State Department to Defend Islam Against Free Speech

The Wall Street Journal reported on 5 December on page A-17 that Hillary Clinton has invited the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to hold a conference in Washington to discuss ways in which governments can prevent their otherwise free newspapers from criticizing Islam. She has said that the conference is to build “muscles of respect and empathy and tolerance” into Western societies that criticize Islam.

For more than 20 years, the OIC has pressed Western governments to restrict speech about Islam. In 2009 the OIC issued fatwas calling for free speech bans, including “international legislation” aimed at protecting “the interests and values of [Islamic] society,” and for judicial punishment for public expression of apostasy from Islam. Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu emphasized that “no one has the right to insult another for their beliefs.” (I wonder if Mr. Ihsanoglu thinks that no one has the right to KILL other people because of their beliefs!)

The OIC does not define what speech should be outlawed, but its leading member states’ practices are illustrative. These states are in the practice of severely punishing de facto “insulters” of Islam and condoning the attack upon their lives and families by Muslim vigilantes.

Civil society must vigorously protect the freedom of its press and of its speech. Any religion or world view that is worth its salt should stand in the strong winds of public criticism and prove its value by open debate. All religions of the world must stand and protect themselves publically, answering the following questions: Which religion teaches us to love our neighbor? Which religion teaches that we should tolerate differing opinions peaceably without resort to violent means for winning converts? Which religion convinces people to believe by means of persuasion rather than force?

Any religion that fails these questions must resort to such agencies as the United States State Department and to legislative coercion in order to protect itself from open debate.

Furthermore, I do not believe that our government has any business meddling in the freedom of our press or speech unless that expression is openly subversive of law and order in our society. Clearly, open criticism of Islam in the press of a Western nation is not disruptive, nor has it advocated overthrow of government based on religion. On the other hand, I cannot say that Islamic regimes have not advocated overthrow of non-Islamic governments. Islam has claimed suzerainty over governments in order to take complete control of them by their religion.

Should We Slow Down the Rich or Speed Up the Poor?

There is no question about American society, these days. The rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer. The spread between the two is becoming more marked every day. As I mentioned in my blog post of 23 November, the share of money going to the top 1% of earners in America has increased from 8% in the 1960’s to 20% today. At the same time, incomes of the lower income group have been stagnant for several decades. Observers have noticed that the middle income group has been decreasing in size.

Liberals insist that the way to remedy this situation is to tax the rich, knock them down in the economic hierarchy; and that is supposed to equalize our societal unbalance. I would propose a different approach to the same problem. My approach is founded on the fact that society is becoming more and more sophisticated and requiring of more sophistication in education and training.

I read in the newspapers that even in this recession and period of high unemployment; companies are having trouble finding skilled workers for blue-collar jobs. Welders, diesel mechanics, finish carpenters, etc. are in short supply—simply because those jobs require a higher level of training and education.

It is my opinion that instead of penalizing the upper income group for making money, our society should be working to train up more skilled blue-collar workers and white-collar executives and supervisors. That measure would narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.

Punishing the rich is an exercise in futility. Our government is experiencing a deficit if revenue; and overtaxing the rich will only decrease government revenues. One fact of taxation in the United states is that those who make $1 million/year accounted for about 0.2% of all tax returns but paid 20.4% of income taxes in 2009. Those with adjusted gross income above $200,000 a year were just under 3% of tax filers but paid 50.1% of the $866 billion in total personal income taxes. This means the top 3% paid more than the bottom 97%. Yet the 3% are the people that President Obama claims do not pay their fair share. Before the recession, the $200,000 income group paid 54.5% of the income tax. (Redacted from an editorial by Robert Barron in the Wall Street Journal 8/24/11)

The way to prosperity is to train up the poor and the uneducated to take their proper place in our economic scheme of things. Leave the rich alone and let them earn as much money as they can—that will benefit government revenues. But get the lower classes in our society to bring up their earning capacity.

Shall We Adopt China’s Ways?

Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union (SIEU) wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on 12/1/11 after he had returned from a trip to Chongqing, a city of 32 million people in western China. In the editorial, he extoled the praises of the Chinese economy. He reported that the bustling Chinese city is building new floor space at a rate of 1.5 million square feet daily, which will include 700,000 units of public housing annually. He reports that China’s 12th five year plan aims at a 7%/year growth plan for the general economy. Western China is programmed for a cloud computing program and automotive/aerospace production. The area is predicted to produce an annual growth rate of 12.5% with a 49% growth in tax revenue each year. Wages there are predicted to advance at a rate of 10%/year.

By way of contrast, Mr. Stern says that in the USA, we have seen a decade of high joblessness, 30 years of flat median wages, a trade deficit, a shrinking of the middle class, and phenomenal gains in wealth by the top 1% of our country’s taxpayers.

His conclusion is that “America needs to embrace a plan for growth and innovation, with streamlined government as a partner with the private sector.” In other words, we need to become more like China.

I am under the impression that China is booming economically precisely because it has adopted western ways of entrepreneurship and combined that change with an extremely low wage scale for laborers—bordering on slave-labor-type wages.

I suppose we, Americans, could do the same as China—as Mr. Stern implies we should. It might require that we give up our penchant for civil rights, personal control of our lives separate from government, and the basic desires we have for human dignity.

But, what more might we expect from a labor leader like Mr. Stern. America’s tradition of profit-seeking entrepreneurship has served us well in the past; and I would guess that China’s use of our system is the main driving force behind that country’s economic success now. If we were to adopt China’s ways, we would obviously have to knuckle under to more government control over business—which effect is proving the death knell to American business under our present administration.

I believe in American private business ownership and the stimulus of true profit making.

Any of you who would like to read more about this subject can link to Mr. Stern’s editorial at (Adopt China's ways?)

We Won’t Stop Until We Kill!

How should young teen-aged girls act? Well…you probably think they should be kind, polite, gentle, and considerate of others. I certainly agree with that kind of mind-picture of acceptable teen behavior. However, it is not always the way things work out in the real world.

Nancy and I have recently moved to a near western suburb of Cleveland, Ohio; and we work in a Christian tutoring program in the inner city of Cleveland; we teach reading skills using the Bible as a text. We serve a population of mostly second-generation African immigrant children. Last week a fight broke out in our classroom between two groups of young teen-aged girls. The weapons used were yelling, pushing, shoving, scratching, hair-pulling and flying fists. Over the ensuing week, one of the groups visited the homes of the other group and left graffiti on their doors and homes. Vile images, words, and threats were painted on the doors. One remark that appeared was, “We won’t stop until we kill!” The whole experience reminded us of the society where we lived in inner city Detroit 15 years ago. It is the picture of the typical rust belt, socially deteriorating, American city.

This kind of experience causes one to think. Hmmm…I wonder if even the Spirit of Christ can penetrate such social and psychological darkness. I wonder how much more liberal immigration policy America can tolerate before our whole society disintegrates into a violent maelstrom of destructiveness. What can we, as Christians, do to stem the tide of such social and spiritual chaos?

Well, I don’t think that Christ is helpless in this situation. I have faith that even out of this violence, hope can spring. But, we, Christians, absolutely must respond to this kind of destructiveness and social/spiritual darkness. We have to tend to these cities and do what we can do to counter such confusion of values and behavior. Please pray with us that Christ and His Spirit may reach the neighborhood where Nancy and I work. HE IS ABLE!!

Increasing American Inequality—Why Is It Happening?

American polity is deteriorating; few can deny that. The Occupy movement is telling us that the masses of poor and middle class Americans are dissatisfied with the economic divisions that are rending apart our cities and our society. We all ask, “Why is this happening?”

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the main goal of American government was to make a better American. The two parties differed on how this was to be done; but the general goal was the same. Over the 1st 60 years of that century, the goal gradually shifted toward a goal of increasing the gross domestic product and distributing it evenly. All seemed to work well at first, and America became the dominant force in the world economy. However, the system began to come apart in the 1960’s and 70’s with the civil rights movement and the Viet Nam War. American liberalism seemed to be taking over; and American business influence on the society reached its nadir.

American business reacted. In the years after World War II, Americans had embraced the ideas of pluralism, which they thought would insulate them against the excesses of communism and fascism, the scourges of the early years of the 20th Century. But then, something very unexpected happened beginning in the 1960’s and 70’s. The voices of traditional American entrepreneurism began to speak loudly and effectively. The forces of egalitarian pluralism were beginning to fade, and selfish private special interests came back in force. Government began to enact laws that favored the rich and the mighty in business. As a result, we are now seeing an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. Thus—the Occupy movement!

Over the last few years, while the country has been suffering from economic recession, the rich have gotten even richer. And not just a little bit richer; a lot richer. In 2009, the average income of the top five percent of earners went up, while on average everyone else's income went down. This was not an anomaly but rather a continuation of a 40-year trend of ballooning incomes at the very top and stagnant incomes in the middle and at the bottom. The share of total income going to the top one percent has increased from roughly eight percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today.

