Since the U.S. government has taken over General Motors, everyone has wondered what type of car it wants to build. Here's a sneak peek from a hidden camera that caught the first glimpse of the new vehicle.
Government's Comedy of Errors
Why should we let government create a new health insurance company?
Does anyone really believe the federal government is filled with efficiency experts?
Yet superior government efficiency is at the core of claims from President Barack Obama and others pushing creation of a government-run health plan.
Obama states, “If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and it will help keep their prices down.”
And who would keep government honest? Surely not the designated watchdogs, like the Inspectors-General personally fired by the President for catching a FOO (Friend of Obama) with his hand in the till.
Those who believe government could run a health plan cheaper and better than the private sector should consider the bureaucratic messes that Ernest Istook outlines in his column this week at Human Events.
Giant Numbers Are Bad for Your Health
The numbers get in the way when Americans try to understand all the talk about health care legislation. Who can fathom what it really means for government to spend an extra $1-trillion? Or $1.6-trillion? Or the even-higher numbers that are being tossed around!
Should taxpayers be willing to pay a cost that is so huge it defies our ability to understand it?
Just TRY to count to a trillion. If you could continue non-stop, counting one number a second, to reach a trillion would take you 32,000 years.
Ernest Istook takes a look at the enormity of what a trillion really means, in his column at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32346
Defense Shrinks While Rest of Government Grows
Even as bailouts and other spending seem to know no bounds, President Obama is limiting spending in one area—our national defense.
Without waiting for an upcoming review of what our military needs, almost half of Obama’s budget cuts are to defense, and more are planned for future years. All of these are then plowed back into spending increases elsewhere.
What is on the chopping block? The ability to engage in conventional warfare and to deter or defeat major threats, such as North Korean or Iranian nuclear missiles, or a growing navy such as China’s, or a nation with sophisticated aircraft such as Russia’s. Yet for less than the cost of a major bailout, Obama and the Congress could assure proper funding of America’s military and defense.
Ernest Istook gives details of the cuts and how they put America at risk, in his column at: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32169
And check out The Heritage Foundation's documentary at www.33minutes.com.
Saving us from ourselves . . .
We all know the phrase: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.” Perhaps someday they’ll change the national motto from e pluribus unum to est pro vestri own beneficium—“It’s for your own good.”
Regular superheroes save us from villains. Liberal superheroes save us from ourselves.
Today’s federal government doesn’t stop with taking over big things like General Motors and health care, but also wants to govern little things in our lives. They’re talking about new gun controls; a federal ban on smoking in public places; controls on advertising, to make sweets as verboten as cigarettes; even sin taxes on whatever fizzes or appeals to a sweet tooth.
And the Obama Administration that is ending raids on illegal workplaces has threatened instead to raid supermarkets and confiscate Cheerios. Their warning letter to General Mills is online here.
Read details in Ernest Istook’s column, at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32055
Congress vs The Economy!
The biggest show in Washington resembles “Let’s Make A Deal,” as an enormous tax on energy starts moving through committee in the U.S. House. But it could become “Apocalypse Now” because the bill will kill 2.5-million jobs and its $9.6-trillion price tag could wreck the economy.
What do we gain? Supposedly global warming will be reduced by two-tenths of one degree by the end of the century. That’s it. Americans will adjust their thermostats by far more due to skyrocketing electric bills that President Obama predicts will be caused by this legislation. So we’ll be hotter in the summer and colder in the winter.
The annual price tag for a family of four? It’s projected to be $4,000 a year! The higher electric bills alone will average about $1,500 a year.
So why do so many in Congress support this cap-and-tax approach despite the absence of public support? Many have been bought off by sweetheart deals that are spread throughout the bill. More details are in Ernest Istook’s column at Human Events.
Could 2010 Census Include Make-Believe People?
Left-leaning groups want to include millions of pretend people in the real-life 2010 Census. It almost happened in 2000. This time, they might get their way.
The administration claims it has “no plans” to use statistical sampling to augment the actual headcount next year by adding millions of fictitious people.
Conservatives worry that, having learned from the failure of Bill Clinton’s high-profile push for census sampling, the administration has adopted a stealth approach.
