Obama Administration Lies About Unemployment Rates

There is an old saying that figures never lie, but liars figure. This is never more prevalent than in government. There is an old question that asks how can you tell when politicians are lying and the answer is when their lips are moving.

Consider this. Unemployment is down according to the government figures. Late figures concerning unemployment in Ohio tags the rate at 8.5% unemployed, about the same as the national figure. But wait. That’s based on a U-3 rating. U-3? Yes, one of six calculations for measuring unemployment. With the government there are different categories of not having a job.

The U-3 unemployment figure, the official government reporting figure which is touted in the news, only counts those people who are unemployed and are actively seeking a job. These folks are drawing unemployment checks along with those in U-1, those who have been unemployed for at least 15 weeks, and U-2, who have recently lost a job or finished a temporary job, classifications. These are easy figures to count as they are listed on government lists of those on the public dole.

U-4 lists those who are listed in U-3, plus those who have just given up and have quit looking for employment. The government calls them discouraged workers, government-speak for quit looking for employment, who are no longer on the government dole, and are starting to fade away from government attention.

U-5 is made up of those workers who are “loosely or marginally attached”, in government-speak, and is made up of workers who would like to work but have quit looking because they feel that it isn’t worth the effort.

Lastly, U-6 combines the previous five categories plus people who are only working part time. This is the real unemployment rate, not the rate posted by the government. In truth, U-6 is generally twice as high as U-3. Since U-3 numbers are based on non-employed folks on the public dole, it is easy to count the number of checks sent out each month, but half the idle working population don’t get anything.

Taking this one step further the newly unemployed, U-3, who apply for unemployment benefits is another interesting government figure, especially when one understands why it is used instead of the all inclusive U-6. The government says, “Wow. Things are really getting better because new unemployment claims are down last month.” Look at it another way and it doesn’t look as great.

Say you have a hundred workers and you lose 10% a month, and those go on unemployment welfare. First month, new claims are 10 people. Second month, from 90 workers, the 10% loss equals 9 people. Third month loss is 8 people, and month four is only 7 people. The way the government figures it, things are getting better. As the figures show, claims for unemployment have been less for three consecutive months, a very encouraging situation. Not as many people have been laid off so we’re out of the woods. To make matters even better at the end of a year, according to governmental logic, the unemployment problem has been lessened as there were only three people who qualified for inclusion in the U-3 category. A victory for government planners who proudly state that applications for unemployment benefits have decreased by 60% in only a year. What they fail to mention is that instead of 100 workers in your business, there are now 28.

Granted, this illustration is on the exaggerated side but the principle is correct. The government doesn’t want the true figures out.

In truth, the official unemployment rate in the United States is not 8.5%, it is really 15.2%.

First Obama Re-Election Ad Filled With Fibs

Posted 01/20/2012 07:17 PM ET by investors.com

Energy: In his very first TV ad of the 2012 campaign, the president is feeding the public false information about America's dependence on foreign fuels. His twisted statistics actually celebrate the Obama recession.

The Obama re-election campaign is already shaping up as the most deceitful in American electoral history. "For the first time in 13 years our dependence on foreign oil is below 50%," the commercial declares, accompanied by goose-bumpy music.

Major economic downturns, in fact, unfailingly produce declines in oil imports. And so do higher gas prices — which went from an average of less than $2 a gallon at the time Obama took office to nearly $4 in the middle of last year and remain well above $3 today.

How could gasoline demand not drop with so many people out of work, businesses dying and jittery investors sitting on a trillion dollars?

Obama's ad dishonestly suggests he's been engineering an alternative energy economic renaissance in America. As hard-hatted workers are shown assembling solar panels, the ad says, "America's clean energy industry? 2.7 million jobs and expanding rapidly."

It's saying Obama created — or "saved" — 2.7 million new clean energy jobs, right? Uh-uh. Turns out that the Brookings Institution report that the ad cites as its source on the 2.7 million was referring to already-existing green jobs.

You'd never know from the Obama commercial that what Brookings actually said was: "Overall, today's clean economy establishments added half a million jobs between 2003 and 2010, expanding at an annual rate of 3.4 %" — a half-million over eight years being a tiny gain. And that "this performance lagged the growth in the national economy, which grew by 4.2% annually over the period."

You wouldn't know, Brookings said, that "many longer-standing companies in the clean economy — especially those involved in housing- and building-related segments — laid off large numbers of workers during the real estate crash of 2007 and 2008, while sectors unrelated to the clean economy (mainly health care) created many more new jobs nationally."

And Brookings' assessment that the green economy is "expanding rapidly"? Its report's conclusion actually warns "against excessive hopes for large-scale, near-term job-creation from the sector" because "the U.S. clean economy remains small where it is fast-growing and relatively slow-growing on balance ... their status as major employers remains a few years off."

In truth, Obama's energy policy is a disaster as to reducing foreign energy dependence. As the Institute for Energy Research points out, "oil production on federal lands has fallen by 43% over the past nine years, according to the Obama administration's Energy Information Administration. And it has dropped rapidly on President Obama's watch."

Dan Simmons, IER's director of regulatory and state affairs, told IBD he's convinced "President Obama is afraid of charges of crony capitalism regarding Solyndra," the solar panel company that got $535 million in taxpayer-funded stimulus loan funds from the administration, then soon went bankrupt.

That's why the Obama re-election campaign's first big lie is that he is the energy president.

Obama State Of The Union Preview

State of Dysfunction

Posted on Morning Bell on 01/24/2012, at morningbell@heritage.com

Tonight, Americans who tune in to the State of the Union will watch the work of a rhetorical master with a flair for illusion. President Barack Obama will take to the floor of the Capitol in hopes of laying the groundwork for a political debate on his terms--one where he stands on emotional appeals, populism, and class warfare, not the shaky ground of his crumbling record. And looking right back at him will be the U.S. Senate, which has for the past 1,000 days failed to pass a budget--a total shirking of their fundamental duty to be diligent stewards of the taxpayers' dollars.

The President will thus rely on the power of his words. With flourish, he will tell the story of America through a progressive's eyes--one where "fairness" takes on a new meaning, where America's core values are brushed aside, and where the truth about a failed presidency is forgotten in the shadows of his country's collective memory. The President will speak from the high ground of his vaulted office. The question is whether the elevation conferred by his office will allow him to escape the soaring deficits, depths of unemployment, or miles of job-killing regulation that his Administration has wrought.

Before considering the President's record, first consider his message--that economic populism is the core of America's principles, that the federal government should be the guarantor of equal outcomes and that "fairness" of achievement should be decided by legions of bureaucrats in Washington. It is a theme that the President unveiled in a speech last month in Osawatomie, Kansas, and it's one he plans to return to tonight. This vision is at the root of the President's progressive ideal. It is not, however, the ideology on which our country was founded. The Heritage Foundation's Matthew Spalding, vice president of American Studies and director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics, explains:

America is exceptional because it is dedicated to the principle of universal human liberty: that all are fundamentally equal by nature and equally endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This principle and the constitutional framework of law that enlivens it are the foundation of the American Dream...

What is truly revolutionary about the United States is that the ladder of opportunity became available to everyone. As a result, poverty has been vastly diminished. Even more important, it is no longer a permanent condition from which there is no real possibility of escape.

The "ladder of opportunity" exists so that people may apply their God-given talents and abilities in order to better themselves and pursue the American dream. That is the liberty that makes the United States unique. The President, though, does not stand for that dream. Instead, as he has made clear, he believes that it is through government engineering that society can advance--through more government power, federal education programs, economic regulations, and infrastructure spending, all funded by "fair" taxes on "wealthy" Americans.

This sort of progressivism has its roots in 100 years of history and 100 years of failure. But the country need not look back into the annals of time to see the proof. They only need to see the President's record of the past three years--facts that will undoubtedly receive short shrift in tonight's speech.

Obama enacted a purely progressive agenda with his expansion of the state under Obamacare, his trillion-dollar stimulus bill, the government takeover of the auto industry, the proliferation of regulations under the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform bill, the crony capitalism of the Solyndra scandal, and the illegal appointments to the unrestrained Consumer Financial Protection Agency and the National Labor Relations Board. The result: Some 13.1 million Americans remain unemployed, job creation has been abysmal for much of the past three years, and the President's promise to turn around the U.S. economy has gone unfulfilled.

