News Blog for social, fiscal & national security conservatives who believe in God, family & the USA. Upholding the rights granted by God & guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, traditional family values, "republican" principles / ideals, transparent & limited "smaller" government, free markets, lower taxes, due process of law, liberty & individual freedom. Content approval rests with the ARRA News Service Editor. Opinions are those of the authors. While varied positions are reported, beliefs & principles remain fixed. No revenue is generated for or by this "Blog" - no paid ads - no payments for articles.Fair Use Doctrine is posted & used. Blogger/Editor/Founder: Bill Smith, Ph.D. [aka: OzarkGuru & 2010 AFP National Blogger of the Year] Contact: editor@arranewsservice.com (Pub. Since July, 2006)Home PageFollow @arra
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Saturday, July 21, 2012
IRS, Labor Department Audit Businessman on Obama’s Enemies List
Rob Bluey, Heritage Investigates: Frank VanderSloot grew up a poor kid in rural Idaho. His father made $300 a month. His clothes came from the Salvation Army. Yet through determination and hard work — and with the help of America’s free-enterprise system — today he’s the successful CEO of a global supplier of wellness products.
VanderSloot’s rags-to-riches story is not unlike other American tales of individuals who have benefited from the free market. In VanderSloot’s case, however, that success came with a price — but only when he decided a write a check to a super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.
On April 20, President Obama’s campaign named VanderSloot to the first presidential “enemies list” since the Nixon era. Eight private citizens were singled out for their donations to Romney. They committed no crimes, sought no attention, and yet they became the subject of Obama’s scorn.
VanderSloot is now facing persecution from the federal government. Kimberly Strassel reveals in The Wall Street Journal that two federal agencies — the Internal Revenue Service and Labor Department — both launched investigations of VanderSloot after his name appeared on Obama’s enemies list.
In a letter dated June 21, he was informed that his tax records had been “selected for examination” by the Internal Revenue Service. The audit also encompasses Mr. VanderSloot’s wife, and not one, but two years of past filings (2008 and 2009).
Mr. VanderSloot, who is 63 and has been working since his teens, says neither he nor his accountants recall his being subject to a federal tax audit before. He was once required to send documents on a line item inquiry into his charitable donations, which resulted in no changes to his taxes. But nothing more—that is until now, shortly after he wrote a big check to a Romney-supporting Super PAC.
Two weeks after receiving the IRS letter, Mr. VanderSloot received another—this one from the Department of Labor. He was informed it would be doing an audit of workers he employs on his Idaho-based cattle ranch under the federal visa program for temporary agriculture workers.
The H-2A program allows tens of thousands of temporary workers in the U.S.; Mr. VanderSloot employs precisely three. All are from Mexico and have worked on the VanderSloot ranch—which employs about 20 people—for five years. Two are brothers. Mr. VanderSloot has never been audited for this, though two years ago his workers’ ranch homes were inspected. (The ranch was fined $8,400, mainly for too many “flies” and for “grease build-up” on the stove. God forbid a cattle ranch home has flies.)
Coincidence?
Strassel acknowledges the investigations could be unrelated to VanderSloot’s inclusion on the enemies list. It reveals, however, the danger of persecuting private individuals for their political donations. It’s something Heritage’s Rory Cooper predicted would happen months ago:
Prominent donors are often thrust into the spotlight in political campaigns, but this example was extraordinary and unprecedented. The writing was on the wall: If you give to an opposing cause, we will unleash a grassroots effort to destroy your personal reputation. This message delivered on behalf of the most powerful man in the nation has real implications. If the IRS were to audit one of these individuals, how could they not wonder if their political contribution was the root cause?
He said the allegations made by the Obama campaign — that he was “litigious, combative, and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement” — are completely false. He isn’t going to let anyone sully his reputation — even if it means taking the fight directly to the most powerful man in America.
Tags:2012, Audit, Department of Labor, Enemies List, Frank VanderSloot, Glenn Greenwald, Internal Revenue Service, Kimberly Strassel, Labor Department, Mitt Romney, Mother Jones, Nixon, President Obama, Wall Street Journal Heritage Investigates, Rob BlueyTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Arkansas Lt. Gov. Mark Darr: I was disturbed this week when I watched a video of President Obama giving a campaign speech in Virginia. As I watched it, I couldn’t believe that I was listening to this from an American president.
He said, “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own…If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
What he was basically saying is that it takes a village to build a business. In any society, of course you are going to interact with many people who will influence you along the way, or deal with others who provide services to your business that will be of help. However, it seemed the president was trying to make the case that people succeed in life because of government programs.
This does not represent the American spirit that I know. More Americans find success every day and it is through their personal drive, intellect, skill, and willingness to take risk that they succeed. Sure they may have enjoyed the benefits of a government program along the way, but not everyone who benefits in the same way succeeds in the same way. Entrepreneurs all over this country must possess initiative, creativity, and business skills to create new businesses and innovative products.
President Obama, who has never worked in the business world, does not understand the personal risk that business-owners take. They invest their own money, sweat, and time. The President wants to redistribute other people’s wealth by force. Where is the risk in that? The President does not seem to care whether or not businesses succeed.
President Obama does not understand that businesses need to turn a profit to stay in business. He does not understand that businesses need to save money and have to reinvest those profits to keep their business secure and competitive. A president should not disparage and seek to penalize those who have been successful.
No one is denying that we need government. No one is discrediting the influence public school teachers have on future leaders of this country or the usefulness of government-funded interstates or other government programs, but government is not the provider of all that is good in America. In socialist countries, governments have sought to "control the means of production". In America, the means of production are in the hands of individuals and corporations founded to meet supply and demand in the marketplace. I believe this freedom is part of what the Founders meant in the Declaration of Independence when they wrote about the rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We live in the greatest country on earth. There are many things that make this country great. One of them is the value of individualism. Americans are not inspired to greatness by the bureaucratic processes of government. They are inspired by stories of individuals throughout our country’s history who have taken risks, defied odds, and exceeded expectations.
