Patriot Post: Monday Brief - Vol. 09 No. 15 - The Tax Man Cometh
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The tax man cometh
Monday Brief
Vol. 09 No. 15
13 April 2009 THE FOUNDATION
"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." --John Marshall INSIGHT
"The collection of taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to the public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. The wise and correct course to follow in taxation is not to destroy those who have already secured success, but to create conditions under which everyone will have a better chance to be successful." --President Calvin Coolidge (1873-1933) THE GIPPER
"[April 15] is the last day for filing income tax returns -- a day that reminds us that taxpayers pay too much of their earnings to the Federal Government. ... While April 15 serves as a reminder, the people of the United States truly do not need to be reminded. They are victims of inflation, which pushes them into higher tax brackets. They are robbed daily of a better standard of living. They are discouraged from work and investment. ... The choice before us is clear. I strongly feel that the great majority of Americans believe that nothing would better encourage economic growth than leaving more money in the hands of the people who earn it. It's time to stop stripping bare the productive citizens of America and funneling their hard-earned income into the Federal bureaucracy.
"What's called the public debt stands at $11 trillion and growing. That pales in comparison to the federal government's unfunded liability -- obligations that are not covered by an asset of equal or greater value. Mike Whalen, former policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, commenting on last year's Social Security Trustees annual report on the state of the Social Security and Medicare programs, said, 'The report on the state of entitlement programs is rather grim -- the combined unfunded liabilities of both programs are $101 trillion.' What that means is that in order for government to make good on its promises, Congress would have to put aside tens of trillions of dollars in the bank today. Keep in mind that our GDP is only $14 trillion. In the absence of massive tax increases or cuts in benefits, in order to meet its promises Congress must cease spending on one in four programs by 2020, such as education and highway construction, and one in two by 2030, and by 2050 or so all federal revenue will be spent supporting Social Security, Medicare and prescription drug benefits. Such a scenario is unsustainable. There will be economic and political chaos. Today's politicians are not likely to take measures to avoid the coming chaos because senior citizens, the major beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare, vote in large numbers and will exact a high political price. Plus, neither today's senior citizens nor today's politicians will be alive in 2050. I'd be more optimistic if my fellow Americans were simply suffering from congressional deception as opposed to their not caring about the economic calamity that awaits tomorrow's Americans." --George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams FOR THE RECORD
"Didn't the President, with a straight face, promise to reduce the deficit by half in five years? The Congressional Budget Office forecasts government spending over the next 10 years will quadruple the annual deficit of Bush's presidency. The CBO expects the nation's debt to double in five years and triple in 10. But according to The Heritage Foundation, Obama's claim of '$2 trillion in savings over the next decade' is 'simply not true. His budget increases spending by $1 trillion over the next decade, which he attempts to offset by reclassifying as "savings" $1.4 trillion in tax increases and $1.5 trillion in reduced spending in Iraq.' First he describes tax increases as 'savings.' Then he falsely projects spending on the war in Iraq to remain high. By manipulating 'future spending,' Obama can then 'reduce it' and pronounce it 'savings.'" --columnist Larry Elder FAITH AND FAMILY
"Economic conservatives have aggressively opposed President Obama's agenda to radically expand government, financed by deficits that run into the trillions. If social conservatives want to protect America's families and social values, they must join with fiscal conservatives to oppose President Obama and reverse America's culture of debt. America was built on individual opportunity. This is the core of the economic conservative agenda. The family unit is the core building block of American society. This is the heart of the social conservative agenda. There is a key overlap here that many conservatives -- and even their leaders -- overlook. Living within your means and managing your finances to avoid long-term debt is part of building strong families, providing for your children and teaching them to provide for themselves. ... Both economic and social conservatives need to grasp the common ground here. Strong families are essential to strong economies, and financial management is a key family value." --columnist Ken Blackwell CULTURE
"[S]omething very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power. The problems on the American left were already manifest by the late 1960s, as college-educated liberals began to lose contact with the working class for whom they claimed to speak. ... For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-
OPINION IN BRIEF
"In his major foreign policy address in Prague committing the United States to a world without nuclear weapons, President Obama took note of North Korea's missile launch just hours earlier and then grandiloquently proclaimed: 'Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response.' A more fatuous presidential call to arms is hard to conceive. What 'strong international response' did Obama muster to North Korea's brazen defiance of a Chapter 7 -- 'binding,' as it were -- U.N. resolution prohibiting such a launch? The obligatory emergency Security Council session produced nothing. No sanctions. No resolution. Not even a statement. China and Russia professed to find no violation whatsoever. They would not even permit a U.N. statement that dared express 'concern,' let alone condemnation. Having thus bravely rallied the international community and summoned the U.N. -- a fiction and a farce, respectively -- what was Obama's further response? The very next day, his defense secretary announced drastic cuts in missile defense, including halting further deployment of Alaska-based interceptors designed precisely to shoot down North Korean ICBMs. Such is the 'realism' Obama promised to restore to U.S. foreign policy." --columnist Charles Krauthammer LIBERTY
