Sharpening the Pencils & the Debate (VP Ryan)

The selection of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan as the Vice Presidential candidate by GOP nominee Mitt Romney changes the Presidential campaign.  While the VP nominee is rarely is a game changer in an election for President, this time around may be different.    To date, the Presidential race has lacked the real debate on the issues facing America:  the US economy, lack of jobs (8%+ unemployment), entitlement reform, limited government and the role of the private sector.    And the campaign debate has failed to address the signature legislative "cram down" by the Obama administration and the government-minded Democrats:  the proposed repeal of ObamaCare by a Mitt Romney administration.
     As the VP candidate, Ryan adds intellectual acumen, budget expertise, youth and the ability to carry the conservative message without apology.   Take the time to pull up some YouTube video clips of Mr. Ryan in action.   Or watch the time that Representative Ryan sliced and diced ObamaCare in his exchange with the President at the joint legislative & executive branch meeting at the White House.   Obama was unable to counter or respond.
     As the Republican Presidential candidate, Romney has changed the subject to the real issues and the "boys from Chicago" will be unable to keep changing the subject away from the obvious.   This President and his liberal expanding of the federal government has failed the American people.   The debate about the true future of limited government vs. unlimited government for the United States now begins in earnest.

(c) 2012, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media,  www.jasperwelch.org

John Stossel: ObamaCare Speech Decoded

John Stossel, commentator and news anchor with Fox Business News, gives us a point-by-point translation (decoding) of the President's hollow victory speech on Obamacare ruling by the US Supreme Court.  Obama-speak and the truth about ObamaCare continue to diverge.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2012/06/29/obamas-victory-speech-translated

Obama-nomics simply don't work!

A recent Investors Business Daily highlights the failures of Obama-nomics.    The lack of economic results due to the lack of Presidential leadership and poorly conceived policies is proven out in the economic metrics:

The Obama Record: May's weak jobs report further confirms the president's policies are failing to help the economy. This is, indeed, the worst recovery since the Depression.

Negative superlatives associated with this presidency keep piling up. The toll so far:

• The share of Americans who've been out of work a long time — now at 42% of the unemployed — is the highest since the Great Depression (source: Labor Department).

• The proportion of the civilian working-age population actually working, at 58%, is the smallest since the Carter era (Labor Department).

• Growth in nonfarm payroll jobs since the recovery began in June 2009 is the slowest of any comparable recovery since World War II (Hoover Institution).

• The rate of new business startups — the engine of job growth — has plunged to an all-time low of 7.87% of all businesses (Census Bureau).

• 3 in 10 young adults can't find jobs and live with their parents, highest since the 1950s (Pew Research).

For complete Business Investors Daily website coverage:  http://www.investors.com

• 54% of bachelor's degree-holders under the age of 25 are jobless or underemployed, the highest share in decades (Northeastern University).

• Black teen unemployment, now at 37%, is near Depression-era highs (Labor Department).

• Almost 1 in 6 Americans are now poor — the highest ratio in 30 years — and the total number of poor, at 49.1 million, is the largest on record (Census).

• The share of Hispanics in poverty has topped that of blacks for the first time, 28.2% to 25.4% (Census).

• The number of Americans on food stamps — 45 million recipients, or 1 in 7 residents — also is the highest on record (Congressional Budget Office).

• Total government dependency — defined as the share of Americans receiving one or more federal benefit payments — is now at 47%, highest ever (Hoover).

• The share of Americans paying no income tax, at 49.5%, is the highest ever (Heritage Foundation, IRS).

• The national homeownership rate, now at 65.4%, is the lowest in 15 years (Census).

• The 30-point gap between black and white Americans who own their own homes is the widest in two decades and one of the widest on record (Census).

• Federal spending, now at 23.4% of GDP, is the highest since WWII (CBO).

• Excluding defense and interest payments, spending is the highest in American history, at 17.6% of the economy (First Trust Economics).

• The federal debt, at 69% of GDP, is the highest since just after WWII (CBO).

• The U.S. budget deficit, now at 9.5% of the economy, is the highest since WWII (CBO).

• U.S. Treasury debt has been downgraded for the first time in history, meaning the U.S. government no longer ranks among risk-free borrowers (S&P).

This is what Obamanomics has wrought. Fiscal promiscuity. Trickle-up poverty. Shared misery.

Source:  Investors Business Daily  http://news.investors.com/IBDEditorials.aspx 

Previous Obama supporter switches

President Obama is losing support each day, as former Democrats and supporters look for an alternative for President in 2012.    Here is the latest former Congressman (D-Alabama) to switch parties and become a Republican.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/05/30/former_dem_rep_artur_davis_explains_why_he_is_becoming_a_republican.html

Former Democratic Congressman Artur Davis once supported candidate Obama, but he explains that what he voted for in 2008, isn't what America has seen in Obama's 1st term in office.    Now he's a Republican looking at the better alternative, the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney.

