The Morning Bell
WEDNESDAY, NOV 11, 2009
Keeping Up Our End of the Bargain With Those Who Serve
Today, we at The Heritage Foundation will honor Veterans Day by pausing to remember those who sacrifice in defense of freedom for our country. Heritage honors all who serve past and present in the United States Armed Forces, their families, and all military retirees and veterans. We solemnly remember those fallen men and women who gave the last full measure of devotion and will also not forget those who have yet to come home and remain missing in action.
This national holiday warrants a diversion from discussing domestic priorities to take a closer look at what Congress and the White House are doing about many pressing defense issues.
Some policymakers seem want to keep defense and military issues out of the headlines, choosing instead to continue cutting the defense budget to fund domestic programs. This observation is based on actual outcomes from this year’s defense budget debate.
During the past few months, Congress and the President effectively shut down the purchase of next-generation equipment for the military. That includes: the Air Force’s F-22 fifth-generation fighter aircraft, the most sophisticated in the world; the Army’s ground vehicles designed to replace a combat fleet built in the 1970s and 80s; two types of helicopters-one which fulfills the unique duty of rescuing military personnel held behind enemy lines; and large cuts to the missile defense program designed to thwart the threat of long-range ballistic missiles from hitting U.S. shores and cities.
What’s likely next year? Jack Reed (D-RI), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently opined that the Department of Defense should buckle up for some (more) “painful adjustments”-as if any more could be borne by those in uniform-and get ready to do the following:
sacrifice defense dollars to pay for TARP, the stimulus bill, domestic programs and the federal debt;
hand over another chunk of the defense budget to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for civilian aid or “soft power” programs; and
delay or cut weapons programs that are not “absolutely essential.”
Unfortunately, Congress set a horrible precedent, having given the President so many of his defense cuts during a time of war. That just makes more devastating cancellations likely in the coming years.
The problem is that, since they have no new weapons systems to slash, politicians will need to start eliminating equipment that today’s troops are using everyday. This includes replacements for tanks, trucks, ships and planes that are already worn out after nine years of consecutive warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In short, finding further “savings” in the defense budget would require cutting to the bone and hurting those in uniform. Having a world-class military and truly honoring those who serve requires policymakers to provide the same technologically-advanced equipment to defeat any enemy when necessary and protect those in harm’s way.
Providing the military just enough to barely get by is dangerous, and an outright dereliction of duty by federal policymakers whose first job is found in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution: to provide for the common defense of the American people.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Heritage Foundation
The Morning Bell
TUESDAY, NOV. 10, 2009
Reagan, Obama and the Berlin Wall
On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin and said: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
On November 9, 1989, just two years after Reagan made his Brandenburg Gate speech, the people of Germany did tear down “this wall” and in so doing they freed hundreds of millions of people from the tyranny of communism. Reagan by no means single-handily brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall, but his leadership against despotism was widely recognized by the victims of communism. When he visited Poland in 1990, a dissident leader presented Reagan with a sword explaining: “I am giving you this saber for helping us to chop off the head of communism.”
But the leftists in America do not want us to remember Reagan’s role in history. That is why President Barack Obama (the same man who found time to jet to Copenhagen at the drop of a rumor that his presence could win the Olympics for his hometown of Chicago) could not be bothered to attend the 20th anniversary of the wall’s fall last night. Instead, President Obama taped a video message that completely failed to mention Reagan or British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
More than petty partisan slights are at stake here. President Obama’s refusal to recognize the role President Reagan’s and Prime Minister Thatcher’s leadership played in defeating despotism goes to the core of Obama’s foreign policy priorities. Heritage scholar Nile Gardiner explains:
Barack Obama simply does not view the world as Reagan did, in terms of good versus evil, as a world divided between the forces of freedom on one side and totalitarianism on the other. For the Obama administration the advancement of human rights and individual liberty on the world stage is a distinctly low priority, as we have seen with its engagement strategy towards the likes of Iran, Burma, Sudan, Venezuela and Russia.
We commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall to celebrate the collapse of communism, to honor those who died resisting communism, and to resolve that never again will peoples and nations allow so evil a tyranny to terrorize the world.
Yet, at a time when the United States currently faces challenges as complicated as those confronted by Reagan (war in Afghanistan, the global fight against Islamist terrorism, the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran) Obama is bent on apologizing for our nation’s actions, betraying Cold War allies, and dithering on troop deployments.
