Try different tactic in fighting war on poverty

Printed in Corvallis Gazette-Times 7/8/2015 and titled "Behavioral economics can reduce poverty." Posting here, in case you missed it.
By Michael A. MacDowell - Insanity has often been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. While this statement is used for a variety of situations, perhaps it is nowhere better applied than in characterizing this country's numerous attempts to eradicate poverty. --In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. At the time, 14.7 percent of Americans were living below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Fast-forward to 2013, and 14.5 percent of our citizens were poor. --Jason Zweig of Money magazine says there are many reasons for the lack of progress in this ongoing battle. In a Wall Street Journal article, he shows that most antipoverty programs have not considered how people actually act.

Read more at Philly.com Read More......

The Obamacare Generation

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON - The ACA depends on Millennials picking up the tab — as they already are for other entitlements — in the midst of a bad economy.

Read more at NRO… Read More......

WaPo: Republicans should stand and fight

12/10/2012 by Marc A. Thiessen (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - When the 1st Marine Regiment was encircled by communist forces at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, Marine Col. Lewis “Chesty” Puller was said to have declared: “We’re surrounded. Good! Now we can fire in any direction.” ✧ It’s time for congressional Republicans to adopt some of Puller’s courage — and strategy — when it comes to their fiscal stand-off with Barack Obama. Read Thiessen's three part plan... Read More......

Samuelson: It’s the welfare state, stupid

By Robert J. Samuelson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - If you doubt there’s an American welfare state, you should read the new study  by demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, whose blizzard of numbersdemonstrates otherwise. A welfare state transfers income from some people to other people to improve the recipients’ well-being. In 1935, these transfers were less than 3 percent of the economy; now they’re almost 20 percent. That’s $7,200 a year for every American, calculates Eberstadt. He says that nearly 40 percent of these transfers aim to relieve poverty (through Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance and the like), while most of the rest goes to the elderly (mainly through Social Security and Medicare).

By all means, let’s avoid the “fiscal cliff”: the $500 billion in tax increases and federal spending cuts scheduled for early 2013 that, if they occurred, might trigger a recession. But let’s recognize that we still need to bring the budget into long-term balance. This can’t be done only by higher taxes on the rich, which seem inevitable. Nor can it be done by deep cuts in defense and domestic “discretionary” programs (from highways to schools), which are already happening. It requires controlling the welfare state. In 2011, “payments for individuals,” including health care, constituted 65 percent of federal spending, up from 21 percent in 1955. That’s the welfare state.

Yet, the subject is virtually taboo...  Read more at Washington Post Read More......

Obama's economic policies have created a nation of jobless citizens dependent on government handouts

(NaturalNews) [...] the oft-tried Keynesian strategy of profligate government spending as a way to spur a capitalist economy has not only failed miserably, which was predictable, but it has created a class of Americans who subsist nearly entirely on government largess.

GOP presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have hit on this as part of their campaign strategy. Romney has said "over the past three years, Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an entitlement society". Gingrich has labeled Obama "the best food-stamp president in American history." Read more at Natural News... Read More......

The Spending Threat to Our National Defense

Consider it a warning from the highest levels of the U.S. government. Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta held a joint press event in Washington in which they cautioned that U.S. debt is jeopardizing America’s ability to ensure national security and preserve its interests abroad. Read more at the Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell ... Read More......

What would Laura Ingalls Wilder have to say about today's entitlements?

WORLDNET DAILY: REAL AMERICA, 6/4/2011 by Patrice Lewis - From pioneers to pansies

Do you remember your Laura Ingalls Wilder books? I don't know about you, but these classic stories of a pioneer childhood give me a full-blown inferiority complex. Looking over what Laura's parents, Charles and Caroline (and later Laura and her husband) did in a normal day's work puts me to shame. With little more than a few hand tools and a lot of know-how, they created homes from bare dirt and grew their own food. They tried to depend on no one because often there was no one around to depend on. What they couldn't afford they did without. When they did borrow money, it often got them in trouble and they regretted it. The Ingalls family tried never to be "beholden" to anyone. The only time they ever took a government handout was when they participated in the Homestead Act. ∴ In the sequels to the "Little House" series, written by Rose Wilder Lane's heir, Roger Lea MacBride, Laura and her husband, Almanzo, moved to Missouri, bought land and spent many years making it into a productive farm. In these books, Laura speaks disparagingly about the Homestead Act. "It's a sin and a shame what the government in Washington did to folks, promising them free land," Laura says. "Free land indeed. It only shows that no good ever comes of getting something for nothing. It nearly ruined my pa, and look what it did to us. Every soul ought to pay his way in this world. It's the only honest and true way to live." What would Laura have to say about the extensive welfare and entitlements rampant today? Read more: From pioneers to pansies...