Here are the details from Ernest.
Federal Budget Is Like Swine Flue
Talking about the federal budget causes dizziness, headaches and confusion. That’s why many Americans mistake it for the swine flu and try to avoid it.
Likewise, the just-adopted budget can also be dangerous. One threat has been dodged, though. The threat that the budget would give favored treatment to new energy taxes has dissolved, although plans for those taxes are still being pushed actively.
The new budget gives an advantage to plans for nationalizing health care and for greater federal intervention in education, however.
Ernest Istook explains in his column at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31698
A Kitchen Table Agenda
National Review posed these questions to me and to others such as Newt Gingrich and Dr. Ed Feulner: Has the conservative movement begun to fight? Facing the specter of increasing Democratic majorities in Congress, can it rebuild? What should the Right be doing right now? Is it doing it?
You can read all the responses at their website, including mine. Here's what I proposed:
Conservatives are fighting but not persuading. We must reeducate a nation whose core principles have been eroded by left-leaning media, Hollywood, political correctness, and conservative misbehavior.
Liberal ascendance reflects American attitudes more than we like to admit, in a country where only 53 percent say capitalism beats socialism.
Simply promoting lower taxes and smaller government won’t resonate with millions who enjoy zero income-tax liability or who receive government benefits. We must explain that they still have a personal pocketbook stake.
How? With a kitchen-table agenda. In a single word: Consumerism — the belief that the free choice of consumers should dictate society’s economic structure.
Washington mandates have pushed up prices on everything that’s important. Some examples:
- The 2007 energy bill will raise car prices by $5,000 to $7,000 per vehicle.
- Health-care costs reflect 135,000 pages of regulations.
- Ethanol mandates have fueled soaring food prices.
- New light bulbs cost 5 times more than the old.
- How about the economy-wrecking mortgage meltdown? A HUD regulation created a quota (28 percent last year) for how many Fannie and Freddie mortgages must go to those with the poorest incomes.
And the red tape and mandates just keep on coming. Cap-and-trade will be the granddaddy of them all. As candidate Barack Obama said, “Under my [energy] plan . . . electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
Congressionally engineered hikes in the cost of everything should be discussed as families sit around the kitchen table. The full cost goes beyond regulations and taxes; it’s also an issue of freedom.
Big government remains the cause of big problems, not the solution. We know the message can work when delivered well. Ronald Reagan proved it.
Who Can Afford to Go All-Green?
This week we're inundated with more green symbols than on St. Patrick's Day, and more myths. Common-sense approaches to protecting our environment have been overwhelmed by a radical agenda.
Politicians claim they will boost the economy with green jobs. They don't mention that their legislation will destroy more existing jobs than it ever creates with new green jobs that often pay less than the jobs they kill. Other nations have learned this fact from sad experience with their environmental laws; can't we learn a lesson from them?
Read Ernest's article: Green Jobs? Or Gangrene?
Another overlooked fact about the new energy and environmental proposals is the cost to everyday Americans. Are you ready for skyrocketing energy bills? And higher taxes as well, also from the same proposals? As even The New York Times now admits, alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power are far more expensive ways to generate electricity than by using fossil fuels or nuclear energy.
Ernest exposes this in Green Agenda Soaks Taxpayers
You should also read "Seven Myths of Green Jobs," which has just been released by several academics.
Politicians claim they will boost the economy with green jobs. They don't mention that their legislation will destroy more existing jobs than it ever creates with new green jobs that often pay less than the jobs they kill. Other nations have learned this fact from sad experience with their environmental laws; can't we learn a lesson from them?
Read Ernest's article: Green Jobs? Or Gangrene?
Another overlooked fact about the new energy and environmental proposals is the cost to everyday Americans. Are you ready for skyrocketing energy bills? And higher taxes as well, also from the same proposals? As even The New York Times now admits, alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power are far more expensive ways to generate electricity than by using fossil fuels or nuclear energy.
Ernest exposes this in Green Agenda Soaks Taxpayers
You should also read "Seven Myths of Green Jobs," which has just been released by several academics.