All of these changes have not been due to the efforts of the rich. Labor unions have had a share in the cause of economic disruption because of their ever-increasing demands for higher and higher wages and benefits. The unions have effectively caused overseas businesses to prosper and to draw capital out of the United States. The business that went overseas added to the incomes of the already rich in our country.
Obviously, I do not know the answer to this developing economic inequality in our America. Nevertheless, I hope that we, Americans, will recognize the issues and will respond with generosity and true patriotism. We cannot continue to grab for the money and expect our country to flourish.

For those who would further inform themselves on this subject, I would refer them to http://bit.ly/vwGRvi . Thanks for reading!

AUSTERITY—Are We Americans Allergic To It?

As our country roils toward more and more economic chaos, I ask you, “Are we able to counter this profligate spending by tightening our belts and lowering our standard of living—or, are we just going on and on in a splurge of overspending?” Both Italy and Greece are showing signs of correcting their overly extravagant spending habits—can we, Americans do likewise?

Last Tuesday, the results of Ohio’s voting indicated that we cannot do it. Ohio voters, after a campaign fueled by union dollars, voted down Issue 2, a measure designed to shift the cost of health care and pensions for government workers back to the workers and away from the taxpayers of the state. Those same voters voted Yes on Issue 3, a measure to get rid of the health insurance mandate of the ObamaCare law in Ohio. In other words, Ohio voters voted for more continued Big Brother payments for their living benefits. They do not want to pay for their own health care or their pension benefits—they want the government to pay for their pension benefits; and they want the private health care sector to pay for their uninsured health care. I believe that these two moves by the Ohio electorate were driven by the same voter motivation, i.e., the wish for the government and the private sector hospitals to do more spending on their behalf.

To be fair in this accusation of mine, I must say that I, also, voted Yes on Issue 3. But…I voted that way for a far different reason. I voted Yes because I fear the overweening increase in government regulation that threatens to increase government costs to the taxpayer. The whole Obama plan for health care will not decrease costs—it will INCREASE it.

America will never get itself out of its financial woes and into its former position as world leader unless we change our ways. We must decide to take responsibility for our own personal family economies. We must tighten our belts and decide that we cannot have a free lunch. Getting more jobs and a better economy is a reasonable goal for each of us. It is not something that we must wait for the government to provide for us.

Can The Western Democracies Survive?

Western Democracies from Greece to the United States are suffering from the “wants;” they are screaming “Gimme, gimme—more and more money!” (When there is no more money.) In the United States, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, Ireland, and eventually, France, workers are calling for more and more government handouts in the form of entitlements. Even corporations in these countries are demanding to be on the government dole. None of this is news; we have heard it for years!

Greeks are demonstrating in their streets against government austerity programs. Ohioans voted yesterday to keep public employees on the government handout programs with health insurance and pension benefits. Nobody seems able to understand that THE MONEY IS GONE! All these demonstrations and votes for more entitlements are saying that they want everyone else to foot the bills for their benefits. This includes union members as well as corporations.

An unhappy byproduct of a welfare state is that it creates powerful interests that will fight to the last to preserve their free lunch, no matter the cost to the country. America’s federal debt was 35.7% of GDP in 2007, but it was 61.3% last year and is predicted to reach 90% by 2020 according to the Congressional Budget Office. These figures were arrived at based on President Obama’s 2011 budget submitted by the White House Office of Management and Budget in February 2011. For countries with debt-to-GDP ratios “above 90 percent, median growth rates fall by 1 percent, and average growth falls considerably more,” according to a recent research paper by economists Kenneth S. Rogoff of Harvard and Carmen M. Reinhart of the University of Maryland.

Democracies fall when the people finally realize that they can vote themselves financial benefits to be paid for by other people. Unless Americans begin to understand that they must sacrifice some of their affluence to the general good of the nation, as they did during World War II, our country is doomed.

Do We Need Moral Politicians/Leaders?

In the past, America was founded on the idea of innate human goodness; this concept especially found prominence in the thinking of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. They believed that if the people of a democratic republic were left alone to carry on commerce in the world according to the dictates of common sense morality and ethics, all men would get along together. They even thought that wars would cease to be. Even up into the early 20th Century, both political parties were dedicated primarily to the goal of making a better American, one with better education, religion, and even morality.

Honesty, faithfulness, virtue, reliability, and trustworthiness were qualities that received widespread consensus in America. But, alas, those character qualities are long gone from the top of the American priority list. When the honesty of President Grant was questioned, he responded that to question the honesty of a United States President was tantamount to questioning the virtue and chastity of an unmarried woman. (WOW! How times have changed!) Now, as Francis Fukuyama has lamented, American thought is dedicated to increasing the gross domestic product and distributing it evenly. Long gone, it seems, is the value of moral integrity among our political leaders. Politicians seem convinced that if they were to commit some moral or ethical offense, the system of republican checks and balances will compensate for it--so…it is no longer necessary to mind one’s moral manners in private or even public matters.

We are seeing this kind of thinking manifesting itself in the present-day political scene with Herman Cain and his girlfriends taking center stage in a campaign for President. Many are saying that Cain’s behavior in private is just his private affair—what matters most is how he will behave in the business office of the President. Bill Clinton received just that kind of waiver even when he had to pay $850,000 to rid himself of the scandal of Paula Jones. After that was all over, he seemed to receive the approbation of the American people, who felt sorry for him. His comment in all that matter was, “My morals are the same as the morals of the American people.” Sad, but true!

I take strong exception to all of this. I believe strongly that if a man cannot be trusted in his moral life, if he cannot be faithful in his marriage, faithful to the most sacred of all human promises (marriage), he cannot be trusted to carry out the business of government reliably. One who can be trusted is worthy of commendation and added responsibility. Jesus recognized this principle, and in the parable of the talents, he said, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matt 25:21)

Is Suicide an Option?

I realize that many who read this blog post will have had a loved one who was so hopelessly disabled by accident or illness that they and the family have seriously considered suicide as the best outcome for the situation. But…is that an ethical, spiritually justifiable, moral, solution to such a problem? I think not, and for the following reasons:

First of all, the Commandment says, “Thou shalt not kill.” Human life is not to be ended by men; and I think that this Commandment applies equally to one’s own life as well as to the lives of others. Two notable exceptions exist: Christians and others have long considered that it is permissible to take human life in a justifiable war and for self-defense. But, otherwise, there is no defensible reason for taking human life.

Secondly, we have a scriptural instruction on this subject in the second chapter of the book of Job (v.9,10). In the height of Job’s suffering, his wife said to him, “’Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.’ But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women who speak. Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” Job refused to sacrifice his own life, even though he was suffering greatly.

Thirdly, justifying suicide leads to the further degradation of the respect for human life, in general; and it guides one to endorse other forms of disrespect for human life, e.g., abortion and euthanasia—death by committee!

Several years ago, I was practicing medicine in Detroit. A 55 year old nurse came to me complaining of severe back pain; the pain was said to be so severe that she was considering suicide—she had already consulted Dr. Kevorkian about killing herself. She told me that she wanted an unlimited supply of morphine and that if I did not give it to her, she was going to kill herself.

I made sure that all indicated diagnostic tests were made to find out what was causing the back pain, e.g., X-rays, CT scan, orthopedic and psychiatric consultations. The only finding was the presence of mild arthritis of the spine, which was appropriate for her age.

Not being willing to induce opiate addiction by supplying her with unlimited amounts of morphine, I refused to prescribe what she requested. She went to another doctor who supplied her with the drugs.

Three months later, she appeared on TV with Dr. Kevorkian testifying to the necessity and advisability of elective suicide. Within a few days, Dr. Kevorkian took her to the front door of the local police station in his van and helped her kill herself.

This case illustrates how liberal and permissive attitudes toward suicide lead to gross abuse of human life.

Suicide is not the answer to human suffering. God gives life; and only he has the right to take it away.

The REAL inequality in American Society

I strongly recommend that everyone who is interested in understanding the real inequality in American society should read the New York Times editorial referred to in the link below. This news is especially appropriate for those who have children growing up, because I am sure that you want your children to be on the right side of the inequality divide. Social Inequality

Why Keynesians Keep Getting It Wrong

Those who heaped high praise in Keynesian policies have grown silent as government spending has failed to bring an economic recovery. Except for a few diehards who want still more government spending and those who make the unverifiable claim that the economy would have collapsed without it, most now recognize that more than a trillion dollars of spending by the Bush and Obama administrations has left the economy in a slump and unemployment above 9%.

Why is the economic response to increased government spending so different from the response predicted by Keynesian models? What is missing from the model that makes their forecasts so inaccurate? There are four reasons for this miscalculation on the part of our leaders:

1) Big increases in spending and government deficits raise the prospect of future tax increases. This scares off investors.
2) Government spending programs redistribute income from workers/producers to the unemployed. This precludes an effect that would increase productivity. Unemployed people are less likely to be the ones to increase productivity.
3) Keynesian methods increases governmental regulations, and that increases costs without an increase in useful production.
4) The estimated cost of new jobs in President Obama’s latest jobs bill is at least $200,000 per job based on administration estimates of the number of jobs and their cost. How can that appeal to the taxpayers who will pay for those costs? Once the subsidies end, the jobs will likely end, too.