Meanwhile, the Senate has largely acceded to the President's agenda while leaving undone the budgeting process for the past 1,000 days. Instead of respecting the people's money and putting it to its appropriate use, the Senate has chosen to pass short-term "business as usual" continuing resolutions, one after another, all while government spending continues to skyrocket, deficits are exploding, the country's credit rating is in jeopardy, Social Security and Medicare are in crisis states, and future generations are left holding the bag.

The President's "populist" message is designed to appeal to the American people--and this is after all what all American politicians try to do. It is fair, however to ponder how the people have fared under the President's policies. It is hard to miss the mass of unemployed Americans, the plodding economy, the businesses that are afraid to grow and expand, and the jobs that are being left on the table. It is understandable that the President will not want to bring up these "achievements."

Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 70 days. The Empire State Building was built in 410 days. Yet for 1,000 days, the U.S. Senate has failed to pass a budget. Find out more in our newest video, "1,000 Days Without A Budget."

Obama’s Keystone XL Decision Shows America His True Priorities

PIPELINE PUSHOVER
By Bob Beauprez, Published January 18, 2012

Short of announcing it outright, President Obama could not have signaled in stronger terms than he did Wednesday how little he cares for the plight of the American public.

With the news that the White House is definitively rejecting approval of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, a project that has the potential to employ 20,000 Americans almost immediately, the president has made clear that he’d rather placate a small group of environmental radicals than offer real relief to unemployed Americans struggling to pay constantly rising gas prices.

Once operational, the Keystone XL would bring 900,000 barrels of crude a day from Canadian oil sands in Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries in the United States. That would mean the creation of approximately a quarter of a million new American jobs over the project’s lifetime, as well as more than $5 billion in property taxes for the states on the pipeline’s route. Given that more than 25 million Americans are currently under-employed or out of work completely, these numbers mean a great deal – just not to Obama and his administration, apparently.

The Keystone XL has been valued by at least one major independent study at more than $20 billion from both economic and security-related standpoints. As Iran’s banana republic threatens for the third straight week to close the Strait of Hormuz and cut off a sixth of the world’s oil supply, we are witnessing the fallout from another Obama shortcoming – failure to take a hard line with Tehran. The Keystone XL, then, is a golden chance for Obama to shore up energy security as he simultaneously helps lower national unemployment. It should be a no-brainer.

But as usual when it comes to measures that would bolster our long-suffering economy, Obama and his cohorts never miss an opportunity. Beholden, bafflingly, to the relatively small environmentalist voting bloc and the lure of another term in office, Obama today effectively thumbed his nose at the majority of hardworking Americans as they struggle to make ends meet in the economic climate he vowed to improve.

But the problem of the administration’s Keystone XL rejection goes deeper, even, than employment: If we don’t move on the pipeline project, someone else will, and likely already is. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said publicly on Wednesday that Canada will now seek to "diversify" its portfolio - more than likely in the form of sale of the crude to China, which Harper has said before Canada would do.

This is a promise we can be sure he means to keep; indeed, Transcanada President Russ Girling said cryptically today that “plans are already under way on a number of fronts to largely maintain the construction schedule of the project."

With an 8.5 percent unemployment rate, an economy struggling to gain traction and rising oil and gas prices, the Obama administration has chosen, once again, to pursue a destructive energy policy that discourages any actual energy production. Perhaps by “hope and change,” Obama meant “protracted, high unemployment and remaining beholden to unstable, despotic regimes in the Middle East.” Otherwise, he has failed Americans terribly in his decision on the Keystone XL project.

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Bob Beauprez is a former Republican Colorado congressman. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of “A Line of Sight” a policy resource covering issues that affect conservatives across the country and operates a working buffalo ranch in Colorado

U.S.A. Bridges and Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms

Shocking to say the least! This video is a jaw-dropper that will make you sick. (It was also shocking that ABC was actually reporting this story.)The lead-in with Obama promising jobs in the U.S. by improving our infrastructure is so typical of all his promises! Our tax dollars are at work - for CHINA!!!

I pray all the unemployed see this and cast their votes accordingly in 2012!

Click here: U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms Video - ABC News

(Sorry, but there's a short commercial at the start.)

Life-Changing Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An Article from morningbell@heritage.org, published January 16, 2012, written by Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

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The greatest tribute to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., is not to name a street in his honor or celebrate a national holiday. It is to recognize and support those who are working to carry out his vision, those who empower those facing the greatest obstacles through personal relationships that restore the fabric of civil society—without the need for federal government intervention.

As former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp once said, “We need an anti-poverty agenda based on democratic capitalism, not socialism and on private ownership, not government control. Our definition of compassion is not how many people live on the government welfare plantation, but how many of our people are liberated from government dependence.”

Among those ranks of individuals who are carrying out Dr. King’s vision are three young men—Curtis Monroe, Michael Toland, and Roger Marshall—who give their time, talents, and earnings from their day jobs serving as coaches and mentors of at-risk youths in the Benning Terrace public housing development in Washington, D.C.

The investment by this trio of volunteers is, in fact, an act of longstanding gratitude and reciprocity. Two of them grew up in Benning Terrace, and their childhood and adolescence was spent in a war-torn environment in which a familiar face would vanish from the neighborhood nearly every other month as the victim of gang violence.

Fifteen years ago, the lives of Monroe and Toland were salvaged and their futures reclaimed when a cadre of friends who called themselves the Alliance of Concerned Men felt called to intervene after the violence reached a shocking climax: The body of a 12-year-old boy who had been shot execution-style was discovered in a frozen ravine.

The members of the Alliance had at one time been involved with crime, drugs, and violence, but each life had been transformed. Because they were familiar with the day-to-day dangers of life in the inner city and were well-versed in the gang subculture, they readily won the youths’ attention and respect. Through meetings at the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, they developed a plan of action. They shared information with grassroots counterparts who had successfully worked with gang members in other parts of the country. They also connected with David Gilmore, the D.C. housing director at the time, who saw the potential of the intervention and offered to provide jobs for youths who would lay down their weapons.

Warring gang members seized the opportunity to exit the cycle of violence and willingly took on jobs ranging from graffiti removal to landscaping and building repairs. The neighborhood was transformed from a wasteland into a thriving community. There was not a single gang-related death for the next 10 years.

Today, Monroe, Toland, and Marshall, who experienced that transformation firsthand, are investing in a third generation of Benning Terrace kids. Their coaching goes far beyond how to pass a football or block a defender, as they serve as moral mentors and confidantes. Their investment is critical for the futures of each of the youths they work with.

These volunteers also hold weekly group counseling sessions. At a recent gathering, seven of eight participants reported that their fathers were in jail. Statistics show that adolescents who do not live in intact families are more likely to engage in crime and delinquent activity and risky behavior and are less likely to succeed in school. But Monroe, Toland, and Marshall have refused to relegate the young people of Benning Terrace to the ranks of a “lost generation.” They are available on a 24/7 basis for kids who are in need, and they serve as surrogate big brothers and dads, taking them out for pizza after their football games and going to their schools to consult with their teachers.

These men are rebuilding civil society, demonstrating the concern and care for individuals at a personal level that is most effective in transforming behavior and meeting people’s needs.

They exhibit the power of presence—a sharp contrast to the impersonal efforts of government programs or over-reliance on curfews and cameras. Part of a nationwide network, these dedicated community leaders are proving that it is possible to counter the odds of poverty and disadvantage. Instead of surrendering young people to another cycle of generational poverty and accompanying government dependency, these community healers are demonstrating a realistic neighborhood-based alternative to government intervention. Policymakers should take note of the innovation and success of grassroots efforts like Benning Terrace in addressing the social breakdown that so often causes poverty, crime, and community devastation.

Their investment is truly a powerful, living, and longlasting tribute to the vision and sacrifice of Dr. King.

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Robert L. Woodson, Sr., is the founder and president of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise located in Washington, D.C. The Heritage Foundation works closely with Mr. Woodson and the center on conservative anti-poverty strategy.

