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 28, 2012
Deneen Borelli - "We Are Here To Restore Liberty"
Friday, Deneen Borelli spoke at FreedomWorks for America's - FreePac rally held before the Glenn Beck Restoring Love rally.
Selected Quotes from Deneen Borelli's Speech:
~ My friends, we are here to restore liberty. I didn't say we are her to "fundamentally transform Amrica." We are here to restore liberty and to save our country.
~ To save our country from President Obama and his failed policies.
~ The crushing debt, the spending , the regulations, unemployment - 8.2%; 14.4% in the black community; over 39% among black youth. He is failing our country.
~ Americans, my patriots, America is an exceptional country. Where any one can succeed ... by hardwork and perserverance.
~ In case you were wondering, unlike Michelle Obama, I have always been proud of my country!
~ And, that is why I wrote BlackLash: How Obama and the left are driving Americans to the Government plantation.
~ It is up to We The People to hold the line for liberty; stand the line for liberty; play your role and hold the line for liberty.
~ President Obama is desperate now; he is desperate playing class warfare.
~ And No! No the government is not responsible for my success.
~I am challenging the liberal establishment. You know who they are: President Obama, Eric Holder, Maxine Walters, Charlie Rangel. Look at what they have done to the black community:
- deplorable public schools - black on black crimes - where were their voices when the New Black Panther Party members were screaming blood shed and revolution in the streets, Where were their voices.
~ And speaking of Eric Holder playing the race card with Voter ID laws, a disgrace, he is a disgrace. Remember when he called Americans cowards. Well where are the documents for "Fast and Furious/" Who is the coward?
~ Our country does not guarantee your success, but Liberty guarantees you the opportunity to succeed.
~If you are citizen spectator, you need to step up your game.
--------------- Deneen Borelli is a member of Project 21, a network of black conservatives which is an initiative of The National Center for Public Policy Research, a national public policy group based in Washington, D.C. In addition, Deneen is a contributor on the Fox News Channel programs and has appeared on FNC programs such as "Glenn Beck," "The O'Reilly Factor," "Your World with Neil Cavuto," "Hannity" and "Fox and Friends." Deneen has also appeared on MSNBC, CNN, the BBC and C-SPAN. Deneen is also a columnist with The Daily Caller, and her commentaries on the importance of freedom and limited government have been published by numerous newspapers and blogs. She is also the author of BlackLash Tags:Deneen Brelli, speech, freedom, liberty, Americans, FreePAC, Tea Party, 2012 ElectionTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Sen. Mike Lee - "Not So Bad, If You Don't Think About It"
Friday, Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, spoke at FreedomWorks for America's - FreePac rally held before the Glenn Beck Restoring Love rally.
Sen. Mike Lee
Selected Quotes from Sen. Mike Lee's Speech:
~ I love people who love freedom.
~ He [President Obama] puts words that don't make much senseto a catchy tune and he expects us not to think about it.
~ $16 Trillion debt isn't that bad, if you don't think about it.
~ Unemployment that has been above 8 percent for years is oaky, if you don't think about it.
~ Adding to the National debt at an aoutstanding rate at over 1 Trillion dollars a year is just fine, if you don't think about it.
~ But you know Mr. President, some of us are thinking about it!
~ We need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
~ Congress has stopped asking: What is the Proper Roll of Government.
~We [Conservative congress members] are going to resist every attempt to raise the national debt limit until we put in place the principles of cut, cap and balance -- and first, put in place a Balance Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
~We as American citizens were born to be free. We as American citizens are blessed by Almighty God with a land where men and women would be free as long as they continued to honor Him and as long as they continued to strive for liberty.
------------------ Michael Shumway "Mike" Lee is the junior U.S. from Utah (R). He has been a constitutional lawyer in Utah and Washington, D.C, in addition to serving as a clerk for then-Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr.. At the age of 41, Lee is the youngest current U.S. senator. He is also the author of the book, The Freedom Agenda. Tags:U.S. Senator, Mike Lee, Utah, speech, freedom, liberty, Americans, FreePAC, Tea Party, 2012 Election, If You Don't Think About It, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Selected Quotes from John Fund's Speech:
~ Politics is too important to be left to the politicians. Ir requires citizen activism and citizen engagement.
~ I don't believe in representation without respiration. {The voting Dead.]
~ We have two problems this November: 1) We have the sloppiest election systems of any industrialized democracy; 2) We have voter fraud.
~ If we don't clean up our election system ... we could see another Florida style melt down like the year 2000.
~ Let me ward you there are 10,000 lawyers on eithr side waiting to monitor this election . . . if they see any problems . . . lawsuits!
~ In Minnesotan last Senatorial election . . . 12,000 felons voted illegally.
~ Voter fraud is a lot like shoplifting, if you ignore it, if you sweep it under the rung, if you don't prosecute it -- it will happen. people think there is no risk, they will be prey to human nature. [They will steal!]
~ Just like shoplifting, you let people know you are watching, let people know you care; you let people know thy will be prosecuted; you can cut down voter fraud dramatically.
~ We are told constantly that voter fraud is racist, ... we have two two civil rights {in regard to voting] in this country, 1) the right to not be prosecuted from voting and 2) right to NOT have your vote cancelled out by someone who shouldn't be voting because they're dead, because they're an illegal alien, because they're a felon who shouldn't be voting, because they moved to another state , because they don't even exist!
--------------
John H. Fund is an American political journalist and conservative columnist. He is the senior editor of The American Spectator and was previously a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Tags:John Fund, Barack Obama, FreePAC, POTUS 2012, Restoring Love, Tea Party, 2012 Election, Voter FraudTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
By Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: Every fall, it seems, Americans are subjected to the ugly spectacle of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad coming to New York to address the UN General Assembly. There, at the podium, he is placed on a par with President Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron, France's Francois Hollande, and other leaders of civilized states. Ahmadinejad has used this podium to spew his anti-American, anti-Israel hatred. And yet he receives hearty applause from the Islamist delegates seated before him.
Iran signed the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights as long ago as 1948. That's when Iran was ruled by the Shah. That UNDHR contains this provision, Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Even though Iran is a signatory to this UN document, the mullahs' theocracy that rules in Tehran today flagrantly violates this article. Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani is in prison under sentence of death unless he recants his conversion to Christianity. A worldwide appeal has been made for Pastor Nadarkhani. Even the U.S. State Department--which under this administration has been extraordinarily lax in calling for the rights of Christians to be respected--has called for his release.
