Bush, Clinton, Obama, Soros and Biden: Star-Studded Losers

May 8, 2023By Mychal Massie @ Daily Rant

If an award were to be given for the person(s) who has done the most to destroy America from within; George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Soros and Obama would be tied at the top with Biden making a valiant effort to climb into the ignominious groupage.  Notwithstanding the behind the scenes efforts; Bush, Clinton and Obama are contributing from the shadows to pull the dead-from-the-neck-up Biden down the ladder into the godless abyss so-called American leadership is determined to render the United States.

Aided and abetted by the apparatchiks masquerading as a trustworthy media, the aforementioned have done more to destroy America from within than activist courts and public schools.  Jimmy Carter deserves honorable mention.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, John Binder, writing for Breitbart recently reported: “A non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama and backed by a litany of multinational corporations is teaming up with America Express Global Business Travel to fly migrants into the United States.”  I argue they aren’t “migrants” they’re marauders and plunderers who have hit the world’s greatest jackpot, i.e., free passage to America and guaranteed free provisions upon arriving.  But, I digress.

Binder continued: “The NGO, called Welcome.US, was initially launched to work with…Biden’s administration in resettling some 85,000 Afghans across the U.S. in 2021 and 2022 as Breitbart News reported extensively at the time.”  I vehemently disagree with the assignation “resettling.”  They aren’t being resettled; they’re being giving the keys to the kingdom with no loyalty and commitment to America.  But again, I digress.

“The NGO also has ties to billionaire George Soros, as members of his Open Society Foundation sit on the group’s “National Welcome Council.”

Apart from assembling Mao, Marx, Stalin, Lenin, and W.E.B. du Bois into one organization for the supposed purpose of community wellbeing, it would be hard to imagine a more demonic camarilla of marplots than those I reference.

There’s no upside to the American taxpayers for government rolling out the red carpet to those who aren’t interested in being loyal to America.  Those who migrated here legally with dignity and honor are proud to be Americans.  This is the grandest form of larceny ever perpetrated on a domestic populace as a whole.

The facts do not change from what I have written over the years.  The only change is the uncontrolled increase in the cost of providing for those who should be provided for in their countries of origin and the amount of money they are sending out of the country. back to their countries of origin.

Bush stood on foreign soil in Sofia, Bulgaria and flung dung encrusted insult in the faces of Americans when he boasted: “I’ll see you at the signing,” referencing the immigration bill we were fighting against being passed.

Together, those referenced herein have an uninterrupted record of deconstructing America, as we knew it.

Obama is responsible for the murder of U.S. border enforcement officers thanks to his illegal gunrunning operation from the American border into Mexico, euphemistically named “Fast and Furious.”  To this day we do not have the exact count of the Mexicans murdered by those fully automatic weapons.  Those murdered included high-ranking Mexican officials.  Neither do we have any idea how many of those weapons found their way back into America in the hands of drug dealers and gangs killing Americans.

Obama is responsible for the murder of Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Ambassador Christopher Stevens murdered in Benghazi September 11, 2011, as he watched in real time from the situation room before going to his private quarters for dinner and then a Hollywood campaign fundraising event in California.  The blood of those murders still drips from his hands.  The proximity of American bases to Benghazi provided the support necessary to saved the lives of those men, but Obama was more interested in preventing the revelation of Hillary’s Middle East weapons operation.

Bush is responsible for the lives of those lost in the Middle Eastern war in the aftermath of the Muslim murdering of thousands in the heinous terrorist attack September 11, 2001, on the World Trade Towers in New York.

Bill Clinton is responsible for not only the September 11, 2001 World Trade Towers Muslim terrorist attack in New York, but many more Muslim acts of terrorism domestically and around the world.

Sudan’s President Bashir had offered to hand bin Laden over on a silver platter long before his reign of global terrorism.  Bashir’s government had compiled intelligence of bin Laden’s daily activities, as well as detailed intelligence concerning his finances.  But Clinton’s administration refused Khartoum’s offer.

Now, with this and volumes more evidence of the cost to our infrastructure and countless lost of life specifically because of these violators of We the People; they rebrand themselves under the guise of altruism – setting the stage for the further decline of America.

I conclude with the words of my late Grandmother who often said: “You will be surprised what you can see when you open your eyes.”  What those with eyes to see are witnessing, is the broad highway culminating in the world’s complete destruction as detailed by Christ Himself in scripture.

About the Author

Mychal Massie

Mychal S. Massie is an ordained minister who spent 13 years in full-time Christian Ministry. Today he serves as founder and Chairman of the Racial Policy Center (RPC), a think tank he officially founded in September 2015. RPC advocates for a colorblind society. He was founder and president of the non-profit “In His Name Ministries.” He is the former National Chairman of a conservative Capitol Hill think tank; and a former member of the think tank National Center for Public Policy Research. Read entire bio here

Exclusive — Matt Schlapp on SCOTUS: Trump Didn’t ‘Throw One to the Other Team,’ Unlike Bush Sr. and Jr.

Robert Kraychik 30 Jun 2022 

Donald Trump nominated exclusively conservative justices to the Supreme Court, unlike previous Republican presidents such as George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr, Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

“Ronald Reagan was 50-50 on his picks,” Schlapp said while examining the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent overturning of Roe v. Wade. “George H.W. Bush was 50-50 on his picks. George W. [Bush] was 50-50 on his picks.”  He added, “You wonder if it’s almost done purposely. Why do you always throw one to the other team? And they all did, and Donald Trump didn’t.”

The U.S. is being deliberately dismantled by the Biden administration and Democrat Party, Schlapp held..................To Read More....

The Three Stooges of Big Government

June 1, 2022 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

The 21st century has been bad news for America’s taxpayers. Every president (George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden) has been a big spender.

We obviously can’t give Biden a final grade since he has at least two more years in office (though his performance so far has been dismal – and his so-called Build Back Better is an ongoing threat to fiscal sanity).

But there is comprehensive data allowing us to assess Biden’s three predecessors. Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute has a new report that shows what happened to red ink under Bush, Obama, and Trump.

He measures what happened to 10-year deficit projections based on both legislated changes (what laws were enacted during time in office) and changes in economic and technical assumptions (largely driven by unanticipated changes in the economy).

As I’ve repeatedly written, I don’t think we should focus on red ink. What really matters is the burden of government spending.