TUESDAY, NOV. 10, 2009
Reagan, Obama and the Berlin Wall
On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin and said: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
On November 9, 1989, just two years after Reagan made his Brandenburg Gate speech, the people of Germany did tear down “this wall” and in so doing they freed hundreds of millions of people from the tyranny of communism. Reagan by no means single-handily brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall, but his leadership against despotism was widely recognized by the victims of communism. When he visited Poland in 1990, a dissident leader presented Reagan with a sword explaining: “I am giving you this saber for helping us to chop off the head of communism.”
But the leftists in America do not want us to remember Reagan’s role in history. That is why President Barack Obama (the same man who found time to jet to Copenhagen at the drop of a rumor that his presence could win the Olympics for his hometown of Chicago) could not be bothered to attend the 20th anniversary of the wall’s fall last night. Instead, President Obama taped a video message that completely failed to mention Reagan or British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
More than petty partisan slights are at stake here. President Obama’s refusal to recognize the role President Reagan’s and Prime Minister Thatcher’s leadership played in defeating despotism goes to the core of Obama’s foreign policy priorities. Heritage scholar Nile Gardiner explains:
Barack Obama simply does not view the world as Reagan did, in terms of good versus evil, as a world divided between the forces of freedom on one side and totalitarianism on the other. For the Obama administration the advancement of human rights and individual liberty on the world stage is a distinctly low priority, as we have seen with its engagement strategy towards the likes of Iran, Burma, Sudan, Venezuela and Russia.
We commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall to celebrate the collapse of communism, to honor those who died resisting communism, and to resolve that never again will peoples and nations allow so evil a tyranny to terrorize the world.
Yet, at a time when the United States currently faces challenges as complicated as those confronted by Reagan (war in Afghanistan, the global fight against Islamist terrorism, the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran) Obama is bent on apologizing for our nation’s actions, betraying Cold War allies, and dithering on troop deployments.
The Heritage Foundation
The Morning Bell
MONDAY, NOV 9, 2009
Who is the President Calling “Extremist?”
Following last Tuesday’s election, the last thing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wanted to do was allow Members of Congress to go home and talk to their constituents about the $2.6 trillion health care bill she was marshaling through Congress. The centerpiece of Pelosi’s trap and pressure campaign was a Saturday address by President Barack Obama in the Cannon Office Building, where Obama warned Democrats: “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit [Democratic voters] and it will encourage the extremists.”
State Department to Mr. Zelaya: A Deal is a Deal!
The extremists. That is how the President of the Unites States describes Americans who do not want to see the federal government control over half of all health care spending. And just who are some of these extremists? Looking over just today’s papers we find:
Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria: “Obama’s message to the country appears to be, “We have a dysfunctional health-care system with out-of-control costs, and let’s add 45 million people to it.” Americans see a health-care bill that has been produced by the old Democratic machine rather than the new Democratic technocrats — more Lyndon Johnson than Larry Summers. It might be the only way to get a law passed, and it might please the party’s base, but it will dismay independents.”
The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt: “Health-care reform should not add to the deficit. It should control health-care costs. And, once reform is passed, the government will get serious about deficit reduction. Unfortunately, the House bill fails his first test.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT): “If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote.”
Everybody listed above acknowledges we desperately need to fix health care policy. They just do not believe that the House plan is the best way to go about doing so. Conservatives have our own, patient centered, vision for health care reform. There has even been some legislation introduced, some better than others, that reflect this vision. Supporting health care policy that empowers patients, and not a new Health Czar, is common sense, not extremism.
There is a reason the leaders on the left are desperate to keep Members of Congress in Washington and away from their constituents. If they had to face real Americans, defenders of the House health care bill would have to defend the facts that their bill:
Has a true ten year cost of $2.6 trillion while our country already faces record deficits.
Raises taxes by $700 billion while our country already faces 10.2% unemployment.
Massively expands a Medicaid program that already provides substandard reimbursement rates, is bankrupting states, and is bankrupt itself.
And that does not even include the possibility that Obama’s Health Czar would use the authority granted in the bill to use the public option to destroy private health care entirely. Perhaps most striking about the President’s performance on Saturday is that he opened his 20 minute health care pep rally with some remarks about the tragic shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. That, Mr. President, is extremism. Opposing policies through democratic means is not.
MONDAY, NOV 9, 2009
Who is the President Calling “Extremist?”
Following last Tuesday’s election, the last thing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wanted to do was allow Members of Congress to go home and talk to their constituents about the $2.6 trillion health care bill she was marshaling through Congress. The centerpiece of Pelosi’s trap and pressure campaign was a Saturday address by President Barack Obama in the Cannon Office Building, where Obama warned Democrats: “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit [Democratic voters] and it will encourage the extremists.”