Obama Plays La Raza Card In Key Appointment

Originally published on 01/11/2012 06:09 PM ET by Investors Business Daily, www.investors.com


Campaign 2012: By choosing to head his policy council with an open-borders advocate and former leader of the Hispanic activist group favoring amnesty, the president has signaled a divide-and-conquer re-election campaign .

In another move aimed at aiding his re-election, President Obama on Tuesday announced that Cecilia Munoz, a former senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), would replace Melody Barnes as head of his Domestic Policy Council.

Hispanics are a key part of the coalition Obama and a key part of his re-election strategy will no doubt be to portray Republicans and others who advocate border security and stronger immigration enforcement as racists. Munoz's appointment is a part of that strategy.

It's a strategy that includes suing states like Arizona over laws that in fact mirror federal law but which the feds refuse to enforce. Also part of the strategy is the Justice Department's targeting of Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, accusing him of violating federal law and the Constitution in his department's handling of Hispanics.

Coming soon after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Arizona's immigration and border enforcement law, SB1070, it smacked of retaliation.

The NCLR, whose name translates as "the race," is a tax-exempt nonprofit that describes itself as "the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States." It most recently led in vocal opposition against Arizona SB 1070, a law attacked by Attorney General Eric Holder as a discriminatory incarnation of profiling that usurped federal authority over immigration policy.

When then-candidate Obama spoke to the NCLR national convention in 2008, he told the group what it wanted to hear — that Latino "communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids." He also condemned those "communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hands," such as those that have passed state laws or local ordinances to check that those who are here are in fact here legally.

At this year's La Raza convention, Obama touted the federal Dream (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, a thinly disguised amnesty program that is part of "comprehensive immigration reform" designed to pit those who have successfully eluded the border patrol on a path to citizenship.

Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast Munoz has been serving since January 2009 as director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs at the time of that appointment. She was La Raza's vice president for research, advocacy and legislation.

Since her entering the Obama administration, according to the watchdog group Judicial Watch, federal funding for La Raza has increased dramatically. In fiscal 2008, NCLR received $2.8 million in federal grants, and in fiscal 2009 it got $4.1 million. In 2010, the total rocketed to more than $11 million.

In Orwellian fashion, defenders of La Raza deny it means "the race," saying a better translation would be "the people." Then why not use "la comunidad" or "gente" when speaking about the Latino people and community? Because La Raza wants to be called La Raza, and they know exactly what it means to them.

La Raza has ties it refuses to condemn with groups such as MECHa, which has spent the last three decades indoctrinating Latino students on American campuses, claiming that California, Arizona, Mexico, Texas and southern Colorado were stolen and should be returned to their rightful owners, the people of Mexico.

MECHa's slogan is derived from the rhetoric of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro: "Through the race, everything; outside the race, nothing."

The historic election of the first African-American president was hailed as the beginning of a post-racial era in America and American politics. Yet race and ethnicity were recently said by Attorney General Eric Holder to be the prime motive behind criticism of his and the president's actions and policies.

Unfortunately, race is shaping up as a key part of the president's re-election campaign.

Obama Trashes the Constitution Again

Obama's Tyrannical Abuse of Power

Standing behind a podium on a stage just outside Cleveland, President Barack Obama delivered a speech yesterday that will reverberate throughout history. No, its lasting impact will not come because of its soaring rhetoric. Instead, it will make its mark because it was at that moment on a Wednesday afternoon in Ohio that the President announced his plans to act in total and utter disregard of the U.S. Constitution with his illegal appointment of Richard Cordray to serve as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

It's an astonishingly reckless exercise of executive authority that Heritage's Todd Gaziano described as a "tyrannical abuse of power." Never before in the 100-plus years of precedent on the recess appointment power has a President taken such an action while the Senate was still in session. Yet notwithstanding that fact, President Obama yesterday decided that he would be the first.

Here's why the President finds himself so far outside of constitutional bounds. Under Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution, the President has the power to fill vacancies that may happen during Senate recesses, as Gaziano writes. In this case, President Obama was seeking to fill the vacancy in the CFPB, a new agency that has come under significant criticism given its unparalleled powers to issue expansive regulations with virtually no accountability. Republicans in the Senate, to date, have refused to confirm the President's nominees to head up the CFPB, vowing to block Senate approval until reforms are made to the agency. So President Obama has decided to act without their approval by attempting to make a recess appointment. The trouble is that Congress is not in a recess because the House of Representatives never consented, as required under the Constitution, Article I, section 5. That means that the President simply does not have the power to make this appointment. Gaziano explains the implications of the President's actions:

[The recess appointment] power has been interpreted by scores of attorneys general and their designees in the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel for over 100 years to require an official, legal Senate recess of at least 10-25 days of duration. (There are a few outlier opinions, never sanctioned by the courts, that suggest a recess of six to seven days might be enough--but never less than that.)

The President's purported recess appointment of Cordray would render the Senate's advice and consent role to normal appointments almost meaningless. It is a grave constitutional wrong that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already denounced. But it fits a pattern of extra-constitutional abuse by the White House that seems more interested in energizing a liberal base than safeguarding the office of the presidency.

Why take such action? The President says it's because he can't wait for Congress to act on behalf of the American people. The truth is that the President is hell bent on ramming through his agenda, and he is entirely unwilling to compromise with the duly elected representatives who sit in the House and Senate. By circumventing the Senate and appointing Cordray, the President can ensure that his big-government regulatory agenda is enacted without the reforms that Congress is demanding. Unfortunately, the Cordray appointment is not the only example of the President's wanton, unilateral actions.

Apart from Cordray, the President also plans to make three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board without Senate approval, which will fundamentally alter the makeup of the board and enable the President to realize his Big Labor agenda. That means an unrestrained push to unionize businesses at all costs and punish companies that seek to grow in non-union states (as was attempted in the Boeing case) -- even if it means harming both workers and the economy. And in the case of environmental regulations, immigration law, No Child Left Behind, the auto bailout, the selective enforcement of voting rights laws, and the regulation of the Internet (among others), the Obama Administration has in fact enacted its agenda via legislative fiat time and time again.

In an interview last month with 60 Minutes, the President gave warning of his intentions to preside over an imperial presidency for the next year. "What I'm not gonna do is wait for Congress," he said. "So wherever we have an opportunity and I have the executive authority to go ahead and get some things done, we're just gonna go ahead and do 'em." The President now, though, seems to have made a significant course correction. With these latest illegal, unconstitutional appointments, the President has jumped at an opportunity to act regardless of the fact that he has no executive authority to do it. And under his feet is a trampled Constitution and 100 years of precedent for which he has no use. It's time for Congress and the American people to take a stand against President Obama's abuse of power.

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Originally published by morningbell@heritage.org on January 5, 2012

Department of Justice Orders South Carolina To Stop Requiring Proof Of Residency To Vote

By Robert Knight

The most consequential election in our lifetime is still 11 months away, but it’s clear from the Obama administration’s order halting South Carolina’s new photo ID law that the Democrats have already brought a gun to the knife fight.

How else to describe this naked assault on the right of a state to create minimal requirements to curb voter fraud?

On Dec. 23, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez sent a letter ordering South Carolina to stop enforcing its photo ID law. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights division that booted charges against the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters in Philadelphia in 2008, alleged that South Carolina’s law would disenfranchise thousands of minority voters.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson rejected Perez’s math and explained on Fox News why the law is necessary. The state Department of Motor Vehicles audited a state Election Commission report that said 239,333 people were registered to vote but had no photo ID. The DMV found that 37,000 were deceased, more than 90,000 had moved to other states, and others had names not matched to IDs. That left only 27,000 people registered without a photo ID but who could vote by signing an affidavit as to their identity.

Wilson told me by phone on Thursday that he would file a challenge to the order in federal district court in January. Asked whether he felt South Carolina was being singled out, he declined to speculate on motives. However, citing the National Labor Relations Board’s orders to invalidate the voter-approved union card check amendment and to stop a new Boeing plant, and the Justice Department’s suit to halt the immigration law, he said, “there certainly is a pattern of the federal government overreaching into South Carolina.”