Rev. Behnam Irani, a 41-year old Evangelical Christian, is also in prison. He's accused of endangering national security for holding Bible studies in his home. Pastor Irani has been beaten and tortured for his faith. There are reportedly many other Christians in Iranian prisons, threatened with death for no other reason than professing Christ.
We are living in a time of Christian persecution unparalleled since the days of Hitler and the Soviet Gulag. And yet the UN remains in thrall to its Islamist bloc. To them, apparently, threatening their own people with death for conversion is perfectly normal, wholly acceptable.
It's time to give teeth to the State Department warnings. The U.S. should demand the ouster of Iran from the UN.
Iran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. Iran is defying the world body on the question of nuclear proliferation. It should not do this with impunity.
Even if the U.S. cannot bring the UN General Assembly expel Iran's dictatorship by a majority vote, it would nonetheless put that majority on notice that our patience with murder cloaked in religious zeal is at an end. We should inform the UN that America's contribution to the world body's budget will be reduced so long as it harbors terrorists.
Tough words are empty unless backed by strong actions. President Theodore Roosevelt did not have to cater to a world assembly filled with bloody despots. He quoted the African proverb: Speak softly, but carry a big stick. It's time for the big stick. And let's remember: T.R. won the Nobel Peace Prize for his strong and effective diplomacy.
---------------- Ken Blackwell, former U.S. ambassador is to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service. Tags:Ken Blackwell, ambassador, UN, United Nations, Iran, sponsor of terror, persecuting Christian, dictatorship, human rights violations, nuclear proliferation, Boot Iran from UN, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
And the conservative new media, e.g., ARRA News Services, causes liberal politicians to prevaricate, to spend more money, to kill jobs, to establish Obamacare, to trample on people's rights . . . Tags:blame game, William Warren, political cartoonTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Chick-Fil-A Publicly Acknowledges It’s Conservative, Media Upset
Media angry company president says ‘we are very much supportive of the family.’ Ryan Robertson [ Full Story ] Tags:Business, Faith, Family, Politics, Chick-fil-A, Same-Sex Marriage, Glenn Foden, political cartoon, MRCTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
President Obama Attacks Business While Promoting Big Government
“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
— Barack Obama, Roanoke, Va., July 13
And who might that somebody else be? Government, says Obama. It built the roads you drive on. It provided the teacher who inspired you. It “created the Internet.” It represents the embodiment of “we’re in this together” social solidarity that, in Obama’s view, is the essential origin of individual and national achievement. Charles Krauthammer explains at NRO.
"Weaker" GDP Report Underscores Folly Of Dems' Vote To Raise Taxes
Today in Washington, D.C. - July 27, 2012:
Both The Senate or the House are in recess today and will reconvene on Monday.
When the Senate returns it will resume post cloture consideration of S. 3414, the cybersecurity bill and will take up the nomination of Robert Bacharach to be United States Circuit Judge for the 10th Circuit. After an hour of debate, the Senate will vote on cloture on the nomination. Following the vote, the Senate will return to the cybersecurity bill. Yesterday, the Senate voted 84-11 to invoke cloture (cut off debate) on the motion to proceed to S. 3414, the cybersecurity bill.
Yesterday the House passed (245-172 ) H.R. 4078 — "To provide that no agency may take any significant regulatory action until the unemployment rate is equal to or less than 6.0 percent." The House also passed by voice vote, H. Con. Res. 134 — "Condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the heinous atrocities that occurred in Aurora, Colorado."
The New York Times reports today, “The United States economy grew by a tepid 1.5 percent annual rate in the second quarter, losing the momentum it had appeared to be gaining earlier this year, the government reported Friday. Growth was curbed as consumers limited new spending and as business investment slowed in the face of a global slowdown and a stronger dollar. . . . A slowdown in household spending was the primary damper on growth, as consumers increased their savings rate, a sign of increased uncertainty about the future.”
And the AP writes, “U.S. economic growth slowed to an annual rate of just 1.5 percent from April through June, as Americans cut back sharply on spending. The weaker growth adds to worries that the economy could be stalling three years after the recession ended. . . . Growth at or below 2 percent isn't enough to lower the unemployment rate, which was 8.2 percent last month. And most economists don't expect growth to pick up much in the second half of the year. Europe's financial crisis and a looming budget crisis in the U.S. are expected to slow business investment further. ‘The main take away from today's report, the specifics aside, is that the U.S. economy is barely growing,’ said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at BTIG LLC. ‘Along with a reduction in the actual amount of money companies were able to make, it's no wonder the unemployment rate cannot move lower.’”
Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson responded to today's report that the economy slowed in the second quarter to only 1.5 percent growth: "Gross Domestic Product numbers throughout 2008 failed to show that we were in a recession, when in reality the downturn had begun in the fourth quarter of 2007. And now, once again, the economy is visibly slowing down with only 1.5 percent growth, but are we already in another recession? At best, we're at stall speed, but we may already be contracting.
"Our early warning systems are broken, and economists are left only to extrapolate that we are in serious trouble. Meanwhile, Obama is doing nothing to get the economy back on its feet again. His only plan is to raise taxes on job creators, wage his war on business, and spend us into oblivion. The 'stimulus' has failed, and yet all the talk is the Fed will try to administer another dose of quantitative easing, or money printing, that will do nothing to get us out of this ditch. It is time for new leadership. We need a return to sound money, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and a complete unraveling of the environmental, labor, and health regulations that are strangling growth."
The tepid GDP numbers today only serve to highlight how misguided Senate Democrats’ vote yesterday to raise taxes on nearly a million small businesses was. Fifty-one Democrats voted to raise taxes, despite President Obama’s warning when he signed a full extension of current tax rates two years ago that automatic tax increases on every American “would have been a blow to our economy just as we're climbing out of a devastating recession.”
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier this week, “[H]ere’s the Democrat plan for the economy: we’ll get this thing going again by raising taxes. Let’s take more money out of a small business and send it to Washington that’s how we’ll create jobs. . . . If you’re looking for the legislative equivalent of the President’s now famous view that ‘You didn’t build that’, this is it. They don’t think you deserve to keep what you’ve earned because you’re not responsible for earning it. They are. That’s the message Democrats are sending with today’s votes, that you’re not responsible for your success, Washington is. So give us your money, and we’ll handle it for you. That’s their tax plan. That’s their plan for the economy and jobs.”