State Department to Mr. Zelaya: A Deal is a Deal!
The extremists. That is how the President of the Unites States describes Americans who do not want to see the federal government control over half of all health care spending. And just who are some of these extremists? Looking over just today’s papers we find:
Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria: “Obama’s message to the country appears to be, “We have a dysfunctional health-care system with out-of-control costs, and let’s add 45 million people to it.” Americans see a health-care bill that has been produced by the old Democratic machine rather than the new Democratic technocrats — more Lyndon Johnson than Larry Summers. It might be the only way to get a law passed, and it might please the party’s base, but it will dismay independents.”
The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt: “Health-care reform should not add to the deficit. It should control health-care costs. And, once reform is passed, the government will get serious about deficit reduction. Unfortunately, the House bill fails his first test.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT): “If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote.”
Everybody listed above acknowledges we desperately need to fix health care policy. They just do not believe that the House plan is the best way to go about doing so. Conservatives have our own, patient centered, vision for health care reform. There has even been some legislation introduced, some better than others, that reflect this vision. Supporting health care policy that empowers patients, and not a new Health Czar, is common sense, not extremism.
There is a reason the leaders on the left are desperate to keep Members of Congress in Washington and away from their constituents. If they had to face real Americans, defenders of the House health care bill would have to defend the facts that their bill:
Has a true ten year cost of $2.6 trillion while our country already faces record deficits.
Raises taxes by $700 billion while our country already faces 10.2% unemployment.
Massively expands a Medicaid program that already provides substandard reimbursement rates, is bankrupting states, and is bankrupt itself.
And that does not even include the possibility that Obama’s Health Czar would use the authority granted in the bill to use the public option to destroy private health care entirely. Perhaps most striking about the President’s performance on Saturday is that he opened his 20 minute health care pep rally with some remarks about the tragic shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. That, Mr. President, is extremism. Opposing policies through democratic means is not.
Cap And Trade Calamities
If Cap and Trade Doesn't Work, Obama Will Make It Work
Cap and Trade proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
All the talk in Washington is surrounding a government health insurance plan, but there’s a little discussed insurance plan in the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill that’s worth some attention. The Senate version of the cap and trade bill includes a section that grants the President the authority to “direct relevant federal agencies” to impose additional greenhouse gas regulations. Senator David Vitter (R-LA) and John Barrasso (R-WY) have been working assiduously to uncover the true costs of cap and trade legislation.
Greenhouse gas concentrations are measured in parts per million (ppm). Many global warming alarmists believe that upper limit on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent catastrophic harm is 450 parts per million (ppm). Once we reach that threshold, water will rise to the torch of the Statue of Liberty, California will be an island, the polar ice caps will cease to exist and island nations will no longer be nations but submerged pieces of land. To put the numbers in some perspective, Sharon Begley notes in her Newsweek column that the carbon dioxide concentration is currently at 386 ppm; we were at 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution. If you include the carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases, we’ve arguably reached the 450 ppm threshold. The Boxer-Kerry legislation says that if global greenhouse gas concentrations exceed 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent:
Sec. 707 Not later than July 1, 2015, and every 4 years thereafter--
`(1) the President shall direct relevant Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions identified in the reports submitted under sections 705 and 706 and to address any shortfalls identified in such reports.
The passed House version, Waxman-Markey, also contains language that grant the administration similar authority. So, for those who thought cap and trade legislation would preempt costly regulations, think again. This is more or less an insurance policy that would allow EPA officials regulate just about every aspect of the market and guarantees there will be economic pain. Even EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said, “We get further faster without top-down regulation.” Added regulations on top of cap and trade would be a bureaucratic nightmare that could delay economic projects and tie them up in litigation and result in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in compliance costs.
If we’ve learned anything from the health care debate, it’s that companies shouldn’t trust government promises that their bottom lines will not be affected. Proponents of a government-run option made repeated claims that private businesses would remain competitive but Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, recently sent a letter to the White House and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saying the plan “would bankrupt hospitals, dismantle employer coverage.
The same can be said for cap and trade. In order to garner business support, Members promised generous allowance revenue handouts for various industries and special interests. President Obama originally called for an auction of the emission allowances, forcing companies to bid on the right to emit. Businesses, knowing very well this would impose a severe cost on their bottom line, sent their lobbyists to Washington to protect them. And it worked – at least they thought it did. Sections 705-707 of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill would pile costly regulations on these allegedly protected companies. And these costs would be passed onto the consumer, making the bill all that more painful.