So I’ve taken Brian’s rigorous analysis and highlighted what happened to government spending during the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations.

We’ll start with George W. Bush, who approved laws adding almost $4.3 trillion to America’s spending burden.

Then we have Barack Obama, who added $1.4 trillion to America’s spending burden.

Then we have Donald Trump, who added $6 trillion to America’s spending burden.

Here are some final observations about the numbers.

• Yes, Republicans often are bigger spenders than Democrats – a pattern going all the way back to Nixon.
• Bush was a big spender even if you don’t count the big post-9/11 increases in defense spending.
• Trump was a big spender even if you don’t count the explosion of pandemic-related spending.
• Obama was a big spender, and would have been far worse if Republicans did not win control of Congress.

The bottom line is that I wish we could return to the spending restraint that America enjoyed during the final two decades of the 20th century.

 

Blast From the Past: Carthage Must Be Destroyed!

By Rich Kozlovich  

Editor's Note: I originally published this on Wednesday, January 8, 2014.  I've now updated this to meet today's reality.  While my National Debt Counter still shows 29 trillion, the claim now is we're 30 trillion dollars in debt.  Both are unacceptable and will doom the nation if not stopped and reversed.  RK

In 2013 the United States Congress was criticized for not getting things done. The Congress “only” passed 65 new laws. Of course we have to understand that one year they passed over three hundred new laws.

What is really important to understand is when new laws are passed the baton of power is passed to the permanent bureaucracies, whose function is to make even more laws called – “rules”! In 2013 there was an average of 56 new regulations resulting from each law passed totaling 3659 new laws called – “rules”! That multiplier has been as low as 12 per new law, but that was in 2006 when Congress passed 321 new laws. If you average out the multipliers over the last ten years the average multiplier is 25.36.

So what’s the rest of the story? Last year the states passed over 40,000 new laws. If we make a broad assumption that the average multiplier applies to the states we now have a potential of 1,014,400 new laws called – “rules!” Rules created by unaccountable bureaucrats, with their own agendas and views of reality, and who, generally speaking, went to college and then into government.

During the first five years of the Obama administration regulatory costs increased by $500 billion dollars, “with $112 billion in regulatory compliance costs in 2013 alone, and predicted that the burden would continue to increase this year to as much as $143 billion”.  The federal registry, where all the regulations are listed, contain 80,224 pages this year alone.  It’s estimated that in ten years at the current rate of regulatory growth there will generate approximately 900,000 new pages of regulations, which will be on top of the approximately 800,000 pages of regulations passed in the previous ten years.

All of these regulations do one thing for sure - create jobs – for non-productive bureaucrats.  It took government employees 10.38 billion hours to do “the paperwork for the federal government in 2013, and will take 78,000 full-time employees to complete the additional paperwork.” 

 

We also have to look at who benefits from laws and the regulations they generate.  In this kind of hyper-regulatory, high tax economy many of these laws and regulations are promoted by businesses that want to make it harder for companies that will be, or are, competitors.  As a result “all aspects of business, entrepreneurship degenerates into “bribery and diplomacy.” Instead of focusing on creating value for customers, entrepreneurs spend their time lobbying for favors or to avoid penalties, trying to discern the government’s next move, anticipating or adapting to the newest regulations.” 

But this was to be expected from a party that loves big government and “more” laws and regulations - all the better to control our lives.  What about the administrations that have been considered conservative, anti-big government and opposed to all these regulations?  There were more regulations passed during George W. Bush’s administration than any president since Richard Nixon.  Furthermore this idea there is some invisible divide between the left and the so-called right regarding regulations and the promotion of the all powerful state is an illusion.   

“The modern regulatory state is a bipartisan enterprise: During the half-century before President Obama's election, the greatest growth in regulation came under Presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.  And the Bush administration set the stage for many of the Obama initiatives that Republicans are now attacking. Dodd-Frank's policy of designating some financial firms as "too big to fail" is a codification of the Paulson-Bernanke bailout approach of 2008. It was the Bush Treasury Department that first proposed a financial consumer-protection agency, and the Bush Environmental Protection Agency that first proposed regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Obama energy rules were authorized — and in some cases, such as the light-bulb ban, required — by a 2007 statute that President Bush vigorously championed.”

What about Richard M. Nixon?  Nixon was a strange man and still an enigma to many, and understandably so, because Nixon was the first to advocate what was called a New Federalism, which would ‘devolve’ power to state and local governments.  But he was the first one to jump on the environmental band wagon promoted by the first Earth Day in 1970.  He believed this was a precursor of public concern and he wanted to benefit from it politically.   

Eventually he passed the Clear Air Act, the Clear Water Act the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, requiring environmental impact statements for federal projects.   He created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).  All of which create virtual lava flows of scientifically dubious regulations, creating outrageous burdens on the American people, and the American economy.   Furthermore, all these laws and agencies give rise to lawsuits by activists that plague economic development with legal costs, studies and delays. 

What is the cost of all these federal regulations to the nation’s people?  One point eight trillion dollars a year!  And I have no idea what kind of costs of all these state laws impose on society.  So what is the solution - at least at the federal level?

For anyone trying to research just how many regulations become attached to any federal law, I wish you luck, and a lot of time.  You will find it's very difficult. Take for instance the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) passed by Jimmy Carter and ultimately the cause of the housing bubble that collapsed in 2008 causing a worldwide recession. 

As best as I can tell there were 25 regulations attached to that law, but that's deceptive because under each regulation there are Subparts and Appendices, which expands the impact of each regulation.   In effect, each regulation, or rule, becomes part of a maze of rules and regulations all presented as "explanations". 

The ultimate and actual number of regulations? Who knows, and personally, I doubt anyone knows for sure.  Rule 25 of CRA had five Subparts and two Appendices.   That's seven additional components, i.e. "explanations", which are in reality new laws passed by unelected bureaucrats. 

Let's assume that's that's typical for each CRA regulation, which I'm sure it isn't, we can now multiply those 25 regulations by seven and we get 175 "explanations"  Those "explanations" are now what we are absolutely required to follow in order to comply with one rule of one new federal law.  When you get involved with environmental laws, the numbers are off the charts, and hard to track, and I'm sure there are far more than five Subparts and two Appendices attached to each regulation, however, for analysis purposes, let's call this the "seven parts per regulation rule"!