Only in America can an Arkansan like Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, build a business from the ground up, starting with one retail store and expand it successfully into the largest retailer in the world. Walton started his first store, not with a loan from the government, but with a loan from his father-in-law, and with money he had saved up himself. His is a true entrepreneur's story of what is possible in this country and there are a million more stories.
The president likes to talk negatively about big corporations and business owners and those who have done well financially when it is politically beneficial to do so. Though, he willingly accepts money from those same people when it comes time to campaign.
America needs a president who is pro-business even when it's not an election year. We need real leadership, not the rhetoric and destructive policies of President Obama. Tags:President Obama, Anti-business, tou didn't build that, Sam Walton, Wal-Mart, Mark Darr, Lt. Gov., ArkansasTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Editor's Note: Last Thursday, U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR) introduced the “Death Tax Repeal Act,” a bill that would permanently eliminate the federal estate and gift taxes that punish our small business owners and agriculture producers. Although the bill will politically not be approved under a Senate controlled by democrats, it set the stage for being reintroduced next legislative session. It is now up to the American people in November, to replace the Democrats who wish to tax Americans from the the womb via taxes associated with the health care bill through the tomb via death taxes.
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Phil Kerpen, Contributing Author: There is no more vivid or offensive example of the “you didn’t build that” philosophy on the books than the federal death tax, which supposes that when you die a hefty portion of everything you built up over a lifetime ought to go to government. It’s a vestige of the feudal days when all property was owned by the king.
That’s probably why the death tax is the “worst tax — that is, the least fair” according to polling by the Tax Foundation. And it’s also why our founders thought the idea of seizing an estate at death so outrageous that they prohibited it as a penalty for treason in the U.S. Constitution (Article III, Section 3). And yet now, seizing more than half of it as a penalty for accomplishing the American dream is the preferred policy of Democrats in the United States Senate.
You’re born. You work hard. You pay your taxes all your life. Maybe, you build something along the way. But when you die the IRS can tax you again.
This year, they can take 35 percent of everything above $5 million. Senate Democrats announced yesterday that as of January 1, they want to raise that up to 55 percent of everything above $1 million. And because the $1 million is not indexed to inflation, over time this confiscatory tax would hit almost everyone who achieves some success and wants to pass it on.
That means family farms and businesses will be forced to shut down when the founder dies just to pay the tax bill.
Former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin estimates that the Democrats’ 55 percent death tax would destroy as many as 1.5 million small-business jobs, walloping an already weak economy. That’s the problem with taxing “the rich” — even after they die — the real pain is suffered by the people they employ, who lose their jobs.
Unfortunately, rather than seize the moral high ground by advocating full repeal of the death tax, Senate Republicans have included a compromise position in their alternative tax package: they want to keep the tax at its current 35 percent rate. The study from Holtz-Eakin found that would destroy 857,000 jobs — which can only be described as “less bad” than the economic damage Democrats are proposing.
Senate Republicans are compromising even though they know the right position is full repeal because they fear the political implications of advocating full repeal at a time when the media and left-wing agitators are even more obsessed than usual with class warfare and the politics of envy.
This fear is not well founded. Polls have consistently shown very high levels of public support for repealing the tax, including among people who will never be directly affected, but understand the indirect economic consequences and the sheer immorality of seizing a large portion of estates at death as a penalty for success.
One of the most remarkable political science papers I’ve ever read was published back in 2006, during the last serious Senate effort at full repeal. The paper by two Yale professors, Mayling Birney and Ian Shapiro, comprehensively reviewed the issue. They said: “Many polls since the late 1990s have shown widespread public support for estate tax repeal, in the range of 60, 70 or 80 percent. Moreover, supporters appear to be spread more or less equally across income groups, contrary to what self-interest would predict.”
So let the Democrats, the media, and the class-warfare demagogues do their worst. The American people know this tax is wrong.
The House has an opportunity to lead by scheduling a vote on H.R. 1259, Rep. Kevin Brady’s (R-Texas) bill to permanently repeal the death tax, which now has a majority of the House signed on as cosponsors. An analysis by Palmer Schoening, who leads death tax repeal efforts for the influential 60 Plus Association, found that there are 33 current Democratic members of the House who have voted for repeal in the past, making a strong bipartisan vote possible.
With Senate Democrats now actively trying to raise the death tax to 55 percent and Senate Republicans just trying to keep it where it is, it’s more important than ever that the House redouble its efforts to finally repeal this most hated tax.
-------------- Phil Kerpen. He is the president of American Commitment where he first shared this article; a columnist on Fox News Opinion, and the author of Democracy Denied: How Obama is Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America – and How to Stop Him. Phil Kerpen is a contributing author for the ARRA News Service. His article first appeared in The Daily Caller Tags:Phil Kerpen, American Commitment, Senate, democrats, Death Tax To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
By Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: Abraham Lincoln faced a similar problem in 1854 when he spoke of the “covert zeal” of President Franklin Pierce and Sen. Steven A. Douglas for the spread of slavery. These leading Democrats never said they were in favor of slavery. They simply viewed the right of whites to choose slavery for blacks as a “sacred principle of self government.”Lincoln abhorred this subterfuge.
President Obama doesn't talk about abortion much. He famously tried to avoid the question in 2008 when Pastor Rick Warren asked him what rights, if any, unborn children have. "The answer to that question is above my pay grade," he said then. With his strong election victory,Barack Obama was promoted to the office where the buck stops, where such questions demand an answer. His answer has been clear: None. The unborn have no rights at any time, in any context.
President Obama has been the most pro-abortion president in history. That was a distinction not easily won, especially after eight years of Bill and Hillary Clinton. They famously said abortion should be "safe,legal and rare." That seemed to be a middle path. But the only place they made abortion rare was in Antarctica. President Clinton sent out the Red Cable to all U.S. Embassies ordering them to press their host countries to make abortion on demand legal and paid for by the state.
Yet, Hillary told Newsweek abortion is "wrong."(October 31, 1994 issue). She only said it once in her entire career. Still,she said it.