Tags:Weaker GDP, GSP, failing economy, economy sucksTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Washington Could Learn A Lot: If you keep on digging, you'll put yourself deeper and deeper in the hole. The bureaucrats and politicians in Washington, D.C. have put this country in a $15,874,876,409,526.41 hole (U.S. national debt ending on July 20, 2012).
WashingtonCouldLearnALot.com is a project of Public Notice Research and Education Fund (PNREF). PNREF is an independent non-profit dedicated to educating the American people about economic policy and the principles of economic freedom. PNREF believes an empowered American public will cause lawmakers to be better stewards of the nation’s economy, and of Americans’ economic freedom. If you agree, watch, comment and share this video! Tags:Debt, economy, jobs, Washington, bureaucrats, politics, fiscal policy, out of control spending, spending, election, congress, small business, business, Government Agencies, regulations, White House, United States Congress, killing job creators, digging a hole, Time To Stop Digging, Washington Could Learn A LotTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Phyllis Schlafly and Dr. Bill Smith (ARRA News Service) Discussing Threats To America! Photo by Julie McKinney (NC)
by Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum: The United Nations in collusion with Obama’s globalists have cooked up another scheme to slice off a piece of U.S. sovereignty and put us under global government. The plan is to stampede the Senate into ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
This particular piece of globalist mischief had been unnoticed since President Obama ordered UN Ambassador Susan Rice to sign this treaty on July 30, 2009. Now he is trying to ram it through to ratification.
The notion that the UN can provide more benefits or protections for persons with disabilities than the U.S. is bizarre. The United States always treats individuals, able or disabled, rich or poor, innocent or guilty, better than any other nation.
We certainly don’t need a committee of foreigners who call themselves “experts” to dictate our laws or customs. But that’s what this treaty and most other UN treaties try to do.
We already have protections and benefits for persons with disabilities enshrined in U.S. laws, regulations, and enforcement mechanisms. Prominent among these laws are the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Other laws that benefit persons with disabilities are the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986, the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, and the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968. These federal laws are enforced by numerous federal agencies, particularly the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
The UN General Assembly adopted the CRPD on December 13, 2006 and it became part of what globalists euphemistically call international law on May 3, 2008, after 20 nations ratified it. The treaty now has 117 nations that have ratified it.
Under the CRPD, we would be required to make regular reports to a “committee of experts” to prove we are obeying the treaty. The “experts” would have the authority to review our reports and make “such suggestions and general recommendations on the report as it may consider appropriate.”
These demands are often outside the treaty’s scope of subject matter. They override national sovereignty in pursuit of social engineering, feminist ideology, or merely busybody interference in a country’s internal affairs.
CRPD’s Article 7 gives the government the power to override every decision of the parent of a disabled child by using the caveat “the best interest of the child.” This phrase has already been abused by family courts to substitute judges’ decisions for parents’ decisions, and transferring the use of that phrase to the government or to a UN committee is the wrong way to go.
The feminists saw to it that this treaty on disabilities includes language in Article 25 that requires signatory states to “provide persons with disabilities … free or affordable health care … including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based health programmes.” Wow!
When the UN approved the CRPD, the United States made a statement that the phrase “reproductive health” does not include abortion. But that’s just whistling in the wind because international law does not recognize the validity of one nation’s reservations to a treaty ratified by many other nations.
Furthermore, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on record as stating that the definition of “reproductive health” includes abortion. In testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on April 22, 2009, she said: “Family planning is an important part of women’s health, and reproductive health includes access to abortion.”
After ratification, treaties become part of the “supreme law” of the United States on a par with federal statutes. That gives supremacist judges the power to invent their own interpretations, which some are all too eager to do.
It’s easy to predict that some pro-abortion supremacist judges will rule that the CRPD, if part of the supreme law of our land, includes abortion. Several Supreme Court justices, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have urged us to use foreign law in interpreting U.S. domestic law.
Americans may differ about the legality and the scope of abortion rights, but it’s unlikely that any of us want those decisions to be made by a UN “committee of experts.”
Another problem with this treaty on disabilities is its failure to give workable definitions. When the treaty states that “disability is an evolving concept,” that means open sesame for litigation against the U.S.
This treaty is a broadside attack on parents’ rights to raise their children, and it’s a particular threat to homeschooling families because of the known bureaucratic bias against homeschooling and against spanking. It is clear that both the United States and persons with disabilities are much better off relying on U.S. law than on any UN treaty. Tags:Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum, United Nations, UN, UN Treaty, Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, disabilities, parents' rightsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Blueprint for States to Reject and Replace Obamacare
Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski, Contributing Authors: Here’s the blueprint for how the states can reject three central pillars of Obamacare and set the stage for replacing it, if Mitt Romney takes the White House and the GOP takes the Senate this November.
Two reasons compel dismantling Obamacare. First is restoring individual liberty by empowering states against the national government and citizens against both. Second is recognizing that free markets outperform centrally-planned markets, so private-sector healthcare will better serve Americans than government-controlled Obamacare ever could.
However disappointing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obamacare’s individual mandate in a 5–4 decision, by a separate 7–2 vote the justices opened the door for the states to assert their sovereignty in an equally-unprecedented opportunity. The Court has declared for decades that it’s theoretically possible for federal spending to exceed Congress’ power under the Spending Clause of the Constitution, thereby violating the Tenth Amendment. That possibility became reality on June 28.
Medicaid is nominally a federal-state “partnership” consuming 20% of state budgets. Obamacare grows Medicaid by an additional $434 billion per decade to cover all Americans up to 138% of the poverty line. The feds promise to pay for 90% of this expansion (though they cannot be held to that), leaving states to pay at least another $50 billion.
If any state declines to participate in the expansion, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could strip that state of 100% of its Medicaid dollars. Every voter in that state would continue funding Medicaid through payroll taxes twice a month, but now would be subsidizing the other 49 states. Rejecting the expansion would thus be a political death wish for any governor or legislature.
This coercion is an unconstitutional violation of state sovereignty, so the Court struck down part of Obamacare’s massive Medicaid expansion. The four justices against the individual mandate would have invalidated this entire expansion. While Chief Justice Roberts wouldn’t go that far, he was willing to strike down the provision authorizing stripping all Medicaid funds. So now states can refuse to expand Medicaid by foregoing the additional funding.