Leading Democrats loudly equate recently enacted photo ID legislation as updated versions of Jim Crow laws that once robbed people of their constitutional right to vote simply because of their race. But photo ID laws and other voter integrity measures cover everyone. Like other states, South Carolina provides photo IDs if a person cannot afford one.

The U.S. Constitution empowers the states to enact voting procedures with minimal input from the national government, such as setting the voting age and election days for federal offices. The Fifteenth and Nineteenth amendments ensure that no one is denied the right to vote based on race or sex.

In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which authorizes the U.S. Attorney General or a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to review changes to voting procedures or redistricting in nine states (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia), some counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some townships in Michigan and New Hampshire.

Congress did so to counter clearly established patterns of voter intimidation of blacks. Now, the Justice Department, which, under Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. could be renamed the Retribution Department, looks the other way depending on the race of the parties involved.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s 2005 photo ID law, which the Democratic Party and several interest groups had challenged as a “severe burden.”

But, as American Civil Rights Union attorney Peter Ferrara noted in the ACRU’s friend of the court brief:
“No one has been denied the right to vote by the Indiana Voter ID Law. The record clearly establishes without challenge that 99% of the Voting Age Population in Indiana already has the required ID, in the form of driver’s licenses, passports, or other identification. Of the remaining 1%, senior citizens and the disabled are automatically eligible to vote by absentee ballot, and such absentee voting is exempt from the Voter ID Law.”

Does that sound “severe” to you? As Ferrara notes, “the slight burden of additional paperwork for a fraction of 1%, to show who they are and thereby prove their eligibility to vote, cannot come close to outweighing the interests of all legitimate legal voters in maintaining their effective vote.”

In 2005, a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III found no evidence that requiring photo IDs would suppress the minority vote. The panel recommended a national photo ID system and a campaign to register voters.

In a 2008 column, Mssrs. Carter and Baker cited a study by American University's Center for Democracy and Election Management that echoed the election commission. Among other things, researchers found that in three states— Indiana, Mississippi and Maryland — about 1.2 percent of registered voters had no photo ID.

The Obama Administration is playing the same race card that Democrats have played for decades. But this is not about race; it’s about whether legitimately cast votes will be wiped out by illegally cast votes.

In Chicago, a federal investigation of the 1982 gubernatorial election estimated that at least 100,000 illegal votes had been cast and that voter fraud had been routine for many years. In 1960, Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Chicago Democrat machine almost certainly sealed John F. Kennedy’s presidential election by delaying reporting by Democratically-controlled precincts and counting them for Kennedy.

Republican Richard Nixon had a compelling case for a challenge, but chose not to do so. The media would have crucified him as a sore loser without seriously investigating fraud allegations.

Conversely, in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore challenged George W. Bush’s razor-thin victory in Florida, the media flogged Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris because she refused to overlook “hanging chads” and other questionable vote-counting.

Since the GOP took a majority of governorships and legislatures in 2010 and continued enacting voting safeguards, you can feel the panic in Democratic strongholds.

The stakes are enormous, and the Obama Administration is quite aware of the danger posed by an aroused electorate on a level playing field.

With the economy in a ditch, their only hope of stemming the conservative tide might be to rig the returns, especially where political machines still prevail.

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Robert Knight, author of the preceeding article, published January 4, 2012, on Townhall.com is an author, senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union and a frequent contributor to Townhall.

US Budget Compared To Your House Budget

If you haven’t seen this before, it breaks it down to easy-to-understand numbers.

This will get your head wrapped around our problems.........why do we think these people have any mind at all? Take a moment and read this all the way thru…..

US Debt Status

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

Now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's YOUR Household Budget:

• Annual family income: $21,700
• Money the family spent: $38,200
• New debt on the credit card: $16,500
• Current outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Total budget cuts: $385

Then check these statistics:

(This list represents the percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You know what the private business sector is -- a real life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages...)

T. Roosevelt...........38%
Taft.........................40%
Wilson ....................52%
Harding...................49%
Coolidge...................48%
Hoover ....................42%
F. Roosevelt.............50%
Truman....................50%
Eisenhower..............57%
Kennedy..................30%
Johnson....................47%
Nixon........................53%
Ford..........................42%
Carter.......................32%
Reagan......................56%
GH Bush....................51%
Clinton ......................39%
G.W. Bush.................55%

And the winner is:

Obama.......................... 8%*

*This helps to explain the incompetence of this administration: only 8% of them have ever worked in private business! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business? They know what's best for GM, Chrysler, Wall Street, and for you and me?!

Do you think you’ll EVER see these facts in the mainstream media?

"One of the penalties of not participating in politics is that you will be governed by your inferiors." -Plato

Pearl Harbor, WWII, and a Lesson for Today

On this day 70 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress and requested a declaration of war against Japan following the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor the day before. Roosevelt's words carried forth across the nation via radio, and the consequences of the actions America would take would be felt around the world--and across history. The lessons America learned in those fateful days should be remembered even today.

Roosevelt noted that the day of Japan's attack would be "a date which will live in infamy," and he also pledged the following:

I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces -- with the unbounding determination of our people -- we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God.

At 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, Roosevelt signed the declaration of war, and the rest is history. Through America's incredible sacrifice and determination, the United States and its allies won victory, though it came at an incredible cost.

Just as Roosevelt proclaimed that "hostilities exist" 70 years ago, those words are true today. The United States faces threats at home and abroad--as we were reminded on September 11 and with every man and woman in military who makes the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our freedoms. The hostilities we face today are different from those we may face tomorrow, and there is no telling what challenges may lie around the corner. For that reason, our military must stand ready, prepared, and adequately equipped and funded to meet all threats, foreign and domestic.

Unfortunately, the U.S. military's ability to effectively carry out its mission is in jeopardy. Today, there are those who would like America to return to an era of disengagement while also slashing military spending to dangerous levels. Under the Budget Control Act (BCA), the military budget will be cut by almost $1 trillion over the next 10 years. Those cuts come on top of successive rounds of deep cuts in defense dollars and capabilities that Congress and the Obama Administration have already implemented. In a new paper, Heritage’s Mackenzie Eaglen writes that those cuts will undermine U.S. power and influence around the world and reduce the ability of the military to meet future threats:

The military is a vital tool of U.S. foreign policy. Slashing defense spending without any reduction in U.S. foreign policy commitments around the world is not only dangerous, but also more costly in the long run than maintaining stable defense budgets. A review of roles and missions will not change U.S. foreign policy; only the President can do that. Starving the military as part of a deficit reduction plan may cost taxpayers more in the future if it makes the country less safe and increases the risk of another terrorist attack or the likelihood of U.S. forces being drawn into yet another overseas mission.

The only responsible way to fund defense is to identify the nation’s vital national interests, ask what is required to defend the nation and those interests, determine what military capabilities are required to do so, and then build a defense budget to match the foreign and defense policies of the United States.

Eaglen recommends that Congress tackle debt reduction responsibly with American security interests in mind. That means stopping the current rounds of defense cuts, budgeting responsibly for America’s foreign policy needs and objectives, and repealing the debt ceiling deal "trigger." Other actions she recommends include stabilizing the military’s modernization accounts, aggressively promoting foreign military sales and increasing cutting-edge defense exports to friends and allies, and forcing the Department of Defense to innovate even as budgets fall.

Some would have Americans believe that defense budget cuts required under the BCA would reduce only the rate of increase in the overall defense budget. While precise defense budget projections under the BCA are not possible, it is a certainty that the overall defense budget will decline under its terms. And those are reductions the military can ill afford. Since President Obama took office, more than 50 major weapons programs at a value of more than $300 billion were cut or delayed. On top of this, the Administration told the military to cut almost $600 billion more over the next 15 years. That was even before the BCA took effect.

This is no way to fund a military or to fulfill the Constitution's prescription that the primary role of the federal government is "to provide for the common defence." That duty is just as important now as it was 70 years ago when America faced one of its greatest challenges. Just as they did then, Congress and the President should ensure that the federal government carries out its responsibilities today and fully funds our military.