We have spent nearly a trillion dollars and have nothing to show for it in the form of new jobs. All we have is a bunch of IOU’s. Throwing a lot more money into this fiasco (in the form of President Obama’s jobs bill) and expecting a different response seems stupid to me.

This blog post was partly redacted from the Wall Street Journal 28 October 2011, page A17.

We Don’t Need Higher Taxes—We Need Lower Taxes!

Congress’s Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is struggling to find $1.5 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. This is a unique opportunity to use tax reform to reduce future budget deficits while lowering individual tax rates.
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 showed how a tax reform that includes lower rates can change incentives in a way that grows the tax base and produces extra revenue for the federal government. In that law, the top tax rate in the U.S. was reduced from 50% to 28%.

After that law was enacted, there was an enormous rise in taxes paid, particularly by those who experienced the greatest reductions in tax rates. Taxpayers who faced a tax rate of 50% in 1985 were paying 50% of federal taxes. After 1986, they began paying 72% of the federal intake! That was because the decrease in taxes provided an incentive to invest and to take financial risks that grew the economy.

Our government should look at the experience of 1986. Lowering taxes will increase the federal intake of revenue monies.

This blog post was redacted from the Wall Street Journal of 24 October 2011, page A15.

Voter Fraud Perpetrated by ACORN/Project Vote in Colorado

On 4 August 2011, Judicial Watch released documents obtained from the Coloraqdo Department of State showing that ACORN and its affiliate, Project Vote, successfully pressured Colorado officials into implementing new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons. Following the policy changes the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public registration agencies was four times the national average.

The attempts of ACORN/Project Vote to upset the voter registration system in Colorado was spearheaded by Amy Busefink, who at the time was under indictment on 13 voter violation charges in Nevada.

Democrat, Bernie Buesher, who served as Colorado Secretary of State from January 2009through January 2011was complicit in these efforts to jury rig the Colorado voter registration system. He took measures to satisfy the demands of Project Vote related to the registration of public assistance recipients. Buescher sought a waiver from the Obama administration that would have allowed a delay in sending out ballots in time for military personnel to vote in the last election. The Department of Defense rejected the request. Apparently Colorado’s concern for voting rights of its citizens did not extend to military personnel in the state.

This blog post was excerpted from “The Judicial Watch Verdict” of October 2011.

The Obvious Manifestation of God’s Election

I am currently reading a book that clearly describes God’s election to salvation of His people. The book is titled, “They Thought for Themselves.” This book is about ten Jews who heard God’s call and responded to it in faith. Most of them were orthodox in background and understood all of the basics and culture of Judaism very well.

The book is written in very simple, understandable, terms. These people are ordinary people. They speak in everyday language. They are not sophisticated theologians. They are simply people who have heard the words of God; they recognized Him, and they responded.

The various members of the ten faced great opposition from other Jews who believe that Jesus is a falsehood and a pretender to the goods of God. These ten people have answered the opposition of the Jews in various ways; but always with conviction and courtesy.

One argument that was occasionally used by these Jewish Christians is the passage in Jeremiah 33:14-26. “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land….” I strongly recommend that all my readers carefully read that passage in its entirety; it is quite instructive and communicative to the Jewish mind.

One of the ten received this argument from a detractor: “You say that Jesus is the Messiah, but he is well known to have said from the cross where he was crucified, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ This passage is from the 1st verse of Psalm 22. If he were truly God in the flesh, why would he have said such a thing?” The answer, of course, is that He well knew that the people standing around the cross would have clearly recognized the source of that question; and they would have understood it in the context of the rest of the Psalm, which is one of the strongest statements of faith in the Bible.

Furthermore, the Jew who had converted to the faith asked the critic a question that stopped his mouth: “Do you remember who it was who first made that statement in the 1st verse of Psalm 22? It was King David. Do you intend to tell me that David questioned his faith, too?”

In view of fierce opposition, the ten converted Jews mentioned in this book stood their ground and became repentant, faithful, followers of Jesus, the true Messiah of the Jews. This could never have happened without the elective finger of God on them.

Do NOT Cut the Defense Department Budget

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, staffed by 6 Congressmen and 6 Senators, half being Democrats and half being Republicans are tasked with cutting the federal budget by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. If they do not succeed in coming up with an acceptable compromise on this issue, automatic cuts will be imposed, amounting to $1.2 trillion. These mandatory cuts in the budget if this committee does not come up with other recommendations will include drastic cuts to the Defense Department.

The Defense Department has already taken severe cuts to their budget since the Obama administration came to power. If these new cuts take place, it is estimated by the DOD that the military will have to mothball over 60 ships, including 2 of our 11 carrier battle groups, ⅓ of our Army maneuver battalions and ⅓ of the Air Force fighter jets.

With the world situation as it is, we can ill afford to limit our country’s military fighting forces.

I would ask all my readers to contact each member of the Select Committee to vote to leave the funding of DOD as it is without any further budget cuts. The web page of the Committee is Deficit Reduction Committee. The members of the committee are listed below; and you can contact them by looking them up on Google.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Co-Chair
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Co-Chair
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.)
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.)
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.)
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.)
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

Thanks for your attention to this important matter!

Green Jobs Brown Out

The following is a quote from the Wall Street Journal 11 October 2011, page A16.

“The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade America would have five million green jobs, but so far some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few.

“A new report by the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General (IG) examined a $500 million grant under the stimulus program to the Employment and Training Administration to ‘train and prepare individuals for careers in green jobs.’ So far, about $162.8 million has been spent. The program was supposed to train 125,000 workers, but only 53,000 have been trained so far, only 8,035 have found jobs, and only 1,033 were still in the job after six months.

“Overall, only 10% of participants entered employment. In the understatement of the year, IG says the program failed to ‘assist those most impacted by the recession.’

“The jobs record is even more dismal when you consider that many of the jobs classified as green aren’t even new jobs, much less green, according to a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. They include positions that have been ‘relabeled as green jobs by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.’“This means that bus drivers, Environmental Protection Agency regulators, university professors teaching ecology, and even the Washington lobbyists who secure energy loan guarantees count as green employees for the purposes of government counting.

The Oversight Committee finds that even a charitable assessment of the Labor program puts the cost of each green job at $157,000.”

John F. Kennedy on the Economy

The following is a quote from President Kennedy’s State of the Union address Jan. 14, 1963. I only wish the present Democrat in the White House could understand what President Kennedy had to say!

“America has enjoyed 22 months of uninterrupted economic recovery. But recovery is not enough. If we are to prevail in the long-run, we must expand the long-run strength of our economy. We must move along the path to a higher rate of growth and full employment.

“For this would mean tens of billions of dollars more each year in production, profits, wages, and public revenues. It would mean an end to the persistent slack, which has kept our unemployment at or above five percent for 61 out of the past 62 months—and an end to the growing pressures for such restrictive measures as the 35-hour week, which alone could increase hourly labor costs by as much as 14%, start a new wage-price spiral of inflation, and undercut our efforts to compete with other nations.

“To achieve these greater gains, one step, above all, is essential—the enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in Federal income taxes….[A] net reduction in tax liabilities…will increase the purchasing power of American families and business enterprises in every tax bracket, with greatest increase going to our low-income consumers. It will, in addition, encourage the initiative and risk-taking on which our free system depends—induce more investment, production, and capacity use—help provide the two million new jobs we need every year—and reinforce the American principle of additional reward for additional effort.”

Dysfunctional Fathers

Several years ago, while Nancy and I were still with the organization, Caring Hands Pregnancy Center in southwest Denver launched a program designed to help men become better fathers. We used the 24/7 Dad Program of the National Fatherhood Initiative as the template for our outreach.

As a first step in organizing that program, we recruited a group of twelve men from a large church in the Denver area to be mentors for the younger fathers who signed up to take the course. The mentors were selected based on the fact that they were successful fathers. They had intact families, a successful first marriage, and young adult children who were healthy and productive members of society. In the early phase of the course, these men were asked to present a short talk about their own fathers. They were asked how their father participated in the raising of the children, how he treated his wife, what was his disciplinary policy regarding the children, etc. They were asked about their general evaluation of their father’s fathering activity.

To my great surprise, I found that these mentor/fathers were largely dissatisfied with the fathering functions of their own fathers. Only two out of the twelve were happy with the fathering they had received from their own fathers. The elder fathers had been neglectful, authoritarian, sometimes abusive of wife and children; and almost all of them had failed to participate with their children in the growing-up stage of the children’s lives.

Organizing this course provided me with a disappointing perception of the fathering abilities of the past generation of fathers. During that course, we all learned that there are better ways to father children. Fathering is not something that comes naturally; good fathering ability is not an instinctive quality. Fathering skills must be LEARNED!

