Economic education in America being in the sorry state that it is, few people understand the real dynamics of taxation. This leads inevitably to the belief that raising tax RATES will inevitably raise tax REVENUE. Politicians, ever hungry for more revenue (with which they purchase high-visibilty job security), scramble to raise rates, almost always saying they are only raising rates on “the rich.” One of the many good things about being rich is that you...
Mario Loyola recently visited Ramadi in the Anbar Province of Iraq. His story, found here, paints yet another encouraging picture in what has become a late summer season of encouragement regarding the war in Iraq. Google Anbar Province and you’ll find plenty of archived stories from not that long ago that said that Anbar was “lost” and “beyond hope.” Today, it is perhaps the safest place in Iraq. Is the Anbar model going to work...
The recent execution-style mass murder in Newark, NJ has sparked an avalanche of response from politicians, civic-leaders and community activists. None of that response comes close to touching on the fact that most kids in Newark grow up in fatherless homes. Nor will anybody say out loud that a disproportionate percentage of fatherless kids wind up in trouble. Steven Malanga writes on the subject in City Journal magazine. Do kids need fathers or will they...
Q. When is winning a war bad news? A. When it costs you all the political capital you have invested in defeat. Following their takeover of the Congress in November 2006, losing in Iraq looked like a sure thing for the Democrats. “Bush’s War” turns out badly, the Democrats regain the White House while solidifying their lead in the Congress. It looked like a winning bet until very recently. And then, like the fortunes of...
Leave it to a former agent of the Soviet KGB to nail down why going ad hominem against the president is a bad idea when bullets are flying and blood is being spilled. It’s OK to run against the president’s polices. It’s not OK to do so in a way that gives aid and comfort to those who are seeking to do us harm. If Republicans and Democrats united on the War on Terror and...
Excellent article in The American Spectator on why conservatives need to quit moaning about the lack of a Ronald Reagan, take stock of their assets and get to work on winning the hearts and minds of American voters. Read it here.
War is serious business. Losing a war has serious consequences. The president doesn’t want to lose and he replaced the team that was heading in that direction with a team that is getting the job done. You’d think everyone would be happy. Think again. First, the media reports progress in Iraq only cursorily and only grudgingly. Second, the Congress seems to just wish the whole thing would go away, consequences be damned. But if we...
In 1968, the Viet Cong threw everything they had at the U.S. in what came to be called the Tet Offensive. The U.S. routed them. The Viet Cong lost over 60,000 men and never recovered militarily. Yet the media portrayed the Tet Offensive as an irrecoverable setback for the U.S. military and domestic support for the Vietnam War collapsed. When the U.S. finally left (fled) Vietnam in 1975, it led to barbarism and reprisal that...
Hillary Clinton’s first attempt at nationalizing health care was a fiasco. But she’s not giving up. If elected president, Hillary Clinton intends to shove state-run health care down our throats and the cost to business, the lost jobs, the rationing of services and the erosion of our freedom all be damned. Read Ralph Reiland’s piece in The American Spectator.
And it’s not just theory. Today’s Wall Street Journal takes a look at Wisconsin’s flirtation with universal health care. Read the article and try to imagine what would happen if we took this program national.
So convinced is the Democratic leadership that the war in Iraq is already lost that they have fully invested their political capital in ultimate failure. Hey, it looked like a sure bet in November 2006. But reality on the ground is starting to make that investment look a little shaky. David Limbaugh reports.
John Yoo writes in The Wall Street Journal on the coming Supreme Court showdown on executive privilege as it relates to the Bush administration’s firing of eight justice department lawyers.