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Originially published on December 8, 2011, by Heritage Foundation Morning Bell at morningbell@heritage.org

Pearl Harbor and Ned DiMartino

Ned DiMartino enlisted in the Navy early in 1941. On December 7, 1941, he was aboard the USS Maryland. It was a day he never forgot. This is his story. This is the way he remembered it.

We were all lined up on what they called Battleship Row. They had big cement pillars that went into the bottom of the harbor, called foxes, that we tied up to. The Colorado was ahead of us, and the Oklahoma was tied right beside us. The West Virginia was behind us, and then was the Arizona. We were lined up in that manner. That was battleship row. There were only battleships there, all the battleships of the Seventh Fleet. There were other ships in the harbor. Other ships at the submarine base, and Ford Island. All of us were getting ready for the holidays.

It was Sunday, December seventh, and I decided to go over to the Oklahoma. They had a Catholic priest over there. I’m Catholic and so I thought, I’ll go to mass over there. The Oklahoma and the Maryland we were tied side by side. The Oklahoma was on the outside of us. We were against the fox. They had a plank, like kind of a bridge, between the ships, so we could go over and board the Oklahoma.

It was about 7:45 when I started over the plank to go to church. The plank was on the aft deck, it’s called the quarter deck, or the half deck. The rear mast is there, the rear stack. I got to the plank and was just starting over, when I saw these planes lined up, coming in. I thought, what are they doing this early in the morning? We never had this kind of action in the morning, and we didn’t have any carriers in the area. I knew that. And they weren’t off the airfield at Schofield Barracks, you know, Schofield Field. All the aircraft there were on the ground. I couldn’t figure out who the heck they were. Then I see this big red deal on the wing. I was just 18 years old, had never been away from home before, and didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know anything. A green horn. Green as can be. I said, what the heck’s going on?

I started to get on the plank, and all of a sudden I saw it. Four planes coming in and four fish dropped. At that time, I didn’t know they were torpedoes, but that’s what they were. I could see them in the water coming right at us. And I’m standing there on that plank trying to figure out what’s going on. The next thing I remember was that they hit the side of the Oklahoma. By God, she saved us. We would have been the ones that got it if the Oklahoma hadn’t have been there.

In a matter of minutes, the Oklahoma bellied up. Just bellied up. I just stepped back on the deck of the Maryland. And I just stood there and watched it. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I stood there and watched it. Everybody was hollering and screaming. You could see guys jumping off the Oklahoma when she went down.

I looked up again and saw some more planes coming in. This time, there was a Marine behind the stack. I don’t know where he came from, or what he was doing there. He grabbed me by the seat of my pants and pulled me back behind the stack, when bup bup bup, right along the deck where I was, came these bullets. I wouldn’t even be here today if it hadn’t been for him. And I didn’t know the man. We got out of there fast. There were bullet holes in the stack and everything else. I wasn’t scared actually.

My gun station was up forward, in front of the pilot house. You might not believe it, but all we had were .50-caliber machine guns. Instead of going to my gun station, some of us went up the main mast on the back, on the half deck. There was a Marine up there with a machine gun and a couple of guys with rifles. With rifles. And I’ll tell you it was a party. They had the machine gun shooting. I was loading for that machine gunner, putting shells in for him, you know, holding the band for him. He got tore up. He got hit. I don’t know how I got by. There was blood all over me. Shit, I was drenched in it. I thought I was hit too. I didn’t know. I always heard you never feel it. I thought, hell, I’d had it too, but I kept feeling around and I was okay. But, that guy was gone. Hell, they just ripped him wide open. Hit one of the Marines, and there was an officer also. They killed him.

Somebody told us to get down off of there and get to our battle stations. We climbed down on the deck and went up to the pilot house. We went up the ladder there, me and another sailor, I forget who it was, and a big piece of shrapnel went between us, and it hit the side. It put a big hole right in the side of the ship.

We finally got to our station, and when we started shooting, half the damn shells wouldn’t go off. To this day somebody else claims that they knocked the first Jap plane down, but I think we were the ones that did it. The gunner that was on that 50-caliber, I was loading for him, was shooting, and he hit this plane, I know he hit it. It went down on and crashed on a tin can that was in dry dock, and blew it all to heck.

By now, the harbor was an inferno. An absolute inferno. It was blacker than night. The oil smoke, the debris, the hollering, the screaming, I mean it was horrible. It seemed like it lasted for hours, but it wasn’t long. It wasn’t long at all. It was like a tornado going through and that was about it.

We had some of our planes up. They had observation planes on the battlewagons, but they’re not armed. Every little noise that was heard, those guys on the guns would shoot. Oh, God. This poor guy up there, the pilot of one of our planes, was screaming, “For Christ sake, you damn fools, it’s me.” He told them it was our plane, it was our plane. He was coming in to land at Schofield Field. When he finally got landed, he came back aboard ship and he said, “Man, you guys are all crazy.”

Well, we weren’t crazy. We were just jumpy. We didn’t know what the Japs were up to. Nobody ever said, that was a Jap plane, or that was an American plane. We didn’t know anything. We shot down many of our own planes.
The funniest thing that happened for the whole thing, was that we had ammunition that was absolutely no good.

The powder magazines were all locked and nobody had the keys to them. We tried to get the locks off. We got axes, anything we could get, and busted the locks off. When we got them off, we got shells for the anti-aircraft guns, but when we put them in the guns, they wouldn’t even go off. We had to eject them, throw them in the damn bay, put another one in, and hope it would go off. Maybe one out of three would go off. Our ammunition was obsolete. It was old, deteriorated. As far as I’m concerned, we didn’t have anything to protect ourselves with. I don’t give a damn what anybody says, we just didn’t have anything to really fight with.

Most of the officers, I can’t say all of them, were off the ships. All they had on the California was one of the quartermasters. He ran that son-of-a-gun out of the harbor. At least, he tried to get out, but they nailed him. He had to back the California up on a rice paddy to keep it from sinking in the middle of the harbor. If he hadn’t, it would have blocked the harbor. Man, those screws were whipping up that harbor. It was something else.

It was just very, very bad. The worst thing was when the fires started clearing. When the smoke started to clear, we went out in the harbor with motor launches, whale boats, it didn’t matter what kind of boat it was. They had cleats, like what they call street car catchers, on the front of them, picking up bodies. Sometimes, a head, sometimes an arm. It was very gruesome I’ll tell you. Very gruesome. Over two thousand people were killed that morning.

When the smoke cleared, you couldn’t have seen a more pitiful, or a more disastrous thing, in your life, as the scene that was there. People can’t even imagine what the heck it was like. You would have had to be there. It’s hard to tell you, really, exactly how bad it was.

Ned DiMartino took part in the battles for Iwo Jima and Tawawa while on the USS Maryland. He also served on the aircraft carrier Lexington. He retired from the service after 20 years honorable service.

Agenda 21 and the Threat in Your Backyard

Ready to trade in your car for a bike, or maybe a subway instead? Interested in fewer choices for your home, paying more for housing, and being crammed into a denser neighborhood? You can have all this and more if radical environmentalists and "smart growth" advocates have their way and local, state, and the federal government impose the policies set forth in the United Nations' Agenda 21.

You might have heard of this nefarious-sounding policy in a recent Republican presidential debate, but even if you haven't, here's some background information: Agenda 21 is a voluntary plan adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. It calls on governments to intervene and regulate nearly every potential impact that human activity could have on the environment. The end goal? Getting governments to "rethink economic development and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources and pollution of the planet."

As adopted, Agenda 21 was described as "a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment." That includes hundreds of specific goals and strategies that national and local governments are encouraged to adopt. And that translates into restrictive zoning policies that are aimed at deterring suburban growth. Ultimately, they suppress housing supply and drive up home prices, in turn imposing unnecessary costs, especially on middle- and lower-income households. These policies contributed to and aggravate the real estate bubble by putting inflationary pressures on housing prices.