I recommend that if any readers of this blog would like to learn how to be a better father, he should consult Fatherhood.org

The Relationship of National Debt to Gross Domestic Product

It is a well-known fact of national economics that increasing amounts of national debt produce ever-decreasing levels of economic growth. click here . Please consider the following quote from a book by Hunter Lewis, “Where Keynes Went Wrong.”

“There is a diminishing return to taking on debt. In the United States, we have operated on Keynesian principles since World War II. The government has printed money. Debt levels have grown. We have not only gotten inflations and bubbles. We have also gotten less and less growth for each increment of debt.

“During the decade 1950-1959, we added $338 billion in debt, and we got 73¢ in economic growth (increase in gross domestic product) for each $1 in new debt. For the decade 1990-1999, we added $12.5 trillion in debt, but got only 31¢ of growth per dollar of debt. For the seven plus years 2000-2008 (1st quarter), we added $24.3 trillion in debt, but got only 19¢ in growth for every dollar of debt. It thus required more and more debt to generate further growth.”

As the above link points out, a study by North Carolina State University Economics Department shows that if economic policy by the government continues as it is now, by 2020, the national debt/GDP ratio will be 110%; and the annual growth rate will be -.56%!

Growing national debt produces a negative growth in GDP, just because it costs more to service the debt than the increasing input of money can produce in growth.

During the present administration and the end of the Bush era, we have seen some $870 billion used to stimulate the economy; and the annual growth of the economy is still at only about 1%/year. Now we see that President Obama wants to inject another $470 billion into the economy in his “jobs bill.” When will he ever get the clue? More deficit spending will not do the job.

The First Step in the Road to Salvation, Foreknowledge: Romans 8:29 & 30

I have often pondered the meaning and significance of these verses; but recently, I have listened to a sermon by Alistair Begg on this subject; and I want to share a point of that sermon with you—at least, this is the part I took home with me.

The passage says that there are several steps in the final salvation of a believer: First, there is foreknowledge of the one who will be saved from his sins. Next comes predestination followed by God’s effectual calling. Next comes justification, and, finally, glorification. Below, I wish to discuss foreknowledge, because this has been a stumbling block to me. I believe that God knows who will choose Him—but, on what criteria?

God’s foreknowledge is a knowledge borne out of his ability to know the future—a strange and unknown ability to us, mere humans, who cannot even conceive of such an ability. Nevertheless, God can do it. Well, what, exactly is it that God knows? He knows what he has, in advanced, ordained. But that is not all—He also knows what we are going to choose of our own free will. THE TWO GO TOGETHER. Free will and God’s sovereignty go together in this disposition.

In discussing this situation, it is necessary to understand that there are two scenarios, which do not exist. The first is a case in which a person wants to know God, who understands the principles of His teachings, who loves Him and the things that are His; but, since he is not one of the elect, he is excluded from heaven. We must remember that Jesus said, “…whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37) The second scenario is one in which a person is living a life of willful sin, who has no interest in Christ and no faith in God—but…because he is one of the elect , God admits him to heaven. Neither of these situations is true.

Somehow, in some mysterious way, the freewill choice of men and women and the supreme decision of God about election to his family coincide perfectly. Only those who will have the faith prescribed in the Bible will receive the eternal life that Christ promises. And…at the same time, God knows each one of us who will make that choice. It is a mystery; man’s freedom in Christ allows him to optionally go God’s way and at the same time to realize a measure of obedience to the Gospel admonitions of the Scripture. That is, to conform to God’s foreknowledge of his elected, salvational, condition.

Another important point from Mr. Begg’s sermon is that no matter what we think of or know about this so called chain or way of salvation, our own particular salvation has nothing to do with it. We are saved by believing in and having faith in the Savior—it is simply that and no more. So…I think we should not spend very much effort in understanding all the theological ins and outs of this complicated theology. Our relationship to the Savior is really all that counts in our eternal destiny.

An Open Letter To President Obama

Mr. President,

I am writing this letter to tell you respectfully that I disagree with your administration’s fiscal policies. I think we have had far too much stimulus, bailout, and “quantitative easing.” These policies have held the interest rates from the Fed at near zero for 32 months. Still…the unemployment rate is above 9%. This indicates a failure of Keynesian economics to produce the results it aims to produce. WE NEED A DIFFERENT PLAN!! The Federal Reserve is trying to get money for the government by selling 10-year Treasury bonds at 1.88% interest—who in his right mind is going to buy such a low yield bond? There is no profit in buying government securities.

Lately, Congressman Barney Frank has proposed stripping the Federal Reserve Governors of all membership in the Open Market Committee, leaving all the votes on that committee in the hands of political appointees. They only had four votes out of twelve, anyway; and if they are eliminated, I fear that all voice for tighter money on that committee will disappear.

Monetary policy should not be left up to politicians. I believe that private sector should have more, not less, say so on the Open Market Committee.

What Is the Federal Reserve Bank; and How Does It Work?

Today’s newspapers are full of references to economic news; and references to the Federal Reserve Bank are replete in those articles. But…many of us do not know what the Federal Reserve is and how it works. Here is a short primer:

The Federal Reserve is a bank that is established by Congress. It consists of the central bank of the United States. It includes a Board of Governors, 12 District Banks, 25 Branch Banks, and assorted committees. The most important of these committees is the Federal Open Market Committee, which directs monetary policy. The FOMC is made up of 12 voting members; eight of these members are political appointees of the President, and 4 are regional bank presidents.

The function of the Federal Reserve is to control monetary policy, which, in other words, is the supply of money for the country. The “Fed,” as it is called, puts money into our economy when recessions occur; and it takes money out of the economy when inflation is the problem. By doing these manipulations, the Fed is supposed to control overall prices and unemployment.

The Fed uses 3 mechanisms to control prices, inflation, and recession: The first is “open market operations,” which is the Fed’s option to buy or sell government bonds—by doing so, the Fed can either add to or subtract from the money supply in the country. The second is to manipulate the “discount rate,” which is the interest rate the Fed uses to loan money to other banks for them to lend the money to borrowers. The third method is to manipulate the “reserve requirements” of commercial banks, i.e., the amount of money the commercial banks are required to keep on hand to secure their deposits. By lowering or raising the reserve requirements the Fed can add to or subtract from the supply of money circulating in the economy.

If my readers are interested in learning more about economic principles and terms, I would suggest that they look at http://glossary.econguru.com/economic-term/reserve+requirements

What’s Changed in America Since the Revolution?

Of course, many things have changed in America—technical things come instantly to mind. But the things that come to my mind as most important, are the things having to do with the basic attitudes, values, and abilities of our people. As an example, many have commented on the difference between the beliefs, purposes, and values between the founding fathers and the present day politicians who run our United States.

Many books are in print, which would seek to tell us that the founders of America were self-seeking bigots who had no altruistic purposes in mind when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. The books propounding these views began to appear in 1896 in an essay called “The Political Depravity of the Founding Fathers,” by John Bach McMaster. These books and writings continued for more than a century and seriously called into question even the things we take for granted about the founders’ desire to seek the democratic will of the people in establishing a representative form of government. In particular, many writers have claimed that the founders were not Christian to any great extent. They are said to have established a government completely separate from Christian faith and practice.

On the other hand, writings are in print, which tend to paint the founding fathers as near perfect, demigods with only the good of the country at heart. The truth is somewhere between these two extremes.

Gordon Wood, a professor of history at Brown University has written a book entitled "Revolutionary Characters, What Made the Founders Different." In that book, he points out that the founding fathers of our country were strongly influenced by the culture and the intellectual forces of their day. They were sons of the enlightenment. They sought to establish a country where freedom would prevail and where civil society would rein without hostile and harmful influences to destroy the hopes and aspirations of men and women of good intention. They appealed to reason as a foundational building block. They were always aware of a higher law than the "natural law" or "common law" of their day,i.e., the implicit and explicit laws of the Bible. . They strove to epitomize good manners and good faith among their co-workers in this project of establishing a new nation. For the most part, they would act in a respectable and honorable way toward those around them; and they always tried to leave the impression of being gentlemen in their actions.

The American founders knew well that the polite and sophisticated metropolitan center of the empire was steeped in luxury and corruption. England had sprawling, poverty-ridden cities, over refined manners, gross inequalities of rank, complex divisions of labor, and widespread manufacturing of luxuries, all symptoms of over-advanced social development and social decay. It was said of this society by Samuel Stanhope of Princeton University, “that human society can advance only to a certain point before it becomes corrupted, and begins to decline.” To many, England in the 1760’s and 1770’s seemed to be on the verge of dissolution. The North American colonists who came in direct contact with London were shocked at the notorious ways in which hundreds of thousands of pounds were being spent to buy elections. This “most unbounded licentiousness and utter disregard of virtue” could only end, as it had always had in history, in the destruction of the British Empire. The American founding fathers wanted with all their heart and energy to avoid such a society.

As a result of this motivation, our founders set up a system of government which was, at the time, the beginning of egalitarian democracy. The voices of ordinary white people began to be heard as never before in history. The founders, were, themselves, an elite aristocracy imbued with high ideals and aspirations for the good of the country. What they could not have suspected, however, was that when the voices of the common people were considered, many of their high-sounding ideals would be trampled underfoot; and political preferences, partisan politics, and the influence of social and economic pressure groups would overwhelm much of what they were so valiantly trying to achieve.

