CAGW Ad: 'Chinese Professor'

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Powerful ad from Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW):


- JP

Sarah Palin: Out-of-control spending is weakening our nation

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In a new op-ed published on her Facebook Notes page, Sarah Palin warns that out-of-control spending is threatening America's freedom and security:

Freedom, Influence, Security Shrink as Budget Balloons

The White House recently announced its pricey Childhood Obesity Initiative to tell us what we should feed our kids. Helpful I’m sure – but most Americans would rather see government focus on other important areas right now. We know what our kids should eat: more healthy food, less junk food. There – we just saved Washington a ton of money by announcing that finding on personal responsibility.

What does demand our full attention is the newly released $3,800,000,000,000 federal budget. The president and Congress have a huge job tackling the problem staring right at us as we look at a budget we obviously can’t afford. America’s freedom and security are endangered as we become beholden to other nations, thanks to ballooning deficits and debt. One congressman just warned that our nation may become insolvent if we don’t make better decisions starting now. As noted in a New York Times article today, unless “miraculous growth” or miraculous unforeseen change is on the horizon, America’s freedom, influence, and security will continue to erode. (Personally, at this point I believe it wouldn’t hurt to ramp up our nation’s humble request for the divine miraculous change and wisdom we’ll need to see us through.)

Getting our arms around this will take all of us working together, making sacrifices, taking more personal responsibility, and sending elected leaders to Washington that we can trust. That’s why some of us may come across as strident in our efforts to call out the White House and Congress. We want to trust you, Washington; we want to work with you, but we cannot stomach some of the things being rammed down our throats. Your actions to pile on more debt make no sense, so we must question your motives and intentions. For instance, there’s just no room for expensive, dangerous, and unsustainable new initiatives like Obamacare, Cap and Tax, and a dramatically expanded federal payroll. These government-growing proposals will obviously cause more problems than they’ll solve. They are just further steps towards insolvency.

Steps towards insolvency are steps away from freedom. They’re steps towards destruction. It’s the reason we ask why we should swallow what's coming out of Washington.

The Wall Street Journal has a brilliant column by Gerald Seib today. It reads in part:

The U.S. government this year will borrow one of every three dollars it spends, with many of those funds coming from foreign countries. That weakens America’s standing and its freedom to act; strengthens China and other world powers including cash-rich oil producers; puts long-term defense spending at risk; undermines the power of the American system as a model for developing countries; and reduces the aura of power that has been a great intangible asset for presidents for more than a century.

“We’ve reached a point now where there’s an intimate link between our solvency and our national security,” says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior national-security adviser in both the first and second Bush presidencies. “What’s so discouraging is that our domestic politics don’t seem to be up to the challenge. And the whole world is watching.”

In the 21st-century world order, the classic, narrow definition of national-security threats already has expanded in ways that make traditional foreign-policy thinking antiquated. The list of American security concerns now includes dependence on foreign oil and global warming, for example.

Consider just four of the ways that budget deficits also threaten American’s national security:

• They make America vulnerable to foreign pressures.

The U.S. has about $7.5 trillion in accumulated debt held by the public, about half of that in the hands of investors abroad.

Aside from the fact that each American next year will chip in more than $800 just to pay interest on this debt, that situation means America’s government is dependent on the largesse of foreign creditors and subject to the whims of international financial markets. A foreign government, through the actions of its central bank, could put pressure on the U.S. in a way its military never could. Even under a more benign scenario, a debt-ridden U.S. is vulnerable to a run on the American dollar that begins abroad.

Either way, Mr. Haass says, “it reduces our independence.”

• Chinese power is growing as a result.

A lot of the deficit is being financed by China, which is selling the U.S. many billions of dollars of manufactured goods, then lending the accumulated dollars back to the U.S. The IOUs are stacking up in Beijing.

So far this has been a mutually beneficial arrangement, but it is slowly increasing Chinese leverage over American consumers and the American government. At some point, the U.S. may have to bend its policies before either an implicit or explicit Chinese threat to stop the merry-go-round.

Just this weekend, for example, the U.S. angered China by agreeing to sell Taiwan $6.4 billion in arms. At some point, will the U.S. face economic servitude to China that would make such a policy decision impossible?

Please read the rest of Seib’s column here. Our out-of-control spending is weakening our country. We can no longer afford to kick the can down the road to the next generation. We need to have a serious discussion about our spending priorities before it's too late. Commonsense conservatives have a sincere desire to work with the White House on these challenges, and we’re thankful for those in Congress making the offer to help.