In 2020 there were 178 federal laws passed with 3354 regulations.  That's about 19 regulations per law, but that doesn't include the Sections, Subsections and Appendices, which no one lists.  You have to actually find the law and follow the "eyes rolling back into your head" tedium to get that answer.

However, if we make a bit of a broad assumption using the "seven parts per regulation rule" for each regulation that turns those 19 regulations into 133 "explanations" that are in fact laws.  If there are an average of 8 it becomes 152.  Nine becomes 171.  Suppose the actual number is fifteen? That translates into 285 "explanations" that "must" be followed to be in compliance with federal law.  That makes them de-facto laws never passed by Congress, and the "administrative state" is now in charge, not Congress.  Do you doubt that? 

If you analyze this chart we find since 2003 Congress passed 3319 laws.  The bureaucrats created 65,582 rules averaging 25 rules per law.  If we use the "seven parts per regulation rule" we now have 459,074 explanations that are often contradictory, absolutely complicated, and invariably, more interpretations, clarifications and explanations will follow as the years go by.  If we make an assumption it could be 15 parts per rule, we get a mind boggling 983,730 "explanations".  All of which are in fact mandatory, and worse yet: 

At least 4,450 federal crimes are embedded in those laws and regulations (with some 500 new crimes added per decade) – often for minor infractions like failing to complete or file precisely correct paperwork for selling orchids or importing wood for guitars. Neither inability to understand complex edicts, lack of knowledge that they could possibly exist, nor absence of intent to violate them is a defense, and the “crime” can bring military swat teams through doors, and land “violators” in prison for months or years.

The administrative state’s battle for dominance over the Congress and the nation is pretty much a fait accompli!

No one can fix this piecemeal because it is a foundational issue and until that foundational problem is recognized it will never be solved. So what is that foundational issue? Passage of the 16th and 17th Amendments in 1913, which laid the foundation for our doom. 

The 16th amendment gave the federal government the right to tax income.  This gave them the right to confiscate an unending amount of society’s money, [called their fair share] and spend it like drunken sailors. That turned the federal government into an insatiable beast that can never be fed to satisfaction, creating debt that is threatening the stability of not only the nation, but the world.

The 17th amendment changed how Senators are chosen. The Founding Fathers were determined to prevent the federal government from becoming an all too powerful entity that was centralized and out of control. In order to do this they created a government that wasn’t supposed to do very much creating a true balance of power between the central government and the state governments. In those days the word ‘state’ didn’t mean province, it meant an independent nation. So the Senators were chosen by the state governments to be ambassadors to the federal government in order to stop power grabbing by the central government.

After passage of the 17th Amendment they would be elected by popular vote, exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid, because that was already what the House of Representatives was for. That amendment destroyed the balance of power - the 10th Amendment notwithstanding. As long as the 17th exists the 10th is meaningless, and by misusing the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution the federal government can overturn any and all local authority, and individual rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

“The deterioration of the Constitution’s separation of, and balance of, powers means that regulators and bureaucrats now make most laws……The executive branch increasingly imposes its will: President Obama and his administration repeatedly say they are not going to wait for Congress…...”

What about the Supreme Court?  Don’t they understand how the Commerce Clause is being misused?  Until the Rehnquist court in 1995 SCOTUS never saw a law that exceeded Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause for sixty years.  In fact, they held the view that no matter how slight the impact might be on commerce it would now be subject to federal control.  If there ever was a system for abuse and tyranny this was it, and now the states were powerless to do anything about it. 

Roman Senator Cato the Elder was born in 234 BC and believed that Carthage was too dangerous to be allowed to exist. Therefore he gave speeches ending in the phrase [no matter the topic of the speech] “Carthago delenda est”, “Carthage Must be Destroyed". 

The 16th and 17th amendments are our modern Carthage – too dangerous to exist.   This is foundational. The only fix is the repeal of the 16th and 17th amendments.   After that - everything else will fall into place. But first we must be willing to recognize the 16th and 17th amendments really are the enemy. 

Our modern Carthage! 

The ‘Foul Spirit’ of George W. Bush and America’s Ruling Class

Bush’s complete misunderstanding of that day, coupled with his apparent desire to rub our noses in his own failure and the failures of his class, is profoundly offensive. 

By Lane Scott September 14, 2021 As with so many other aspects of our time, we seem destined to suffer the most trite and underwhelming imitations of things that once were great or at least impressive........ Can there be a more perfect synthesis of the last 20 years of disappointing American politics than this man? He exemplifies everything—unaware, unashamed, unapologetic—that the American ruling class has become..........The everlasting incompetence and mesmerizing self-delusion on display at his recent 9/11 remarks make that clear............to lecture the public while standing on the very spot where common, average, everyday people sacrificed themselves to save members of the elite? .....

What kind of a person stands on the very spot where heroic, valiant Americans perished in a tragic last-ditch effort to save a symbol of their ruling class—either the Capitol or the White House, no one knows for certain—and dares to offer criticism of the American people?   What kind of cretin could possibly stir himself to lecture the public while standing on the very spot where common, average, everyday people sacrificed themselves........

............Bush lectured ordinary Americans—some of them the very people felt compelled to answer his call to defend America 20 years ago at Ground Zero........that extra step is truly breathtaking............. The sheer violence to common decency, statesmanship, and self-awareness that George W. Bush, a man I voted for twice, achieved with his 9/11 speech is, I confess, difficult to comprehend. Bush ......... [he] searched the American landscape for a recent, festering wound to scratch . . . and broke it wide open.....To Read More..... 

 

The Battle Over Bush

Is George W. everything that's wrong with the ruling class? 

Fri Sep 24, 2021 Lloyd Billingsley 61 comments

“In their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit.” That was former president George W. Bush near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2021. The equation of terrorist mass murderers with the January 6, 2021 protesters proved startling, even on the right.

“Can there be a more perfect synthesis of the last 20 years of disappointing American politics than this man?” wondered Lane Scott in “The Foul Stench of George W. Bush and America’s Ruling Class.” Youngstown State professor Adam Fuller responded with “In Defense of George W. Bush,” contending that Bush was “a basically decent man who rose to the difficult task of making America and the free world safer from terrorism after 9/11.” That claim invites a look back to September 11, 2001...........“The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam,” Bush said. “That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. ..........After the worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor, with nearly 3,000 dead, the president emerged as an apologist for Islam and a kind of diversity instructor. ..........