We are seeing this effect, today; and the high ideals of our founders will probably never, again, be visible in our American society. It has been posited by knowledgeable observers that as soon as the voting majority see that they can vote themselves significant benefits, they will do so; and social freedom and entrepreneurship will disappear from our society. I fear that those days are upon us.

It is my personal opinion that much of the gain in societal management which was so very salutary to our country in the beginning will never, again, be seen in its pure form. I believe that one reason for this is that the effect of Christian religion will not likely be infused into our behavior and policies as it was in the lives and actions of our founders. Such statements as the one uttered by John Adams, our second President, are not likely in our present day political climate. “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

What Can America Learn From Europe’s Problems?

This blog post is largely excerpted from a speech made by Václav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic in a speech given to a group of Americans in Berlin on 11 June 2011.

Mr. Klaus sees Europe’s problems as an economic structural problem, which has embraced social permissiveness, anti-market practices, and a principle of money redistribution. Europeans have believed that the most favorable form of government is one of weakened nation-states with the concomitant strengthening of supranational institutions. He pointed out that only within states can democracy function effectively. The unification of Europe in the “Euro zone” was intended to accelerate economic growth, reduce inflation, and protect member states against external economic disruptions—it has failed in all three goals. Europe’s developing social democratic system with its generous social benefits, weakened motivation, shortened working hours, and lowered retirement age, have all diminished the labor supply and resulted in decreased productivity.

He said, “…we have witnessed a gradual shift away from liberalizing and removing barriers and towards a massive introduction of regulation from above, an ever-expanding welfare system, new and more sophisticated forms of protectionism, and continuously growing legal and regulatory burdens on business. All of these weaken and restrain freedom, democracy, and democratic accountability, not to mention economic efficiency, entrepreneurship and competitiveness.

“Europeans today prefer leisure to performance, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, collectivism and group entitlements to individualism. They have always been more risk-averse than Americans, but the difference continues to grow. Economic freedom has a very low priority here. It seems that Europeans are not interested in capitalism and free markets and do not understand that their current behavior undermines the very institutions that made their past success possible. They are eager to defend their non-economic freedoms—the easiness, looseness, laxity and permissiveness of modern European society—but when it comes to their economic freedoms, they are quite indifferent.”

In conclusion, he pointed out that “…the way your American government has been going, you might be able to catch up with us—in terms of our problems—very soon. But you are not as far along, yet. So, maybe seeing Europe’s crisis today will at least help you in America turn back toward freedom.”

I would observe that our American system with its increasing regulation and taxation of business and its promotion of moral laxity is well on the way of adopting Europe’s problems.

What’s the Answer to the Immigrant Problem?

On 6 September 2100, I specified the reason we are having a problem with illegal immigrants in the United States. Today, I intend to give my answer to this problem.

It must be realized that under the present circumstances with millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, they are collectively sending about $15-20 billion dollars home to relatives in Latin America yearly in the form of remittances. These illegal immigrants are facing increasing difficulties here in the U.S. finding jobs. States are cracking down on them; and even the Federal Government is taking some steps to discourage their presence here. From years of personal experience with these immigrants in southwest Denver, Nancy and I have seen first-hand the miserable circumstances in which these poor people live. It has seemed to me that there must be a better solution to this problem of illegal presence than allowing all the random chaos at the border, which we see today.

We need to find a win-win situation for these poor people as well, for Mexico, and for the United States. Fortunately, there is just such a solution to the problem.

I believe that the United States should start by building an impenetrable fence all the way across the southern border. Then, we should institute an immigrant guest worker program with specified numbers of workers allowed into the country to operate our agricultural and service industries. These guest workers should have temporary legal visas to stay here and work for a specified period of time, at the end of which, they must go home or get the visa renewed. Then these workers should be allowed to send as much money as they wish back home to Mexico; and that amount of money should be documented. Then, yearly, that amount of money should be subtracted from the $20 billion that is already flowing to Mexico and difference should be used to stimulate the Mexican agricultural, educational, and law enforcement economies under very strictly supervised programs. Employers who hire illegal immigrants should be severely fined and/or penalized.

As a corollary to this program, the practice of declaring “anchor babies” here in the states American citizen should be discontinued. (At present, any baby born to illegal immigrants in the United States is automatically designated as a legal citizen of this country. These babies are called “anchor babies.”) This practice is absolute nonsense; and it should be discontinued immediately!

I believe that measures such as the ones I have outlined would greatly mitigate the problem we have with illegal immigrants in the United States.

Why Do We Have an Immigrant Problem?

Every day, hundreds of illegal immigrants pour across the Mexican border. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there are approximately 500,000 illegal entries into the United States yearly. Even considering that, however, the total number of illegals in the U.S. has been decreasing slightly in recent years—due to the fact that some of them are going home for one reason or another.

The main reasons for illegal immigration into the U.S. are several. First, there is not enough arable land in Mexico to support their food supply needs.
Mexico has two agricultural systems, operating parallel to each other. Producing foods as cash crops for export is the primary goal of large-scale farmers. Although only about 15% of Mexico's land is arable, or suitable for cultivation, 88% of the arable land is used for cultivation of export crops and for grazing cattle. What large-scale farmers produce is determined by what brings the highest prices in international markets. Since the 1970s, most large-scale farmers have been producing the non-traditional crops such as fresh flowers; fresh and processed fruits such as tomatoes, melons, pineapples, strawberries, and mangos; also produced are fresh vegetables such as artichokes, cucumbers, cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, peppers, broccoli, snow peas, and asparagus. Additionally, there are the traditional exports that feed Mexico's northern neighbors, such as sugar, coffee, bananas and cattle. During winter and spring, more than half the fresh vegetables consumed in the United States come from Mexico. They sell to transnational corporations that process or directly transport the products to warehouses and eventually to grocers.

Among those who benefit from the large-scale agricultural system are local wealthy farming cartels and transnational corporations such as Del Monte, Green Giant, Heinz, United Brands, Castle and Cooke, PepsiCo, Ralston Purina, Campbell's, General Foods, Beatrice Foods, Gerber, Kellogg, Kraft and Nestle. Rarely do these corporations own land. Instead, they contract with large-scale farmers. The corporations have capital to invest in technology, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, transport systems, and marketing.

In recent decades, more and more of Mexico’s arable lands have been converted into the food export industry, so that Mexico is having a hard time producing the corn, beans, and cattle which are needed for the feeding of Mexico’s people, especially, the poor people. It is estimated by the World Bank that half of Mexico’s rural children are malnourished.

In other words, Mexico’s people are starving. Is it any wonder, then, that many young Mexican men are emigrating to the United States to find money to support their families back home? Of course, some of them end up in the larger Mexican cities working in the illegal drug and crime industries. Many Latinos, however, emigrate just because of the crime and violence they find at home. Recently, drug dealers have begun to demand half of the salaries of teachers in the public schools in some districts. They make these demands under threat of death.

Police and government corruption is rampant in Central America, even more than in Mexico, if that can be imagined. With all these incentives, we can understand why poor Mexican and Central Americans will do just about anything to escape such terrible circumstances.

My next blog post will specify what I envision as an answer to this problem.

The Legacy of the Blame America First Bunch

American exceptionalism has been a target of liberals in America for decades. They have eschewed the whole idea ever since the 1960’s and the rise of the hippy generation. That is the generation that spawned our president, Barack Obama and others who came under the spell of such as Saul Alinsky in Chicago. These days, there are many in our country who carry a burden of guilt feelings about supposed social errors America has committed. They would prefer to call attention to America’s mistakes than to promote the good things that America has done.

America has been a beacon of security in a very unstable world. Nancy and I have seen how very beneficial the presence of American soldiers has been in stabilizing volatile situations in Africa. We have all seen the benefits of promoting free enterprise and entrepreneurism in the economies of many countries. America has been exemplary in its demonstration of the rule of law in a society. We have shown the world that a stable government does not need to change by shooting the political leader. Our economy has shown how to produce goods and services leading to the highest standard of living in the world.

Some would say, however, that these demonstrated benefits of the American way of life have come accompanied by an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. Those are the ones who would denigrate the American ideal.

Mr. Obama has made it clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. He has shown this by his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street and capitalism, in general. He would give up the whole idea of American exceptionalism.

That policy should make the liberals happy, but they should realize that the Obama administration is mediocritizing the United States in the view of the rest of the world. If this keeps up, nobody will come to us for support and encouragement in a difficult world. His policy of downgrading the United States will not make the world a better and more secure place for the peoples to live.

Ludicrous Conclusion by Scientist

I have lately read a very interesting book by Ward and Brownlee entitled “Rare Earth.” The book is about the origins and life of the Earth. In it, the authors posit their belief that the factors that allow life of complex animals (including humankind) on Earth are so rare as to be practically impossible to reproduce elsewhere in the universe. They believe that very primitive life forms, such as bacteria and certain other one-celled organisms can probably live on other planets in the universe. However, they are convinced that complex life cannot exist on other planets in the universe. So far, so good. I can buy all that reasoning.