The Few. The Proud. The Taxpayers.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg let the cat out of the bag when he announced that half the city’s income comes from 42,000 of its residents. So in a city of 8.2 million, less than half of one percent of the people carry 50 percent of the tax burden.
On the national scale, the top 10% of income tax filers pay 70% of the taxes and earned 47% of the income.
The Tax Foundation reports that the top 1% of American tax filers paid more taxes in 2006 than the bottom 90%. The numbers were $408-billion paid compared to $299-billion. Of 136 million returns filed that year, a mere 1.4 million Americans paid more than this other 122 million combined.
And 23-million Americans who paid zero in income taxes still received federal “refunds” of $46 billion last year.
Is this what passes for fairness today? Is this why some have Tea Parties to protest, while millions don’t care because they are paying nothing?
Read more here.
The High Cost of Congress
This article appears at WorldNetDaily.
We can’t afford Congress. It’s driving America’s cost-of-living through the roof.
Any tax cut or “economic stimulus” we might get this spring is peanuts compared to how Washington keeps jacking up the price of everything that’s important.
By itself, last month’s energy bill will make food, cars, gasoline and even light bulbs more expensive. Washington is also the culprit behind high medical bills and health insurance, washing machines that have doubled in price, and our wonderful, more-expensive “lo-flo” toilets that don’t flush right.
All this is on top of what red tape already costs us. A 2004 government report admitted that federal regulations cost our economy at least $1.1 trillion each year. That’s $3,666 per person, so multiply that by the number of people in your household. And remember that’s before the 2007 energy bill. And in addition to taxes.
The new energy laws are a leftist’s dream and a supply-sider’s nightmare. As 2008 starts, we’re paying $3 (often more) for a gallon of gasoline. That’s up about a fourth (64 cents) from a year ago. The Heritage Foundation calculates the new energy bill will boost gas prices over $5 a gallon by 2016. Yet rather than let us produce more oil domestically, Congress keeps areas off-limits from drilling that could raise supply and lower prices.
Someday you might save gas, since Congress has dictated that new cars must soon get 10% more miles per gallon. But that depends on your being able to afford a new car. Sticker shock on new cars will get worse because engineering them to meet the mandate will raise car prices by $5,000 to $7,000 per car, according to General Motors.
Compounding the engineering challenge is the Congressional requirement that more ethanol be mixed into the gasoline. That lowers mpg because ethanol contains less energy. In return for this mileage reduction, your tax dollars are used to pay ethanol producers a 51-cent-per-gallon subsidy. Since the new law compels the sale of 35 billion gallons of ethanol—up from the currently mandated 8 billion gallons a year—the subsidy costs to taxpayers will rise from $4 billion to $17.5 billion annually.
This is why food prices keep going up. As more corn goes into ethanol, food processors must bid against the government subsidy to buy corn. So must livestock producers who need the corn to feed the cattle, chickens and other animals. Even before the four-fold increase in the ethanol mandate, one-fifth of corn production already goes to ethanol. This will worsen the $9 billion a year extra that consumers already pay in food prices because ethanol subsidies have taken so much corn out of the food and feed supply. Thanks to Congress, the era of cheap and plentiful food in America may be over. (Sadly, they’ll just propose more food stamps as a “solution”.)
Could we just plant more corn (and maybe end $23 billion in farm subsidies)? The ethanol mandate is so massive there’s not room to plant more corn to avoid higher food prices. The National Environmental Trust estimates the new mandate will require us to plant an additional 82.5-millon acres of corn (129,000 square miles). That would take every square inch of Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio—presuming you could evacuate the people and plant every acre.
Then there’s Congress’ bright idea about light bulbs—banning Thomas Edison’s invention of the incandescent bulb. As a smart shopper, I can buy them on sale for only 25 cents each. But I can’t find the new curly-cue fluorescent bulbs for less than $2 apiece. I’ve bought some anyway, since they’re said to last eight times longer and save 80% more energy. But I resent Congress’ telling me I’ve got no choice. I’m tempted to be ornery and stock up on the old-school bulbs before they’re banished to consumer prison. (I had the same dismay when the feds banned 99-cent cans of Freon, making us spend a hundred dollars to fix the coolant in our car air-conditioning.)