 By all indications, the rise of the murderous Islamic State failed to make made Bush wonder if Islam meant “submission” instead of “peace.” On the other hand, Bush has no problem stating that the “same foul spirit” motivated al Qaeda and the January 6 protesters...............Twenty years after 9/11, Bush has no explanations and no solutions, only rhetoric. There might be a more perfect synthesis of everything that is wrong with the ruling class, but there’s no denying that foul stench............To Read More.....

 

Send in the Clowns. Don't Bother They're Here

By Rich Kozlovich

After G.W. Bush disgraced himself at the 911 memorial attempting to equate this 911 tragedy with the January 6 demonstration, you'd think he'd  have some sense of shame and go home to Texas and shut his mouth, but ...........noooooo......... .now he's to be the headline fundraiser for Liz Cheney, who is a sure loser in the Wyoming primary, which is an open primary.  What's the binding force?  Hatred for Donald Trump! 

So, what's their message for the voters of Wyoming?  Just saying I hate Donald Trump isn't going to cut it for Liz. (See my file.)   Are they now going to say how fortunate the nation is that Joe Biden is President, undoubtedly the nation has ever seated, instead of that evil tweeter, Donald Trump?

Are they going to tell us Trump's tweets hurt people's feelings, so that justified his impeachment and the election of Joe Biden?  Are they going to tell us Biden's unconstitutional mandates, unconstitutional executive orders, failure to protect the border, ignoring America's immigration laws and a general failure to uphold the Constitution, high crimes all, aren't impeachable, and just move on?

Are they going to be able to factually refute Trump's views that:

"RINO former President George 'Dubya' Bush and his flunky Karl Rove are endorsing warmongering and very low polling, Liz Cheney"........"the one who got us into the quicksand of the Middle East and, after spending trillions of dollars and killing nearly a million people, the Middle East was left in worse shape after 21 years than it was when he started his stupidity." "It ended with Biden's most embarrassing in history withdrawal from Afghanistan, a total surrender, leaving $85 Billion dollars [sic] of equipment and many young Warriors lives behind,"

She allegedly already has a huge war chest and the Bush and Chaney connections will enhance that a great deal, but does it matter?  How many House of Representatives are there from Wyoming?  One! Liz Chaney, and that's because their population is so small.  So, where will all that money go?  I have to assume into advertising. However, will a huge advertising campaign have the same impact in Wyoming  as it would in a state with large urban populations of under informed voters?  We'll see. 

Then we have the tyrant governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, who along with Cuomo, Newsom, Murphy and Wolf, are responsible for thousands of deaths because of their nursing homes mandates, has now all of a sudden has seen the light and bans masks and vax mandates as her polls crash and re-election fight looks grim.  While having in the past tyrannically imposing huge restrictions on the state she was typical of these leftists, she was a "pandemic hypocrite,  demanding severe lockdowns of her citizens subjects while exempting her family and herself", in violation of her own imperial mandates. 

But now she's seen the light, and now opposes these mandates.  And what was the light that shined in her eyes?  Polls.  She somehow seemed to think none of her machinations were going to come back to haunt her when her term was up.   But this isn't Wyoming, we'll see.

The clowns are still here, and I will include Meghan McCain, who numbered among the most notable Never Trumpers who embraced Biden, is now saying: 

Eight months since President Biden was sworn into office, the anticipation of a tone change and 'return to normalcy' has utterly disappeared. The man I once considered a friend and confidant has morphed into a feckless and unreliable leader I no longer recognize. He gives all the signs of stubborn cantankerous naiveté, surrounded by idiotic sycophants anyone who has spent more than fifteen minutes around politics should easily recognize as the worst type of corrupt bureaucrats.

Biden was never anything but a grifter, and all the qualities you seem to dislike have been a part and parcel of Joe Biden for his entire government career.   And he was your friend and confidant?  Well Meghan, just like your parents, you're delusional, and your remorse is a bit too late now, and truthfully, I doubt thinking Americans care what you think.  

Send in the clowns? Don't bother they're here.

 

AFL-CIO President: Flooding U.S. Labor Market via Amnesty ‘Would Benefit’ Working Class Americans

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler says the United States must give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, claiming such a policy “would benefit” working class Americans across the nation.

During an event at the White House on Wednesday, Shuler and President Joe Biden touted House and Senate Democrats’ plan to slip amnesty for illegal aliens into a $3.5 trillion so-called infrastructure package.

Shuler said:

Every working person in every state would benefit in some way, child care tax credits, the first ever federal paid family and medical leave benefit, a long overdue path to citizenship, infrastructure investments, apprenticeship programs, American made industries, American supply chains made with good union jobs. That is the Biden-Harris vision for America’s future. [Emphasis added].

In August, Senate Democrats unveiled a budget resolution framework which includes spending about $107 million in taxpayer money to flood the U.S. labor market with millions of newly legalized illegal aliens.

The language of the framework is vague, asking the Judiciary Committee members to give “lawful permanent status for qualified immigrants.” Those who would qualify for such an amnesty remain unclear.

With Shuler’s endorsement of the amnesty, the AFL-CIO — meant to represent the interests of union workers — joins the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, Koch brothers network, tech corporations, and former President George W. Bush, among others, in lobbying for the legalization of millions of illegal aliens to compete against America’s working and middle class for U.S. jobs................To Read More...

The Bushes, the Clintons, China... and Trump

September 14, 2020 By Julio Rivera

The Clinton, Bush, and Trump families will forever be intertwined in not just American history, but the history of the world. The past several years have certainly seen a major change in what once seemed to be a warm relationship between the Trumps and the Clintons, two elite New York clans inhabiting similar circles that have now become the political equivalent of the Hatfields and McCoys. To a lesser extent, because they never seemed particularly close, the same can be said about the Trump and Bush families as well.

We also all remember prior to his being nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in 2016, that President Trump had to contend with the man who was considered by many the most powerful threat to his possible presidency in the GOP establishment -- former Florida governor Jeb Bush. During the early portion of the primary, Bush, whose campaign never recovered from the early attacks from Trump, was continually embarrassed and even seemingly bullied by the cocksure future president.

But, despite a past prior to politics that was full of congenial exchanges, former candidate Trump was well aware of the failures of the Clinton and both Bush administrations, as much of his “America First” policy was predicated on undoing the damage of a combined 20 years of pro-Globalist American leadership.