So first, states must reject the Medicaid expansion. This will leave millions of people subject to the individual mandate unable to get coverage from this government entitlement. Many of those people are exempt from the penalty (tax?) anyway, but others are not. Those people vote heavily Democratic, and they’ll surely demand the mandate be amended to exempt them.
Second, states must refuse to create state-based exchanges, which provide heavily-subsidized insurance policies to middle-income Americans not provided healthcare by employers. Because it would violate the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle to require states to create or run the exchanges, if a state doesn’t do it, HHS will directly create and run it.
But there are no tax subsidies if HHS runs an exchange, so no incentive for people to flock to the exchanges; they’d pay full price. While many high-risk individuals would do so, it would still be vastly more expensive. Many will instead choose to pay the penalty (tax?) for violating the individual mandate.
Third, if employers with 50+ employees do not provide federally-approved healthcare, Obamacare imposes a $2,000 penalty per employee, per year. (Minimum penalty $100,000.) However, that penalty is triggered when those employees receive tax subsidies from a state-based exchange.
Since HHS-run exchanges have no subsidies, for states refuseing to create exchanges, no employer in that state will be subject to that penalty. This means business owners will band together to lobby their state not to set up exchanges.
More than half the states sued to have Obamacare struck down. Presumably most will now pursue their options to decline the Medicaid expansion, not create exchanges, and thereby also save their companies from federal penalties. Medicaid, the exchanges, and the employer mandate are three of the central pillars of the Obamacare system.
This will create an unworkable patchwork nationwide, between states with semi-socialized medicine and healthcare costs spiraling out of control, versus those with private-sector medicine. Expect doctors, insurers, and providers to flock to these friendlier states, creating an increasingly unbalanced system. Then Obamacare will start coming apart at the seams, and momentum will build to repeal and replace.
---------------------- Former Ohio Treasurer Ken Blackwell and Breitbart News legal contributor Ken Klukowski are on faculty at Liberty University and the authors of Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America. Both are Contributors to the ARRA News Service. Tags:Blueprint for states, replace Obamacare, Obamacare, Ken Blackwell, Ken KlukowskTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott: Some partisans use blustery rhetoric against Texas' voter ID law. But when viewed under a courtroom microscope — under oath — personal beliefs and opinions give way to the proven facts about voter ID: Voter fraud is real, voter ID doesn't suppress votes, and the U.S. Supreme Court has already approved voter ID as a legal, nondiscriminatory response to voter fraud.
As Texas' attorney general, I've prosecuted voter fraud across the state, including people who voted using dead people's names; a candidate who unlawfully registered ineligible foreign nationals to vote; a man who voted twice on Election Day; an election worker who attempted to vote for someone else with the same last name; and a person who used someone else's registration card to vote. In addition to the many cases my office has prosecuted, other county, state and federal authorities have handled countless voter fraud investigations.
The recent voter ID trial revealed even more disturbing voter fraud. Texas has more than 50,000 dead people registered to vote. Even worse, at least 239 dead people voted in the May election — 213 of them in person. State Sen. Tommy Williams testified that ballots have been cast for his long-deceased grandfather. A person even attempted to vote for an inmate.
State Reps. Jose Aliseda and Aaron Peña testified that South Texas is plagued with voter fraud. Rep. Aliseda also testified that non-citizens voted in Bee County elections. In the past year, hundreds of people who claimed they were non-citizens had to be removed from the voter rolls.
Voter ID critics turn a blind eye to illegal voting and instead rail against voter ID as discriminatory and disenfranchising. The facts prove otherwise. Opponents of voter ID were unable to produce a single Texan who would be unable to vote because of the voter ID law. States with voter ID laws have seen minority vote participation increase, not decrease. Texas makes it easy to comply with the law by providing a free photo ID to any eligible voter who doesn't have one. Also, voters who are disabled or older than 65 can vote by mail — so they can vote without a photo ID.
Even the star witness hired to testify against Texas' voter ID law agrees that photo ID laws prevent “almost no one” from voting and has stated that the voting rights concerns raised by partisans who oppose voter ID laws are “overblown.” That star witness also agrees that comparing voter ID laws to Jim Crow and poll tax laws is unjustified.
Just four years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that voter ID laws are nondiscriminatory and perfectly constitutional. The high court held that even in states unable to prove voter impersonation, voter ID laws are justified by the need to protect the integrity of the election process. The court emphasized that the inconvenience of gathering all the required documents, going to the department of motor vehicles, and posing for a photo is simply not an infringement on the right to vote.
Voter ID laws do not prevent legal votes. Instead, they ensure legal votes are not diluted by illegal ones. Fraudulent voting must be stopped, and voter ID laws will help us stop it.
---------- Gregory Wayne "Greg" Abbott is the Texas Attorney General, and is the second Republican since Reconstruction to serve in that role. Abbott is in his third term which expires in 2014. He is also rumored as a possible candidate for Governor in 2014 if Governor Rick Perry doesn't seek a fourth term. Although this article was provided AG Abbott, the article was also an opinion article today on My San Antonio. Tags:voter ID, dead voters, registered dead voters, voter rolls, Greg Abbott, Texas, Attorney General, TexasTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Deroy Murdock, National Review: Why is America’s economy hogtied? For one answer, consider the excellent chart released Tuesday by the Republican staff of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC). With devastating clarity, it illustrates the miles and miles of red tape that bind the hands of entrepreneurs and CEOs like those of hijacked jet passengers. Regulation is a major and mounting cost that consumes scare resources — namely growth capital, management time, and basic patience.
In a Capitol Hill press conference yesterday morning, Representative Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas), echoed the growing frustration that he and other congressmen hear from businessmen and women who fruitlessly scream, “Uncle!”
“If you talk to any small businessperson in America — somebody who worked hard, took a risk, risked capital, built something — the first thing they say is, ‘With all due respect, Mr. President, I built this business, you didn’t,’” Hensarling observed.
“The second thing they’re going to say is, ‘Mr. President, since there has now been a 52 percent increase in major regulations or red tape in your administration and more regulations on the books than in any time in the history of America, not only did you not build this business, you’re hurting this business.’”