Barack Obama has never said that. From his first public office, he has been an advocate for abortion on demand. He led the fight in the Illinois State Senate to deny protection for newborn children who survive abortion attempts. These children are U.S. citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. And just as too many states denied "equal protection of the laws" to black Americans under a century of unjust Jim Crow laws, Barack Obama denied protection of Illinois laws to newborns in the Land of Lincoln because they had been targeted for abortion. It is tragically ironic that a disproportionate number of these late term botched abortions are performed on minority women.
As president, Bill Clinton twice vetoed the ban on Partial-Birth Abortions. Elena Kagan strongly urged him to veto the law. President Obama elevated Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. This outspoken advocate of Partial-Birth Abortion, not surprisingly, voted to approve Obamacare--the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade. We can have little doubt as to how Kagan will rule if the lawsuits filed by dozens of Catholic dioceses make it to the Supreme Court. She is unlikely to surprise and shock any liberal abortion advocates as Chief Justice John Roberts shocked and appalled millions of pro-lifers with his last minute shift of position. For pro-lifers, the shocks and the surprises only come one way with the Supreme Court. Liberal pro-abortion advocates never find one of their own jumping the traces. They vote in lockstep to uphold the Culture of Death.
Like the Clintons, President Obama opposed the ban on Partial-Birth Abortions. Nurse Brenda Pratt Shafer described what she saw in a Partial-Birth Abortion. It requires re-reading now:
"I stood at the doctor's side and watched him perform a partial-birth abortion on a woman who was six months pregnant. The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor delivered the baby's body and arms, everything but his little head. The baby's body was moving. His little fingers were clasping together. He was kicking his feet. The doctor took a pair of scissors and inserted them into the back of the baby's head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. Then the doctor opened the scissors and he stuck the high-powered suction tube into the hole and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby was completely limp. I never went back to the clinic. But I am still haunted by the face of that little boy. It was the most perfect, angelic face I have ever seen."
Just reading about such a horror led pro-choice liberal columnist Richard Cohen to oppose it.
...the fact remains that the anti-abortion people are on to something. Late-term abortions may be necessary, but you cannot read about them without feeling diminished as a human being. Something awful has happened, and simply as a matter of principle we ought to be opposed. We ought to say, in short, that this procedure cannot be used -- that late-term abortions cannot be permitted at all--unless we absolutely have no choice. ["Reason to Shudder," Washington Post, July 4, 2000].
Cohen said then that people who don't shudder at this nightmare make him shudder. President Obama does not shudder. Nor does Justice Elena Kagan. They have a cool and detached view. To them, the fetus has no rights, ever. And "the right to choose" can mean the right to a dead child.
From his first day in office until now, President Obama has quietly but vigorously pushed the abortion agenda. He records promotional videos for Planned Parenthood. This group kills 340,000 of the more than1,200,000 unborn children killed each year by abortion. Under Obamacare, they will be able to kill millions more.
------------------------- J. Ken Blackwell is a conservative family values and pro-life advocate. Blackwell is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a visiting professor at Liberty University School of Law. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service. Tags:Ken Blackwell, President Obama, Covert Zeal, abortionTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Remembering The Fallen and Injured in Aurora, Colorado
In memory of those who were killed in Aurora, Colorado, this will be our only post today.
Just after midnight, a very sick person entered a the Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado midnight opening of the new movie Batman movie, Dark Knight Rises. The gunman opened fire and killed at least 12 people and wounded reported estimated of over 50 people.
The news has identified the shooter as 24 year-old James Holmes. The memorial ribbon for the fallen at the right was released today by Midnight Reviews on their Facebook account.
Our prayers are with the families of the victims and the injured and the people suffering from the trauma of this tragedy. Unfortunately, people like ABC News’ Brian Ross and George Stephanolpoulos suggested that the Tea Party is to blame for the tragic loss of life.
ABC News and Brian Ross are apologizing for an “incorrect” report that James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado theater shooting, may have had connections to the Tea Party.
“An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect,” ABC News said in a statement. “ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted.”
Kevin Danielsen who reported on this ABC false intrusion into the Shooting situation ended with this comment: "Even before the entire nation, including President Barack Obama and Michelle, had come out of shock for the terrible loss of life that had just occurred, Ross, Stephanolpoulos and their researchers at ABC wrongly scoured Facebook, hunting for an attempt to push forth an agenda. Shame on you, ABC. Let us hold the victims in our prayers in peace today." Tags:Aurora, Colorado, shooting, movie theater, Batman, movieTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Tags:Obama, President Obama, Barack Obama, 2012, election, Election 2012 To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Medicaid Patients, Not Uninsured, Crowded Emergency Rooms
Phil Kerpen
Phil Kerpen, Contributing Author: Supporters of the president’s unpopular health care mandate tax are now trying to justify it on the theory that those who go uninsured later impose large costs on the rest of us through emergency rooms. But the truth is emergency rooms are crowded not by the uninsured, but by Medicaid patients. Far from alleviating the problem, the president’s law dumps millions of people into a failed Medicaid system. It’s the opposite of reform.
The original purpose of the mandate was not to reduce the costs of uncompensated care, but rather to extract revenue from young, healthy people who go uninsured because they are low utilizers of health care. Legal expert Steven G. Bradbury summarized: “The individual mandate was originally enacted to compel millions of Americans to pay more for health insurance than they receive in benefits as a means to subsidize the costs that the Act’s guaranteed-issue and community-rating requirements will impose on private insurance companies.”
In other words, a free-rider problem was created by the law’s requirement that insurance companies issue a policy to anyone, even after they are sick (guaranteed-issue), at the same premiums as healthy people (community rating). The significant purpose of the mandate was to force people who don’t use health care to pay premiums to subsidize these new costs.
Democrats cut a corrupt deal with the insurance industry: the industry would accept expensive regulations in exchange for a mandate forcing millions of new customers to buy their product. That’s why the insurance industry — contrary to popular political misconception — advertised heavily in favor of the law.
The newly created, after-the-fact argument that the mandate is about reducing emergency room “free riding” doesn’t make sense. If you’re uninsured, you’re likely to go to the emergency room only in the event of a genuinely serious emergency that would justify paying the bill or facing bankruptcy.