There’s a cultural factor, too. We lose a little refinement when the piggy-tail lights replace decorative bulbs in candelabras, mirror lights, etc., or we can’t find small incandescent lights for Christmas decorations.
These mandates come from the same folks who brought us the $900 washing machine (up from $400 or so before l federal mandates kicked in) and the pricier 1.6-gallon-per-flush toilet, which wastes water because you have to flush multiple times.
Federal red tape is also the biggest reason why health care is so expensive. For each hour spent with patients, our doctors, nurses and their staff must spend almost another hour doing the paperwork dictated by federal regulations.
No wonder we’re losing jobs to the rest of the world. They don’t drown themselves in silly red tape that makes the price of their products uncompetitive. But we do.
Presidential candidates take note: If you want to woo middle class voters, don’t offer them one-shot rebates or other “economic stimulus” gimmicks. Bring back common-sense, and make life in America affordable again.
--Ernest Istook is a former U.S. Congressman from Oklahoma, and now a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Any tax cut or “economic stimulus” we might get this spring is peanuts compared to how Washington keeps jacking up the price of everything that’s important.
By itself, last month’s energy bill will make food, cars, gasoline and even light bulbs more expensive. Washington is also the culprit behind high medical bills and health insurance, washing machines that have doubled in price, and our wonderful, more-expensive “lo-flo” toilets that don’t flush right.
All this is on top of what red tape already costs us. A 2004 government report admitted that federal regulations cost our economy at least $1.1 trillion each year. That’s $3,666 per person, so multiply that by the number of people in your household. And remember that’s before the 2007 energy bill. And in addition to taxes.
The new energy laws are a leftist’s dream and a supply-sider’s nightmare. As 2008 starts, we’re paying $3 (often more) for a gallon of gasoline. That’s up about a fourth (64 cents) from a year ago. The Heritage Foundation calculates the new energy bill will boost gas prices over $5 a gallon by 2016. Yet rather than let us produce more oil domestically, Congress keeps areas off-limits from drilling that could raise supply and lower prices.
Someday you might save gas, since Congress has dictated that new cars must soon get 10% more miles per gallon. But that depends on your being able to afford a new car. Sticker shock on new cars will get worse because engineering them to meet the mandate will raise car prices by $5,000 to $7,000 per car, according to General Motors.
Compounding the engineering challenge is the Congressional requirement that more ethanol be mixed into the gasoline. That lowers mpg because ethanol contains less energy. In return for this mileage reduction, your tax dollars are used to pay ethanol producers a 51-cent-per-gallon subsidy. Since the new law compels the sale of 35 billion gallons of ethanol—up from the currently mandated 8 billion gallons a year—the subsidy costs to taxpayers will rise from $4 billion to $17.5 billion annually.
This is why food prices keep going up. As more corn goes into ethanol, food processors must bid against the government subsidy to buy corn. So must livestock producers who need the corn to feed the cattle, chickens and other animals. Even before the four-fold increase in the ethanol mandate, one-fifth of corn production already goes to ethanol. This will worsen the $9 billion a year extra that consumers already pay in food prices because ethanol subsidies have taken so much corn out of the food and feed supply. Thanks to Congress, the era of cheap and plentiful food in America may be over. (Sadly, they’ll just propose more food stamps as a “solution”.)
Could we just plant more corn (and maybe end $23 billion in farm subsidies)? The ethanol mandate is so massive there’s not room to plant more corn to avoid higher food prices. The National Environmental Trust estimates the new mandate will require us to plant an additional 82.5-millon acres of corn (129,000 square miles). That would take every square inch of Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio—presuming you could evacuate the people and plant every acre.