At the top of the list of these failures is the issue of America’s previous China polices..........To Read More.....

George W. Bush spokesman calls NYT article claiming he won't vote for Trump 'completely made up'​​

Who's telling the truth?

News June 08, 2020  Phil Shiver

 

A spokesman for former President George W. Bush is forcefully denying a recent New York Times article that alleges that the former commander-in-chief will not vote for President Donald Trump in the upcoming 2020 election.

"Former President George W. Bush won't support the re-election of Mr. Trump, and Jeb Bush isn't sure how he'll vote, say people familiar with their thinking," the Times reported on Saturday in a rundown of high-profile Republicans who had allegedly indicated their opposition for the sitting president.

 But in an email to the Texas Tribune after the news broke, Freddy Ford, a spokesman for Bush, suggested that the assertion is totally false. "This is completely made up," Ford wrote. "He is retired from presidential politics and has not indicated how he will vote.".........To Read More

Trump Rewrites the Book on Emergencies

By Christopher DeMuth April 17, 2020

Washington’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic is upending one of the most durable patterns of American politics. Throughout history, national emergencies have led to a more powerful and centralized federal government and to the transfer of federal power from Congress to the executive branch. This time, the federal response rests largely on state and local government and private enterprise, with a wave of deregulation clearing the way. The Trump administration has seized no new powers, and Congress has stayed energetically in the game.

The historical pattern is powerful and might have seemed inevitable. In times of war, natural disaster and economic upheaval, action is king. The president and his officials and agencies can act with much greater dispatch than Congress can. They may be forgiven for crossing statutory or even constitutional boundaries—in a crisis, the test of legitimacy is perceived effectiveness. But emergency actions often set precedents for normal times.

Moreover, crises generate proposals for preventing their recurrence. These typically take the form of an agency that, with the benefit of hindsight, could have nipped the crisis in the bud. Positing an omnicompetent government authority is political misdirection: It elides the profound problems of uncertainty and conflicting information and interpretation that precede every catastrophe. That is a sure recipe for highly concentrated, discretionary power.

These tendencies were dramatically on display in the first two national emergencies of the 21st century, 9/11 and the 2008 financial collapse. In response to the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration and Congress created two gigantic agencies with extraordinary powers and insulation from congressional control, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Intelligence was centralized and bureaucratized; federal police powers were extended down to driver’s licenses and much else; the administration established wide-ranging surveillance programs.

In response to the 2008 crisis, the administration arranged corporate mergers and bailouts with only fig leaves of statutory authority. It spent hundreds of billions of dollars without congressional appropriation. These crisis expedients provided the template for the Obama administration’s unilateral responses to mere political frustrations—congressional inaction on its climate change, immigration and other legislative proposals. At the same time, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 commissioned an army of new regulatory authorities with unprecedented discretion and autonomy.........To Read More....

Attacking Sully

December 6, 2018 By James Aaron Brown

Ruth Graham, in an article published on Slate, demonstrated one of the worst vices of American media..............If our society’s goal is to entertain ourselves with false criticism, Slate proves this point. However, I am convinced that deep down, the American people aspire to something greater, like Teddy Roosevelt’s speech “The Man in the Arena:”

There are those in the arena who struggle to achieve something of significance and meaning, and there is the crowd in the seats, criticizing, mocking, and being entertained. Slate authors seem comfortable sitting in the arena.

Bush was not a perfect man, who himself stated, “History will point out some of the things I did wrong and some of the things I did right.” But the quote that stands out in my mind is, “America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as people have such purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.” Our high moral principles do not eschew science, mock dogs, or act unkindly............. To Read More...........

My Take - I just don't understand what's wrong with these people.  First of all, this isn't an attack on Sully, it's a subtle attack on Bush, and of course an even more subtle attack on Republicans.  The left just can't be gracious, and Joy Behar is a classic example of their mean spirited hate filled mentality.

I've not been a Bush fan, ever, but I've not posted articles defaming him, nor have I posted anything myself to denigrate him.  Bush was something John McCain was not - gracious.  

He didn't go to his grave denigrating and attacking others.  McCain was a corrupt, nasty, vindictive man who could have gone gracefully and no one would have attacked him.  But he chose to be John McCain right up till the last forcing people to defend themselves against a dying man, and then being criticized for attacking a war hero. 

Well, he deserved to be attacked because he brought it on himself, and history will not be kind to John McCain any more than it's been kind to Ted Kennedy.  I was never a McCain fan either, but here's the difference. 

George Bush was also a war hero, who was lucky to have survived after being shot down at the beginning of WWII, but he was in no way ever anything but gracious, and deserved to be treated graciously at the end and now. History will point out his errors, and I think there's going to be a lot of them, but he will still go down in history as a gracious, civil, humble gentleman and leader. 

History is the great leveler leading to truth!

The CIA Screws Bush...Again!

By Alan Caruba  Wednesday, December 5, 2007 @ Warning Signs

Editor's Note: My friend Alan Caruba passed on June 15, 2015. Alan's work is insightful, logical, factual, and has a timeless about them. Alan had given me blanket permission to publish his work when he was alive. I had intended to archive many of his articles, but like most of us, I got caught up in life. Well, that effort is long overdue, so every week I intend to publish one or more of of his old articles from Warning Signs as a tribute to my friend, Alan Caruba.
 

If you want to understand what's going on with the latest National Intelligence Estimate, first read "Sabotage: America's Enemies Within the CIA" by Rowan Scarborough (Regnery Publishing).

"The intelligence community, sometimes anonymously, sometimes not, would make allegations of Bush Administration wrongdoing. The charges were leaked to the press. Months later, the Senate Intelligence Committee or another body would find no evidence to back up the leaks. But by then, the damage to the public's perception of the war had been done."(P. 95)

Who damaged the CIA? Under President Clinton, "He shrank the CIA's analytical and operations branches by at least 30 percent. Stations in Latin America and Asia closed or downsized. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, had only three CIA officers by the mid-1990s. The entire roster of case officers was reduced from 1,600 to 1,200, and there were only 400 collection management officers at American embassies to turn reports from case officers into cables back to Langley." (P. 114)

Is Iran a nuclear threat? "A nuclear-armed Iran, with its long-range ballistic missiles and fanatical leaders, could lead to a Middle East Armageddon. If the Iranian regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was true to its word and tried to eliminate Israel, it would mean nuclear war. Classified DIA documents I obtained showed that Israel maintained an arsenal of eighty-two nuclear warheads." (P. 177)

So, excuse me, but it seems, given the CIA's record of trying to undermine the credibility of the Bush Administration since it took office, that the release of the latest ESTIMATE looks suspiciously like yet another CIA end-run to embarrass Bush.