But here's the catch: Nothing about Agenda 21 is binding, and it's not a threat in and of itself. Instead, the threat Americans need to be concerned about is the one that lies in their own backyard. In a new paper, "Focus on Agenda 21 Should Not Divert Attention from Homegrown Anti-Growth Policies," Wendell Cox, Ronald Utt, Brett Schaefer explain:

Opponents of Agenda 21 should not be distracted from the more tangible manifestation of the smart-growth principles outlined in that document. If they focus excessively on Agenda 21, it is much more likely that homegrown smart-growth policies that date to the early 1970s and undermine the quality of life, personal choice, and property rights in American communities will be implemented by local, state, and federal authorities at the behest of environmental groups and other vested interests.

In the United States, smart-growth policies started in California and Oregon but then spread around the country to "deter suburban growth for all but the well-to-do," as Cox, Utt, and Schaefer explain. They also write that those policies were not without detrimental impact:

As they became more prevalent and restrictive, their impact on housing prices and construction likewise expanded. An explosion of exclusionary zoning throughout the U.S. encouraged many communities to adopt zoning policies to ensure that they maintained a certain demographic 'profile.' Such zoning limited real estate development to higher-cost homes in order to 'price out' moderate-income households, which included a disproportionate share of minorities.

Where do these home-grown smart-growth policies stand today? The Obama Administration has embraced them while also increasing environmental regulations and restrictions on the use of natural resources. But the White House isn't the only one behind the smart-growth movement. Local and state officials, along with interest groups, are promoting the policies at all levels of government.

And that's where smart growth must also be thwarted. It's not just a matter of standing against the implementation of Agenda 21 at the national level; it's also about protecting our own backyards against the home-grown threat.

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(Originally published December 5, 2011 by morningbell@heritage.org)

How the EPA May Cost You Thousands

(Originally published by morningbell@heritage.org on November 29, 2011)


Brace yourself. The cost of a new car in America is set to explode, skyrocketing by thousands of dollars, all thanks to a new regulation proposed by President Barack Obama's Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Under a new 893-page proposal unveiled last week, automakers must hit a fleet-wide fuel economy average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025--double today's 27.3 standard. The government says it would cost automakers $8.5 billion per year to comply, which means a spike in sticker prices of at least $2,000 to $2,800, according to official projections. Other estimates peg the added costs at $3,100, and that could go even higher. As The Wall Street Journal writes, "Vehicles that currently cost $15,000 or less will effectively be regulated out of existence."

Apart from increased costs, the new regulations would have other impacts on consumers as well. In a new paper, Heritage's Diane Katz warns that another unacceptable consequence is loss of life resulting from smaller vehicles:

In past years, the structure of the regulations induced automakers to dramatically downsize some vehicles to meet the standard, which increased traffic fatalities by the thousands. The new standards would require downsizing to both small and large models, which the government contends will neutralize the risk. However, the NHTSA and the EPA disagree on the extent of the risk, while outside experts say that the danger would be heightened by the extreme stringency of the proposed standards.

While consumers struggle to pay the price of higher cost vehicles, U.S. automakers would likely take a hit as well. They would be forced to change the lineup of vehicles they offer in order to meet their fuel efficiency targets, and they would produce cars and trucks that Americans don't even want. The Wall Street Journal explains:

The only way Detroit can hit these averages will be by turning at least 25% of its fleet into hybrids. But hybrid sales peaked in the U.S. two years ago at 3% of the market and are declining. The EPA's $157 billion price tag includes only the estimate of what manufacturers will have to invest in new technology, not the billions more that will hemorrhage when nobody buys their EPA-approved products.

And all this comes as the former "Detroit Three" are struggling with weak auto sales, projected to be down by 17.9 percent in 2011 from where they stood at the onset of the recession. Ironically, the federal government that bailed out the industry is now imposing regulations that could once again threaten its existence. The Obama Administration is pointing to the supposed benefits of the new standards--including a fuel savings of $1.7 trillion--but as Katz writes, that number is "pure speculation given that actual savings would depend on the price of gasoline," which can't be predicted 14 years into the future, much less next summer.

There's another point to be made, as well: American consumers would face higher-priced vehicles and fewer choices all at the hands of unelected bureaucrats at the EPA who have never been authorized by Congress to set fuel-efficiency standards for any purpose. That, though, is consistent with President Obama's modus operandi--to regulate where he cannot legislate. There is something Congress can and should do: bar the EPA and the NHTSA from implementing and enforcing the new standards by withholding funds or passing a law prohibiting the regulation.

The EPA should not be in the business of picking and choosing what kind of cars and trucks Americans can drive, and neither should President Obama. But if Congress does not take action, that could certainly be the result.

Issue 2 Yes Vote Will Save Your Budget

Election day is drawing closer and the hottest issue is that of keeping Senate Bill 5 in force. It is listed as Issue 2 on the ballot. Make no mistake about it, Issue 2 is the most important decision Ohio voters have been asked to make in recent years. Senate Bill 5, passed by the Ohio Legislature this year, returns to elected officials their ability to manage the political entities to which they were elected. From the state to counties, to cities, to townships, the ability of elected government to manage their employees has been taken away by a system which has transferred municipal management from officials elected by the voters to arbitrators which, being union biased, have granted pay raises, promotions, created new job positions, set working standards, regardless of the desires and needs of elected officials and those citizens who elected them.

Two classes of people will be effected by the vote on Issue 2. The first are government employees, fire and policemen, street workers, garbage men, highway patrolmen, secretaries, public health workers. The second class are tax payers, the citizens who pay government workers and under the scheme of things before Senate Bill 5 came along, had no say in what government employees were paid, disciplined, required to work, or what benefits they received.

Should Issue 2 be defeated and Senate Bill 5 not be kept in force, the results will be terribly one sided. Uncontrolled pay raises for government employees will continue to be legislated through "collective bargaining". Increased numbers of personnel on government payrolls will become unmanageable. Benefits, which currently add 48% to the cost of wages will increase government payrolls to unmanageable amounts. Workers benefits, such as holidays, comp time, overtime pay, minimum pay for call-in backup, uniform allowances, more fully paid health insurance, will be increased by union contract to the point that cities will no longer be able to pay the bill.

Can this be true? As a matter of fact, it is occurring now, and has been for a number of years. This is how it works. The unions under the current system present a city with a proposed contract for coming years, which contains all the conditions in the existing contract, plus any new requests they may have. These requests are not limited in scope nor cost. The city, say, does not accept the union requests. The union, then, takes the contract to arbitration, or fact finding, and the arbitrator or fact finder makes the final decision which is binding on both parties. And that becomes the way it is. The problem is that in the majority of cases the union wins. That is why unions are paying $35 a month for comprehensive family health insurance and cities are picking up the other $965 a month for their employees. That is why police and fire departments are able to add lieutenants and sergeants to their departments, along with mandating what their salaries will be, without the approval of city administrations and city councils regardless of budget restraints and shortfalls. This translates to unbalanced budgets and red ink accounting.

If you listen to the ads of those who oppose SB 5, you are told that services for fire, police, public health, and the like, will be decreased. This is not true. Issue 2, SB 5, will provide better services to the citizen than is available today, and at a lesser cost. Consider that currently the cities have no control over pay raises, the unions assuring everybody covered by a contract will get the same pay regardless of competence, ability, motivation, and ambition. Incompetence is rewarded in the same way as is achievement. There are exceptions however in the case of layoffs. In that case the newest hired is laid off while the do-nothing long term employee is retained. Incompetency in school systems is similarly rewarded. Poor teachers are protected by longevity while good teachers are discriminated against. The current system is basically poor.

But not all is lost for the taxpayer. We are going to get the bill. And don't believe for an instant that is not coming. What's more, good civil employees are going to be laid off because of the inability of municipalities to pay the bills, a situation which has become common place in the past couple of years. It will become worse as time goes by. This depression is not over. Ask your neighbor who is out of work. Check your own budget. How are you doing? Unless you are a government employee, probably not as well as a year or two ago.

If you are a government employee you should be doing pretty well. Police and fire departments recently received a 9% raise over the next three years. Not that bad when one considers that pay raise will also raise the cost of benefits by an equal amount.