Read More......

Why the Greatest Depression of All Time Has Begun

WAYNE ALLYN ROOT'S BLOG, 6/2/2011 - [Excerpt] "Here's where the story gets downright frightening. This time the results are going to be dramatically worse than 1929. This time we are facing The Greatest Depression ever. ∴ Why? Because The Great Depression had NONE of [the] problems and obligations we are now facing." Read full essay...

Wayne Allyn Root is a successful businessman and former Libertarian Vice Presidential Nominee. Read More......

Mitch Daniels, thinking like a president

WASHINGTON POST, 2/18/2011 by Michael Gerson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - President Obama's 2012 budget is the numerical embodiment of his State of the Union address - both being systematic distractions from the main, current tasks of governing. His plan includes, according to Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs, "no entitlement reform, no tax reform, no significant spending reform, indeed no meaningful change of direction of any sort." Read more at the Washington Post... Read More......

Hard America/Soft America

Via email, INSPIRE AND IGNITE (Hat tip: Linda Weimer) - Earlier this decade, Michael Barone wrote a book entitled “Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for America’s Future”. His premise was that we are becoming an America of soft people demanding entitlements at other people’s expense, unwilling or unable to stand on our own and looking to the government instead of ourselves to provide our every need.

Our school system typifies this softness. The system avoids competition and promotes instead a soft concept of self esteem that elevates how one feel’s above the reality of actual merit. Consequences are avoided at all costs...failure is so demeaning that we dare not even try. Passed along from grade to grade without the barest of essential skills, we are producing Soft Americans with no understanding of the real world.

Hard America, on the other hand, plays for keeps. People are not advanced because they “feel good” about themselves, but on the basis of solid performance. In Hard America there are real consequences to failure. But, Hard America is in danger of being overwhelmed by Soft America.

If you have any doubt about how soft we are becoming, consider the mantra, “Too big to fail”. The bailouts of the automotive industry, the banking and financial segments of our economy and the push for universal healthcare are all attempts to remove the consequences of poor choices and proof positive of the ascendancy of “Soft America” today.

But, the problem is, to quote Barone, “Soft America depends on the productivity, creativity and competence of Hard America, which protects the country and pays its bills”.

As we descend deeper and deeper into the “comfort” of a soft life of victim hood where no one is accountable for their choices and big brother will always ride to the rescue; we are destroying the essential American character. Our country was built upon character which is self reliant, courageous in the face of adversity and unwilling to trade away personal freedom for the government’s promise of security.

From the Pilgrims who faced long odds and hard times to pursue freedom regardless of the cost; to the signers of our declaration who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to bring freedom to these shores...from the rugged pioneers who overcame significant hardship to expand our borders from coast to coast; to our astronauts risking their lives to expand our borders to the moon and beyond…from the Minutemen at Concord to our brave soldiers buried across Europe, the American character has resisted the easy way...has stood firmly for personal freedom and rejected the idea that someone else owed us an easy life.

Elections Have Consequences

Soft America won an overwhelming victory in 2008. Soft America has savagely
attacked the concept of merit and competency. Soft America has undermined the free enterprise system that built the greatest nation in history and has denigrated success in favor of handouts and protectionism. Soft America has consistently mocked and discouraged the small business entrepreneur; preferring instead to “Spread the wealth around”. Soft America is attempting to void the consequences of bad choices and that will ultimately destroys character and the work ethic so critical to achieving the American dream.

If Soft America prevails, the impact on the American spirit and America’s future will be grim…the drive to turn us all into beggars dependent on the federal government’s benevolence for our daily needs will gain great momentum.

To overcome the accelerating trend lines of the last few years, Hard America must be willing to once again find the inner strength to stand firm for the bedrock principles of limited government, personal accountability and free markets. The cost to right the ship of state, restore fiscal sanity and rebuild the American dream for our children will not be easy and will not be accomplished without personal sacrifice.

ARE WE READY TO PAY THE PRICE TO RESTORE AMERICAN?

If we truly want a smaller government, balanced budgets and a free market
economy, we must decide what federal programs we are willing to forgo.

This is not a rhetorical question. The answer is NOT what others must give up; the answer is not a litany of bloated federal bureaucracies that we must shut down. The question is much more personal... if we are to be successful in restoring the America our founders intended, we must decide what price we are personally willing to pay. For example:

As a retired military officer, am I willing to have my retired pay and benefits frozen for 5 years?

As a social security recipient, are you willing to have your benefits frozen for 5 years?