Onerous regulations erupt from Washington like flaming rocks from a volcano. The National Labor Relations Board regularly coughs up such projectiles. As attorney William J. Kilberg explained in the July 12 Wall Street Journal, the NLRB last September authorized “micro” bargaining units among larger workforces within union shops. An NLRB judge, for instance, recently certified a mini-union that represents the women’s shoes departments on the third and fifth floors of Bergdorf Goodman’s New York City store. Imagine such a retail manager negotiating wages and benefits, not with his entire staff, but with various floors and even departments under his roof.
Tie salesmen of Bergdorf’s unite. You have nothing but your clip-ons to lose!
Representative Vicky Hartzler (R., Missouri) noted yesterday that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration approached a factory in her district and “is demanding that they paint a yellow line on their flat roof ten feet from the edge, just in case an employee goes up there, so they know where the edge of the roof is.” Every dollar spent on that paint job is a dollar that no longer can pay a summer intern or purchase a help-wanted ad.
As the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Battered Business Bureaureports, the federal government promulgated 1,283 pages of brand-new regulations via the Federal Register just last week. On July 20 alone, 25 new rules sprang to life. Between New Year’s Day 2012 and last Friday, American business people have grappled with 2,127 new regulations.
“Small businesses will tell you that they are strangling under the weight of red tape,” said Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the JEC’s top Republican. “This president is on pace to add more red tape in America than any president in history.”
An April 16 U.S. Chamber of Commerce poll of 1,339 small-business executives with 500 or fewer employees and revenues up to $25 million found that “80 percent . . . report that taxation, regulation, and legislation from Washington make it harder for their business to hire more employees. Nearly three out of four (73 percent) of small businesses surveyed cite the recent health care law as an obstacle to growing their business and hiring more employees.” The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. (Full disclosure: I have been a paid participant at several USCOC events over the years.)
Representative Hensarling yesterday recalled his conversation with the owner of a Texas cabinetry shop with 17 workers.
“The guy just finally threw in the keys and shut it down,” Hensarling stated. “I asked him why, and he said, ‘You know what? It got to the point where I thought my federal government didn’t want me to succeed."
-------------------------- Note: Deroy Murdock's excellent article drew from various press conferences and other public sources. The chart was furnished by the Joint Economic Committee Republicans. Readers are encouraged to read Murdock's articles on the National Review Online. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, referenced in the article, also ran the same article and provided the article to the ARRA News Service; however, we have linked directly to the original source. Tags:small business, government, red tape, US. Chamber of Commerce, poll, Jeb Hensarling, Vicky Hartzler, Competitive Enterprise Institute, the economy, The Corner, Deroy Murock, National Review OnlineTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Senate Dems For High Taxes; House Passes "Audit The Fed" Bill
Today in Washington, D.C. - July 26, 2012:
The Senate reconvened at 9:30 AM today. Pending is the motion to proceed to S. 3414, the cybersecurity bill.; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill last night. If an agreement is worked out, the vote could be held today. If not, the vote is scheduled for Friday morning.
Yesterday, 51 Senate Democrats voted to pass a bill (S. 3412) raising taxes on small businesses and increasing the death tax rate.
Prior to that vote, Senate Democrats voted down an amendment offered by Leader McConnell and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), ranking member of the Finance Committee, that would have extended all current tax rates for another year.
The House reconvened at 9 AM today. The House is continuing its debate on H.R. 4078 - "To provide that no agency may take any significant regulatory action until the unemployment rate is equal to or less than 6.0 percent." The vote expected today will be most likely be along party lines.
The ">ARRA News Service reported on the House yesterday passing H.R. 459, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. The bill calls for a full audit of the Federal Reserve System-- including its lending facilities and critical monetary policy operations-- passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan vote of 327-98. The House also passed H.R. 6082 (253-170), "To officially replace, within the 60-day Congressional review period under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, President Obama's Proposed Final Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program (2012-2017) with a congressional plan that will conduct additional oil and natural gas lease sales to promote offshore energy development, job creation, and increased domestic energy production to ensure a more secure energy future in the United States, and for other purposes." Yesterday, the house voted down (164-261) H.R. 6168 - "Directing the Secretary of the Interior to implement the Proposed Final Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program (2012-2017) in accordance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and other applicable law."
Regarding the passage of the "Audit the Fed" bill. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), sponsor of the bill, responded, “It has been a long, hard fight, but Congress finally is getting serious about exercising its oversight responsibility over the Federal Reserve. Auditing the Fed is a common sense issue supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people. The Fed’s trillions of dollars worth of asset purchases and its ongoing support of foreign central banks cannot be allowed to continue without Congressional oversight. Today’s passage of H.R. 459 is a good first step towards full Fed transparency, and I hope that the Senate will consider the bill before the end of the year.”
Regarding yesterday's votes on taxes in the Senate, this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell discussed Senate Democrats’ votes yesterday to raise taxes as the economy continues to struggle. “Last night Democrats took a vote that says a lot about the way they view the world. After nearly four years of spending and debt, millions of Americans are still struggling amidst the slowest recovery in modern times, and the economy is flat on its back. And they want to raise taxes. Under the guise of pretending to care about the deficit, Democrats are pushing an ideological goal of a symbolic tax increase that won’t even fund the government for a week. They’re not even pretending to care about the economy any more.”
Politico called the action “a largely political vote,” pointing out the Democrats’ tax hike “now heads to the Republican-led House, where it is dead on arrival.” And The Washington Post dubbed it a “largely symbolic victory for Democrats who have been pushing to raise taxes on the rich for more than a decade.”
Democrats seemed to acknowledge that the vote was more about the election than the economy. The Post wrote, “Democratic lawmakers said the Senate’s 51-48 vote is a political breakthrough that strengthens their election-year argument that Republicans are holding tax cuts for the middle class hostage in order to maintain breaks worth $160,000 a year to the average millionaire.” The New York Times’Jonathan Weisman tweeted from a press conference Democrats scrambled to organize following the vote, “[Sen. Chuck] Schumer cuts to the chase: ‘This will be a positive day for November.’”
Addressing Vice President Joe Biden, who was presiding, and others in the chamber before yesterday’s vote, Politico notes “[McConnell] said Biden and other Democrats were flip flopping because they supported extending the same cuts in 2010. ‘So we know this is not about the economy,’ McConnell said. ‘We know this is about the election.’”