Since the public will never be permitted to see the facts on which the estimate is based, there is no way to determine if the analysis is valid or not. One thing we know, they were out to lunch when 9/11 occurred. Meanwhile, the Israelis, whose intelligence capabilities are among the world's most highly regarded, are convinced the Iranians are working toward building nuclear weapons.

The CIA's track record to date appears to be alarmingly poor when it comes to fundamental tasks such as finding out where Osama bin Laden is. Around CIA headquarters the joke was "Osama Been Forgotten."

"By the winter of 2003, the CIA's PR war on Bush had broadened. A group of current and former intelligence officers formed an anti-Bush organization called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity." (P. 100)

An effort by Bush to put the place right by appointing Porter Goss as its director failed when a gaggle of CIA insiders made life for him and his aides so miserable he resigned within a fairly short time.

So I'm thinking this whole affair, giddily reported by a mainstream media that delights in making Bush look like a liar, a fool, or both, smells of dirty politics CIA-style.

 

Former Pres. Bush Dumps on Trump

By Gary DeMar March 7, 2018

Former Pres. Bush finally speaks out against a President. He had eight years to criticize the policies of Barack Obama and said nothing.  Now that Pres. Trump is doing what George Bush failed to do in his eight years as President, Pres. Bush has something to say.  It started in 2017 when Bush claimed that Pres. Trump “has promoted bigotry and falsehoods to the detriment of the country and its values.”...........To Read More......

My Take - Bush, just like John Kasich, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mitt Romney, John McCain and a host of other RINO's - he's a disgrace!

The Steele Dossier and the Clinton Scandal Machine

Posted by Daniel Greenfield 9 Comments Sunday, February 04, 2018 @ Sultan Knish Blog

In the very early nineties, the Democrats were as obsessed with cocaine as they are now are with Russia. The cocaine in question was alleged to have been bought by Vice President Dan Quayle. The 1992 election was coming up. The decades of corruption, slime and lies by the Clintons were about to pay off.

But that’s not how it looked then.

President George H.W. Bush was enjoying high approval ratings. Bill Clinton would weasel and claw his way to the front of the line largely because the election seemed like a lot cause for the Democrats.

But the Clintons still had plenty of dirty tricks left to play. The Quayle cocaine story was one of them. Like most discredited Democrat smears, it was forgotten once it was no longer needed. It’s hard now to understand how so many reporters and politicians could be sucked in by a ridiculous smear campaign.

One of the Quayle accusers had confessed to lying both to prison officials and to 60 Minutes.

"This guy not only flunked the lie detector test, but he broke down and cried in front of Morley Safer and said that he had made it up because he wanted to get out of jail," Don Hewitt, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, recollected.

But the more the story came apart, the more new conspiracy theories were spawned to bolster it. Like Michael Wolff’s smears, it was too good for the left not to believe. Much like Russian collusion, the story quickly shifted from whether Quayle had actually bought drugs to whether the Bush administration had tried to cover it up. The shift from a specific criminal accusation to nebulous conspiracy theories that can never be disproven, but that empower open-ended witch hunts, are a hallmark of Dem smears.

The Mueller investigation likewise isn’t actually hunting for Russian collusion, but trying to entrap President Trump with accusations that he covered up a crime that it can’t prove ever happened.

The second phase of a smear is to use the damage control tactics of the victim to create its own crime. The dubious original accusation, Quayle’s drugs or Trump’s Russian plot, never needs to be proven. It only needs to be shown that the target attempted to defend against the accusation.

Why does an old discredited Dem smear matter? Because it shares a number of troubling similarities with the Trump Russia smear, including the Clinton political operative who may have originated it.

In his syndicated column, Thomas Oliphant traced the popularization of the cocaine smear to Cody Shearer’s contact in the DEA. "I've known him for a long time and like him, but that wouldn't stop me from looking out the window if he told me the sun was shining," the columnist wrote.

Cody Shearer is also the author of another Russia-Trump dossier used by the FBI, a memo that Steele, the author of the better known dossier, passed along. How did Steele come to possess Shearer’s memo? Shearer was one of Bill’s plumbers, notorious for spreading and circulating scandals aimed at Republicans. He’s also been accused of targeting and intimidating Bill Clinton’s victims.

Is it more likely that a British agent happened to independently come across a memo by a Clinton political operative that echoed his own material or that his dossier was based on the memo? Was the Steele dossier an original piece of work by a former British intel agent doing his own research or had he been hired to put some meat on a conspiracy theory created by a Dem political operative?

We don’t know the answer. Yet. But it’s quite possible that Steele, Russian intel operatives and all the other elements of the vast campaign were never more than window dressing on a smear from the same guy who had peddled the Dan Quayle cocaine story the last time the Clintons needed help.

The Steele dossier, with its sloppy fact-checking and lurid tales of prostitutes urinating in a Moscow hotel, is far too unprofessional to be the work of a British ex-intel agent, but it reads like a Cody Shearer smear. Nasty and vicious has always been Shearer’s stock in trade as a variety of Republicans can testify.

The successful Shearer smear is a conspiracy theory built around a shocking image. A prisoner kept “in the hole” to stop him from testifying about Dan Quayle buying drugs or Senator John Tower starting a hotel fire in Dallas by drunkenly dropping a cigarette on an armchair. That’s followed by accusations of a cover-up, by Bush, the DEA, the CIA, the Russians, the Bureau of Prisons, and the media does the rest.

The Trump smear follows that same nasty pattern. And there are other curious overlaps.

Before Fusion GPS, there was Investigative Group International (IGI). Like Fusion GPS, IGI was a shadowy organization that specialized in digging up dirt for insiders. IGI’s boss was a longtime Clinton pal and the organization was turned loose on Bill Clinton’s political enemies. Shearer was accused of working as a subcontractor for IGI to go after George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle.

Like Fusion GPS, the Quayle push appeared to have married a politically connected journalist with an investigative firm and political sympathizers inside law enforcement to try and influence an election.