Even if we are only at 386 ppm, the way China and other developing countries are growing and refusing to cap greenhouse gas emissions, global greenhouse gas concentrations could reach 450 ppm in no time. George Will writes, “On Oct. 21, China, the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, and India, which ranks fourth -- together they account for 26 percent of emissions -- jointly agreed: They, with their combined one-third of the world's population, will not play in what increasingly resembles a global game of climate-change charades. Neither nation is interested in jeopardizing its economic growth with emissions caps of a sort that never impeded the growth of the developed nations that now praise them.”
With the rate of growth of global greenhouse gas emissions, cap and trade paired with top down regulation assures economic pain for every part of the economy, especially the American energy consumer, with nothing to show for it.
Cap and Trade proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
All the talk in Washington is surrounding a government health insurance plan, but there’s a little discussed insurance plan in the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill that’s worth some attention. The Senate version of the cap and trade bill includes a section that grants the President the authority to “direct relevant federal agencies” to impose additional greenhouse gas regulations. Senator David Vitter (R-LA) and John Barrasso (R-WY) have been working assiduously to uncover the true costs of cap and trade legislation.
Greenhouse gas concentrations are measured in parts per million (ppm). Many global warming alarmists believe that upper limit on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent catastrophic harm is 450 parts per million (ppm). Once we reach that threshold, water will rise to the torch of the Statue of Liberty, California will be an island, the polar ice caps will cease to exist and island nations will no longer be nations but submerged pieces of land. To put the numbers in some perspective, Sharon Begley notes in her Newsweek column that the carbon dioxide concentration is currently at 386 ppm; we were at 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution. If you include the carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases, we’ve arguably reached the 450 ppm threshold. The Boxer-Kerry legislation says that if global greenhouse gas concentrations exceed 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent:
Sec. 707 Not later than July 1, 2015, and every 4 years thereafter--
`(1) the President shall direct relevant Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions identified in the reports submitted under sections 705 and 706 and to address any shortfalls identified in such reports.
The passed House version, Waxman-Markey, also contains language that grant the administration similar authority. So, for those who thought cap and trade legislation would preempt costly regulations, think again. This is more or less an insurance policy that would allow EPA officials regulate just about every aspect of the market and guarantees there will be economic pain. Even EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said, “We get further faster without top-down regulation.” Added regulations on top of cap and trade would be a bureaucratic nightmare that could delay economic projects and tie them up in litigation and result in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in compliance costs.
If we’ve learned anything from the health care debate, it’s that companies shouldn’t trust government promises that their bottom lines will not be affected. Proponents of a government-run option made repeated claims that private businesses would remain competitive but Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, recently sent a letter to the White House and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saying the plan “would bankrupt hospitals, dismantle employer coverage.
The same can be said for cap and trade. In order to garner business support, Members promised generous allowance revenue handouts for various industries and special interests. President Obama originally called for an auction of the emission allowances, forcing companies to bid on the right to emit. Businesses, knowing very well this would impose a severe cost on their bottom line, sent their lobbyists to Washington to protect them. And it worked – at least they thought it did. Sections 705-707 of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill would pile costly regulations on these allegedly protected companies. And these costs would be passed onto the consumer, making the bill all that more painful.
Even if we are only at 386 ppm, the way China and other developing countries are growing and refusing to cap greenhouse gas emissions, global greenhouse gas concentrations could reach 450 ppm in no time. George Will writes, “On Oct. 21, China, the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, and India, which ranks fourth -- together they account for 26 percent of emissions -- jointly agreed: They, with their combined one-third of the world's population, will not play in what increasingly resembles a global game of climate-change charades. Neither nation is interested in jeopardizing its economic growth with emissions caps of a sort that never impeded the growth of the developed nations that now praise them.”
With the rate of growth of global greenhouse gas emissions, cap and trade paired with top down regulation assures economic pain for every part of the economy, especially the American energy consumer, with nothing to show for it.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
TREASON COMMITTED AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Let it be known on the 7th day of November in the year 2009 the Democratic Congress of The United States committed HIGH TREASON against the American People.
The Congress dominated by Leftists voted for a Health Care Bill that will destroy the liberty of the people of this great nation. The Bill will impose new tax and fines or even prison time if Americans do not want this Goverment Run Health Care.
RISE UP AMERICA!!!
Call write email your Senators!!!!
March on Washington in demonstration against this Government take over of your lives and your freedom.
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