If Democrats were really concerned about the economy, why would they support tax increases now, with the economy in worse shape than when they supported extending all the tax rates in 2010? Two years ago, 40 Senate Democrats supported the bill to extend all the tax rates, but yesterday 51 voted to raise taxes. The GDP grew at 3.5% over the four quarters preceding the December 2010 vote, but grew at only 2% in the four quarters prior to yesterday’s vote. When President Obama signed the bill extending the tax rates, he said a tax increase “would have been a blow to our economy just as we're climbing out of a devastating recession.” And of course he famously told MSNBC in 2009, “You don't raise taxes in a recession.”
As Sen. McConnell additional said today, “They’re not even pretending to care about the economy. They've sort of given up on the argument that this is about the economy. We know that because two years ago the Democrats agreed that this tax increase, they're now fighting to increase -- two years ago they agreed it would hurt the economy. . . . Yet now, when the growth rate is 2 percent -- 3.5 percent then, 2 percent now -- and 13 million Americans are still out of work, they're voting to slam nearly a million businesses with a tax increase.” Tags:Washington, D.C., House, Audit the Fed, Senate, Democrats, high taxesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
WASHINGTON, July 24 – Congressman Ron Paul today applauded the passage by the House of Representatives of H.R. 459, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. The bill, which calls for a full audit of the Federal Reserve System-- including its lending facilities and critical monetary policy operations-- passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan vote of 327-98.
“I am very pleased that the House passed my Audit the Fed legislation today,” Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) stated. “It has been a long, hard fight, but Congress finally is getting serious about exercising its oversight responsibility over the Federal Reserve. Auditing the Fed is a common sense issue supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people. The Fed’s trillions of dollars worth of asset purchases and its ongoing support of foreign central banks cannot be allowed to continue without Congressional oversight. Today’s passage of H.R. 459 is a good first step towards full Fed transparency, and I hope that the Senate will consider the bill before the end of the year.”
Congress Tim Griffin (R-AR), a co-sponsor of the bill, said, “With America’s unemployment rate above 8 percent for 41 straight months and no economic recovery in sight, the Federal Reserve is reportedly considering another round of quantitative easing. Far-reaching decisions like these should be subject to public scrutiny, and the Fed should be accountable and transparent to Congress and the American people. This bill to audit the Fed will promote healthy financial markets and change the way Washington does business, and that’s why it has my full support.”
The Fed’s Board of Governors and Federal Reserve District Banks are audited annually by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) the same way other federal banking agencies are audited. However, the Fed’s monetary policy operations are excluded from the GAO’s existing audit authority. H.R. 459 would require a one-time, complete audit of the Fed followed by a detailed report to Congress within 1 year of enactment. It also allows the GAO to conduct additional, future audits without restriction.
The Fed’s policy-making committee meets next week, and The New York Times reported yesterday: “The Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, told Congress last week that the options under consideration include a new round of asset purchases, or ‘quantitative easing,’ often described as QE3. As part of any such program, officials increasingly favor expanding the Fed’s holdings of mortgage-backed securities for the first time since 2010.”
Since the financial crisis of 2008, the Fed has tripled its balance sheet to $3 trillion, which is equal to 20 percent of the United States’ economy. Tags:U.S. House, H.R. 459, Audit the Fed, Ron Paul, Tim GriffinTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Dear President Obama, Generate A Climate of Opportunity... But Not By Spending
Ralph Benko
by Ralph Benko, Contributing Author: President Obama recently generated a furor with his speech in Roanoke, Virginia, in which he stated: There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who … know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. ... If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.... If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.This has created fury from the right and unease from the center, as well it should. The fury and unease arise because this statement represents a grotesque distortion of an important truth, even more troubling than a downright lie. Later in the speech Obama paraphrases the Declaration of Independence, subtly distorting it and deeply subverting its meaning:[I]n this country, you have some God-given rights: a life in liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and a belief that all of us are equal — (applause) — and that we’re not guaranteed success, but we’re guaranteed the right to work hard for success. (Applause.)Actually, Mr. President, the Declaration says that “all… are created equal,” implying equality of opportunity not equality of outcomes, not “all of us are equal.” A nuance, perhaps, but a critical one. The claim that “we’re guaranteed the right to work hard for success” — is also insidiously distorted. A “right to work hard for success” is belied when coupled with the assertion of a (constitutionally nonexistent) paternalistic federal power to intervene to take away as many of the fruits of that success as should please our liege to take.
The recipe by which Americans have prospered lies not in some sort of state action but in opportunity. Obama uses a warped logic of federal noblesse oblige to dispense a bag full of goodies from tuition tax credits, to a mortgage refinancing credit, to public works projects. His litany brings to mind the indictment of FDR’s New Deal in Liaquat Ahamed’s Pulitzer Prize winning Lords of Finance: The string of measures was a strange mixture of well-meaning steps at social reform, half-baked schemes for quasi-socialist industrial planning, regulation to protect consumers, welfare programs to help the hardest hit, government support for the cartelization of industry, higher wages for some, lower wages for others, on the one hand government pump priming, on the other public economy. Few elements were well thought out, some were contradictory, large parts were ineffectual. While much of the legislation was very laudable, aimed as it was at improving social justice and bringing a modicum of economic security to people who had none, it had little to do with boosting the economy.The federal government plays a central roll in the economy. It does this not by playing Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. It, through tax, fiscal, monetary and other policy, establishes an economic climate that generates — or strangles — opportunity. Opportunity, not largesse, is the Holy Grail of economic growth and equitable prosperity. Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling book, Outliers: The Story of Success, observes:[N]o one—not rock stars, nor professional athletes, not software billionaires, and nor even geniuses—ever makes it alone.But this only superficially similar observation has dramatically different implications from those posited by Obama. It does not, as Obama implies, mean that people need government subsidies — a demeaning view of Americans, who yearn to succeed on their merits. It does not justify funding subsidies by confiscating some of the wealth of the super-successful. It means, instead, that success is governed by four, not three, variables: talent, industriousness, social intelligence, and opportunity. Gladwell:But what truly distinguishes [the] histories [of the super-successful] is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities. ...
[T]ake a close look at the … list of the seventy-five richest people in human history. ... As you can see, it includes queens and kings and pharaohs from centuries past, as well as contemporary billionaires....