The Los Angeles Times reported in ’91 that a “free-lance journalist” had told the paper that an assistant U.S. attorney had tried to persuade the DOJ to conduct a sting operation by trying to sell cocaine to Quayle. No one involved in this story was named, but reports from the era showed that Shearer had been heavily involved in pushing the Quayle smear.

That particular sting was never approved. But another sting operation aimed at the Bush campaign was.

The FBI conducted a sting of James Oberwetter, the chairman of Bush's Texas campaign, offering him a supposed wiretap of Ross Perot's phones. “The decision to use an undercover agent as a step in a carefully constructed investigation came only after lengthy consideration in Dallas and here in Washington,” FBI Director William Sessions wrote in a letter to the New York Times.

Bush told Oberwetter that he would review the FBI’s conduct after the election. But there was no “after the election” to speak of. Before Comey, Sessions became the only other FBI director to be fired.

Like Comey, Sessions had attempted to navigate the abuses of a politicized FBI by grandstanding. And he paid the price. By ’93, he was another casualty of the Clinton efforts to further politicize the FBI.

"I always defended the FBI, but not anymore," President Bush would later reminisce.

There are still many questions to be answered about the Steele dossier. But the most important question is how a piece of opposition research was transformed into a law enforcement matter.

And what is most troubling is that it may not even be the first time that the Clintons have pulled that off.

The campaign against Trump is unprecedented because of the scale of the abuses. The collusion between Obama government officials and Clinton campaign personnel transformed opposition research into a license for surveillance on the political opposition. A conspiracy theory from the Clinton campaign became leverage for delegitimizing and trying to reverse the results of an election. And the conspiracy theory that elements of the FBI loyal to the Democrats relied upon to attack Trump originated from the deepest sewer in Clintonworld that had been covertly smearing political enemies for decades.

"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones," Antony tells the Roman mob.

The Clintons are done. But their legacy lives on after them. The Russia conspiracies and the Mueller investigation continue to divide this nation even though Hillary’s political career is deader than Julius Caesar. Fusion GPS is still around. So is IGI. And there are other organizations like them out there.

There will always be political operatives like Cody Shearer out there. But if we don’t insulate law enforcement from them, elections won’t be determined by voters, they’ll be decided by political coups disguised as scandals. The establishment and its private police state will decide who runs the country.

After Hillary’s Reset Button with Russia and Obama’s hot mic vow to show Moscow more flexibility after the election, the Democrats now spend all their time claiming that Trump is secretly working for Putin.

And must be removed from office.

That’s not how we do things in America. But it’s how Putin does things in Russia.

Even as the Democrats pretend that they hate Putin, they fantasize about jailing their political opponents the way that Vladimir Putin does. Using police surveillance to spy on your enemies is a KGB tactic. So is accusing them of secretly working for foreign interests and trying to arrest them.

The final tragic irony of the Democrat’s Russian conspiracies would be to make America just like Russia.

This Week With Dan Mitchell

(Editor's Note:  Daily I get an insightful article from Dan Mitchell of International Liberty dealing with economic issues. Articles he's allowed me to publish.  The man is an amazingly prolific writer.  However, I've tried to limit what I'm doing currently so I've not been publishing them daily.  His stuff is so good I hate to deprive my readers of his insights.    So Please enjoy Dan's work for this week, and this last link is published in full as I think that is an issue that the public needs to understand.  Please enjoy!  RK)

New Jersey’s Continuing Fiscal Decay
When companies want to boost sales, they sometimes tinker with products and then advertise them as "new and improved." In the case of governments, though, I suspect "new" is not "improved."  The British territory of Jersey, for instance, has a very good tax system. It has a low-rate flat tax and it overtly brags about how its system is much better than the one imposed by London.  In the United States, by contrast, the state of New Jersey has a well-deserved reputation for bad fiscal policy. To be blunt, it's not a good place to live and it's even a bad place to die.  And it's about to get worse. A column in the Wall Street Journal warns that New Jersey is poised to take a big step in the wrong direction. The authors start by observing that the state is already in bad shape.....

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Obama Definitely Was Not the Biggest Spender of All
I've learned that it's more important to pay attention to hard numbers rather than political rhetoric. Republicans, for instance, love to beat their chests about spending restraint, but I never believe them without first checking the numbers. Likewise, Democrats have a reputation as big spenders, but we occasionally get some surprising results when they're in charge.  President Obama was especially hard to categorize. Republicans automatically assume he was profligate because he started his tenure with a Keynesian spending binge and the Obamacare entitlement. But after a few years in office, some were arguing he was the most frugal president of modern times..........

Australia, Donald Trump, and Limited Government
I gave a couple of speeches about fiscal policy in Australia late last week. During the Q and A sessions (as so often happens when I speak overseas), the audiences mostly asked questions about Donald Trump. I generally give a three-part response.

• I tell them I was surprised by the election results.
• I tell them Trump is not a small-government Republican.
• I plead with them (often with no success) to ask questions about fiscal policy.

So when I was asked to appear on Australian television, you won't be surprised to learn that I was asked several questions about Trump.  But the good news is that the segment lasted for more than 18 minutes so I got a chance to pontificate about taxes and spending. In particular, I had an opportunity to explain two very important principles of fiscal policy.  First, I explained the Rahn Curve and discussed why both Australia and the United States should worry that the public sector is too large. This means less growth in our respective nations because government spending (whether financed by taxes or borrowing) diverts............

Ranking Presidents on Economic Policy: The Impressive Record of Ronald Reagan
Back in 2013, I put together a visual showing the good and bad policies that were enacted during the Clinton years. The big takeaway was that the overall burden of government was substantially reduced during his years in office.  Two days ago, I did the same thing for Richard Nixon, but noted that his record was universally awful. I couldn't think of a single pro-growth policy when he was in the Oval Office.    Now let's look at the Ronald Reagan. I analyzed his record last year, but mostly looking at the aggregate results.  So let's look at the details, putting specific pro-growth policies in one column and specific anti-growth policies in another column. As you can see, there was a substantial net improvement during the Reagan years.  I gave extra credit for his tax cuts, the spending restraint, and the taming of inflation............

The International Monetary Fund’s Recipe for Continued Poverty in the Developing World
The cossetted bureaucrats at the International Monetary Fund are on a roll. In the past few months, they've published reports pushing a very misguided and statist agenda.