(c) 2012, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org

MainStreamMedia gets one Right!

It is not often that the Main Stream Media (MSM) gets a story right.   Don Lemon, a Cable News Network (CNN) reporter on Monday April 23rd delivered an excellent "No Talking Points" monolog.
Watch it here:http://mrctv.org/videos/has-cnns-don-lemon-turned-obama

In the story on CNN, normally a cable news network that acts as a spokesperson(s) network for President Obama, Mr. Lemon actually pulls together the "name & blame" approach taken by the White House and lays the issue on the line (to the President).    Essentially, quit blaming the former President (Bush) for issues that have occurred on your watch, Mr. President (Obama).    What a novel concept:   accountability!

(c) 2012, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org  

Senate Democrats AWOL on Budget

US Senate Democrats, who serve (skip) on the Senate Budget committee, have coordinated with the Democrat leader Harry Ried (D-Nevada) to take NO action on a budget mark-up for the last 3 years.   No action, no budget no show.   This image from Hot Air http://hotair.com  and C-SPAN clip say it all.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/19/picture-of-the-day-democrats-not-at-work

US Senator Sessions (R-Alabama) indicates that he'd actually mark up a budget and get it passed, if the voters give the Republicans the opportunity to do their job.

(c) Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org

Spending Money Because It's OPM

Spending Money Because It’s OPM

“I remember when liberals were liberal with their own money”  is a quote attributed to Will Rogers.   Modern day “spend & tax” liberals, such as President Obama are spending the US taxpayers money without restraint because it is “Other Peoples Money”.     We’ll tax other people (especially the rich), because a) they have too much money (class warfare), b) we as liberals (in government) know how to spend it better than you, c) if we don’t have it in the US Treasury now, we’ll just borrow more for taxpayers to pay back later.    Former US Senator Bill Armstrong (R-Colorado) stated the appetite for US government spending by Congress this way, “Congress is spending money like a drunken sailor, the trouble is, a sailor is spending his own money!”

    Even the moderate to liberal Politico is noting the long term and large spending patterns by the Obama Administration. The federal debt held by the public would still nearly double again from $10.1 trillion at the end of 2011 to $18.8 trillion at the end of 2022. For the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, CBO is now projecting a shortfall of $1.3 trillion. In fiscal 2013, the deficit will still hover near the $1 trillion mark — about $977 billion. And while it will fall to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2017, it then begins to grow again to 3 percent of GDP by 2022.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74109_Page2.html#ixzz1pTnvuOln

The Heritage Foundation has an excellent link, with the US government revenues and spending graphically portrayed in easy to understand charts:

            http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook

Under the Obama Administration, Federal spending per household jumped from $25,000 per year (per household) to $30,000 per year.   It had moderated under a GOP House of Representatives (where the spending bills originate) to $29,401 per household (per year).

            The 30-year average tax burden (Federal tax rate) from 1981 to 2010 has been about 18%.    The highest average rate was 20% (in year 2000), just prior to President Bush being elected.  The projection for the next decade is for average Federal income tax rates to rise from the historical average of 18% to nearly 25%, if Federal spending and taxation are not constrained by Congress and the elected President.

            Presently, the lower (bottom half) of US taxpayers only pay 2.7% of the total income taxes collected by Uncle Sam.  Whereas the top 5% of income earner (US taxpayers earning over $159,000 per year) are paying nearly 60% of the income taxes collected.   The top 1% of income producers (those who create jobs, wealth and economic activity for our country as a whole) are paying 40% of the income taxes collected.  

            So let’s tax the rich, as per the “class warfare” manta of President Obama!   Not so fast.   Our history in modern America would suggest the contrary: 

            “The most dramatic decline in the top individual income tax rate, from 70 percent to 28 percent, occurred during the Reagan Administration, during which tax receipts remained relatively constant as a share of the economy.”  Heritage Foundation

            http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/income-tax-receipts

And what will be the result of this overspending, over the next 10 years?   The Heritage Foundation projects that our US Federal deficit (if spending is unchecked) will reach 100% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2022.  Then it is “Hello Greece, or Portugal or Italy”! http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/national-debt-skyrocket

What can we do?   Tell Congress to stop the US government overspending.   Back the Paul Ryan budget bills and policy changes.   Vote for fiscal conservatives, who have voting records that actually show “stop the brutal spending” votes.   President Obama’s budget numbers show the US debt as a percentage of GDP rising from 40.3% to to 87.4% from 2008 to 2020.   Sit back and go with the “wasteful spending money” flow, and we’ll watch our beloved America go broke.  Or stand up, and vote the "over spenders" out of office.    Here’s the whole set of charts:

            http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/contents

© 2012, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org