That’s not the case for Medicaid patients, whose bills are paid by taxpayers and who are unlikely to have better options than the emergency room because of how badly the program is failing.
A new study that came out last week showed Medicaid patients use emergency rooms twice as frequently as patients on private insurance. “That’s because they wait until their symptoms get so serious that they require emergency care,” explained David Seaberg, MD, FACEP, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians. “This often happens because they can’t find doctors who will accept their insurance, most likely because the reimbursement rates are so low. It isn’t fair to say ‘don’t go to the emergency room’ without providing available medical alternatives, which currently are woefully inadequate.”
Medicaid pays doctors below-market reimbursements and burdens them with extensive paperwork and bureaucracy. It’s not surprising then that a recent survey by the Texas Medical Association found that just 31 percent of doctors in Texas are accepting new Medicaid patients, down from 42 percent in 2010 and 67 percent in 2000. And a separate national survey by the Doctor Patient Medical Association recently found that 49 percent of doctors intend to respond to the new health care law’s lower reimbursement rates by not taking new Medicaid patients.
Giving out more Medicaid cards won’t translate into actual health care access. According to CBO estimates, the president’s law adds 17 million more people to the Medicaid rolls, exacerbating the shortage of primary care physicians and specialists who can afford to take Medicaid patients and adding significantly to emergency rooms’ workload.
Medicaid is so broken that surgical outcomes for Medicaid patients are actually worse than for patients who are uninsured — and much worse than for patients with private insurance. A landmark 2010 study from the University of Virginia, “Primary Payer Status Affects Mortality for Major Surgical Operations,” found that that surgical patients on Medicaid are 13 percent more likely to die than uninsured patients and 97 percent more likely to die than patients with private insurance.
Reid Blocks Obamacare Repeal Amendment, Budget, Appropriations and Defense Authorization
Today in Washington, D.C. - July 19, 2012
The Senate reconvened at 9:30 AM today and resumed consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3364, Democrats’ latest messaging effort, this time on outsourcing. At 2:15 PM, the Senate is scheduled to vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to (i.e. whether to take up) S. 3364.
The House reconvened and resumed debate of H.R. 5856 - Appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013.
Yesterday, the House passed up H.R. 5872 ( 414 - 2) - Sequestration Transparency Act (H.R. 5872), requiring a report from the White House on its plan to implement across-the-board defense and discretionary spending cuts scheduled to take effect on January 1st under the Budget Control Act of 2011.
Speaker John Boehner addressed the passage HR 5872 and the potential to severly place America's defense at risk: "The enormously critical and challenging missions facing our armed services members across the globe will not diminish on January 1st, but, if President Obama and Senate Democrats continue refusing to act, the resources they have to carry them out will. Under current law, the military will be hit with devastating, across-the-board spending cuts next year. The bill passed by the House with broad, bipartisan support today requires transparency and accountability from the president on how he will implement those cuts, and what impact they will have on specific programs and activities that keep our country safe – information Congress has repeatedly sought from the White House, but not received.
“The president’s own Defense Secretary warns that the scheduled defense cuts will ‘inflict severe damage to our national defense.’ House Republicans have addressed that threat by passing a plan to avert the devastating cuts and replace them with common-sense reforms and reductions that go beyond the savings mandated under current law, without compromising our defense capabilities and national security.
“President Obama has offered no plan of his own to replace the arbitrary cuts with a more responsible approach, and Senate Democrats have made clear they support allowing the scheduled cuts to take effect, regardless of the consequences. The bill passed today will provide a clear picture of what Democrats’ inaction will mean for our men and women in uniform, and for all Americans who depend on the freedom and security their countless sacrifices provide.”
The Hill reports today, “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) again blocked a Senate vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act. Republicans had offered it as an amendment to the Bring Jobs Home Act, which has a procedural vote Thursday afternoon. Reid said Republicans aren’t taking the ‘insourcing’ bill seriously based on the amendments they’ve offered. . . . Reid said unless Republicans get serious, he’s ‘very doubtful’ that they will be able to offer amendments. . . . [Senate Republican Leader Mitch] McConnell has said he would keep fighting for a healthcare repeal vote before the August break.”
The Weekly Standard has video of Reid announcing he’ll block GOP amendments and writes, “In a statement to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, McConnell pledges not to give up--and that the votes on Obamacare and tax cuts will be held. ‘The American people won’t stand for this,’ says McConnell. ‘These votes are going to happen whether it’s next week, the week after, in September, or after they’ve lost the Majority for failing to do their jobs.’ ‘It’s pretty obvious now that he’s trying to run out the clock to protect Obama and other Dem senators from voting on this ahead of November,’ a senior Republican aide says. ‘It isn’t going to work.’”
Reid is apparently upset that Republicans aren’t taking seriously a bill that was brought to the floor by Democrats without any committee hearings or votes and is little more than a politically-timed messaging bill. In contrast, the amendments Republicans wanted to offer are serious legislative efforts to address real problems facing the country. The first was an amendment to repeal Obamacare, which, aside from all the other important reasons to repeal it, will cost thousands of jobs and amount to a tax on middle class Americans if it is implemented. Another was an amendment to prevent tax increases on any American in January, since a massive tax hike is scheduled for New Year’s Day if nothing is done.
But Democrats don’t want to address any of these critical issues. Instead the Democrat Majority Leader continues to push messaging bills that are not serious attempts at legislating and then block all amendments.
As Leader McConnell said in an exchange with Reid yesterday, “[A] good example of the problem is the bill we're on right now. The Stabenow bill bypassed the committee entirely, introduced a week ago, a week ago, placed on the calendar. This is not the way legislation is normally done. It's crafted in somebody's office, rule 14, brought up by Majority Leader. I expect it has something to do with the campaign. . . . What are we doing here? Is the Senate a messaging machine?”