…
Of the seventy-five names, an astonishing fourteen are Americans born within nine years of one another in the mid-nineteenth century. (Emphasis added.) Think about that for a moment. Historians start with Cleopatra and the pharaohs and comb through every corner of the world for evidence of extraordinary wealth, and almost 20 percent of the names they end up with come from a single generation in a single country....
What’s going on here? The answer becomes obvious if you think about it. In the 1860s and 1870s, the American economy went through perhaps the greatest transformation in its history. ...[T]here was a particular, narrow nine-year window that was just perfect for seeing the potential the future held. All the fourteen men and women on the list … had vision and talent. But they also were given an extraordinary opportunity....Is it coincidence that the creation of this great wealth (for the middle class as well as the super-successful) coincided with the approach toward and institution of the classical gold standard? Not at all.
Economic historian Prof. Brian Domitrovic observed in Forbes.com: “... the record of 1878-82 and its own run of some 40% growth. In the four years prior, there had not been a historic collapse in economic growth that made the base year of 1878 low, as was the case in 1933. Rather, in the four years before 1878, growth had come in at 13%; in the previous ten years, growth had totaled 49%. In other words, 1878-82 was a mega-acceleration from a high base.
And after? Over the next decade, another historic expansion of 49%. 49% on top of 40% on top of 49%, 1868 to 1892. That’s registering “the strongest output growth…in US history outside of wartime.”
Regarding policy, there was one major shift that occurred in these heroic years in the latter 19th century. In 1879, the U.S. went back on the gold standard.
That’s right: this epic run of growth, which in no way was inferior to the best that the New Deal and Keynesianism could offer (but that in only a very short span of time), occurred as the dollar regained unimpeachable soundness.”Mr. President, there is a role for the federal government to play. The federal government has the inherent power to create a climate in which opportunity flourishes or … to strangle opportunity. Expropriating the wealth of the successful — making us all, as you say, equal — strangles opportunity, and, with it, national prosperity. Nobody ever has made the poor richer by making the rich poorer.
What made, and some day again shall make, America the Land of Opportunity is very simple: good money (of which the empirical evidence shows the gold standard to be the best); moderate taxation with low rates on a broad base; frugal federal spending; sensible regulation; and other common sense policies. When the government gets right the policies that foster opportunity, rather than patronage, Americans, and the world, will thrive.
------------ Ralph Benko is senior advisor, economics, to American Principles in Action’s Gold Standard 2012 Initiative, and a contributor to the ARRA News Service. The article which first appeared with a different title in Forbes was submitted for reprint by the author. Tags:Ralph Benko, the economy, 2012, climate of opportunity, not spendingTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Four years ago, Barack Obama campaigned on a message of hope and change. He promised to transcend partisanship, to work with Republicans. He promised to unite the country. He lied.
Barack Obama has governed like the brass-knuckles Chicago politician that he is. He has recklessly pursued a narrow, ideological agenda that is as extreme as it is out-of-touch with the values of most Americans.
Check out our latest short web ad entitled "The Hyper-Partisan President" [The Divider-InChief]. Share it with your friends and family members. Post it to your Facebook pages and Tweet about it.
Working together we can expose Obama and take our country back!
President Obama promised to set aside politics.
But he has proved to be the most partisan president in American history.
------------- 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:Obama, President Obama, Divider in chief, partisan politics, liberal agenda, Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working FamiliesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Today in Washington, D.C. - July 25, 2012:
The House reconvened and continued debate on various bills. As in the past, a majority of non-public discussions are held off the floor or in respective committees. Yesterday the House debated without final vote the following bills:
H.R. 459 — "To require a full audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks by the Comptroller General of the United States before the end of 2012, and for other purposes."
H.R. 6082 — "To officially replace, within the 60-day Congressional review period under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, President Obama's Proposed Final Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program (2012-2017) with a congressional plan that will conduct additional oil and natural gas lease sales to promote offshore energy development, job creation, and increased domestic energy production to ensure a more secure energy future in the United States, and for other purposes."
The House passed by voice vote: H.R. 4157 — "To prohibit the Secretary of Labor from finalizing a proposed rule under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 relating to child labor."
The Senate reconvened today at 9:30 AM and resumed consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3412, Democrats’ plan that would raise taxes on small businesses and revive high death tax rates.
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. 3412.
This morning Leader McConnell asked to also have votes on the Republican tax plan, which would extend current tax rates, and President Obama’s plan, which would raise taxes on small businesses and many other Americans. He also proposed a simple majority vote to put Democrats on the record as to whether they support the tax increases in their plans. If Majority Leader Harry Reid agrees, there could be up to 3 votes on the various tax plans this afternoon.
Human Events writes today, “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has an idea for cutting through all the parliamentary maneuvers and political kabuki theater: hold votes on Wednesday, in succession, on all three of the current proposals for avoiding Taxmageddon this January. Senate Democrats have been notably reticent to actually vote on any of the legislative props they’ve been waving around, particularly President Obama’s idea for taxing the hell out of small business owners, which his own Party regards with all the enthusiasm of a dead spider floating at the bottom of a coffee mug. . . . Republicans want to stave off Taxmageddon for all Americans, while the Democrats want to exclude certain politically disfavored groups. . . . Virtually everyone, pointedly including an earlier version of Barack Obama, knows that raising taxes in a recessionary economy is a horrible idea.”
So Leader McConnell went to the floor this morning asking for votes on all three plans. The Hill notes, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Republicans would allow a simple majority vote on the two tax proposals. ‘Republicans will allow a simple majority vote on the two proposals,’ McConnell said on the floor Wednesday. ‘We’ll have a simple majority vote on the Democrats’ plan and Republican plan and I would also recommend we take a simple majority vote on President Obama’s plan.’ . . . McConnell said he believes lawmakers’ positions should be on the record. ‘The only way to force people to take a stand is to make sure that today’s votes truly count,’ McConnell said. ‘By setting these votes at a 50-vote threshold, nobody on the other side can hide behind a procedural vote while leaving their views on the actual bill itself a mystery to the people who sent them here.’”
Reporters were quick to recognize the implications of Leader McConnell’s move to have simple majority votes on the various tax plans. Liberal news TPM writes, “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants his Democratic counterpart Harry Reid to show his cards. For days, Reid’s been signaling that he has at least 50 votes to pass legislation to extend the Bush tax cuts up to income of $250,000 — a close facsimile of the tax plan at the heart of President Obama’s re-election campaign.”
