be better not to raise taxes on anyone, pursue pro-growth tax reform and cut the size of government instead. But that’s not what the American people voted to do last month. Americans cast their ballots for big government.

Now it’s time to pay for it.

Until now, the growth of government under President Obama has not hit the pocketbooks of most Americans. During Obama’s first term, federal spending grew to more than 24 percent of GDP — the highest it has been since 1946. Yet almost no one in the country (except smokers and those who frequent indoor tanning salons) saw their taxes rise. Quite the opposite: 160 million Americans saw their payroll taxes reduced from 6.2 to 4.2 percent.

How can we expect people to care about the growth of government if it doesn’t cost them anything?

…

Ideally, we would stop the spending binge and live within our means. But if the nation is not up to that, then we should all pitch in and pay for it — all of us.

…

Extending the tax cuts also shielded Americans from the costs of Obama’s spending spree. Shopping on a credit card is fun until the bill comes due. But if the bill never arrives, what incentive do people have to stop the spending?

And if it does not cost ‘us’ the 2012 voters, then we know who it will cost – and dearly:

More here at National Review

Tags: Clinton Tax Rates, Fiscal Cliff

The fact is, the big-government liberals need to find more money to fund their risky and chaotic fantasies (reference the mortgage meltdown that led to the 2008 Great Recession as one example of liberal devastation, and the mountains of Obama-Debt piling up on our children and their children as another example). They are borrowing $1.4 trillion a year now, but that is not nearly enough. So in their greedy quest for more power and money, they of course are targeting the weak, the sick and those with special needs:

Obamacare contains twenty new or higher taxes. Five of the taxes hit for the first time on January 1.

…

The 30-35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs will face a new government cap of $2500. … There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children.  There are several million families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families.

Wow. To go from making special needs support tax free to almost none of it now tax free (you can spend $2500 without blinking for a kid with special challenges).

But wait, those scurvy liberals are after more than just the money to help special needs kids

Currently, those Americans facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI).  This tax increase imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI.

2.5% does not sound like a lot – but it is. this is the amount you have to spend BEFORE you get a tax deduction on medical expenses. So if you are seriously sick and living on take home pay of $40,000 a year (AGI), now you can deduct medical expenses after you spend $3,000. Under the wonders of Obama care, you have to spend $4,000 before you get a deduction. Heaven help those who spend, on average, $4,500 a year under this model. They loose the tax deduction on 2/3rds there current deduction rate (going from $1500 to $500). As the article notes, those hit by this tax hike (coming no matter what) are:

By limiting this deduction, Obamacare widens the net of taxable income for the sickest Americans.  This tax provision will most harm near retirees and those with modest incomes but high medical bills.

And never a champion of the little guy or gal, liberals look to give a break to their own big corporation backers:

The Medicare payroll tax is currently 2.9 percent on all wages and self-employment profits.  Under this tax hike, wages and profits exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of married couples) will face a 3.8 percent rate instead. This is a direct marginal income tax hike on small business owners, who are liable for self-employment tax in most cases.

You know Hollywood backs the liberal left. And we all know most of the horrors of corporate greed, corruption and abuse in the real world come from Hollywood (home of the ‘casting couch’) and Las Vegas (anyone really think organized crime is not sucking the life out of people’s life savings). You don’t know fun until you have seen a aged person, in a wheel chair sucking on oxygen, cramming money into a slot machine. Nothing like it in the world!</sarcasm>

The truth of the matter is, if you look at Hollywood, Show Business, Green Energy (like Solyndra) and so many other liberal leaning corporations, you find the graft, corruption and crudeness of a bad movie. If you look at medical companies, aerospace companies, defense contractors, etc. you tend to find a lot less of the ugly side of making money. No one is pure and holy, but the rich left and their corporate entities tend to be a bit seedier than the average family business. To me at least.

So all this ‘soak the rich’ crap is a PR stunt. The rich have tax loop holes and hidey-holes. Especially the lefty rich (and especially the corporate Hollywood left). Many rich don’t have ‘income’. So while Obama pretends he wants to soak the rich, he is really soaking the sick, the poor, the elderly, those with special needs. Plus those trying to build the American dream on their own.

I have one word for this: Exposed!

BTW – just wait until the cost cutting in services hits. Premiums are already skyrocketing, which means people will be forced to cut back on coverage. And of course, there is more stealing from our children:

The newly announced rules limit insurers to charge their oldest customers no more than three times as much as younger ones. As shown in the following chart based on estimates by international management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, the rule will force insurers to hike rates for 18- to 24-year-olds by 45 percent even as rates for those 60 and older drop by 13 percent in most states.

I fear for our kids. We are stealing their livelihoods so we can live better. The damage is already being felt by Gen Y in the form of lower pay, fewer good careers, etc.

Generation Y professionals entering the workforce are finding careers that once were gateways to high pay and upwardly mobile lives turning into detours and dead ends. Average incomes for individuals ages 25 to 34 have fallen 8 percent, double the adult population’s total drop, since the recession began in December 2007. Their unemployment rate remains stuck one-half to 1 percentage point above the national figure.

While the WWII generation will be known as “The Greatest”, I fear the ones that follow will be known as “The Deadbeats”

Tags: Obamacare, Premiums, Young Adults

The Tea Party/Libertarian insurgent voters of 2010 know the best available answer to the stealing of money from future generations is to embrace the so-called fiscal cliff.  All other options are result in more theft and more kick-the-problem-down-the-rode. So far, the best deficit reduction package on the table is the fiscal cliff.

But the Political Industrial Complex (the News Media, Pols and Lobbyists) are all trying to cry “Wolf!” over the cliff dive so they can connive more theft of our children’s futures to line their pockets. They don’t want the cliff to come, because it requires us to pay our way instead of steal from our children  in the form of supposed deficit borrowing. Less for them.

Thus, we get a lot of stupid PR stunts this weekend. Like a bunch of Pols getting together to pretend they are not actually doing nothing – which of course they are. Lots of movement, no progress:

No reporters, no cameras, just five people sitting around a table wasting each other’s time while an excruciatingly bored pundit class waits for smoke signals afterward.

…

O’s going to come off of his $250K offer and hand the debt-ceiling issue back to the GOP so that we can go through another standoff over spending cuts in the spring? I know how I’d vote on that if I were a Republican legislator. And I know how I’d vote on it if I were a Democratic one.

Our so-called political leadership is still plumbing the depth of their incompetence. This cartoon sums up the true victims of any attempt to avoid fiscal responsibility by avoiding or delaying the ‘fiscal cliff‘ dive.

And of course our crazy-like-a-stuffed-fox Democrats are demonstrating their usual Drama Queen act:

Less than two weeks after one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings, the No.2 Democrat in the U.S. House, Steny Hoyer, compared Republican tactics for dealing with the nation’s debt limit to someone threatening to shoot a child hostage.

Subtle, eh? Of course it is Democrat big-government policies which are stealing our children’s (and their children’s) futures by saddling them with our debts!  Hoyer attempts a little diversion and projection – and comes of looking pretty damn dumb in the process.

Personally, I say go over the cliff – bring on the Clinton tax rates!

Tags: Clinton Tax Rates, Fiscal Cliff