He also expressed his frustration at Reid’s continual efforts to block amendments: “So the reaction on this side is if the Majority Leader is not going to let us have amendments, if the only result of invoking cloture on the motion to proceed is he fills up the tree and doesn't offer us any amendments, why would we want to do that? All of this is much more easily avoided than you think. The Majority Leader is basically trying to convince the American people that it's somebody else's fault that the Senate is not doing the basic work of government. And, you know, regardless of the blame game, the results are apparent. No budget, no appropriation bills, no defense authorization. We're not doing the basic work of government here. And that really ought to stop." Tags:US Senate, Harry Reid, blocks amendments, budget, appropriations, defense authorizations, US House, Sequestration Transparency ActTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Tags:American Dream, Obama Dream, Willaum Warren, political cartoonTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
WASHINGTON – With job creation and economic recovery at the top of Washington’s “to-do list,” U.S. Senator John Boozman today introduced the “Death Tax Repeal Act,” a bill that would permanently eliminate the federal estate and gift taxes that punish our small business owners and agriculture producers.
Permanent elimination of the death tax could create up to a million and a half new jobs at small businesses across the country, a recent study projected.
“Death shouldn’t be taxable. It should not force the sale of family farms or the closure of small businesses. Hardworking Americans should be allowed to pass along the results of their success, which they were already taxed on during their lifetime, to their families without having to pay the IRS. Farmers and small business owners deserve to pass along their investments to future generations without having to worry about a tax especially in this economic climate,” Boozman said.
The death tax forces an unnecessary burden on America’s family farms and businesses following the death of a loved one. Congress resurrected the death tax in 2011 at a 35 percent rate through the end of 2012. Unless Congress acts before the end of the year, the tax will skyrocket to a 55 percent rate and $1 million exemption at the beginning of 2013.
“These hardworking Americans deserve to have this tax repealed once and for all. This will allow our agriculture producers and small businesses to invest and expand their operations rather than force them to spend that money hiring attorneys and accountants,” Boozman said.
According to a recent study by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, repealing the death tax would create 1.5 million additional small business jobs and would decrease the national unemployment rate by nearly one percent.
Holtz-Eakin also claims that repeal of the death tax would do the following:
Increase small business investment capital by more than $1.6 trillion each year
Increase the probability of hiring by 8.6 percent
Increase payrolls 2.6 percent
Expand investment 3 percent
Drop the unemployment rate 0.9 percent
-------------- John Boozman is an United States Senator for Arkansas. As member of the Republican Party, he also previously served as the United States Representative for Arkansas's 3rd congressional district for 10 years. Tags:U.S. Senator, John Boozman, bill, Death Tax, Death Tax Repeal BillTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Stimulus-Backed Solar Facility Touted By Harry Reid Shuts Down
by Lachlan Markay, Heritage Investigates: A federally-funded solar production facility in Nevada has ceased operations, according to a former employee at the facility. The closure could prove troublesome for the company’s political allies.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the North Las Vegas production facility for solar panel manufacturer Amonix has not operated since May. The plant was backed by $21.5 million in federal green energy “investment” – in the form of a grant and a package of tax credits – and touted at length by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Rene Kenerly, a former material and supply manager at Amonix, said the plant has been idle since May 1, when he was laid off. At its peak, the plant had ramped up to about 700 employees working three shifts a day to produce solar panels for a utility customer in Amarosa, Colo., he said.
“I don’t think they had a lot of training,” Kenerly said. “There were a lot of quality issues. A lot of stuff was coming back because it had some functionality issues.”
The Review-Journal was unable to confirm with Amonix that it had ceased operations at the facility. Scribe’s attempt to confirm the report likewise went unanswered.
If solar panel production at the facility has permanently ceased, it could prove awkward for Reid, who touted the “permanent green jobs” that Amonix’s Nevada business supposedly represented. The company laid off 200 employees in January.
In May of 2010, Reid attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the facility. “Amonix is taking full advantage of a tax credit from the Recovery Act and is helping Nevada lead the way in producing clean energy,” Reid said at the time. “I’ve pushed hard to establish a clean energy industry in Nevada that will diversify our economy and protect us from future economic downturns.”
Amonix would be the second Nevada-based – and Reid-backed – green energy project to hit dire financial straits in recent weeks. Nevada Geothermal, which received a $98 million stimulus loan guarantee, announced in a recent SEC filing that “material uncertainties exist which cast significant doubt upon the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
Like Amonix, Nevada Geothermal received significant support from Reid before obtaining taxpayer backing. According to the New York Times, Reid “pressur[ed] the Department of Interior to move more quickly on applications to build clean energy projects on federally owned land and urg[ed] other member of Congress to expand federal tax incentives to help build geothermal plants, benefits that Nevada Geothermal has taken advantage of.” Tags:solar facility, Harry Reid, amonix, green energy, Harry Reid, Nevada GeothermalTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
As ‘Concerns About The Fiscal Cliff Are Reaching New Heights,’ Some Democrats Are Splitting With Their Leadership’s Threat To Go Over It Senate Dem: ‘Cliff Is So Ominous And So Potentially Destructive That We Need To Avoid It’
“If faced with a choice to extend or expire tax cuts for all, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) tells CNN’s Soledad O’Brien he would vote to extend. Sen. Blumenthal says, ‘My preference is to extend tax cuts because I think that fiscal cliff is so ominous and so potentially destructive that we need to avoid it.’”(“Sen. Blumenthal: Extend Tax Cuts If Faced With A Choice To Extend Or Expire For All,” CNN, 7/18/12)
“Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) said Thursday he's opposed to President Barack Obama's plan to extend the Bush-era tax cuts to household income under $250,000 for one year… ‘That's a no,’ Webb told Reuters when asked if he'd vote for the plan.” (“Webb 'A No' On Obama Tax Plan,” Politico, 7/12/12)
“Count Sen. Joe Lieberman as a ‘no’ on President Barack Obama’s tax plan. The Connecticut independent has just decided he will vote against the plan, saying it’s ‘not what we need now,’ especially since it stands virtually no chance of becoming law before November.” (“Joe Lieberman To Oppose Obama Tax Plan,” Politico, 7/11/12)
Dem Leadership: ‘Prepared To Go Over The So-Called Fiscal Cliff’
Q: “Do you agree with Senator Murray that if you do not get a balanced deal, you'll fight this into 2013?”SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): “…Patty Murray knows what she's talking about.”(Sen. Reid, Press Briefing, 7/17/12)
Expert Warns: Going Over Cliff Would ‘Drive A Worldwide Recession’
“’While our analysts are somewhat less worried about the impact of European bank strains,’ a Morgan Stanley report said Monday, ‘the negative impact of fiscal cliff uncertainty is becoming more widespread.’ The potential economic impact could smother the flickering recovery and further stifle job creation, analysts warn.” (“U.S. Economic Fears Shift From Europe Toward ‘Fiscal Cliff,’” The Washington Post, 7/17/12)
UNIVERSITY STUDY: “A new economic impact analysis concludes that2.14 million American jobs could be lost if the Budget Control Act’s sequestration mandate takes effect on January 2, 2013.” (“Sequestration Puts 2.14 Million Total Jobs At Risk,” George Mason University, 7/17/12) Tags:Democrat, Senators, Patty Murry, American economy, fiscal cliff, over the cliffTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Republicans Move to Prohibit Obama Administration From Gutting Welfare Work Requirements
Today in Washington, D.C. - July 18, 2013:
Today, House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), Education & Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN), Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced legislation, the Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act, that would prohibit the Obama Administration from unilaterally granting itself the authority to exempt states from the work requirements that were a critical element of welfare reform enacted in 1996 – potentially opening the door for activities like bed rest, smoking cessation and exercise to be counted as work for the purposes of complying with federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) requirements.