"'Words must mean something,' President Obama said in Prague last week in response to North Korea's missile launch. He was speaking about the numerous resolutions and condemnations of North Korea's actions over the years by the United Nations and others. It is a standard the president should apply not only to North Korea, but also to the Middle East and the Muslim world. In a speech to Turkey's Parliament, the president said, 'The United States is not, and never will be at war with Islam.' It was a noble sentiment. Such a unilateral declaration may sooth many in the West, but there is a central question that comes from Mr. Obama's declaration of conscientious objection: What if Islamic extremism is at war with America, Europe and Israel and everyone who stands in the way of its attempt at supremacy in religion and politics?" --columnist Cal Thomas RE: THE LEFT
"President Obama has said that the science of global warming is 'beyond dispute,' and therefore settled. This is the justification for the imposition of a carbon cap-and-trade system that will cost $2 trillion. But Obama does not understand science. 'Settled science' is an oxymoron, and anyone who characterizes science as 'settled' or 'indisputable' is ignorant not only of science, but also history and philosophy. Aristotle, who lived and wrote in the fourth century B.C., was one of the greatest geniuses the world has ever known. He invented the discipline of logic, and founded the sciences of ecology and biology. Aristotle's physics were accepted as correct for nearly two thousand years. ... Aristotle taught that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. Over the centuries, a few unreasonable persons expressed skeptical concerns. But the consensus was that the physics of motion were described by Aristotle's dicta. The science was settled. Around the year 1591, an irascible young instructor at the University of Pisa demonstrated that Aristotle was wrong. He climbed to the top of the tower of Pisa and dropped cannonballs of unequal weight that hit the ground simultaneously. Aristotelean professors on the faculty were embarrassed. The university administration responded by not renewing Galileo's contract, thus ridding themselves of a troublemaker who challenged the accepted consensus. ... President Obama, a lawyer and politician, would now have us believe that the process of history has stopped. For the first time, scientific knowledge is not provisional and subject to revision, but final and settled. Skepticism, which has been the spur to all innovation and human progress, is unacceptable and must be condemned. But in fact, it is our awareness of what we do not know that determines our scientific level. ... Knowledge begins with skepticism and ends with conceit." --University of Oklahoma geologist David Deming POLITICAL FUTURES
"[T]here's a small but determined movement to abolish the link between citizenship and voting that would surely leverage victory into a national initiative. Unlike the Maine politicians, most advocates of granting the vote to foreigners make no pretense that it's anything but a naked left-wing power grab. 'Imagine the progressive possibilities in jurisdictions of high numbers of immigrants such as New York City; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and Chicago,' says Ron Hayduk, a leftist political scientist at the City University of New York and a founder of the Immigrant Voting Project. Whatever you think of Hayduk's goals, his grasp of numbers is good. In nearly 900 U.S. cities, 10 percent or more of the voting-age population is composed of non-U.S.-citizens. In nearly 200, it's greater than 25 percent -- and in 21 cities, it's more than 50 percent. Don't imagine for a minute that the immigrant-voting movement will stop with seats on school boards and zoning commissions. ... Even if you like the lefty political agenda that these men pursue, their tactics bear some careful consideration. In effect, they seek to abolish the concept of American citizenship -- the U.S. government would be turned into a matter of geographical whimsy, under the control of whoever happened to be physically present at a given moment. Immigrants, legal and otherwise, play an important role in the U.S. economy. But if they're interested in voting, they need to learn the language, the history and the political culture -- that is, they need to become citizens." --columnist Glenn Garvin LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
(To submit reader comments visit our Letters to the Editor page .)
"I have been reading The Patriot for about three weeks now. I used to be a Democrat up until the terrorists attacked the Twin Towers. God was more or less an afterthought when times were good. This Easter, however, I have a conservative outlook that includes Jesus Christ in my daily life. Even though I look around in amazement at the moral decay of my beloved nation, I am comforted by my Creator. I am assured that God is in control of all things. Our government used to use God's word for a point of reference, but now they have targeted Him as an enemy to their desires for more power over the people. Thank you for your efforts to fight this." --Carroll, Ohio
"I am a rare breed, a Pagan who is also politically libertarian/
"Liberals tolerate rallies on behalf of cop-killers, but they prohibit law-abiding citizens working at community centers in Binghamton, N.Y., from being armed to defend themselves from disturbed, crack-addicted America-haters like Jiverly Wong. It's something in liberals' DNA: They think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control. The demand for more gun control in response to any crime involving a gun is exactly like Obama's response to North Korea's openly belligerent act of launching a long-range missile [last] week: Obama leapt to action by calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament. If the SAT test were used to determine how stupid a liberal is, one question would be: 'The best defense against lawless rogues who possess _______ is for law-abiding individuals to surrender their own ________.' Correct answer: Guns . We would also have accepted nuclear weapons . ... If a single civilian in that Binghamton community center had been armed, instead of 14 dead, there might have only been one or two -- including the shooter. In the end, the cops didn't stop Wong. His killing spree ended only when he decided to stop, and he killed himself. 'The shooter will eventually run out of ammo' strategy may not be the best one for stopping deranged multiple murderers. But it's highly unlikely that any community center in the entire state would be safe from a disturbed former crack-addict like Wong because New York's restrictive gun laws require a citizen to prove he has a need for a gun to obtain a concealed carry permit. Instead of having Planned Parenthood distribute condoms in schools, they ought get the NRA to pass out revolvers. It would save more lives." --columnist Ann Coulter