Is it any wonder that public service employees are against Senate Bill 5 and are pushing to have Issue 2 defeated? It is not a case of offering more protection and services from police, fire, public health, and the rest of the government employees, because you aren't going to get it. Public services have not increased over the past years. They have become more complex because of union rules. They have become more expensive because of mandates from union influenced arbitrators.

So why are public employee unions so against retaining Senate Bill 5? Money. That's it. Money. Self interest. Greed. Public employees who are being paid more than the citizenry they serve want more. They want to maintain control of what they are paid, when they will work, how they will perform. And that is what Senate Bill 5 is all about, to return the control of government to elected officials who are responsible to citizens.

Your vote is going to decide this issue. Voting Yes on Issue 2 will put the responsibility of government back where it belongs, on elected officials who are answerable to you, the citizen who pays the bill. If the keeping of Senate Bill 5, Issue 2 on the ballot, is not approved you will pay the bill, and the cost will be dear. Without a Yes vote on Issue 2 taxes will increase on your income, your business, your property, and sales tax.

It is your money. It is your choice. Vote Yes on Issue 2.

Biden Shoves Foot in Mouth, Again

Friday, October 21, 2011

Americans could have taken little comfort when the man a heartbeat away from the nation's nuclear launch codes predicted, in another context, "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong." This week, however, Vice-President Joe Biden increased his probability of error to 100 percent, making and repeating statements indicating that he's just about the only elected official in America that doesn't know that violent crime has been declining for the last 20 years.

Perennially casting himself as the nation's leading empathizer with the working class, the gaffe-prone Veep often talks about the importance of jobs, which he once described as a three-letter word. So, it was no surprise when he returned to the subject of jobs again this week. But even the leftist Huffington Post didn't give a friend a pass when Biden warned on Tuesday that if Congress doesn't pass the new "jobs bill" favored by President Barack Obama, violent crime would "continue to rise."

The next day, questioned about the claim by a reporter, Biden indignantly defended his position, saying, "Don't screw around with me. Let's get it straight. . . . Go look at the numbers. Murder's up, rape is up, and burglary's up. [And if the Republicans don't pass the Obama "jobs bill,"] murder will continue to rise. Rape will continue to rise. All crimes will continue to rise."
Instead of making stuff up, Biden should have resorted to plagiarism, as he's been accused of before. If he had done so, he could have gotten his crime numbers straight by copying them from the FBI's Crime in the United States, 2010 report and its online database of crime statistics from the last half-century. As the great New York Yankee Yogi Berra once said, "You can observe a lot just by watching."

According to the FBI, the nation's murder, rape and burglary rates decreased five, six and two percent, respectively, between 2009 and 2010; have decreased 14, 14 and four percent, respectively, over the last decade; and have decreased 51, 35 and 44 percent, respectively, over the last 20 years. Today, murder, rape and burglary are at 46-year, 33-year and 44-year lows, respectively. Total violent crime, which includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, is at a 37-year low. Total property crime, which includes, burglary, larceny theft and motor vehicle theft, is at a 42-year low.

Meanwhile, from another source of information more reliable than Biden, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the nation's unemployment rate is still 9.1 percent. If the nation's jobless numbers were declining like crime has been, it would be cause for a celebration like none other in many years.

Copyright 2011, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.

An Open Letter to Sherrod Brown

Senator Brown:

The Labor Department reported on Wednesday that U.S. job openings dropped by 157,000 in August to 3.06 million, down from July's downwardly revised 3.21 million, while hiring increased by 38,000 to 4.01 million. Although openings remain well below the 4.4 million at the start of the recession in December of 2007, it's 26% higher than at the end of the recession in June 2009.

Now, ignore the comparisons and look at the raw numbers. What this says to me is that there are over three million job openings in the United States RIGHT NOW that are crying for someone qualified to do them who WANTS to work. No takers.

While I do realize that unfair trade practices and currency manipulation are partially to blame, I also know that entitlements and welfare play an important part, as well, because they make it easier to be unproductive and unmotivated. The bleeding-heart attitude that enables welfare cheats and illegal aliens to steal our hard-earned tax dollars MUST stop, as does the political garbage that enables such a system to exist and flourish in the first place.

We are tired of it, and by the looks of things, nobody is doing anything to right the ship.

If our elected representatives expect to earn our trust and confidence, these things must not only be addressed, but a real solution put forth and adopted.

Obama was elected because people voted for change without understanding what changes were really needed. Obama and his cohorts didn’t understand either. They still don’t, and it doesn’t look to me like they care to learn or do anything about it. I am not impressed. I am insulted.

We will never fix a broken system, a misguided system, by throwing more money at it. We will never spend our way out of debt. We will never develop a more competitive workforce by paying them to do less or to do nothing. Our “leaders” have engaged in those practices for far too long already, and the ship is still in serious disrepair and taking on water.

I have always believed that money is a yardstick of service to people. THIS government is changing that definition, and it is a crying shame. Our federal government needs to be lean and mean, not fat and ugly. The free ice cream must stop.

Have a nice day.

Rod Kirkendall
Dover, Ohio

Obama's First 1,000 Days As President

Today marks the 1,000th day of Barack Obama's presidency, and unfortunately for America, those days have been marked by deeper deficits, lost jobs, prolonged unemployment, and bigger government. Meanwhile, many of those charged with leading the federal government have all but abdicated their responsibilities.

The national debt stands at $14.9 trillion--$4.2 trillion of which has been added since Obama took his oath of office. Fourteen million Americans are unemployed--that's 9.1 percent of the workforce. The unemployment rate has been above nine percent for 840 of the 1000 days, and the average unemployed worker has been without a job for more than 9 months. All told, 2.2 million jobs have been lost under Obama's watch, despite the White House's claims that the President's $787 billion stimulus would create 3.3 million net jobs by 2010.

Unfortunately, instead of leading America toward fiscal sanity and a stronger economy, the President is taking the country in the opposite direction. Last week, his latest proposal to "stimulate" the economy with another $447 billion in spending failed to pass the Senate, but instead of recognizing that more taxing and spending is not what America wants or needs, he's redoubling his efforts. Today, the President is starting another bus tour to sell a different version of the same plan--this time broken up into pieces of taxing and spending still big enough to choke a horse. It's the same plan, only in different packaging.

Former Congressman Ernest Istook explains the danger: Even segmented versions of Obama’s $447 billion plan can be used to squeeze in those worst parts. That’s because it’s almost impossible to get both the House and the Senate to enact identical versions of a bill, thus requiring a conference committee to "work out the differences"--which sometimes includes adding distasteful details.

While it's good news that the Senate rejected the President's jobs plan, the bad news is that the Senate has utterly failed to help put America back on a strong fiscal path. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) point out that it's been 900 days since Senate Democrats last adopted a formal budget plan, calling it "a national disgrace."

As required by law, House Republicans presented a budget in committee, brought it to the floor, and passed it earlier this spring. It was an honest, detailed, concrete plan to put our budget on the path to balance and our economy on the path to prosperity. But Senate Democrats, during this time of national crisis, failed even to present a budget plan — in open defiance of the law and the public they serve.

What we have seen from the Obama Administration is bigger government, more regulations, and massive amounts of government spending in the hopes of stimulating the economy. The trouble is that it hasn't worked, as the numbers show. Obama promised that his $787 billion stimulus would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. It didn't, and given the jobs that were lost, he came up 7.3 million jobs short of his goal. His health care plan, better known as Obamacare, did not reduce health care costs as promised and is in fact responsible for increasing costs in 2011. On top of that, the law will price many unskilled workers out of full-time employment.

And those are just the big-ticket items. Over the last 1,000 days, America has seen increased regulations, a 9,000-earmark omnibus bill, a government union bailout, a Wall Street reform bill that will do more harm than good, a nuclear arms treaty that is detrimental to missile defense, a refusal to expand domestic energy production, federal overreach into education, an undermining of the rule of law, and a dark cloud hanging over our military's future due to a failure to ensure adequate defense spending.