After describing all the complexity of animal and humankind development and all the factors that have allowed life to evolve on earth, the authors come to an astounding conclusion. They conclude that life so complex and of such a high order could not possibly have come about by means of an intelligent creator! !) They believe that all this interwoven and extremely complex world of ours must have come about by means of random chance and natural selection. It is unbelievable to me that such sophisticated and obviously skillful observers as these two could come to such a conclusion. I think the logical conclusion that would explain all this interactive complexity we see on the Earth would have had to arise as a result of a super-intelligent being. (Guess Who)

The authors point out that scientists have still not been able to synthesize a molecule of RNA or DNA. I would not be surprised to see, some day, that biochemists have finally synthesized that molecule; but of one thing I am sure: If scientists ever do accomplish this task, it will not be done as a matter of chance or “natural selection.” It will be accomplished by means of intelligence.

Keynesian Economics vs. Regular Economics

This blog post is largely excerpted from an editorial in the Wall Street Journal of 24 August 2011 written by Robert Barro, an Economics professor at Harvard.

John Maynard Keynes was an economist of the 1930’s who propounded the theory that if the national economy begins to flag and recession is in the offing, the Federal Government should pump more and more dollars into the system. This supposedly will stimulate the economy and cause the recession to go away. To Keynes, it mattered not if the government had the money in the bank to spend on things in the economy. All the government had to do in such a situation was to print more money and spend it. He thought that by adding or subtracting dollar bills from the system, the government could control the economy and prevent radical swings from recession on the one hand and inflation on the other. He thought that the wealth of the government did not depend on how much gold it had in the bank; it depended only upon the strength of the general economy.

This economic philosophy has governed the fiscal decisions of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal government since Franklin Roosevelt to the present, and it is very much alive and well in the present administration.

The present government has posited that it is necessary to transfer wealth to the people, in such things as food stamps, believing that this transfer of money will cause the people to use the influx of money to consume more and thereby stimulate food producers to make more food and hire more people, thereby increasing per capita income and stopping the recession.

“Regular economics” denies that this effect is a true conclusion of the matter. “Regular economists” believe that food stamps and other perks from the government only serve to motivate less work effort because the incentive to work is less if the government will just give the money away.

The problem with Keynesian economics is that there is no evidence that it works. Actually, we know something specific and concrete about the effect of one such transfer of deficit-sourced money. In 2009, the government raised the unemployment eligibility to 99 weeks—a significant increase from the previous eligibility period. After that, the long term unemployed (more than 26 weeks) jumped to over 44%. This pattern suggests that the dramatically longer unemployment insurance eligibility period adversely affected the labor market. The message people received was, “If they are going to give away the money, why should I work for it?”

I think the Obama Administration should rework their thinking about stimulus and transfer money. It is not working.

Where Are the Millionaires Who Are Paying the Taxes?

We hear a lot, these days, about the desirability of taxing the wealthy and leaving the lower income brackets out of the tax increase. But we need to also think about the little problem we have of paying for the activities of the government.

In 2007, 390,000 tax filers reported adjusted gross income of $1 million or more and paid $309 billion in taxes. In 2009, there were only 237,000 such filers who paid $178 billion in taxes; that was a decline of 39% in the number of millionaires. Almost four of 10 millionaires vanished in two years, and the total taxes they paid in 2009 took a drop of 42%.

The millionaires who are left still pay a mountain of tax. Those who make $1 million accounted for about 0.2% of all tax returns but paid 20.4% of income taxes in 2009. Those with adjusted gross income above $200,000 a year were just under 3% of tax filers but paid 50.1% of the $866 billion in total personal income taxes. This means the top 3% paid more than the bottom 97%. Yet the 3% are the people that President Obama claims do not pay their fair share. Before the recession, the $200,000 income group paid 54.5% of the income tax.

Government has discovered that the easiest way to produce income equality is to destroy trillions of dollars of wealth owned by a small proportion of the population. However, those destroyed dollars are taken out of the investment pool of the country leaving everyone out of luck. Those dollars would otherwise be useful to increase jobs. Everyone loses, but the rich lose relatively more than the poor and the middle class. By that measure, if few others, Obamanomics has been a raging success.

This blog post was excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 17 August 2011, page A14.

Are American Cities Headed For London?

We have all been appalled at the happenings in London and other British cities lately—riots by young hoodlums with no respect for working people or personal property. They have shown no regard for law and order; and they have not demonstrated any kind of work ethic that would have demonstrated their desire to earn a living. They have been largely young, unemployed people who live off government and social service handouts and bask in a very lenient justice system that lets them off easy when apprehended for miscreant behavior.

British Prime Minister, David Cameron has said, “There is something terribly wrong with our young people.” The London Daily Mail comments, “The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values, or aspirations….Nobody has ever dared suggest to them that they need feel any allegiance to anything, least of all Britain or their community….Not only do they know nothing of Britain’s past, they care nothing for its future.”

Contributing causes for all this disorder are several in British society: First, is a failing educational system that leaves out basic training in educational subjects. The average Pole who immigrates to England speaks better English than these young rioters after being in the country only six months. Secondly, England is importing foreigners to fill service industries at an overwhelming rate. It is said that one can hardly find any restaurants or hotels with young Brits doing the service work—only foreigners work in such jobs. Social charges on labor and the minimum wage are so high that no employer can extract from the young unemployed Briton anything like the value of what it costs to employ him.

Does any of this sound familiar to American ears? Do any of these social ills pervade our inner cities?

Nancy and I have lately been attempting to teach reading skills and Bible truths to a group of inner city minority group youngsters in Cleveland, OH. Even though the curriculum has been very well thought out and the staff has been skilled at teaching, the results are abominable. These youngsters are so disruptive, ignorant, disrespectful, and parentally deprived, that it has been all but impossible to impart useful information into their minds. They remind us of little time bombs just waiting for some British-type riot to break out so they can participate.

America is needful of a renewal of her biblical work ethic. We need the moral fiber that can only be imparted by sound religious values. We need to return to our ethical, Christian, roots. Only when our people resolve within ourselves to address the social problems of our country in a meaningful way can we ever hope to avoid a quick trip to London!

The Economy In the View of an Ordinary Citizen

The country is awash in news and numbers about the national debt and the run-away spending habits of our government. I am not expert in fiscal affairs; but some things seem clear to me, which I would like to share with you.

We are all aware that the government has agreed among the various legislators to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. This is supposed to be accompanied by extensive cuts in federal government spending. (Who believes that?) In the past, we have seen the national debt rising by $3.95 billion every day since 9/28/07.

Now, a bond rating agency, Standard and Poor, has downgraded the value of our federal government’s promises to pay back its loans (bonds) to a AA+ rating. This means that S&P believes the government is becoming unable to pay back its loans.

We are told by our leaders that the answer to our financial problems is more spending “to stimulate the economy” and higher taxes to raise the money for the spending. Fortunately for us, there is an exact model for this kind of fiscal policy right in front of us. In 1997, Japan experienced the same problem as the United States is experiencing now; and they followed the same policy decisions as those being promoted by our leaders. The result for Japan was a horrendous double dip where its GDP contracted for five quarters and its banking system went down with it. As a result, the deficit, instead of contracting, increased by a whopping 68%! It took Japan ten years to climb out of this policy mistake. If Washington fails to learn from the Japanese mistake and stays the course along the August 2nd agreement toward fiscal consolidation when its private sector is still deleveraging, the probability of the US economy falling into double dip is not insignificant.

Right now, our national debt rests at $42,026 for every man, woman, and child in our country.

The President is urging us to disbelieve the predictions of Standard and Poor. He is still claiming that his old Keynesian policies of tax and spend are the answer to our debt problems. I would ask you: Whom do you believe the most, Standard and Poor or the federal government? Whom do you think has the most financial expertise? Well…I don’t think I, personally, have much doubt about the answer to those questions. The feds have lost credibility in my mind.

The administration is telling us that the whole problem is due to mistakes made by the Bush administration. But, I ask you, “Who was in charge of the money situation of this country when the excess spending took a marked increase?” The spending of the Obama Administration makes President Bush look like a tight wad.

As we look at this dismal situation, we should ask ourselves what we can do about it. THERE IS AN ELECTION COMING UP.

Teachers’ Union Fights Parents’ Rights

The American Federation of Teachers, the teacher’s union, recently posted on its web site an internal document bragging about how it successfully undermines parental power in education.

In 2010, California voters passed into law a right of parents to hold petition drives to force reform in failing public schools. Under California law, a 51% majority of parents can shake up a failing school’s administration or invite a charter operator to take over a school. This law is commonly referred to as the “parent trigger.” The merit and utility of this law became obvious; and earlier this year parents in the state of Connecticut tried to institute an identical measure for the parents of that state.