As a federal employee, are you willing to have your pay and benefits frozen for 5 years?

As a public employee, are you willing to renegotiate your retirement benefits in order to make the program sustainable?

Will you willing to abandon your unemployment check and diligently seek work... any work to meet your financial needs?

Are we willing to allow sound fiduciary principles to guide a restructuring of our social security benefits to ensure the long term viability of the program?

Are we willing to live within our means, rejecting federal attempts to buy us off with a new car or make our mortgage payment or pay off our personal credit cards?

The list is surely much longer as we consider the personal sacrifices we must be willing to make to restore America. The critical point is that without personal sacrifice, all our proclamations of concern for the debt...for the future of our country...our public outcry demanding smaller government are hollow and empty.

Without a commitment to personal sacrifice, all our protestations are simply selfishly motivated calls for others to sacrifice for our benefit. If smaller government is to become a reality; if we are truly to have a government living within its means, then the sacrifice must be shared by all.

The only path to a smaller government is to reduce spending, reduce or eliminate wasteful programs and provide an environment where the free market can function without artificial barriers.

Once we have committed to the personal sacrifice needed to restore sanity in the federal government, then we have the moral authority to suggest major cuts in other parts of the federal government. Just a few suggestions:

Eliminate the Energy Department and the Education Department

Reduce the Dept of Defense, State Dept and Justice Dept by 10%

Reduce the IRS by 80% and replace the income tax with a fair tax

Reduce Federal employees by a minimum of 33% (from 2.1 million to 1.4 million)

Make earmarks illegal.

Obviously, this list can be expanded (I welcome you thoughts). But before we rise up and demand these kinds of changes, we must signal our willingness to bear our share of the sacrifice.

This email has not addressed increasing federal revenue... as President Reagan said, “Our government doesn’t tax too little, it spends too much.” If our goal is smaller government, then our attention must be on reducing spending and the overall size of the federal government.

That said, in principle, when the government is functioning properly, it creates an environment when business can prosper and grow. In so doing, the federal revenues will grow accordingly. We must resist the liberal’s first reflex to raise taxes to meet revenue needs. While it may seem counter intuitive, if you raise taxes, you ultimately lower revenue while if you lower taxes, you raise revenue (Google “Laffer Curve”).

With common sense and courage, and a renewed dependence on our Creator we can overcome the progressive’s agenda and restore America.

A young mother was being interviewed on a national network recently. She was expressing her concern that the government’s approach to the mortgage crisis was to bail out home owners unable to meet their financial obligations while she and her husband adjusted their life style, lived within their means and struggled from month to month to make their house payment. She asked where is the lobbyist standing up for my family and the millions like us. The interviewer asked her if she and her husband had ever considered missing a couple of payments so that they could qualify for the government assistance.

Her reply was striking, “NO, not ever...we weren’t raised that way.”

Thank God for Hard American willing to stand by their principles and make hard choices rather than being bought by a federal government bent on making us all beggars.

Hard America, we make a statement about what kind of nation we will leave future generation... one strong and free or one in debt and bondage? Make your voices heard!

Visit www.inspireandignite.com to contribute to the Second American Revolution.

For a strong reminder of who is really in charge visit: www.andiesisle.com/creation/magnificent.html

Jim Kinney Capt USN (ret) Read More......

Barone: Tea Partiers Fight Obama's Culture of Dependence

TOWNHALL.COM, 4/19/2010 by Michael Barone - [...] But public policy also helps determine the kind of society we are. The Obama Democrats see a society in which ordinary people cannot fend for themselves, where they need to have their incomes supplemented, their health care insurance regulated and guaranteed, their relationships with their employers governed by union leaders. Highly educated mandarins can make better decisions for them than they can make themselves. That is the culture of dependence. Read more at Townhall... Read More......

Health 'reform' that burdens our young

WASHINGTON POST, 11/23/2009 by Robert J. Samuelson - One of our long-running political stories is the economic assault on the young by the old. We have become a society that invests in its past and disfavors the future. This makes no sense for the nation, but as politics it makes complete sense. The elderly and near elderly are better organized, focus obsessively on their government benefits and seem deserving. Grandmas and Grandpas command sympathy. ∴ Everyone knows that the resulting "entitlements" dominate government spending and squeeze education, research, defense and almost everything else. In fiscal 2008 -- the last "normal" year before the economic crisis -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (programs wholly or primarily dedicated to the elderly) totaled $1.3 trillion, 43 percent of federal spending and more than twice military spending. Because workers, not retirees, are the primary taxpayers, this spending involves huge transfers to the old. Read more at the Washington Post... Read More......