September 9, 2010

RE: Restless

Posted by Rick Henderson at 4:39 PM

Michael,

Funny how — notwithstanding Emanuel's often disgusting, bare-knuckle politics — it never enters the consciousness of self-styled progressives that without someone to attempt to moderate Obama's agenda, impossible as that may seem, the president might be in even worse shape?

Shoot the messenger. Never examine the message.

Linkable Entry

Bandow to discuss 'America and the Imperial Temptation' Monday night at Campbell

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 4:28 PM

Former JLF speaker Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute will address "America and the Imperial Temptation: Defending a Free Society in Today's World" during a 6 p.m. lecture Monday at Campbell University's Lundy-Fetterman School of Business.

It's the year's first installment of Campbell's Politics, Law, and Economics Lecture Series. Follow the links for presentations last spring from Arnold Kling and Thomas Woods.

Meanwhile, click play below for a reminder of what Doug Bandow told Carolina Journal Radio this spring about ObamaCare.

Linkable Entry

The progressives are restless and need a scapegoat, it looks like Rahm

Posted by Dr. Michael Sanera at 3:37 PM

The progressives over at The Nation want Rahm Emanuel's head. Get this from Ari Berman a contributing writer for The Nation:

The sooner Rahm leaves Washington, the better for Barack Obama. His White House is desperately in need of a serious shakeup, especially with Democrats facing a tidal wave of losses in the midterms. Replacing Rahm is the best place to start.

I’ll never quite understand why a transformational candidate who ran under the banner of a new style of politics chose the ultimate old-school inside operator to control his administration. Rahm isn’t solely to blame for diluting Obama’s unique outsider brand, but he’s a major reason why. After all, in the Clinton White House and in Congress, Rahm was often at odds with the very grassroots activists who powered Obama’s presidential campaign. As head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in ‘06, he famously clashed with party chair Howard Dean and recruited conservative Blue Dog candidates at the expense of legitimate progressive challengers. Rahm brought his corporate centrism to the White House, pushing for a smaller-than-needed stimulus bill, urging Obama not to pursue healthcare reform, watering down the bill when he did and calling progressive activists who wanted to pressure obstructionist Democrats “fucking retarded.” He later apologized to Sarah Palin but not to the Democratic activists he insulted.

Linkable Entry

Gizzi examines business leaders' responses to the Obama tax plan

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 3:19 PM

John Gizzi details in his latest Human Events article the business response to President Obama's tax proposals:

In what is almost certain to be a repeated theme from the business community before the fast-approaching midterm elections, two business leaders who spoke to HUMAN EVENTS said without hesitation that Obama’s ending of the Bush cuts was a tax increase.

Not only is the business community sharply opposed to tax rates going back to their pre-2001 levels for couples making more than $250,000 a year, but they are also unimpressed with Obama’s call for $180 billion in selected tax credits and infrastructure spending.

One key player in the economy from the Bush Administration felt the latest Obama package was simply more stimulus spending and higher taxes.

“We should not do anymore government stimulus and we should not raise taxes on anyone,” former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez told HUMAN EVENTS. “It is not right to ask the American people to pay for inefficient programs that are designed to get votes for the President’s party.”

Gutierrez, a former chief executive officer of the Kellogg Company, predicted that “the American people will pay dearly for this administration’s policies for years to come.”

The warning issued by Gutierrez could easily be a clarion call for a business-backed assault on both the Obama economic initiative and on congressional Democrats who support the President.

Linkable Entry

New Carolina Journal Online exclusive

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 1:04 PM

The latest Carolina Journal Online exclusive features a report on charter school advocates' concerns about North Carolina's recent Race to the Top federal education grant money.

Linkable Entry

Don't blame tax cuts for rising inequality

Posted by Rick Henderson at 11:06 AM

At the Truth on the Market blog, Todd Henderson of the University of Chicago Law School (no relation) looks at data published recently on Slate.com showing rising income inequality.

While ducking the debate over whether such stratification is a good or bad thing, Henderson notes that the article makes what he calls a "startling admission":

“[I]t would be hard to argue, based on this data, [that tax cuts] were a major factor.”

Henderson includes a couple of charts showing median compensation over the past several decades, and also plots CEO pay compared with the stock indexes. His conclusion: When CEOs started getting stock options in their compensation packages, their pay started rising dramatically.

The solution for rising income inequality? An expansion of what (yes) George W. Bush called the "ownership society." As more and more wage earners own pieces of corporate America, the more able they are to accumulate real wealth.

Henderson:

So, in other words, it may be that the growth of income inequality is driven by the top 1 percent getting more income from investments. If this is the case, then policies like Social Security and defined-benefit pension plans (pushed by labor unions) are somewhat to blame for this trend not being experienced more widely. Policies that push ownership and investments down the income curve, like stock options for employees and 401(k) plans, may help reduce the problem of income inequality without more government intervention.

