Debt ceilings & runaway spending

 

Betsy McCaughey often updates her readers on healthcare matters.  Yesterday, at Townhall, she analyzed the consequences of Congress members who want to keep raising the debt ceiling.  Her premise:

"If America wants to spend like Europe, it must tax like Europe -- and that means large payroll and value-added taxes on the middle class," says [Manhattan Institute economist Brian] Riedl.

Ms. McCaughey concludes:

Over the last 25 years, Congress has hammered out eight laws to control spending. All eight were tied to debt ceiling hikes.

At stake in this current debt ceiling struggle is preserving what sets the United States apart from Europe.

In the United States, working people get to keep most of what they earn and decide how to spend it.

Don't let the Washington pols treat your paycheck as if it belongs to them.

The full column is here.  This might be one issue that might get better results in any upcoming vote --  with a call to your House representative; click here. 

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The Incredible Shrinking Middle Class

 

Edward Ring asks “Why the Middle Class Is Being Destroyed.”  Toward the end of his column, he explores various reasons for the collapse of societal values and priorities that those of us -- of a certain age -- grew up with.  He concludes:

. . . Meanwhile, the ongoing expansion of the custodial state is concurrent with the average IQ of Americans shifting into decline. This shouldn’t be surprising. The so-called Flynn Effect, the theory that social and economic progress caused IQ scores to rise in the early 20th century, has now been thrown into reverse. Many factors could explain this reversal, but because it is happening universally, we might start by implicating a degraded system of public education, a dumbed-down media, the diversions of mindless, endless online rubbish, the collapse of meritocracy, and the replacement of the pursuit of excellence with the quest to acquire status and rewards by defining oneself as a victim.

The controversy over one chapter in [Richard] Herrnstein and [Charles] Murray’s book [The Bell Curve] should not diminish the fact that, way back in 1994, their work anticipated two of the most decisive trends in the world today: The emergence of a cognitive elite, and, for the first time in history, the almost total convergence of intellectuals with the financial elite. The consequence, an apparent consensus among the two groups to destroy the middle class to protect their own interests while claiming they’re saving the planet and promoting “equity,” should surprise nobody.

It’s the easy path. But it’s the wrong path.

Full article at American Greatness is here.

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Economic Security Is National Security

 

Sundance at Conservative Treehouse has a most excellent analysis of America First policies, the Trump administration success stories, and any future MAGA leadership. Sundance begins:

Economic security is the foundation of national security.  When the government takes action that destabilizes our economy, every element of national security is put at risk.  We are experiencing that right now as we suffer through Joe Biden’s intentionally flawed energy policy that is destroying the U.S. economy and everyone within it.

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”

~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Never has that Machiavelli quote been more apropos than when considering the MAGA movement and the rise of Donald Trump.

Thankfully, we are now in an era when the largest coalition of American voters have awakened to the reality that, to quote the former president: “Economic Security is National Security.”

As we live through the economic mess of a Biden administration hell bent on eroding the middle class of the United States, there are numerous pundits contemplating 2024 Republican presidential candidates other than Donald Trump; consider this group the lukewarm defenders Machiavelli noted.

At the same time the leftist coalition, writ large, are apoplectic about the base of the Republican Party now belonging to Donald Trump.  This group consists of those affluent Wall Street agents and politicians set on retaining the profits derived from decades of institutional objectives.

Institutional Democrats hate Trump, and institutional Republicans are lukewarm, at best, in defending Trump.  Both wings of the DC UniParty fear Trump.  Extreme efforts at control are a reaction to fear.  In this outline, I rise to explain why Donald Trump is the only option for the America First MAGA coalition; and I make my case not on supposition, but on empirical reference points that most should understand.

Everything is about the economics of it.

If you accept that at its essential core elements the phrase “economic security is national security” is true – meaning the lives of the American citizen, person, worker, individual or family are best when their economic position is secure – then any potential leader for our nation must be able to initiate policies that directly touch the economics of a person’s life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  As a result, economic security and economic policy must be the fulcrum of their platform.

Now, look around and ask yourself this question: “What separated Donald J. Trump from the remaining field of 17 GOP candidates in 2016?”   An honest top-line answer would be immigration (border control), and his views on American economic policy.   In essence, what set Donald Trump apart from all other candidates was his view on the U.S. economy, and that was the driving factor behind ‘Make America Great Again’, MAGA.

Now, look around.  Look at every other potential candidate for political office. Is there another person in the field of your political view who comes from the starting point that economic security is national security?

This analysis by Sundance outlines the actual known successes of President Trump’s America First policies; voters would have to guess how America First policies would be implemented by an alternative candidate. 

Look at what Donald J. Trump was able to achieve while he was under constant political attack.  Just imagine what Trump 2.0 would deliver.

They, the leftist Democrats and Wall Street Republicans, are yet again absolutely petrified of that.

Much more at the link here. 

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Hanson: The Decline of American Citizenship

 

In yesterday’s blog, I linked to historian Victor Davis Hanson’s essay on Cracked Icons of the Left.  Today I am posting on his message from Hillsdale College on his new course on The Decline of American Citizenship:

I wish to invite you to enroll in a seven-lecture course that I prepared with the help and under the auspices of Hillsdale College. It is called “American Citizenship and Its Decline,” and the online course is based on my latest book, the recently released The Dying Citizen.

Like the book, the course describes the current crises in America as symptoms of a far larger problem: the steady decline of the autonomy and political influence of the citizen.

The class describes the origins and history of citizenship in the West, reminding us that it is a rare phenomenon both in the past and the present—given the enormous responsibility placed on citizens to create and control their own government.

Citizenship then requires a large and self-reliant middle class—currently shrinking under enormous economic strains. Clearly defined and enforced borders are also essential to ensure a civic space in which citizens can nurture common customs, sustain traditions, and honor their own shared past.

Yet borders are now increasingly fluid as mere residence and citizenship seem often indistinguishable. Pre-civilizational tribalism—identifying by superficial appearance rather than through shared culture and values—is returning to America as so often the salad bowl replaces the melting pot.

These organic, bottom-up challenges are often matched by top-down stresses such as the growth of a huge permanent, but unelected, government of bureaucrats and administrators who combine judicial, executive, and legislative powers that overwhelm the citizen.

In addition, revisionists in law, the media, and politics seek to change the Constitution, long-held customs of governance, and political traditions for short-term partisan agendas, on the theory that a new changing and fluid Constitution must match an always evolving human nature.

Globalism is an ancient challenge to the sovereignty of the nation-state. But in the age of instant communications and unprecedented concentrations of globalized wealth, so often elites seek to supplant American laws and independence with international organizations and often without the consent of the legislative branch or the assent of the governed.

The course ends, however, on an optimistic note that citizens still have it within their power to restore our traditions of empowered citizenship and return government to the control of citizens.

“American Citizenship and Its Decline” is free to enroll in, and you can begin the course today by clicking on the secure link below.

https://online.hillsdale.edu/landing/american-citizenship-and-its-decline

Like most of Dr. Hanson’s messages, his summary is helpful on its own.

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