Then there’s Congress’ bright idea about light bulbs—banning Thomas Edison’s invention of the incandescent bulb. As a smart shopper, I can buy them on sale for only 25 cents each. But I can’t find the new curly-cue fluorescent bulbs for less than $2 apiece. I’ve bought some anyway, since they’re said to last eight times longer and save 80% more energy. But I resent Congress’ telling me I’ve got no choice. I’m tempted to be ornery and stock up on the old-school bulbs before they’re banished to consumer prison. (I had the same dismay when the feds banned 99-cent cans of Freon, making us spend a hundred dollars to fix the coolant in our car air-conditioning.)
There’s a cultural factor, too. We lose a little refinement when the piggy-tail lights replace decorative bulbs in candelabras, mirror lights, etc., or we can’t find small incandescent lights for Christmas decorations.
These mandates come from the same folks who brought us the $900 washing machine (up from $400 or so before l federal mandates kicked in) and the pricier 1.6-gallon-per-flush toilet, which wastes water because you have to flush multiple times.
Federal red tape is also the biggest reason why health care is so expensive. For each hour spent with patients, our doctors, nurses and their staff must spend almost another hour doing the paperwork dictated by federal regulations.
No wonder we’re losing jobs to the rest of the world. They don’t drown themselves in silly red tape that makes the price of their products uncompetitive. But we do.
Presidential candidates take note: If you want to woo middle class voters, don’t offer them one-shot rebates or other “economic stimulus” gimmicks. Bring back common-sense, and make life in America affordable again.
--Ernest Istook is a former U.S. Congressman from Oklahoma, and now a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Ten Days Before Iowa
by Ernest Istook
Note: The Iowa Caucuses will occur only ten days after Christmas. So, with apologies to "The Night Before Christmas" by Clement Moore":
'Twas ten days before Iowa as they sought the White House.
Every pollster was stirring, even polling each mouse;
The airwaves were filled with the candidates’ flairs,
In hopes nomination soon would be theirs.
The voters were nestled all snug in their beds,
While politics-free visions danced in their heads.
Iowa was due first, New Hampshire on tap
But for now they just wanted a Christmas Eve nap,
When there on the TV arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
The Internet was humming; talk radio was brash.
Mainstream media was spewing its usual trash.
I ignored for the moment the new-fallen snow
Since campaign advertising was a flashier show.
Then what to my tired eyes and ears did appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight candidates sincere.
All chasing the driver, so mired in the muck
I knew in a moment they were hounding the lame duck.
More eager than buzzards the candidates they came,
Pursued by reporters who called them by name:
"Now, Clinton! Now, Thompson! Now, Obama and Huckabee!On, Giuliani! On, Edwards! On McCain! And on Romney!”
To the top of the polls, then the bottom they’d fall!
Now bash away! Bash away! Bash away all!
Dumb questions were asked at a hurricane pace,
To be met with one-liners, and attacks face-to-face.
So up to the house-top the wild mob they flew,
With the sleigh full of promises, and whispering campaigns, too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The comebacks and charges, till I’d had quite enough.
As I reached out my hand to turn off the sound,
Down the chimney the whole circus came with a bound.
They were all dressed in mud, from each head to each foot,
Reputations were tarnished with ashes and soot;
Old slogans and charges each flung in attacks
And they looked like some peddlers or maybe some hacks.
Their eyes—oh, how beady! Yet their dimples how merry!
Their cheeks were like roses; their smiles, they were scary.
They smelled like new plastic; they were made up with flair.
And one of them boasted four-hundred-dollar hair.
The stump of a lead one watched fall from his grip,
Another wore a halo, which started to slip.
One looked like a lawyer, as played on the telly.
One shook when she laughed, and denied she was smelly.
Two were movie star handsome, like they came off a shelf.
One was white-haired and somber, a non-jolly old elf.
The other kept saying he’d bring change to all
And each claimed that we should just ignore Ron Paul.
They spoke endless words, and they spun in their work:
Promised to fill every stocking; denied being a jerk.
Many voters decided that they’d just hold their nose
As to who’d get the nod. Then up the chimney all rose.
They sprang to private jets, ignoring Al Gore’s epistle.
They flew off to New Hampshire, showing toughness and gristle.
But I heard them exclaim, ere they flew out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all please vote right!"
--Ernest Istook is a former U.S. Congressman from Oklahoma, now a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a radio talk show host.