ARRA News Previously reported Friday the 13th: Obama Gut's Clinton's Welfare Reform which addressed the action last Thursday when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued "guidance" to states that could undermine the critical work focus of welfare reform. The guidance issued by the Obama Administration simply declares – despite specific statutory provisions to the contrary – that states may waive work requirements at the heart of the nation's successful welfare reform program.
The House reconvened today and took and has passed up H.R. 5872 ( 414 - 2) "To require the President to provide a report detailing the sequester required by the Budget Control Act of 2011 on January 2, 2013." The House is presently debating H.R. 5856 - Appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013.
Yesterday the House passed the following bills:
S. 1959 (Voice Vote) "To require a report on the designation of the Haqqani Network as a foreign terrorist organization and for other purposes."
S. 2165 (Voice Vote) "To enhance strategic cooperation between the United States and Israel, and for other purposes."
H.R. 6018 (333 - 61) "To authorize appropriations for the Department of State for fiscal year 2013, and for other purposes."
S. 2009 (378 - 11) "To improve the administration of programs in the insular areas, and for other purposes."
The Senate reconvened and resumed consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3364, Democrats’ latest messaging effort, this time on outsourcing.
When the Senate opened this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for suggested he might seek to curtail the filibuster by a majority vote and for blaming everyone other than himself for the Senate not taking up important legislation. McConnell said, “The Majority Leader is basically trying to convince the American people that it's somebody else's fault that the Senate is not doing the basic work of government.”
Reid has filed cloture on the motion to proceed to S.3364 and a cloture vote is likely tomorrow.
Politico reported yesterday, “The DISCLOSE Act has died again. Senate Democrats’ second attempt in less than 24 hours to advance the campaign finance bill failed Tuesday — even after at least 16 senators held the floor for six hours Monday night in support of the measure. On a strictly partisan 53-45 vote, it fell short of the 60 votes needed to break a GOP filibuster.”
Yesterday, Rob Bluey identified, “The Senate has gone 1,175 days without passing a budget. Taxmageddon and sequestration are threatening the economic livelihood of millions of Americans. And yet the top order of business for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) this week is the DISCLOSE Act, a blatant attempt by liberals to circumvent and restrict the First Amendment. Senate Democrats even staged a ‘midnight vigil’ [Monday] night to promote their cause. That’s when the follies starting flying. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat, had the biggest whopper of the evening when he called for ‘limits on First Amendment rights’ during his Senate speech.” Schumer intoned that there need to be “certain limits on First Amendment rights” and that the absence of such limits, “destroy the equality — any semblance of equality in our democracy.”
And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was complaining to MSNBC’s Ed Schultz about Republicans blocking the DISCLOSE Act and vowing again to try to attack the rights of the minority in the Senate through weakening the filibuster if Democrats retain their majority next year.
Frustrated by this, Leader McConnell took to the Senate floor this morning to blast Reid for his comments and the way he’s run the Senate. He asked Reid why Democrats haven’t produced a budget, which isn’t subject to filibuster. He asked Reid why the Senate hasn’t even done its basic job of funding the government through appropriations bills and why it hasn’t been working on a Defense authorization bill to help the Pentagon. Each time, Reid dodged, blaming someone else for the inaction.
McConnell responded, “[Q]uit blaming everybody else. It's not the House. It's not the Senate. It's not the motion to proceed. Why don't we operate like we used to under leaders of both parties, and understood that amendments we don't like are just part of the process, because everybody here doesn't agree on everything?”
He summed up the problem: “[Sen Harry Reid] is basically trying to convince the American people that it's somebody else's fault that the Senate is not doing the basic work of government. And, you know, regardless of the blame game, the results are apparent. No budget, no appropriation bills, no defense authorization. We're not doing the basic work of government here.” Tags:INSERT TAGSTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Bills to Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act
Today in Washington, D.C. - July 18, 2013:
Today, House Ways and; Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN), Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced legislation, the Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act, that would prohibit the Obama Administration from unilaterally granting itself the authority to exempt states from the work requirements that were a critical element of welfare reform enacted in 1996 – potentially opening the door for activities like bed rest, smoking cessation and exercise to be counted as work for the purposes of complying with federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) requirements.
ARRA News Previously reported Friday the 13th: Obama Gut's Clinton's Welfare Reform which addressed the action last Thursday when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued "guidance" to states that could undermine the critical work focus of welfare reform. The guidance issued by the Obama Administration simply declares – despite specific statutory provisions to the contrary – that states may waive work requirements at the heart of the nation's successful welfare reform program.