AFT published the name of their effort on their web site—it was called “How Connecticut Diffused The Parent Trigger.” AFT began an intensive lobbying campaign to defeat the measure; and they succeeded by use of the subterfuge which they called “engaging the opposition.” They called together groups of legislators who were particularly vulnerable to union pressures and created a system of “school governance councils” to mediate the school problems instead of granting petition rights to parent groups. Interestingly, their conferences did not include any parent groups interested in promoting the petition process.

The AFT document on the web bragged that the name of the councils is “a misnomer: they are advisory and do not have true governing authority.”

It is obvious that the AFT does not want parental interference in their teaching and indoctrination activities in the public schools—never mind the quality of the education they are handing out.

Many are sympathetic with teachers because teachers are thought to be so underpaid. But according to the Department of Education statistics for 2007-2008, the average public school teacher brought in over $53,000 plus health insurance and retirement benefits. The Census Bureau reports that for 2008, the mean household income in the United States was $52,000.

God’s Different Attitude Toward Sin and Self-righteousness

In 1 Corinthians 1:2, we see how the apostle, Paul addresses the believers in Corinth as “…those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy….” There are similar greetings to every other church to which Paul wrote with the exception of the Galatians. There seems to be a reason that Paul did not address the Galatians with such an apparently warm heart of love for them.

In the case of the Corinthians, Paul was writing to them to address some very serious sins that were being committed by the people there. They were divisions in the church, lawsuits among the believers, gross sexual immorality in the church, mishandling of marriage relationships, worshipping incorrectly, etc. The Corinthians were eating food sacrificed to idols and giving outsiders to the faith reason for believing that they were partaking in idol worship. Paul admonished them to give up those sinful practices. But…he never indicated that they were anything but very loved believers and members of Christ’s body.

To the Galatians, however, Paul was addressing a situation that apparently was more serious than all the sins of the Corinthians. They were beginning to rely on things of the law and on their own righteous activity to bring them the salvation that only Christ could gain for them through faith in Him. They were coming under the influence of the Judaizers who were encouraging them to observe special days, months, years, and seasons. They were, again, relying on circumcision to impart righteousness to them.

Salvation is by grace, through faith. Nothing we can do will ever merit Gods approval unless He empowers it. Oh, yes, sin is terrible; and God will never condone it. He warns us repeatedly in His word to avoid sin at all costs. But…there seems to be something even more grievous than the ordinary sins of the Corinthians in God’s eyes—that is relying on our own righteousness to gain heaven for us.

Equal Rights for All Human Beings

(Excerpted from Christopher Kaczor in First Things August 2011)

In most states, young people can drive a car at sixteen. At 18, they can vote and serve in the military. At 21, they can drink alcohol. At 25, they can serve in the House of Representatives; at 30, in the Senate, and, at 35, as President of the United States. We gain rights as we age. Some hold that the unborn also gains rights as he ages in the uterus. They believe that an unborn person has fewer rights at the time of conception than he has just before birth. Many Pro-Life people like to adopt this attitude. This attitude is called the “gradualist attitude,” because it gradually assigns the right to life to the unborn as he/she ages.

It should be recognized that the gradualist attitude calls into question one of the most fundamental principles of democratic society: the basic equality of all human beings. The Nazi’s claimed that inequality when they considered Jews less than human. Thus, it can be seen that the gradualist attitude is a dangerous one for civilized society.

The rights listed in the first paragraph depend upon one’s ability to perform responsibly; and those things advance as one ages. The right to life, however, does not depend upon maturing intellectual and physical abilities. It is a right that is conferred simply on the basis that every living human being has the innate right to live, regardless of his/her level of dependency or his/her ability to feel pain (There are many other criteria that have been proposed by those eager to assign non-human status to early unborn babies.)

The gradualist viewpoint appeals to some because they think it is a view of moderation, which seems desirable to them. Aristotle pointed out centuries ago, however, that not everything admits of a virtuous mean—that is, moderation in the form of compromise between two radically different viewpoints is often not virtuous but vicious. As an example, the difference between killing 100 people and killing no people cannot be resolved by taking a “moderate” viewpoint and killing only 50 people. The moderation of the gradualist view is no evidence of its truth.

This is the reason that Pro-Lifers cannot compromise with gradualists or those who would assign life rights to some unborn babies and not others. An aborted baby is just as dead if it is killed at an early stage of fetal life as if it were killed later in its development.

Human life begins when the human genome is completed at conception by the23 chromosomes from the mother and 23 from the father, and that completed genome is encapsulated within a bath of cytoplasm and a cell membrane. That fertilized ovum only needs nutrition, oxygen, and time to become a fully developed human being. He/she is, indeed, a human being despite his/her size, level of development, and sentience.

What’s the Difference Between Public and Private Debt?

I publish this blog post as a sincere question. I do not know the answer to the question; and I am hoping that some of my readers know the answer. What is the essential difference between public and private debt? Could it be that public debt is really a beneficial effect of our governmental system? It seems to me that government debt serves a good purpose in that it provides us, Americans who save money and buy treasury bonds, with a steady and safe source of income.

I know that private debt needs to be paid back with interest in order to establish a stable and safe family economy and to nurture a healthy banking system. One needs to save and budget the money one has in order to pay back his personal debts. It seems to me, however, that the government does not feel constrained to do these things, and I am wondering why. I am even wondering if it is good thing for the government to pay back its debts.

One might think of government pay-back money in the form of interest a sort of other “entitlement” program. We already have several entitlement programs, i.e., Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, government pensions, and now, Obamacare. We might now think of the interest being paid out to service the debt as another “entitlement” program. The main difference between this “entitlement” and the other entitlement programs is that this new “entitlement” is totally deserved by the recipients. In the case of this new “entitlement,” the people and agencies who receive the interest money are the ones who have saved and scrimped to save their money for a rainy day. The other, more traditional entitlements go to people who may or may not have saved money for a rainy day fund for themselves. These conventional entitlement moneys act more like a traditional insurance fund that only seeks to share risk so that everyone gets cared for, even though they may not have saved the requisite money, themselves.

If we think of government interest pay-back money as an “entitlement,” we should know that it is the very largest of all the entitlements—it is flowing out of the Federal Government at the rate of $1.13 billion daily. I know that the Federal government was never meant to be a wealth producer for the people. But I also know that many of us older citizens are using Federal treasuries as buffer money against an insecure economy. We always thought of government bonds as the most secure of all investments. These days, I am not so sure about the safety of government bonds. Nevertheless, many of us American citizens hold these securities, and we know that we are entitled to the interest that the government promised to pay us for the use of our dollars.

Governmental programs have a funny way of not producing the exact thing for which they were intended. For instance, the Medicaid program was intended to pay health care costs for the poor. As it turns out, however, about 70% of Medicaid dollars are used to pay for nursing home costs for all of our people. Medicaid dollars are doled out to any of us Americans who need nursing home care without a means test of our relatives. It can be seen, then, that Medicaid nursing home money is not necessarily reserved for the poor.

Government bonds were sold to the people in order to pay the costs of the government. However, it seems to me that they are now serving another purpose. They are paying for the financial support of many older persons who have saved money, invested it in a secure place, and now hope that the returns on that money will help them pay their way in their old age.

Am I thinking correctly or wrongly about this issue? I hope to hear from many of you about this question.

Notes on the State of our Nation

I have received the following facts from Capt, Woddie Sprouse, USN/RET, a personal friend of Nancy and me. Capt. Sprouse is an experienced officer of the USN; and I deeply respect his understanding of our national condition. Please read the following and consider the significance of this information.
* 14.5 million Americans are unemployed, or 9.1% of the population this number equals the entire populations of Wyoming, Arkansas, Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, New Mexico, Nebraska, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
* The 7/1/2011 Gallup underemployment rate is an additional 9.2% of the population over 18 years of age.
* The national debt is over 14.5 trillion dollars.
* The interest that must be paid on this debt will equal 414 billion dollars in 2011, this amounts to 1.13 billion dollars in accumulated interest per day. Nothing is being paid on the principle.
* There has not been a national budget approved by Congress for the past two fiscal years.
* The current 2011 Federal deficit, income - expense, is in excess of 1.3 trillion dollars, the Federal fiscal year ends on September 31, 201. This1.3 trillion deficit must be financed by seeking addition credit, adding to the total national debt.
* The nation is engaged in three wars, or something that resembles war to this old warrior.
* None of the three wars were declared by Congress. And, I submit that had they never would have been declared had the Congress been asked to do so.
* The nation has no defined foreign policy, or doctrine, to deal with Iran's nuclear development.
* The Mediterranean Muslim region has undergone a significant, yet to be understood, transformation.
* The wealthy, Muslim Gulf and Arabic, states have deferred taking an active role in the Mediterranean transformation.
* The nation has no defined foreign policy to deal with the diverse aspects of the above transformation.
* With the exception of Germany, the major European economies are in financial, debt, distress.
* The European Central Bank is struggling to cope with the wide spread, Southern European National Debit crisis and protect the Euro common currency.
* The nation has permitted the value of the US currency to decline with respect to the Euro.
* With the exception of the Secretary of the Treasury, all the original, key, members of The Administration's Economic team have left the administration.
* The Chinese national defense expenditure is estimated to be in the range of 20% of their annual budget.
* China is expected surpass the US as the number one world economy in the next 10 years.
* The Japanese economy has been stagnate for the past decade.
* There is no regional economic or military power to counter, or balance, Chinese growth.
* Significant quantities of oil and gas reside in the South China Sea, a region of increased Chinese attention.
* Russia has proven not to be a predictable world player.
* Much of central Europe is now dependent on oil and gas supplies by Russia.
* There are 12-14 million undocumented aliens residing in the nation.
* There is no effective method(s) to control undocumented alien access to the nation.
* There is no comprehensive plan to address the status of the 12-14 million undocumented aliens currently in the nation.
* Currently, only four States: Alaska, Montana, Arkansas and North Dakota, will not have a state budget deficit in 2011. 46 States will have deficits and the majority of these will require significant cuts in their services and/or increases in state revenues to abide by their state constitutions to have a balanced budget.
* All aspects of the US housing industry continue to experience a prolonged decline.
* Over 50% of US families pay no income taxes.
* US College tuition is increasing at a rate exceeding the national inflation rate.
* US Medical care expense is increasing at a rate exceeding the national inflation rate.
* The future national supply of energy is in question.