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, James Freeman writes of an interview with billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman--Democrat, real-estate mogul, and New York Daily News owner. "Among business executives who supported Barack Obama in 2008, [Zuckerman] says, 'there is enormously widespread anxiety over the political leadership of the country.' Mr. Zuckerman reports that among Democrats, 'The sense is that the policies of this government have failed.'" Given the track record of the Obama Administration over the last 1,000 days, they would be right. Bigger government has not put America on a stronger fiscal path, it hasn't created jobs, and it hasn't built a stronger economy.

There is a better way. Heritage's Saving the American Dream plan charts a course that fixes the debt, cuts spending, and restores prosperity. It redesigns entitlement programs, guarantees assistance to those who need it, and saves the American dream for future generations. If Congress and the President want to move America forward, create new jobs, and spur businesses to grow and invest, then piling on debt, raising taxes, and increasing spending is not the answer--no matter how much Obama would like it to be.


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Originally Published by morningbell@heritage.org on October 17, 2011.

Why Obamacare Might Cost You a Job

Back in February 2010, when Congress was still debating the Obamacare legislation, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) proclaimed to America that the law "will create 400,000 jobs almost immediately." But according to a new report by Heritage's James Sherk, Obamacare will have the opposite effect, pricing many unskilled workers out of full-time employment due to the law's requirement that employers offer health benefits to full-time employees.

According to Sherk, the minimum cost of employing full-time workers under Obamacare amounts to an average of $27,500, more than what many unskilled employees produce. He explains in his paper, "Obamacare Will Price Less Skilled Workers Out of Full-Time Jobs" why increased costs will lead employers to shift to employing part-time workers:

After paying the new health premiums, the minimum wage, payroll taxes, and unemployment insurance taxes, hiring a full-time worker will cost employers at least $10.03 per hour. Full-time workers with family health plans will cost $13.75 per hour.

Employers who hire workers with productivity below these rates will lose money. Businesses employing less skilled workers will probably respond by dumping their employees onto the federally subsidized health care exchanges and replacing full-time positions with part-time jobs.

Fewer full-time jobs in favor of more part-time positions is not what America needs, particularly as it struggles with a stagnant economy, 9.1 percent unemployment, and 14 million people out of work. But just when the United States needs businesses to expand, grow, and invest, Obamacare is piling on the costs and regulations--making it more difficult for businesses to create new jobs.

Under the law, businesses with more than 50 workers must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty, thereby reducing the amount of capital they have to invest in expanding and hiring new workers. That requirement also has the effect of incentivizing businesses with fewer than 50 employees to maintain their size to avoid the costs. And then there's the uncertainty that Obamacare has brought about--businesses don't know what their future costs will be under the legislation, making it difficult for them to plan for the future.

America might already be seeing the job-killing effects of the President's signature law. Sherk writes that following Obamacare's passage, economic growth in America changed course:

Initially, the economy appeared on track for a steady recovery. The economy went from losing 841,000 jobs in January 2009--the recession's low point--to gaining 229,000 jobs in April 2010...

Within two months of Obamacare's passing, the recovery stalled... In May 2010, the job situation stopped improving. Job creation dropped to just 48,000 net private sector jobs, and private-sector hiring took a new course. From May 2010 onward, private job growth improved by only 6,500 jobs per month--less than one-tenth the previous rate.

Though correlation doesn't prove causation, the economy's slowdown following the passage of Obamacare, when considered alongside complaints from business owners about the law's effects on new hiring, should cause alarm for anyone who cares about unemployment in America. Heritage's Nina Owcharenko explains why the law is the wrong prescription for turning the economy around:

Obamacare is perhaps the most damaging of the Administration's policies that are impeding the country's recovery. At a time when there should be a focus on cutting spending, reducing regulation, and lowering taxes, Obamacare does the complete opposite. It spends more, imposes costly new mandates and regulations, and raises taxes on individuals and businesses. This is no way to get the economy up and running again.

Unfortunately, Obamacare will make an already bad economic picture worse. Unskilled workers are struggling to find employment, and the President's health care law will make finding full-time jobs even more difficult. If President Obama truly wants to reduce unemployment and help businesses grow, he should admit that Obamacare was a mistake and work with Congress to repeal it.

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Originally published on October 14, 2011, by Morning Bell, morningbell@heritage.org, a publication of the Heritage Foundation

Solyndra Scandal Ends Green Jobs Myth

President Barack Obama's solution for America's unemployment woes has been a stubborn campaign to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on economic "stimulus"--much of it on so-called "green jobs." Report after report has shown the approach to be a total failure. And now, a new scandal involving Solyndra, a bankrupt solar panel company in California, should be the final nail in the coffin for the government’s meddling in the free market.

"[W]e can see the positive impacts [of the stimulus] right here at Solyndra," Obama claimed when he spoke at the company's newly unveiled factory in May of last year. He was correct that the results of his stimulus would be on display at that factory. But he was wrong that those results would be positive. Little more than a year later, the company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and plans to lay off more than 1,000 employees.

The Solyndra factory where Obama spoke was built after the company received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Energy Department as part of the stimulus's green jobs push. "Through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations," Obama noted. "This new factory is the result of those loans."

But "everyone knew that the plant wouldn’t work," according to a former Solyndra employee. So why was the President so sure of the plant’s success when he spoke there? What's more, the company was built on "a model that says, well, I can build something for six dollars and sell it for three dollars," according to an industry analyst. That would normally be a red flag for investors. So why did the President claim that "the true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra"?

The answer to both of those questions: The government's decisions are driven by politics and ideology and are divorced from economic reality. Want proof? Take a look at a January 31 e-mail between Office of Management and Budget staff regarding "Solyndra optics" -- that is, how the issue looks in the public's eyes. "If Solyndra defaults down the road, the optics will arguably be worse later than they would be today," they wrote, adding:

In addition, the timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up, whereas a default today could be put in the context of (and perhaps even get some credit for) fiscal discipline / good government because the Administration would be limiting further taxpayer exposure letting bad projects go, and could make public steps it is taking to learn lessons and improve / limit future lending.

In other words, in January the Administration was essentially letting the 2012 campaign dictate decisions on the federal government's financial involvement with Solyndra. They were not responding to normal profit-and-loss signals, as they should. Had Energy Department bureaucrats been investing their own money, they might have been more careful. But it was others' money -- taxpayers' money -- at stake. Self-interested investors, who naturally weed out bad investments, were wholly absent. The result: Taxpayers are likely to lose up to $535 million, while the people who made the decision to throw money at Solyndra have, so far, been completely insulated from reprisal.

Much attention has been paid to accusations of cronyism in the Energy Department, given that a major Solyndra investor is also a big Obama donor. But the fundamental lesson of the Solyndra scandal is not that money buys political favors. That now goes without saying. The real takeaway is that government intervention in the economy is a fool’s errand, as Heritage’s Nicolas Loris notes:

Solyndra exemplifies the government’s abysmal track record of picking winners and losers in the marketplace, and the solar company is not the only example of energy stimulus struggles. With a number of targeted energy tax credits set to expire at the end of this year or next, industry groups are lobbying hard for extensions. Especially given the U.S. fiscal situation, this is a time to end all energy subsidies—not to extend wasteful, market-distorting policies. When the government decides to favor a technology with subsidies, it’s a good bet that subsidy 'winner' is a loser in the marketplace.

Indeed, at least four other companies to receive money from Obama's stimulus package have gone bankrupt, Fox News reports.

Even where companies do create jobs, they do so at such exorbitant cost that the effort cannot reasonably be considered a success. To date, The Washington Post reports, the Energy Department loan guarantee program from which Solyndra benefited has created one new permanent job for every $5.5 million spent. Lend that kind of money to a private business in an industry that doesn’t rely on taxpayer support, and it will put hundreds if not thousands to work.

Government subsidies are invitations for political favoritism, of course. But more importantly, as engines of job creation, they simply don't work (just ask Spain). Sure, the Administration's "green jobs" program has led to allegations of corruption. But it has also failed even in its foremost task of creating jobs for an economy with a chronic unemployment problem. Columnist Jim Pethokoukis writes, "Solyndra is the logical endpoint of Obamanomics." Unfortunately, the American people are paying the price for getting us there.

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Originally published on September 16, 2011, by Morning Bell, morningbell@heritage.org, a publication of the Heritage Foundation