The House reconvened today and took and has passed up H.R. 5872 ( 414 - 2) "To require the President to provide a report detailing the sequester required by the Budget Control Act of 2011 on January 2, 2013." The House is presently debating H.R. 5856 - Appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013.
Yesterday the House passed the following bills:
S. 1959 (Voice Vote) "To require a report on the designation of the Haqqani Network as a foreign terrorist organization and for other purposes."
S. 2165 (Voice Vote) "To enhance strategic cooperation between the United States and Israel, and for other purposes."
H.R. 6018 (333 - 61) "To authorize appropriations for the Department of State for fiscal year 2013, and for other purposes."
S. 2009 (378 - 11) "To improve the administration of programs in the insular areas, and for other purposes."
The Senate reconvened and resumed consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3364, Democrats’ latest messaging effort, this time on outsourcing.
When the Senate opened this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for suggested he might seek to curtail the filibuster by a majority vote and for blaming everyone other than himself for the Senate not taking up important legislation. McConnell said, “The Majority Leader is basically trying to convince the American people that it's somebody else's fault that the Senate is not doing the basic work of government.”
Reid has filed cloture on the motion to proceed to S.3364 and a cloture vote is likely tomorrow.
Politico reported yesterday, “The DISCLOSE Act has died again. Senate Democrats’ second attempt in less than 24 hours to advance the campaign finance bill failed Tuesday — even after at least 16 senators held the floor for six hours Monday night in support of the measure. On a strictly partisan 53-45 vote, it fell short of the 60 votes needed to break a GOP filibuster.”
Yesterday, Rob Bluey identified, “The Senate has gone 1,175 days without passing a budget. Taxmageddon and sequestration are threatening the economic livelihood of millions of Americans. And yet the top order of business for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) this week is the DISCLOSE Act, a blatant attempt by liberals to circumvent and restrict the First Amendment. Senate Democrats even staged a ‘midnight vigil’ [Monday] night to promote their cause. That’s when the follies starting flying. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat, had the biggest whopper of the evening when he called for ‘limits on First Amendment rights’ during his Senate speech.” Schumer intoned that there need to be “certain limits on First Amendment rights” and that the absence of such limits, “destroy the equality — any semblance of equality in our democracy.”
And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was complaining to MSNBC’s Ed Schultz about Republicans blocking the DISCLOSE Act and vowing again to try to attack the rights of the minority in the Senate through weakening the filibuster if Democrats retain their majority next year.
Frustrated by this, Leader McConnell took to the Senate floor this morning to blast Reid for his comments and the way he’s run the Senate. He asked Reid why Democrats haven’t produced a budget, which isn’t subject to filibuster. He asked Reid why the Senate hasn’t even done its basic job of funding the government through appropriations bills and why it hasn’t been working on a Defense authorization bill to help the Pentagon. Each time, Reid dodged, blaming someone else for the inaction.
McConnell responded, “[Q]uit blaming everybody else. It's not the House. It's not the Senate. It's not the motion to proceed. Why don't we operate like we used to under leaders of both parties, and understood that amendments we don't like are just part of the process, because everybody here doesn't agree on everything?”
He summed up the problem: “[Sen Harry Reid] is basically trying to convince the American people that it's somebody else's fault that the Senate is not doing the basic work of government. And, you know, regardless of the blame game, the results are apparent. No budget, no appropriation bills, no defense authorization. We're not doing the basic work of government here.” Tags:Welfare, House bills, Senate, Democrats, playing politicsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The real story of the Obama Economy can be talked about and discussed in many ways. Below is a video reminding us of the truth. But, it can also be simply summed up as "the economy sucks" and everyone knows this even when ignoring the "Imperial President, aka Emperor, running around economically naked.
Tags:Obama Economy, the real story, economy sucksTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) calls for 'Limits on First Amendment Rights'
Rob Bluey: The Senate has gone 1,175 days without passing a budget. Taxmageddon and sequestration are threatening the economic livelihood of millions of Americans. And yet the top order of business for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) this week -- the DISCLOSE Act, a blatant attempt by liberals to circumvent and restrict the First Amendment.
Senate Democrats even staged a “midnight vigil” last night to promote their cause. That’s when the follies starting flying. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat, had the biggest whopper of the evening when he called for “limits on First Amendment rights” during his Senate speech. (Full transcript below the video.)
Here’s the transcript (emphasis added):
I believe there ought to be limits because the First Amendment is not absolute. No amendment is absolute. You can’t scream ‘fire’ falsely in a crowded theater. We have libel laws. We have anti-pornography laws. All of those are limits on the First Amendment. Well, what could be more important than the wellspring of our democracy? And certain limits on First Amendment rights that if left unfettered, destroy the equality — any semblance of equality in our democracy — of course would be allowed by the Constitution. And the new theorists on the Supreme Court who don’t believe that, I am not sure where their motivation comes from, but they are just so wrong. They are just so wrong.
While Schumer was ranting about the need for greater restrictions on free speech, other Democrats were complaining about the role of money in politics. Except, it seems, the sponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). He left the debate to attend a political fundraiser. That caught the eye of John Stanton at Buzzfeed:
The Senate Democrat leading the push for greater transparency in campaign donations to outside organizations slipped out of a highly orchestrated floor event Monday – to attend a fundraiser for an outside organization.
Ultimately, the DISCLOSE Act failed to get the 60 votes necessary Tuesday afternoon. The final vote was 53 to 45. But even though it’s now failed this session and the last one, there are no permanent victories in Washington. Reid already floated the idea of changing the Senate rules to make it easier for Democrats to pass legislation. Here’s what he told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz:
We can’t go on like this anymore. I don’t want to get rid of the filibuster, but I have to tell you, I want to change the rules and make the filibuster meaningful. The filibuster is not part of our constitution, it came about as a result of our wanting to get legislation passed, and now it’s being used to stop legislation from passing.