• In June, I wrote about the IMF pushing a theory that higher taxes would improve growth in the developing world.
• In July, I wrote about the IMF complaining that tax competition between nations is resulting in lower corporate tax rates.
• In October, I wrote about the IMF asserting that lower living standards are desirable if everyone is more equally poor.

Now let's add to that awful collection. A new IMF report tries to quantify the fiscal implications of a new agenda for so-called sustainable development from the United Nations..............

The Best Argument against the State and Local Tax Deduction
I’ve written a couple of times to explain why the deduction for state and local taxes should be eliminated as part of pro-growth tax reform.  One of my main arguments, as I pointed out at the beginning of this interview, is that Republicans are generally unwilling to finance pro-growth tax changes by restraining government spending.  And since GOPers are too timid on spending, that means “revenue offsets” are needed to finance the good provisions in tax reform (assuming the goal is to make such changes permanent).............

According to Bizarre Rankings from Jeffrey Sachs, Cuba Scores above the United States for Achieving the U.N.’s “Sustainable Development Goals”
The United Nations has proposed a set of “sustainable development goals.” Most of them seem unobjectionable. After all, presumably everyone wants things such as less poverty, a cleaner environment, better education, and more growth, right?  That being said, I’m instinctively skeptical about the goal of “climate action” because of the U.N.’s past support for statist policies in that area.
And I also wonder why the bureaucrats picked “reduced inequalities” when “upward mobility for the poor” is a much better goal............

Ranking Presidents on Economic Policy: The Dismal Record of George W. Bush
Back in 2013, I did an assessment of economic policy changes that occurred during the Clinton Administration. The bottom line was that the overall burden of government declined by a semi-significant amount. Which presumably helps to explain why the economy enjoyed good growth and job creation in the 1990s, especially in the last half of the decade when most of the pro-growth reforms were enacted.  The chart I prepared has been very helpful when speaking to audiences about what actually happened during the Clinton years, so I decided to do the same thing for other presidents.  A week ago, I put together my summary of economic policy changes during the Nixon years. At the risk of understatement, it was a very grim era for free markets.  A few days ago, I followed up with a look at overall economic policy during the Reagan years. That was a much better era, at least for those of us who favor economic liberty over statism............

Ranking Presidents on Economic Policy: The Predictably Bad Record of Barack Obama
When I gave speeches during Obama’s time in office, especially to audiences with a lot of Republicans, I sometimes asked a rhetorical question about whether they approved of presidents who increased spending, bailed out big companies, expanded the power of the Washington bureaucracy, imposed more red tape, and supported Keynesian stimulus schemes.  They understandably assumed I was talking about Obama, so they would always expressed disapproval.  I then would startle the audience (and sometimes make myself unpopular) by stating that I was describing economic policy during the Bush years.............

Are Tax Cuts Dangerous?
October 28, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

 

I’ve responded to all sorts of arguments against lower taxes.

• Tax cuts are “unfair” because rich people will benefit.
• Tax cuts are wrong because revenue should be going up, not down.
• Tax cuts are pointless because the economy won’t grow faster.
• Tax cuts are misguided because there will be more red ink.
• Tax cuts are risky because vital services would be unfunded.

But I’ve never had to deal with the argument that lower taxes are “dangerous.”Yet that’s what Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post would like readers to believe. Here’s some of what she wrote today.

…tax cuts — not to mention tax cuts of the magnitude Trump and fellow Republicans contemplate — are worse than unwarranted. They are dangerous.

Dangerous?!?

Before clicking on the headline, my mind raced to imagine what she had in mind. Was she going to argue that lower taxes somehow might cause the nutjob in North Korea to launch a nuke? Was her argument that a tax cut would unleash the Ebola virus in the United States?

Well, you can put your mind at ease. The world isn’t coming to an end. It turns out that Ms. Marcus is simply making a rather hysterical version of the argument that tax cuts are bad because they result in more red ink.

They would add trillions to the national debt at a point when it is already dangerously large as a share of the economy. …the national debt is 77 percent of the economy, the highest since the end of World War II. It is on track to exceed the entire gross domestic product by 2033. That is even without a $1.5 trillion tax cut, the amount envisioned in the just-passed budget resolutions. …the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that increased growth would be counteracted within a few years by the drag of higher deficits; overall, the plan would increase deficits by $2.4 trillion during the first decade. …As an economic matter, they are simply reckless.

I’m actually semi-sympathetic to her argument. It isn’t prudent in the long run to reduce revenues and allow a continuing expansion in the burden of government spending. She would be right to hit Republicans for wanting to do the fun part of cutting taxes while ducking the politically difficult task of restraining spending.

 

That is a recipe for becoming another Greece. Not today. Not next year. Or even 10 years from now. The United States probably has the ability to stumble along for decades without doing anything to reform entitlements (the programs that are causing our long-term fiscal problems).

But I can’t resist making two points.

First, where was Ms. Marcus when Bush was pushing the TARP bailout through Congress? Where was she when Obama was advocating for his faux stimulus? Or the Obamacare boondoggle?

 

These pieces of legislation were hardly examples of fiscal rectitude, yet a search of her writings does not produce examples of her warning about the “dangerous” implications of more red ink.
 

Her selective concern about deficits makes me think that what she really wants is bigger government. So if the deficit is increasing because of new spending, that’s fine. But if red ink is increasing because of tax cuts, that’s “dangerous.”

 

If nothing else, Marcus may deserve membership in the left-wing hypocrisy club.

Second, if Ms. Marcus genuinely cares about deficits, then I’ll forgive her for her past hypocrisy and instead simply ask her to look at the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent long-run fiscal forecast.

 

She will see that more than 100 percent of America’s future fiscal crisis is due to expected increases in the burden of entitlement spending.

 

You may be wondering how something can cause more than 100 percent of a problem. Well, if you look closely at that long-run forecast (or previous forecasts), you will discover that tax revenues automatically are expected to increase. Not just in nominal terms. Not just after adjusting for inflation. Tax revenues will climb as a share of overall economic output. By about two percentage points over the next 30 years.

 

By the way, that built-in tax increase is bigger than the Trump/GOP tax cut, which will only reduce taxes over the next 10 years by $1.5 trillion out of an expected haul of $43 trillion.
 

Oh, by the way, I’ll add a third point. Advocates of higher taxes should be required to explain why more revenue for Washington will somehow lead to better results than what happened when such policies were adopted in Europe.

In other words, some of us don’t want to “feed the beast.”