- Sarah Palin

McCain: It's the debt, strupid, not Sarah Palin's visor

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On "FOX News Sunday" today, Sen. John McCain told host Chris Wallace that with all the serious issues facing the country, those who are focused on Sarah Palin's visor are just being silly:

"Are we in sauch a world now where we have climate change, health care reform -- all these issues that are going on -- massive debts and deficits, and they're worrited about Sarah Palin's visor?"

McCain also told Wallace:

"She is going to be a force in the Republican Party for a long time. And the hysterical attacks on her from the left continue to validate that."

h/t: Freedom's Lighthouse

- JP

Welcome to the 1930s

At A Tangled Web, David Vance says the 1930s are happening again, thanks to a toxic mix of  "economic luddism and political incompetence":

The dollar is heading south, the deficit is heading north and Obamanomics are proving as ineffective as those [pursued] in the 1930's by FDR.

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As Sarah Palin points out the dollar decline is directly linked to rising US indebtedness and dependence on foreign oil. “We can see the effect of this in the price of gold, which hit a record high today in response to fears about the weakened dollar,”

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The neo-Keynesians are wreaking havoc and proving that they have learned none of the lessons of history. You just cannot spend your way out of a spending induced recession and yet Geithner and the gang imagine otherwise.

Indeed. As Vance points out, Both Hoover and FDR failed to get it right 75 years ago, and millions of Americans got stuck with the bill. 

"The Wizard of Oz" made it's screen debut in 1939, and we are most certainly not in Kansas anymore, TOTUS. But on a more serious note, the 1930s was a decade that saw the rise of fascism overseas, complete with massive military buildups by Germany and Japan. Despite those foreboding events, the prevailing desire for neutrality in the U.S. made it a sleeping giant which would only be awakened by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's daring attack on Pearl harbor which crippled the American Pacific Fleet.

- JP

Will AK legislature override Gov's stimulus veto?

This McCalatchy report by the ADN's Sean Cockerham says they do:

Legislative leaders say they appear to have enough votes to override Gov. Sarah Palin's veto of $28.6 million in federal stimulus money for energy cost relief. Alaska is the only state to have rejected these funds, and that's not sitting well.

"I would be surprised if we didn't override her," North Pole Republican Rep. John Coghill said Thursday.

Rep. Mike Hawker, another member of the legislative leadership, said that's his count too.

"This is just one of those cases where there is such a profound difference of opinion between the legislative branch of government and the executive branch," the Anchorage Republican said. "We could have one of those rare and difficult instances where we are actually able to override a governor's veto of an appropriation item."

What Hawker means by "rare and difficult" means that Alaska state law it requires a 75 percent vote of the Legislature in joint session.

Fiscally responsible governors have had a hard time trying to persuade their states to reject even just a portion of the federal stimulus money. State lawmakers see it as "free money," while a few governors are worried about the additional debt the porkulust will burden future generations with.

In South Carolina, Gov. Mark Sanford's battle with his legislature over "free money" went all the way to the state's supreme court, which ruled against the governor. Thursday, the high court ordered Sanford to request $700 million in federal stimulus money earmarked primarily for education, ending a months-long battle with SC legislators.

Gov. Sanford said Thursday that he will not appeal the ruling and will sign the forms to request the funds Monday.

- JP

Palin: Properly use stim funds you insist on taking

From Jim Gerhaghty's Campaign Spot blog at NRO:

Today, Alaska governor Sarah Palin's office acknowledged the state legislature’s action to "accept economic stimulus funds with passage of House Bill 199, Senate Bill 75, HB81, HB113, and two legislative resolutions supporting receipt of the funds, House Joint Resolution 11 and House Concurrent Resolution 13."

“I have been clear and consistent about my concerns with accepting economic stimulus funds as our nation incurs tremendous debt,” said Governor Palin. “As I am required to certify that stimulus dollars will create new jobs and stimulate the economy, I acknowledge the legislature’s action. And now I must make sure that, by applying for funds that they’ve resolved to accept, we do not grow government but instead put people to work and grow Alaska’s private-sector economy.”

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“We provided the public with the opportunity to weigh in and for them to understand the complicated and evolving federal requirements in this package,” Governor Palin said. “My concern remains that we must acknowledge these are one-time, temporary funds, that the federal government is deeply in debt, and that we must borrow money from other countries to fund much of government.”

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HB199 includes intent language to that effect: “The state will not be granting additional funds to continue the programs after the federal aid is exhausted.”

The full press release from the governor's office is here.

- JP