That’s not always been Reid’s view of the filibuster, a procedural tool he used when President George W. Bush was in office. In fact, he said on the “Charlie Rose Show” in 2007, “In the Senate, it’s always been the case you need 60 votes.” Except, of course, when Democrats are in charge. Tags:Senate, Senator, Chuck Schumer, limits on free speech, DISCLOSE Act, First Amendment, campaign financeTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Release The Documents! - No, I'm not talking about Mitt Romney's tax returns. I'm talking about all of the documents and data that Barack Obama, unlike any president before him, has managed to hide from the American people with the collusion of the mainstream media.
We not only knew George W. Bush's grades, we knew Rick Perry's too! But Barack Obama has repeatedly refused to allow his grades to be released. Why? What is he hiding?
Is he a closet dunce instead of the intellectual giant the media present him as? Is there something about the courses he took -- or did not take (like Economics 101) -- that would embarrass him?
We heard incessantly that because of his family's wealth, Bush was able to buy his way into elite institutions. Ronald Reagan had to work his way through college and went to a small school in Illinois for which he was mocked by the elite media. Why don't know how Obama got through college? Where did the resources come from?
We know that there was a vacation which the Romneys put the family dog on the roof of their car. You can laugh that I am bringing this up, but I guarantee you that the Obama campaign has a list of dog owners. They will get a message from the Obama campaign a week before the election asking if they really want to put a man in the Oval Office who would treat his dog that way.
The Obama campaign in recent days has suggested that Mitt Romney may have committed a felony. On the other hand, Obama admitted that he used cocaine in the 70s. Has one reporter asked, "Mr. President, where did you buy your hard drugs? Cocaine is very addictive. Did you have any trouble kicking the habit? Is your dealer still alive? Why won't you tell us? What are you hiding?"
Once again, for the president to credibly make an issue out of Romney's failure to disclose his tax returns is so outrageous it makes my head explode! I would just say to the Romney campaign, do you get it now? They are going to make you into a monster, and you are going to spend the rest of your campaign on your heels unless you go after him with the same will to win as he has.
Governor Romney is a decent man, and I know this makes him uncomfortable. But frankly this isn't about Gov. Romney's sense of decency. It is about the future of this country. We lost the last time because John McCain was "too decent" to bring up Obama's radical past. This country can't afford four more years of the good guys being nice while freedom-grabbing socialists play by Chicago street rules.
Obama's Libor Scandal - Today in testimony before the Senate, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted under oath that he first became aware of Libor manipulation in April 2008. I would assume that Treasury Secretary Geithner would have known about it before then, but certainly no later than then. According to the Wall Street Journal, Geithner did know by June.
The Bush Administration was effectively over six months later. Knowing how slow the bureaucracy works at times, I can understand why the federal behemoth might have been slow to act in the midst of the financial crisis.
But Bernanke and Geithner have remained in the government. For the past 40 months they have worked for Barack Obama, who regularly says that banking and financial institutions need more regulations. What good are new regulations if the ones on the books aren't being enforced? Criminal charges are being pursued now, but what took so long?
What we really need to know is how many other officials in the Obama Administration knew that interest rates were being manipulated? Isn't that more important than Mitt Romney's tax returns?
Obama Berates Businesses Owners - It's not surprising that Barack Obama is trying to turn Mitt Romney's successful business career against him. Romney wants his job. Unfortunately, Romney isn't Obama's only target. During a campaign speech in Virginia last week, Barack Obama continued his attack on successful business owners in America.
Here's what Obama told his audience:
"Look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. … If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Here we go back to Obama's Bizarro World. In Obama's mind, government creates jobs, and business owners have been successful, not in spite of government, but because of government. So they should be happy to pay higher taxes.
In Obama's mind, all money belongs to the government, and the only question is how much of your hard-earned dollars government will let you keep. Those comments revealed Obama's socialist, collectivist mindset as much as his remark to Joe the Plumber about "spreading the wealth around."
Business groups are firing back. A top officer of the Chamber of Commerce wrote: "We should applaud the risk-takers and the dreamers who are willing to stand out from the crowd. Rather than denigrate what these people have done, we need to encourage more people to be like them."
Dan Danner, president of the National Federation of Independent Business, released the following statement:
"What a disappointment to hear President Obama's revealing comments challenging the significance of America's entrepreneurs. His unfortunate remarks over the weekend show an utter lack of understanding and appreciation for the people who take a huge personal risk and work endless hours to start a business and create jobs.
"I'm sure every small-business owner who took a second mortgage on their home, maxed out their credit cards or borrowed money from their own retirement savings to start their business disagrees strongly with President Obama's claim."------------- Gary Bauer is is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families. Tags:Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Barack Obama, documents, Release the documents, Obama Berates Businesses Owners, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Libor manipulation To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The NRCC: President Obama's recent remarks about American business owners is yet another reminder that the President is woefully out of touch. American entrepreneurs are the engine of job growth for our country -- they work hard, make sacrifices, and deserve their success.
TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO:
He still doesn't get it, does he?
President Obama: "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
But American small business did built it, Mr. President. And they've done it without taxpayer-funded bailouts or sweetheart deals to failed companies like Solyndra.
They didn't wait for somebody else to make it happen. And they didn't ask Washington for a handout.
Throughout our history, American entrepreneurs have sacrificed their time and treasure to follow their dreams. In the process, they put Americans to work and built a nation.
All they ask is for a government that -- as another President put it -- will stand by their side, not ride on their back.
If you can't understand what drives our economy, Mr. President, how can you expect to fix it? Tags: President Obama, Barack Obama, job growth, entrepreneurs, small business, job creators, he doesn't get it, election 2012, NRCCTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Obama Thoughts: Pay Not Attention All The Economic Destruction Over the past 3 1/2 years!
Ignore: Covering Up Obama Scandals
Besides, Joe Biden and Bob Beckel F----n' Love me!
Screw America! It is no better than any other country. Tags:Barack Obama, hypnotist, economic destruction, Obama Scandals, Joe Biden, Bob Beckel, Political Cartoon, A.F. Branco To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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VanderSloot’s rags-to-riches story is not unlike other American tales of individuals who have benefited from the free market. In VanderSloot’s case, however, that success came with a price — but only when he decided a write a check to a super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.