These facts are not just so much dross and Republican haranguing at an objectionable government administration; these are REAL facts, and we, Americans absolutely must do something about them!

Two Ways to Look at Bin Laden’s Death

Conservatives and liberals have reacted much differently to the Navy SEAL’s operation that killed Osama bin Laden. On the right there was pride in the capabilities, precision and bravery of an elite commando team. There were no illusions that victory had been achieved over international terrorism and islamist fanaticism. But there was a feeling of satisfaction, if not relief, that retributive justice was finally delivered to a heinous mass murderer. There was hope that this could be a turning point in a protracted and continuing war, along with renewed resolve that we persevere for as long as it takes.

On the left, there was no celebration. The liberal penchant for guilt was indulged with hand-wringing about a lack of due process in what may have been a planned “kill mission.” (So what? We are at war!) Abstract moralizers lamented the tragedy of any human life being taken. But even more revealing of the leftist mindset and their detachment from the real world was their indignation over continuing security precautions, which they regard as an affront to civil rights.

They fretted that bin Laden’s death might cause the Patriot Act to be continued, that the CIA and the FBI would still be allowed to conspire together (i.e., share information to thwart terrorist plots); that Gitmo would remain open; that the Transportation Security Administration would continue to inconvenience air travelers; that terrorist phone calls would be monitored without warrants (but with court approval under the Foreign Intelligence Act,); that captured terrorists might be subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques; that American troops will remain abroad, and so on.

These things are all true for the simple reason that we are still at war with suicidal fanatics who are intent on randomly killing innocent American civilians.

I think it is high time that we, Americans, quit being so guilt ridden with the fact that we need to protect ourselves and the ones we love. Let’s end this war on terror with a victory!

This blog post was largely excerpted from the Denver Post 2 June 2011, page 11B. It was part of an editorial written by Mike Rosen.

How To Fund The Welfare State

On 5/30/11, I posted a blog on how America needs to fund defense spending in favor of spending more money on entitlements. Today, I want to mention more about the severity of our national financial problem.

America now has a debt burden of $14 trillion. $4 trillion more than just 2 years ago. In 2008, the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product was 40%. Today it is 68%! Unless we make hard decisions now, in less than a decade every dollar of federal revenue will go to covering the costs of Medicare, Social Security, and interest payments on our debt. We will sink even deeper in debt to pay for everything else, from national security to disaster relief. Our country will fall behind the productivity of other countries. Our currency will be debased, and our influence in the world will wane. Our security will be more precarious.

In order to resurrect this failing state, we need new leadership, leadership that will not be afraid to institute programs to reduce, reform, and in some cases end government programs—include some popular but unaffordable subsidies for agriculture and energy. We need leadership that will cut this wild spending on Medicare and accept the fact that we can no longer fund Social Security our of a “trust fund” that has no money in it (And it never has—all the Social Security “trust fund” has ever had in it has been a bunch of IOU’s from the Federal Government.)

We need to pursue free trade agreements with other countries, just as other countries now do. 95% of the world’s customers live outside the U.S. We will not remain the most productive economy in the world if we embrace the mistaken belief that we can prosper by selling and buying only among ourselves, while the other countries seize the opportunity for economic growth that the global economy offers.

Let’s do something about this deplorable financial situation now—before it is too late!

This blog post was largely excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 6/1/11, page A19.

Will It Be Welfare or Defense for America?

Robert Gates is retiring from the office of Secretary of Defense after serving 2 years under President G.W. Bush and 2 years under President Obama. He has made several farewell speeches laying out his opinions about the U.S.’s ability to fund both defense and the welfare state. He has warned against cuts to weapon programs and troop levels that would make America vulnerable in “a complex and unpredictable security environment.”

This year, America is spending 4.5% of our gross domestic product (GDP) on defense when the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars are included. On the other hand, we spent 9.8% of GDP last year on entitlement spending (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security).

If the United States were to cut our defense spending by 10%, which would absolutely gut the Defense Department budget, the cost savings would be only $55 billion. With a budget deficit this year of $1.4 trillion, that saving would not even make a dent in our fiscal problem of over-reaching debt. The financial problem we have is not over the Afghan/Iraqi war or even general spending on defense, it is obviously entitlement spending!

The Obama Administration has cut and slashed our defense budget in the last 2 years. The money for the F-22 fighter has been stopped and several promising missile defense programs have been discontinued. All this in a world where foreign powers are building up missile and nuclear war capability. I think we are going to be sorry for these administrative decisions.

There is something wrong with our democratic system of government. We send our politicians to Washington with instructions to “bring home the bacon,” in the form of entitlement, welfare, benefits for our short-term enjoyment. But when the pig is dead, there is no more bacon to bring home.

America’s global power begins at home with a strong economy able to generate wealth. The push for defense cuts reflects the weak recovery from recession and a national debt that has doubled in the last 2 years. The Obama Administration has made conscious decisions to squeeze defense while pouring money on everything else.

I think we should get back on the right track of funding defense instead of trying to fund and maintain a faulty and expensive health care bill and support an indefensible Medicare entitlement program.

This blog post was partly excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 5/28/11, pages A14 and A15.

Same-Sex “Marriage”, Why Not?

Many in our country ask the question, “What is so wrong with same-sex “marriage”? I do not see that it is harming me. If someone wants to marry a person of the same gender, let him do it. It really makes no difference to anyone but himself.”

These arguments do not stand the test of careful scrutiny. Following are the reasons why same sex “marriage” is not good for our people:
1. For most Americans, marriage is a religious sacrament or ceremony. If the definition of marriage is changed to allow same-sex “marriage”, some religious individuals and groups feel that they will become at risk of having to violate their beliefs by being forced to marry same-sex couples.
2. Same-sex “marriage” violates what is obviously biologically abnormal.
3. Many religiously conservative researchers have found that children thrive best when reared in a home with a married mother and father. Boys and girls have needs that are uniquely met by parents of the opposite gender. Under same-sex “marriage” arrangements, more children will grow up fatherless and confused about what constitutes a normal marriage.
4. The role of marriage in society is a major topic taught in public schools. If SSM (same-sex “marriage”) is legalized, schools would be required to teach that SSM is equivalent to opposite-sex marriage, starting as early as Kindergarten. That would violate the beliefs of many parents.
5. Legalizing same-sex “marriage” will force government, industry, and business to financially subsidize an institution to which they have moral objections, thereby intruding on the people’s ability to make moral judgments. Business will have to raise prices in order to insure significant others.
6. Legalizing same-sex “marriage” will lead to the legalization of polygamy and other abnormal forms of “marriage.”

In his 1934 work, Sex and Culture, British anthropologist, J.D. Unwin studied 80 societies, analyzing their cultural beliefs and practices, especially as related to sex and marriage. He concluded that the more sexual opportunity a society had—that is the fewer restraints placed on sexual habits—the less energetic that society would be. In other words, the more sexually promiscuous a society is, the less it will accomplish constructive works in literature, law, inventiveness, etc. When sexual opportunity began to be extended in both pre-marital and extra-marital sexual freedom, Unwin found that such cultures began to decay.

Our society, today, is playing loose with our sexual morals, including allowing same-sex “marriage.” We can expect on the basis of Unwin’s discoveries that our society will, also, suffer cultural loss as a result of these social mistakes.

I can testify that in my personal experience, the above conclusion is true. Nancy and I have been largely occupied fighting sexual infidelity since the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in America in 1973. We have spent untold hours and dollars combatting perversions of sexual practice, including abortion. Those hours and all that money might have been better used if we had not had such a blatant offence to common decency operative in America.

Would that morality would return to the shores of America once more, so that those of us involved in the Pro-Life movement could spend our time and resources on something else!