The "peace dividend" is back
This was published in The Washington Times on Aug. 6, 2007.
Antiwar profiteering?
by Ernest Istook
Some of the politicians who propose withdrawing our troops from Iraq have an ulterior motive. They want to stop spending money on the military so they can start spending it on social programs.
If they succeed, an army of social workers may prove the only force in the world capable of beating America's military. Funding that "army" is a revival of the "peace dividend" doctrine that brought us a hollowed-out military during the Clinton administration.
Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, has claimed first dibs on the money to create a new $6-billion-a-year program against urban poverty "funded by savings from ending the Iraq war." Fellow presidential candidate John Edwards certainly will want a chunk, considering that his central theme is a mega-billion-dollar expansion of the "War on Poverty."
Congress is already on a spending spree. During the first six months of the new majority, the House and the Senate approved almost $200 billion in new spending, mostly to be financed with tax increases, with a little left over to lower the deficit. But raising taxes carries political risks, so tapping a "peace dividend" is an alternative justification for higher spending. It's a tempting target, because the five-year cost of our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is officially calculated at $758 billion.
Bill Clinton pushed this argument when running for president, telling a 1991 Georgetown University audience, "With the dwindling Soviet threat, we can cut defense spending by over a third by 1997.... The American people have earned this peace dividend... and they are entitled to have the dividend reinvested in their future."
Today's lengthy troop deployments are one legacy of those cuts. Dropping the Army from 18 divisions to 10 forced each remaining soldier to spend more time overseas and less at home. It would be worse if Congress hadn't insisted on increased defense spending in the late Clinton years, followed by a further buildup under President George W. Bush.
But our military's needs won't end even if we reduce our activity in Iraq. Before the harsh desert environment took its toll on equipment and weapons, our inventory was aging. That's part of the reason the Heritage Foundation and many others urge a permanent defense budget commitment of 4 percent of gross domestic product (up from today's 3.9 percent).
This "4 Percent for Freedom" goal would conflict, obviously, with the social spending buildup leading Democrats want to finance partly by abandoning the mission in Iraq. It also would clash with the need to reduce federal deficits and balance the budget. But we can't allow our security needs to take second place.
The era of big government never ended. Rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated. Republicans didn't end big government while they ran Congress, and the new Democrat majority certainly won't.
This year alone Congress has ramped up spending. It has tacked $40 billion on to Mr. Bush's appropriations proposal, passed five-year plans to spend an extra $23 billion for homeland security, spent $9 billion more on water resources, another $7 billion on transportation security, and a farm bill adding $17 billion.
A pending expansion of government-paid health care ("for the kids") will cost at least $71 billion over 10 years, enlarging the SCHIP "children's health" plans to provide government-paid health care for households making more than $80,000 per year — 4 times the poverty level. The costs of the Senate-passed energy bill still haven't been calculated — but expect it to push gasoline prices to $3.79 a gallon by next year, according to a Heritage Foundation report.
Tapping into a "peace dividend" will be an attractive political excuse to pay for these and more big-government plans — telling voters it's no pain, only gain. Our national defense could suffer from it.
Mr. Bush's opposition is almost the only political barrier. His political capital is low, but Congress' is even lower. Liberal use of a veto is the only way to combat this liberal big spending.
Ernest Istook is a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation (heritage.org). He served 14 years as a U.S. Congressman from Oklahoma.
Illegal Immigrants Departing Because of New State Laws!
Why deport if they depart!?
Now that the Immigration Amnesty Bill has been defeated, state laws to halt jobs and public benefits for illegals are being noticed by those here illegally--and many are giving up and going home!
This underscores the point that many of us have made--that enforcement of the law doesn't mean we must round up and deport all 12- to 20-million people who are here illegally. Many will depart voluntarily.
Watch this video of a news report from Georgia, where their tough state law has kicked in. Let's look for similar news from Colorado, which enacted its crackdown even before Georgia. In other states, like Oklahoma, the law is brand-new and so it's tougher to evaluate the results.
Every state should enact such laws. Of course, beware the ACLU and others, who are planning lawsuits trying to abolish them.
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