Linkable Entry

Small steps Obama could personally take to close the deficit

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 10:54 AM

CEOs of struggling companies have sometimes taken the symbolic step of forgoing a salary or taking only $1 in compensation to show their commitment to the company's success. President and Mrs. Obama earned 13 times more from book royalties and other sources than his $400,000 presidential salary, which itself is high enough to land them in the highest tax bracket.

If the president were truly concerned about the deficit, perhaps he could set an example for the others like he and his wife who are "well-off and well-connected." He could give up the presidential salary and make a voluntary contribution to the government to help pay off the national debt. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are very committed to giving their money away and raising taxes. I'm sure he could convince them to chip in a billion dollars each. Maybe George Soros could divert his money from funding left wing groups and actually fund the progressive government programs those groups promote.

It could be like the war bond sales of the miracle 1940s. Not a lot of money in practical terms, but an important symbolic step. It could also set a new course of cajoling cooperation instead of cudgeling capitulation.

Linkable Entry

Congratulations to North Carolina's 2010 Blue Ribbon Schools

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 10:34 AM

List of public and private schools in North Carolina receiving the honor:

Laurel Elementary School
Marshall, NC
Principal: Mr. Keith Ray

Our Lady of Mercy School
Winston-Salem, NC
Principal: Sister Geri Rogers

St. Michael the Archangel Catholic School
Cary, NC
Principal: Dr. Sarah Wannemuehler

Linkable Entry

For C.S. Lewis and liberty fans

Posted by Dr. Michael Sanera at 08:48 AM

David Theroux, president of the Independent Institute in California, discusses C.S. Lewis' views on liberty in "C.S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism."  I also recommend that you sign up for the the newsletter from the C.S. Lewis Society of California here.

Linkable Entry

Latest dispatches from the campaign trail

Posted by David N. Bass at 08:30 AM

• An internal poll by Republican B.J. Lawson’s campaign shows him leading incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. David Price 46.5 percent to 46.1 percent in the 4th Congressional District.


• Another internal poll, this one from Republican Harold Johnson's campaign, shows the 8th Congressional District race tightening.


• National Democrats respond to negative trend by releasing polling dump.


• The Cherokee Scout calls on the legislature to approve an independent commission for redistricting.


• Mark Binker of the Greensboro News & Record fact checks a political ad by state Rep. Nelson Cole about cutting $3 billion from the state's budget.

Linkable Entry

Samuelson questions school reform initiatives

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 06:59 AM

Samuelson’s ideas make for interesting reading, especially his assessment of previous reforms:

Standard explanations of this meager progress fail. Too few teachers? Not really. From 1970 to 2008, the student population increased 8 percent while the number of teachers rose 61 percent. The student-teacher ratio has fallen from 27 to 1 in 1955 to 15 to 1 in 2007. Are teachers ill paid? Perhaps, but that’s not obvious. In 2008 the average teacher earned $53,230; two full-time teachers married to each other and making average pay would rank among the richest 20 percent of households (2008 qualifying income: $100,240). Maybe more preschool would help. Yet the share of 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool has rocketed from 11 percent in 1965 to 53 percent in 2008.

Want some other ideas for reform? The John Locke Foundation is happy to oblige.

Linkable Entry

More media love for the Tea Party crowd

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 06:58 AM

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the 82-year-old firebrand of France’s far right—the man who for decades has played on the inchoate fears, xenophobia, knee-jerk racism, and ill-disguised anti-Semitism of many of his supporters—had just finished speaking to the faithful on a farm not far from the English Channel.

Of course. Mainstream media outlets have such a good track record of documenting Tea Party beliefs.

Linkable Entry

Some people think government support of news outlets is a good idea

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 06:57 AM

The challenge is finding an audience for “news” that is best known for its blind spots. The typical Xinhua sentence is thick on the tongue (“out of which 20 percent were the HIV-infected persons”) and often inaccurate by design. In Xinhua’s world, the Tiananmen Square massacre never happened, Falun Gong is an evil cult, and the Dalai Lama is the Guy Fawkes of Tibet. Xinhua also gathers sensitive news—such as the full heads-rolling horror of the Uighur riots last summer—and releases it to Chinese officials alone. It’s as if The New York Times were to stamp its scoops “internal reference reports” and file them to President Obama.

One could hope that this background information could help squelch support for directing tax dollars toward dying American newspapers.

Linkable Entry

New Carolina Journal Online features

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 06:49 AM

The latest Carolina Journal Online exclusive features Karen McMahan's progress report on Gov. Beverly Perdue's Budget Reform and Accountability Commission.

John Hood's Daily Journal describes how ObamaCare already has started to destroy consumer-driven health care.

Linkable Entry

<< Last Entry