Roll Call points out, “The move to a simple-majority vote would ensure that the Democrats lose at least one vote on their plan. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has already announced that he would support a procedural vote to call up the Reid measure but oppose its actual passage without changes. Lieberman, who is not running for re-election in November, says that further tax code changes should take place this year.”
Other Capitol Hill reporters tweeted that the move puts significant pressure on a number of Democrats. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell observed, “Chess game in Senate. Mitch McConnell says Rs will allow simple majority vote, not 60, on Dems' tax cuts bill. Pushes D's in tough races.” And Carl Hulse of the New York Times tweeted, “Senate tax debate just got interesting with GOP decision to not block votes. Folks now recalculating, esp. those in tough 2012 races.”
And, Roll Call points out another important factor, “McConnell admitted that under most circumstances, he would muster the votes to kill the Reid measure using Senate procedural rules. In this case, he says, it really does not matter because the House is sure to reject the bill that wouldn’t extend all of the Bush tax cuts. Not only will the GOP-controlled House oppose the measure on the merits,the bill runs afoul of Constitutional provisions that require revenue bills to originate in that chamber. ‘The only reason we won’t block it today is that we know it doesn’t pass constitutional muster and won’t become law. If the Democrats were serious, they’d proceed to a House-originated revenue bill as the Constitution requires,’ McConnell said.”
Of course, on the merits, the Democrats’ tax plan is bad all around. Jobs groups oppose it, warning it would “impose a massive tax hike on American businesses,” “result in higher taxes for the vast majority of manufacturers,” and “do very great harm to the middle class it purports to help.” Further, the American Farm Bureau Federation sounds the alarm that the Senate Democrats’ bill raises the death tax again, saying it “fails to provide any estate tax reliefwhich would allow a $1 million per person exemption and 55 percent top rate to be reinstated on Jan. 1, 2013. A $1 million exemption is not high enough to protect a typical farm or ranch able to support a family from estate taxes…”
As Leader McConnell said, “That’s what today’s votes are all about: about showing the people who sent us here where we stand. We owe it to the American people to let them know whether we actually think it’s a good idea to double down on the failed economic policies of the past few years, or whether we support a new approach; whether we think it’s a good idea to raise taxes on nearly a million business owners at a moment when millions of Americans are struggling to find work; or to do no harm and commit to future reform.” Tags:Washington, D.C. tax proposals, democrats, Taxmageddon Is Coming,
January 1, 2013To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Will Democrat Senators Support A Death Tax Hike
Despite Acknowledging It Would ‘Hurt Family Farmers’ And Promising ‘There Is No Way’ They’d Do It?
Senate Dem Estate Tax Plan ‘Troublesome For Farmers’
FARM BUREAU: “Estate taxes are especially troublesome for farmers and ranchers. [The Reid Proposal] fails to provide any estate tax reliefwhich would allow a $1 million per person exemption and 55 percent top rate to be reinstated on Jan. 1, 2013. A $1 million exemption is not high enough to protect a typical farm or ranch able to support a family from estate taxes…” (Letter To U.S. Senators, American Farm Bureau Federation, 7/24/12)
Dem Vow To Farmers: ‘There Is No Way, No Way’
NORTH CAROLINA FARMERS: “…would have a devastating impact on farms and ranches in North Carolina and the Nation. This reversion… has the great potential to eliminate a generation of aspiring farmers from continuing the family farming operation.” (Letter To Sen. Hagan, North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation, 7/24/12)
SEN. KAY HAGAN (D-NC): “Sen. Kay Hagan spoke to the North Carolina Farm Bureau meeting in Greensboro. … ‘I understand the issue with the estate tax. I know that it affects you tremendously,’ Hagan told the crowd. ‘I am definitely concerned about this and there is no way, no way we can let that estate tax revert back to $1 million (starting) next year.’” (“Hagan Gets Her Wish On The Estate Tax,” Greensboro News And Record, 12/6/10)
MISSOURI FARMERS:“…exemption is not high enough to protect a typical farm or ranch from estate taxes considering land values and the cost of machinery, equipment and farm buildings. Two years ago we shared with you the stories of two Missouri farm families—one frustrated with estate planning because of ever-changing laws and another struggling to pay inheritance taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. We are certain there are more families just like them...” (Letter To Sen. McCaskill, Missouri Farm Bureau Federation, 7/24/12)
SEN. CLAIRE McCASKILL (D-MO):“Estate tax issue draws local input … McCaskill said today in a written statement. ‘I support extending the current exemption so that we don’t hurt family farmers.’” (“Estate Tax Issue Draws Local Input,” Columbia Daily Tribune, 6/7/06)
PENNSYLVANIA FARMERS: “This not only can cripple a farm operation, but also hurts the rural communities and businesses that agriculture supports. Estate taxes hit family-owned farm operations especially hard because of the illiquid nature of farm and ranch business property.” (Letter, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, 7/24/12)
SEN. BOB CASEY (D-PA):“…on the estate tax: If we set the general estate tax exemption level at $3.5 million for an individual, 7 million for a couple, maybe even carve out a $5 million exemption for family farms and businesses, you could get a savings just on that alone of $300 billion over 10 years.” (NBC’s “Meet The Press,” 9/3/06)“Democrat Bob Casey, who is running for a second term in U.S. Senate for Pennsylvania, says he hasn't decided whether to go along with President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders on a plan to allow tax rates to rise…”(“Casey Doesn't Embrace Obama's Plan On Tax Rates,” The Associated Press, 7/20/12)
FLORIDA FARMERS: “This will have a devastating impact on Florida farms and ranches … the Estate Tax would often result in farms being closed, land being sold and businesses being lost.” (Letter, Florida Farm Bureau Federation, 7/24/12)
SEN. BILL NELSON (D-FL):“…with regard to the inheritance tax, I have always been in favor of eliminating this tax. I voted for a significant reduction in 1981 and for a modification in 1986. To me the inheritance tax represents a double tax. People have paid taxes as they have accumulated their assets during their lives. And I think we ought to pass that on to their families and to their loved ones without most of it being eaten up by the government.” (“Differences Wide As Candidates Take Stands; Bill Nelson,” The Ledger [Lakeland, FL], 11/3/00)
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